#and no one in my little town or online space in this country gave a fuck about a cpop subunit juhgzhujik

[ikjun]

btw when i was an exo fan people around me were all exo-k stans i was a lone exo-m fan online so to see everyone here coming out of the woodwork is like suddenly seeing more ghosts in the haunted mansion you thought you were haunting alone

[smalltownfae]

Fun asks ahoy ✨

1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11:D

Thank you for the asks. I will do like you and put it under read more since this definitely will end up being too long.

what are 3 things you’d say shaped you into who you are?

Preschool: There were so many creative activities in preschool and because it made me try so many things it made me discover my love for art and writing, especially. When I started the first year of school I got a library card which also made me discover a love for reading. Attending preschool also gave me the tools needed to tolerate others and learn to cooperate even with someone I don't like. It also gave me a little trauma, but that is not something for the public...

Cosplay Events: My teenage years were definitely the most awful years of my life until I was 16. At that age things got a little better because I finally met someone that made me aware that other people that liked anime and manga existed and there were even events where they dressed up as the characters and made art about it and everything. It seems odd nowadays because it seems to be a popular thing now, but there were very few events in my country and most of them were free at the time. It was just a way for all the nerds to get together and have fun and that's what I did too. People think they want to be unique, but I don't think anyone that was actually outside of the norm at one point wishes for that. I was lucky enough to have had one friend that shared my tastes since primary school, but being considered weird was still extremelly lonely. Not that I wished to be like everyone else around me, but I wanted to be liked. Living in a small town full of people with retrogade ideas while growing up was hell. Being able to go to the capital city often and making friends saved me from growing up bitter. I was so happy to find out that people like me existed. They just happened to be in a different city. Another thing we all seemed to have in common was the bullying we suffered in our schools so going to cosplay events and meetups was our safe space. At this time I was also on DeviantArt participating in manga events and meeting other artists. Knowing that I wasn't alone in my weirdness gave me hope for the future.

My first trip outside my country: In your answer you said you wanted the perspective of someone that never moved places so I can tell you that it made me very careful and fearful of many things. I am not the kind to take many risks (unless I am on a weird day because I swear that sometimes I am possessed by something that would rather die than be bored) and I need some sense of security and that can be provided by a place or a person. On my first trip outside my country I was so nervous because I had never gotten into an airplane and I went alone. I went to stay with a friend that moved to London and we were supposed to hang out all the time when I got there. However, I spent most of my visit alone since my friend didn't got the vacation for those days. I would like to thank my best friend google maps and the amazing transportation of London. Portugal wishes it had transports that efficient. I had to get by on my own and even though I felt lonely at times I was still happy to explore a new place and I even talked briefly with a few strangers. I still got to hang out with my friend when she got out of work at the end of every day. This made me a little more independent and also gave me a love for travel even though I found London a bit disappointing (my expectations were too high). It also showed me that when left alone I didn't know how to feed myself. Now, I plan those things much better because let me tell you that my stomach on that trip wasn't happy about the crap I was eating at lunch everyday.

4. what’s an inside joke you have with your family or friends?

I am sure we have some, but I remember nothing at the moment, sorry. It's usually some portuguese meme that we parrot around.

6. what’s the best and worst part of being online/a creator?

As a creator that seldom creates, this is really hard to answer. I guess the best part is finding other creators that love something as much as I do and also to find people that appreciate what I do. The worst part would be negative comments and harassment, but I don't usually get those so... oh, having no reaction to what I post can hurt sometimes too, but I create mostly for myself and I am aware that the things I love aren't that popular in the great scheme of things to begin with.

8. any reacquiring dreams?

No. I seldom dream. When I remember my dreams they are usually weird and nightmarish like the fans on the floor that were cutting everyone's legs. I think I dreamed that I was falling from the sky at least twice in my entire life though because I remember once actually falling from the bed and another time when I woke up breathing heavily and grabing the corners of my bed.

9. tell a story about your childhood

One of the childhood moments I remeber the best is when I went to the beach with my parents and some of my family when I was really young. I don't remember my exact age, but I wasn't in school yet so probably 4 or something. One of my older cousins told me to go fetch water so we could build a sand castle and sent me on my way with my little bucket and nothing else because it was supposed to be a short trip. Turns out my sense of orientation has sucked since birth so I got to the water and filled my bucket, but somehow failed to find the way back to the towels where everyone was. I remember walking for what it felt like hours without a hat or shoes and at one point the sand started to burn because it does that around midday, when it's too hot in the summer. I remember that at one point I just splashed the water from my little bucket on my feet because I was in pain, but I never stopped walking even though I was crying and who knows where I was going. A nice couple found me and I remember the man held me in his arms and that's when my feet felt some sort of relief. Then they went looking for my parents and they found them eventually since my parents and the rest of my family were also looking for me. My mom has at least one more story of me getting lost as a kid, but this is the one I remember and the one I was lost for a long time.

11. what do you consider to be romance?

Damn, I just posted a quote from the Buried Giant about something similar hahaha Romantic love is very hard for me to define. When I was a teenager I thought I had it figured out because that was what most people seem to consider romantic love. The first person I ever liked wasn't only physically attractive, but was also my friend. That is what I would consider the whole package haha I would talk to them everyday and wonder what they were doing all the time and I would feel jealous if they liked someone or got with someone. Looking back it looks more like an obsession than love. I once had a friend that was in love with me and told me I had never been in love. It could be the butthurt of rejection talking, but maybe he was right. I honestly have no idea if I have ever been in love because I can't really define it. Right now I am in a weird situation. I am not really dating, but I have something (let's call it that). I don't feel jealous of other people that hang out with this person nor do I feel the need to talk to them or see them all the time, but it still feels nice when we are together.

Honestly, there are a billion definitions of romance and different people would provide different answers. All of this to say that I have no idea of what my own definition is and maybe I will never know. I decided to let things happen since I have bigger troubles than romance at the moment. That is another thing. What people usually call romance is also associated to stressful things to me. It's probably because of the examples I have had growing up. People are always afraid of being cheated on or jealous if their partner hangs out with others and such. Honestly, it looks way too troublesome for me to deal with so I do not want it to be like that and I also want to mantain some of my freedom.

[halfmoonherbal]

Studies in Oaxaca ..

The first time I visited Oaxaca, Mexico, I didn't know much about traveling in the country, and I spoke less than a little Spanish. The fascination with the region started with a food writer. If you know me, you know one of my first loves alongside medicinal herbs is food; and the culinary world in Oaxaca is next level fantastic.

A little backstory ..

A few years ago, I started experiencing serious depression, and sought help through the US medical system. I dipped my toes in cautiously, but with curiosity and openness. I found the experience to be superficial, and only somewhat useful. I was offered anti-depressants, but I am not a candidate for pharmaceutical therapy because of the contraindications with a congenital heart condition (more on that later).

I decided to work with low dose psychedelics for depression therapy as the ‘alternative’. As a Herbalist, which I define as someone who communes with the plants, I knew what to expect from psychedelics as I had communed with them in the past. I knew the history, the unfolding of psychedelic research and recreational use in the US, and of course, I knew about the war on drugs. But it didn’t quite click with me until I attended a mycology talk in Georgia, when I was reminded of the significance of Oaxaca, Mexico in relation to its history of opening the psilocybin experience to Americans in the United States.

This place called Oaxaca was now coming up for me in multiple areas of my life.

Sometime in November 2022, I arrived in San Mateo Río Hondo, about 15 miles south of the now well known, San José Del Pacifico. There are thousands of online articles published where you can read about the San José area of Oaxaca. In an effort to be a part of it, but also distance myself from psychedelic tourism, I decided to go a little deeper south into the mountains. The pueblo of San Mateo Río Hondo was quiet and sleepy. There were no tourists. There were wildflowers everywhere. Flying insects were buzzing around. Family gatherings happened in small mountain backyards. I slept for 11 hours in a studio tucked away on a hillside, and was greeted by mountain vistas as a backdrop. For three days, this would be my own heaven.

My first morning in this place, I took a slow walk into the center of town. Only a couple storefronts were open, so I visited one of two that were serving hot food from a small kitchen. It was in this home kitchen / restaurant / church that my perception of care was forever changed. It was in this room with the dirt floor, among the songs of this town cook, that I would learn a traditional and simple recipe for preparing hongos mágicos by way of tea.

The woman in the kitchen was anybody’s ethnic grandmother. I had feelings of my own lineage coming up in my nostalgia. Had I been here before? This sweet elderly woman, next to the tortillas she was pressing, next to the chilis and the pot of drinking chocolate, was humbly brewing 2 simple herbs, a powerful fresh mushroom and a most citrus tasting honey. 

Here, this woman was making medicine for a village man who was grieving the loss of his wife and youngest daughter. In the gathering space next to her kitchen, a warmly sunlight kissed room with blue walls and drying flowers symbolized a holding place for the grieving. A young man lying on a floor mat was listening to song being sang by another woman in the space. Clearly, the man was weeping.

I did not drink the mushroom tea during this ceremony as it was not prepared for me. But I was given a chance to observe preparation of a tea used in ceremony; something much more profound for a woman who thrives on learning through travel. Before parting ways, my host gave me a limpia smoke clearing by sweeping my body with herbs. She sent me on my way safely. 

In less than 24 hours, I had received the gift of why I came to Oaxaca.

It was not my intention to consume psychedelic mushrooms in Oaxaca, but I also left myself open to the moment if it felt right. I have some strong opinions centered on psychedelic tourism and traveling for recreational  experiences that involve the use of traditional herbs. Where this involves sacred plants is even more serious for me. While I know use of sacred medicine can be helpful, all of the plantas sagradas suffer some level of abuse or ‘recreational use’. This is disrespectful to the traditions that hold the medicine, and the sacred plants that give.

The time I found to observe a moment of preparation versus consumption felt right. Sharing a morning with the curandera tradition was an initiation. An unasked for gift. A calling that I honored and deeply respected. I now hold this sacred practice of preparing psilocybin tea as medicine to be my most precious possession. It was given to me because I moved softly to receive the knowledge. It is a medicine I have used for myself to treat depression, and have prepared for my clients.

I have been trusted, perhaps by something much bigger. To reduce the (emotional) harm a fellow human may feel is the most gentle, kind and loving practice; I am honored to have been taught how and when to pass the medicine.

On a final note, I have one thought on the explorations of clinical psychedelic therapy in the states..

‘Americans’, please don’t fuck this up.

[sweetestlamb]

Let's Play A Love Game

Author's note: this one is rated 😈 so yeah. There was originally more angst in my mind but once I got to that part I was over it lol I'm the worst at angst I much rather make it naughty. It's more rushed than I wanted but I don't really have time to write 10k fics right now. But hopefully soon.

Summary: it's just pretend, right?

She hadn't meant to push the event in the corner of her mind until she forgot about it completely, so much so that when the e-vite showed up in her inbox she stared at it in wide eyed shock not even noticing Mi-Seon creeping up behind her.

"It's already time for that? I usually know it's coming because you start buying expensive dresses you can't afford and crying at your credit card bill. Maybe country life has really changed you hm?"

False. Inaccurate. Utterly wrong to the every core.

She lets out a shrill scream letting her head fall painfully on her desktop.

"I'm an idiot! Just kill me now, I deserve it." She has nothing to wear, okay the mountain of boxes in her living room, bedroom and some hidden in the linen closet beg to defer but none of that is worthy of this event. The annual dentist convention in Seoul, it's a week long getaway. It's meant to be an opportunity to build connections and attend professional learning classes, but that has long been abandoned. Now it is a fashion show and chance to show off your success and this year more than ever she has to impress everyone. They all look down on her and her cute little practice. Those judgemental snarky bitches.

"Do we have anymore patients?" She absently asks her best friend, only friend already getting up and walking away.

"No that was the last one. Do you want to call it a day?" She doesn't give a verbal reply lost in her phone and the disease that is online shopping, in the span of three minutes she has already added seven dresses to her cart.

"Chief Hong is going to have a long day."

It's just as Mi-seon says the next day the nosy know it all shows up glaring at her over the handful of packages in his arms.

"Don't tell me you're doing this again. What more could you possibly have to order? How much things does one woman need?" His voice is an air warmer than the last time they were in this very same position, but she tries not to think too hard about it. Their relationship is too confusing these days, as temperamental as the sea.

"Are delivery men allowed to complain this much when they're doing a job they are getting paid for?" She snarks back, snatching her packages from his arms with a huff. Ignoring the grin on his face as she disappears into her house.

"That better be all you order. I'm not coming back."

He comes back. At least six more trips, more boxes each time on the last day he doesn't simply leave after making his delivery.

"I'm coming in for tea because of you I've been working too hard." She squeaks indignantly as he pushes past her, their shoulders brushing in the tight space of the doorway.

She should wait until she doesn't have an audience but she's too impatient so while he's making the tea in her kitchen (so rude and intrusive), she starts to open a few boxes pulling out the contents. Dresses, blouses, shirts, hair accessories, lipsticks in all shades and hues, and of course shoes; heels, flats and everything in between.

"Your house looks like a department store." She jumps at his voice glancing up at him, almost laughing at the hedgehog mug that he's drinking out of that Mi-seon gave her as a joke. Leave it to him to pick the most ridiculous mug.

"Hurry up and go so I can try everything on." She starts to take the objects out and organize them, putting together possible outfits lazily.

"Why not have a fashion show?" He slurps loudly at the tea, sighing and smiling down at the warm beverage. Acting like he's never had tea before, such a plebian.

"A fashion show?"

"Yeah, model all that", he motions to the new boxes littering her bedroom floor, "and I'll let you know what looks good."

She scoffs, loudly looking at his lackluster outfit; a simple white tee tucked into dark cargo pants with suspenders.

"What do you know about fashion?" She replies meanly, despite the little voice in her mind that reminds her that while his outfits are more practical than fashionable there is something distracting about the way his shoulders fill out his shirts and the way his long legs sit in his pants.

He shrugs looking down at himself, "I'm the town handy man I have no need to look good. But I'm still a man I can tell you what I think looks good on a woman."

Oh. It's a nonchalant statement said with no real heat but the implications make her skin warm up, she's never once thought that he saw her as a woman; nor considered looking at him like a man. (Lies.)

"I--why woul--why?" She stutters through an answer, tongue heavy in her mouth. He looks back nonplussed, sitting down pointedly on her couch.

"Never took you for the shy kind. You growing bashful now Ms. Dentist?" His eyes twinkle with mischief and she knows that she's being played but she wants nothing more than to wipe that smug look off his face. Slamming her room door, she pulls off her casual house clothes and grabs the first thing that catches her attention- a buttery yellow dress that grazes her knee, pairing them with white heels and a high messy bun. A swipe of lip tint completes the look and she confidently opens her room door.

Du-sik is staring aimlessly at his phone and doesn't notice her reappearance at first, so she coughs loudly folding her arms and when his eyes land on her, a chill runs down her spine at the look that lands on her body. It's been a long time since a man looked at her in this way, his eyes are undressing her even though he was the one who implored her to dress up in the first place. She hates it. At least she should hate it. But she can't ignore the satisfaction that washes over her at his dumbfounded look, that smug look obliterated by her very first look.

"Well?" She pushes harder, twirling to give him the full look. His gasp is loud behind her, she knows exactly why. The deep revealing plunge that travels all the way to the small of her back. There's no way she would wear this to the convention much too suggestive but that's her business.

"Wher-" his voice cracks and this time she can't contain her smile, dimples flashing now at her clear affect on him, clearing his throat he tries again, "Where exactly are you going again?"

She hums turning back around, gleeful at the vibrant blush on his cheeks. So he is just a man after all.

"A dentist convention." She answers cheekily and he guffaws loudly, eyes narrowing at her like he knows exactly what she's trying to do. They stare at each other for a long moment and she ultimately breaks the stand still, realizing what's happening. It feels a lot like flirting.

Collecting herself, she barrels back into the room.

"What the hell are you doing?" She whispers to her reflection, face too flushed for her liking.

A hard knock at the door pulls her from her self chastisement, "You didn't even wait for my rating."

She sighs loudly covering her face in embarrassment at her own action. She doesn't even have alcohol to blame this time.

"I don't care. This was stupid, let's stop."

Of course he ignores her.

"I liked it. But it's too...sexy for convention. You should wear that for someone special. I doubt anyone with a beating heart would be able to resist you."

What the fuck.

This isn't who they are, when did they become comfortable enough for conversations like this? They despised each other, right? Confused and annoyingly flattered, she peels the dress off her body trying her hardest not to think about the fact that only a door separates him and her naked body.

"I would love to see the others. But I have to go, but if you want my opinion. Red is definitely your color."

"What?" She replies, but she can hear the too loud click of the front opening and then closing and just as capriciously as he arrived, he leaves. 

Burying something that feels a lot like disappointment she flops onto her bed, head fuzzy like its been wrapped in cotton.

"What is going on?"

They don't see much of each other the next day and it's unusual given how much they see each other on a regular basis but she refuses to think about it or even consider that he's avoiding her. He's just busy and she doesn't care anyway, they have nothing to do with each other.

The convention is in two days now, she has her overnight bag packed with all her new purchases and the messages have been pouring in their group chat. She's mostly chosen to ignore them but on a whim she decides to check what they're so excited about, only to feel her stomach drop.

Why isn't Hye Jin answering?

Maybe she's busy with her mystery man 😉

Oh! She has to bring him, we need to interrogate him!

Yoon Hye Jin don't pretend you don't see these messages!!

That she had forgotten about.

"Why did you tell them that he's interested in you? Has living here altered your brain, you idiot." She berates herself.

"Who's interested in you? Why are you an idiot?" Mi-seon looks curious from the doorway, without waiting for an invitation she hops onto the bed with two cans of beer. She grabs one, drinking it in a flash.

"Oh it's that kind of night." Mi-seon says excitedly running to grab more beers.

"So let me get this straight, you told them that Chief Hong is interested in you and that he's been chasing you but you're not interested?"

She nods meekly, wishing the floor would swallow her up.

"Why did you lie?"

That's the brunt of the issue, she's a liar. She should have sent her initial message and told them that there was nothing between them but how could she when they were all calling him handsome and acting like she finally did something right? She'd spent that entire dinner feeling like her teenage self on the outside looking in, wanting nothing more than to be someone worthy of being included.

"I know I should have told the truth."

"Yes, you should have told them that you're interested in him too."

Huh.

Time stops as she processes the words that her best friend just uttered. There is static in her head as she tries to make sense of it.

"What are you talking about?"

Mi-seon looks at her unimpressed.

"You can both keep lying to yourself but the rest of us aren't as stupid. You're both interested in each other. It's mutual."

She wants to ardently deny the accusation but the words are caught in her throat and all she can manage are refusing sounds.

"You've been wearing red all week." Mi-seon says accusingly and she jumps up in huff, "So what? I'm allowed to wear colors!"

"You hate wearing red. You said it makes your skin look too pale. You hardly ever wear it. So color me surprised when I learned that red is the favorite color of a certain part timer."

That damn town chat. There has to be a way to get Mi-seon out of it. Maybe it was a mistake letting her live here. She was learning too much.

"Don't even bother to deny it. I won't believe anything you say. But I think you should ask him to go with you, you'll get some time alone to figure this out."

There's nothing to figure out. They are..... acquaintances who can admit that the other is vaguely attractive at times. His face isn't all that bad and she's pretty, so it's natural that there is tension at times, like he said they were still humans.

So she doesn't tell him about her fib, pretending everything is fine until it's the day of the convention and her anxiety has all but smothered her and her hands have a slight tremble in them as she starts to drive.

"It's going to be fine. Everything will be okay." She doesn't believe a word she's saying to herself, her heart is thumping in her heaving chest. She doesn't want to go alone. Convincing Mi-seon to leave was a failed endeavour, her and that police officer becoming inseparable. She knew what that smile meant when her best friend had realized that she would have the house to herself. She could barely get a word in as Mi-seon started frantically shaving her legs then pushed her out of the bathroom to "shave her wild cat".

With a sigh she starts driving, the car too quiet despite what she'd told Du-Sik and the Gongjin grannies. Uncharacteristically she turns on the radio, kpop blaring from the speakers. She recognizes the tune, never before has something as mundane as butter seemed so interesting but the kitchen essential was given new life by the song. She bops her head to the catchy beat, trying to ignore the fact that she's driving to the lion's den.

Some time later, she pulls into the hotel a valet already coming over to get her car. Grabbing her overnight bag, she exits the car handing her keys to the waiting hands of the valet.

Everyone is here and none of them had come alone, she was the only one without a plus one. They haven't noticed her yet so she watches as they all laugh at a joke she can't hear, unnecessarily stroking at their husband's chests as if to show off their exorbitantly priced wedding rings. Everything was always a competition here.

She shouldn't have come. Their was nothing about her life that they would be envious of. She was going to make a fool of herself. Impulsively she starts stepping back but it's too late, Hong In-A spots her and points her out and immediately all eyes are on her, they all start walking over to her and she wants nothing more than to run far, far away. Get on a bus and go to the beach and never see any of them ever again. But she's no longer a child, no longer that scared little girl; worked too hard to shed that skin.

Fortifying herself she puts on a fake smile. Ready for war.

"Hye-Jin ah, there you are. We were beginning to think you wouldn't come. You never responded in the group chat." Ye-Ri states with an attitude, looking around her as if searching for someone and eyes brightening when she sees no one. "Did you come alone?" This makes all of them perk up, looking around like chickens with their heads clucking. She swallows the shame the question elicits, "Who would I be with? I told you in already, it's not like that."

They all look at her with pity, it makes her want to slap them all across the face. Who were they to make her feel like shit, she didn't need anyone that didn't make her pathetic.

Finally one of the husbands cracks the awkward tension by introducing himself, she tries her best to ignore the pervasive way his eyes run down her body. Instinctively she crosses her arms, feeling naked under his stare. Nobody else notices her discomfort and after all the introductions, they all walk away as if she's no longer worth their time.

Lump in her throat she walks into the hotel, determined not to show them that they've gotten under her skin.

There's a scheduled lunch and she tries to find a new table but Sung-Mi waves her over and she doesn't see anyone else she recognizes or wants to sit with.

He hadn't been wrong, she has no friends besides Mi-seon.

"You were looking around, were you looking for someone? Are we not good enough to sit with?" The question is asked with a bite and sneer as if the idea is laughable that she would ever be better than any of them.

She swallows her pride, "No nothing like that. I was merely looking around."

Sung-Mi looks satisfied as if putting her in her place has righted her world.

They begin a conversation that completely excludes her, regaling drama that she knows nothing about and doing nothing to bring her up to date or invite her to join. It's the polar opposite of her experience in the countryside and with shocking clarity she realizes that she wishes she were there, it's only been a few hours but she misses it. Nobody looks down on her there, no usually she's the only doing that she notes with shame.

"I'll find the restroom." She says to no one because none of them are paying her any mind except the husband with the wandering eyes and she would much rather not have that attention.

Thankfully the bathroom is empty and she has to stop herself from splashing water on her face, her make-up was done perfectly it would be a waste to ruin it. Pushing her hair behind her ears she takes a deep breath and then another until her head is clearer, the noise lessening.

"It's only a day and a night. You've suffered far worst."

With that lacking pep talk she exits the bathroom, almost colliding into a wall. Wait, no it's just a person- a chest to be specific. She looks up ready to apologize when a familiar face stops her in her tracks.

"What are you doing here?" She stares flabbergasted at him, more dressed up than she's ever seen him. In a white suit with a white vest, the tee-shirt peeking under the only thing that feels like him to her. And his white sneakers. She can't hide her surprise at his sudden appearance and without thinking she starts to pull him to the side, to avoid being seen but she's not fast enough and soon they are swarmed by her colleagues, before she even has a chance to talk to him.

"Aren't you the man from the picture?" Yoo-Jin asks blushing way too much for a married woman if her husband's cold stare means anything.

"The picture?" Du-sik replies, clearly confused.

"You're the guy that's chasing after her. She told us that you liked her and you were courting her." Sung-Mi answers for her, she wants to vanish. It would be better if she had never existed. Even non-existence would be better than this embarrassing moment. "I got a picture of you two last time, when you followed her."

His eyes ping-pong between the group and her and she realizes this is his chance to ruin her. After everything she's done, all her rude comments and snobby remarks about the town and people he cares for so much, this is his chance for revenge. He can laugh and deny any feelings for her, tell them all that she's a liar and he's never been interested in her, not even once. This is what is going to happen. She prepares herself for the fall out, surely after this she won't be able to show her face in Seoul again.

He starts to laugh and her stomach tightens, her palms are so sweaty.

Here it goes.

"Oh I guess she wanted to keep me a secret."

Wait. What. That doesn't sound like denial.

"We're together now. I finally bulldozed those walls and made her mine. Nice to meet you all I'm Hong Du-sik, Hye-Jin ah's boyfriend."

Her eyes widen as he bows and starts to shake hands with the husbands, the one that stared at her looking disappointed. Their handshake goes on for a second too long, eventually with the latter pulling away with a pained look. She's too confused to consider what that means.

"And you were so cold earlier saying you had no one. Did you want to make a fool of us?"

He answers for her, "It's nothing like that, my honey is still getting used to us. I'm sorry I'm so late I had something to take care of."

Her head is spinning too fast to keep up with everything happening and she's grateful when he excuses them and guides her outside with a large hand on her hip.

Fresh air is much appreciated and she takes in huge heaps of it as soon as they're free.

Then reality crashes down on her.

He knows about her lying.

He had called her bluff.

But he didn't out her.

"Why didn't you tell them the truth?" She finally manages to say, head still reeling.

But instead of answering he's staring at her legs, then slowly his eyes swivel upward cross her thighs curving around her hips, past her breasts (a bit too slow there) before moving to her collar and settling on her face.

"You look great."

She feels the heat rushing to her face. What was he doing to her?

It hadn't been in purpose but she finds herself in red again, an a line dress with criss crossing straps over her shoulder and a middle slit. It was conservative without being too formal or professional. She'd felt comfortable in it but now seeing that look on his face, comfort is the last thing she feels.

He was distracting her and she couldn't afford that with those harpies inside waiting for her downfall. They needed to get back on track.

"What are you doing here?" She tries again, but he responds with his own question, "Why did you tell them that I was chasing you?"

"It was a mistake. They thought we were together and I just....said that for no reason." It's half the truth.

"They don't seem like your friends. You looked like you needed someone on your side, so I just found myself saying we were together for no reason."

She looks at him blankly, heart pounding now. In her moment of weakness instead of kicking her, he'd lended a helping hand. What kind of person did it make her for expecting the former?

"So what now?" She asks still in disbelief that he's here and that he'd told people that there were dating, she would be angry and offended later that they had readily believed it. Perhaps it didn't seem too farfetched now with him looking like that right now.

"Well, don't look but they're watching us through the glass."

This time she finds herself turning to look and he's the one that has to stop her, he does so by suddenly grabbing her hand and tugging her into his body. She squeaks at the collision. Leaning down so his lips are level with her ear, he speaks, "We can give them a show. I'm happy to be your pretend boyfriend."

Why?

She yearns to ask him why he's willing to go this far for her? Why was he even here when she had never told him where the convention was taking place? But his words were hot on her ear and she's tired of being their source of entertainment so she nods looking up at him, "Just this once. I'm going to lean on you. Let me borrow your eraser and copy your homework."

He stares before a blinding smile graces his handsome face.

"Let's go then." His hand is heavy on her waist as he walks back towards the hotel, taking his role very seriously it seems.

He fits in perfectly. Able to talk about a plethora of topics to anyone he's introduced to and even she's impressed by him. Be it travel, philosophy or poetry he seems well versed in everything things that even she is ignorant to and it makes her regret the way she looked down on him before, he was anything but a country bumpkin.

She leaves him to his conversation to get a drink, a whiskey on the rocks. Needing something hard tonight.

Not that. Down brain.

"Yoon Hye Jin? I would recognize that face anywhere."

Twisting to face the voice, she sees a familiar face- old classmate. Rung Do-Bae, they weren't anything more than classmates despite his many, many attempts.

His eyes sweep over her hungrily. She swallows her drink, painting on a shallow smile.

"Sunbae, how nice to see you here."

Invading her space he grabs her hand, "There is no need for such formalities. You can just call me by my name, Hye Jin ah."

As if she ever would.

Gently she tries to extract her hand but he won't let go and she doesn't want to make a scene.

Suddenly she's warmed by a body pressing into her, she knows who it is without even looking, her body relaxes immediately.

"Sorry I got lost in conversation honey. Who might this be? Another friend of yours?" He thrusts his right hand out and Do-Bae has no choice but to release her hand to return his handshake. Scarily enough she's starting to become used to his nickname, barely reacting to him using it again.

"Yes, this is my sunbae from school. Sunbae this is Hong Du Sik my....."

She knows that this is all an act, they were doing this to help her but she can't bring her tongue to form around the word, boyfriend.

"Her boyfriend." He finishes for her, pulling her tighter to his body.

But Do-Bae looks suspicious now.

"Boyfriend? I thought you were still single. You never changed your status on SNS. I've checked."

"Why are you so curious about that?" Du-sik challenges in return, doing a great job of sounding like a jealous boyfriend. She's almost even convinced.

"Hye Jin ah and I have always had a very special relationship. Beyond that of a hoobae and sunbae. Isn't that right?" He directs the last bit to her and she feels Du-sik stiffen next to her, seemingly believing these lies. So she clears that up.

"I have no idea what you're referring to honestly. We have never had anything that would constitute as a "special" relationship. I would appreciate if you didn't spread such lies, especially to my boyfriend. Enjoy the rest of your night."

She tugs Du-sik away, not waiting for a reply from the other man. The conversation was over anyway.

When they get far enough he speaks, "You have a lot of admirers."

She raises an eyebrow at the non-sequitur.

"Are you surprised?"

He brushes a hand across her cheek, making her freeze.

"No. It makes sense."

She blinks slowly before laughing, it sounds fake even to her ears.

"You should have been an actor. Your acting skills are incredible." He doesn't laugh, doesn't move before they're pulled into another conversation and she tries not to think about how tightly his body is pressed against her own.

"How is he in bed? He hasn't left you alone all day, I bet it's passionate." As soon as lunch had ended they had invited her to a spa, she'd considered saying no but she knew they would talk about her even if she wasn't there so it was best to at least know what they were saying.

Du-sik looked sad to see her go, but she told herself that she wasn't good at reading his faces. They hardly knew each other.

"I can't remember the last time I had a passionate night of sex. Kids and a full time job, leave no time for that. I'm pretty sure he's cheating on me and I'm too tired to even care." Sung-Mi confesses and she's shocked when the others nod in agreement instead of threatening to castrate him, as she'd done when Mi-seon told her about her ex boyfriend cheating.

"I have no complaints. He's... attentive. He's always touching me and pushing his way into my space. He's gentle but passionate, and I like...that he's so much bigger than me." She knows she should stop, this is definitely taking the lies too far. But that night bleeds into her thoughts, making everything she's saying feel true. He'd been so gentle with her, those huge hands cupping her face. She wondered how they would feel on other parts of her body.

"Damn. Look at you getting horny just from remembering. I'm so jealous."

Jealous. There were envious of her, it was all she'd been hoping for but the happiness she expected to erupt never comes. Instead she feels cheap, like she'd used Du-sik for her own benefit. She had tainted that night. This wasn't what she wanted.

As the day had gone on she found herself looking at him too much, he'd come all the way just for her and regardless of her brain trying to minimize that, it was huge. He hated snobby people like them who based a person's worth in their monetary success and yet he put on a smile and chatted with everyone, letting them mock his way of life and call people like him useless dreamers. All while she did nothing to defend him and drank wine, happy that they were being accepted.

He was the perfect gentleman all day and he was getting nothing in return for this. It was all just to help her.

Would a friend truly go this far to help? Was she being naive or was it like Mi-seon said, was she lying to herself?

"I'm such an idiot."

Without another word, she flees the sauna rushing to the locker room and changing back into her clothes. Nobody follows her because they aren't her friends. Why had she wasted so much time trying to impress these people who aren't even truly happy in their own lives?

The drive back is long, and she doesn't know what she's going to say but she knows that she's tired of being scared.

Leaving the key in the car she rushes past the valet, into the hotel elevator pressing their floor and waiting impatiently.

It takes three tries to get into their hotel room but once the door opens, he's right there. Sitting in the seat by the window reading a book.

"You're back early. I thought you would be gone until three?" He looks up, dog earring his book and giving her his full attention. Her heart skips a beat.

"Why did you agree to do this for me? Why go through all this trouble for me?"

It's the same question he's been asking himself since he first met her. Why was he was interested in her and why did he keep wanting to save her?

It was the desire that led to him being here.

He had accidentally overhead Mi-seon talking to Eun Chol about being worried about her, the convention was overnight and everyone would be bringing someone and she'd be all alone. The thought of her alone and isolated, made him race to her without a plan. Only stopping at a store to buy his outfit so he would fit in with her crowd, he'd spent more in that shop then he usually did in a week. But it was worth it for her.

It was a miracle that she hadn't questioned his presence more, he knew it was shameless and deceiving but none of this felt like pretending to him. His jealousy had been real, he'd had to strangle the urge to kick the pervert husband with the wandering eyes and then the insistent sunbae who wouldn't take a hint. She was a vision in the red dress and it wasn't a surprise that men found her enchanting, he just didn't like them looking at her. But she wasn't his, never would be because he couldn't confess.

They weren't right for each other.

"Do you like me?"

That question again. Last time he had laughed it off, called it absurd. But it wasn't. Not liking her would have been absurd.

"I don't know why you're asking me that."

"Because I'm tired of us lying to ourselves. Don't laugh and don't you dare say it's absurd again."

He can't respond, he's stuck on the word "us". It wasn't just him, they were an us?

Hearing that gives him courage he had long thought had been most forever.

"I wasn't pretending today. Nothing was fake to me, I meant it all." It's terrifying, unchartered land for them and he waits to see which one of them will chicken out first. It's sure to happen.

"I'm going to kiss you." She says instead of running like he expected and secretly wished for.

And then she's crossing the room and leaning down to grab his face, she watches him giving him a chance to pull away but he does the opposite, this time he meeting her half way. As soon as their lips meet the kiss is already too much, she's sliding into his lap and he wraps his arms around her tugging her closer until their chests are squished together.

He hasn't kissed anyone like this in a long time.

Hasn't been this close to losing control in a longer time.

"You're dangerous." He whispers into her mouth and she giggles at the statement, wiggling in his arms and rolling into him forcing a punched out groan from his lips.

Carefully he lifts her shirt watching her face closely for any signs that she wants to stop but finding nothing but her palpable lust.

Her skin is unbelievably smooth and soft and he can't stop himself from stroking her, rubbing at her back his hands resting right above her butt.

"How long have you felt this way?" She asks softly seductively nipping at his neck and running a hand over his shirt to caress his stomach, he physically aches for her.

"I wanted you the moment I saw you. But I didn't feel this until you convinced grandma to get her implants. That was when it became more for me."

She looks surprised and he is too, that they're speaking so candidly about feelings they've always denied.

"What about you?"

She stops licking at his neck to look him in the eyes. He's nervous to hear her reply.

"I.... don't know."

He tries to hide his disappointment. Maybe she was starting to retreat back into her shell. Maybe he shouldn't have been so honest.

He's about to untangle them when she continues, "It wasn't at first sight but one day I found myself looking for you. Seeing you become the best part of my day, I started to count on you to be there for me. To expect it. Just like this, I've been scared to lean on anyone until I met you."

Now that's a confession.

Impulsively he stands with her still on his lap, forcing her to to latch onto him so she doesn't tumble to the floor. Not that this would ever happen because he would never let her fall.

"I could have fell!" She cries, clinging to his shoulders and wrapping her legs around his waist. Her half naked bra clad body so close to him is causing another biological crisis in his pants.

Walking to the large bed in the middle of the room he falls backwards, enjoying the view of her on top of him a little too much.

It's all probably too soon and they should probably slow down, but his body is strumming and he wants nothing more than to break her apart.

"I'm all sweaty. I should take a shower."

Instantly an image of her wet and naked under the downpour of a shower flashes in his mind and he has to twist away from her.

"Pervert." She accuses but he can hear how satisfied she is with his reaction. Damn tease.

"Do you want to join me?" She teases some more, having fun now that she knows her power over him.

He looks at her helplessly.

"Are you having fun? Remember what I told you before? I'm still a guy. You're sitting here in your bra taunting me, do you think I'm that much of a good guy? Do you think I don't want to throw you down, rip your clothes off and eat you alive? I'm so hard right now just seeing you naked would be enough to push me over the edge. So don't make propositions you can't follow through on."

She looks dizzy from his words, eyes hooded and glossy. He watches her gulp and then stagger off to the bathroom, without a word to him. It's probably for the best, everything is too charged right now.

A shower for her and many glasses of water for him later, she's back and it's almost time for dinner.

"I think they said dinner starts at 6. Should we head down?"

She glances at him, while opening her bag and pulling out skin creams and some fuzzy socks.

"Would you be opposed to ordering room service and staying here?"

It's the best offer he's heard all day, only second to her asking if he wanted to join her in the shower.

"What about your colleagues?" He asks to make certain that she's really okay with this.

"What about them?" She replies with a shrug and he grins picking up the room service menu.

They order too much food and not enough alcohol but neither of them want to forget this night. She tells him stories about her time in dental school and he's happy to get to know her better, chuckling at the funny stories and commiserating at the sad ones.

Before he knows it night has fallen.

And he realizes that they'll be sharing a bed. Unless she wants him to sleep on the couch.

She's wearing a big shirt and loose shorts and he still can't believe he gets to see her like this.

"Are you coming to bed?" She's already getting under the sheet and that answers his question, this is really happening. He starts to follow her lead, getting under the sheets but keeping a respectable distance between them.

"I'm cold." She announces suddenly and he starts to look for a thermostat in the room or an extra blanket, before realizing that she's looking at him over her shoulder, he stares back confused before she lifts an eyebrow and oh, he gets it. Carefully moving closer he feels her warmth surround him as they meet, forth to back.

"Took you long enough." She grumbles, pulling his arm over here body and settling back into him moving until she's comfortable.

She's so close and warm and her smell is all around him and he feels his restraint dissolving and when she presses back into him, her hip rubbing against his crotch he bites down on his bottom lip.

It's too much for him to resist and without warning or preamble, he's turning her to face him and swallowing her moan of surprise eagerly. He grabs her head firmly holding her in place and slips his tongue into her open mouth, her unique taste exploding on his taste buds. He's hungry for more. So he starts to tug down her shorts, heart beat thundering in his groin. She kicks the shorts away, and he groans at the sight of her panties she was trying to kill him, he was certain.

"You're the devil." He chokes out staring at red lace, he'll never be able to see the color again without getting a raging hard on.

"You haven't seen anything yet. Honey." The word drips from her tongue just like the real thing.

Forgetting all reason and logics he lunges at her, devouring her mouth and sticking his hand in her panties. She's so warm and fuck, wet drenching his fingers.

Simultaneously he thrusts his tongue into her mouth and his fingers in her wet folds, groaning as she melts like butter under his touch. There's no resistance, as he plunges two fingers inside her experimentally before picking up his place when she clutches onto him and grinds back on his fingers, begging the whole time.

"More, more, please!"

As if he could ever deny her anything, with one hand he grabs her ass and the other he thrusts into her opening over and over until her voice gets breathy and she starts to stutter, squirming wildly in his arms and he knows exactly what's coming: the beautiful end. So without warning he pulls back the sheet and slithers down her body, throwing her legs around his head and pushing his tongue in to the brim, hungrily drinking at her until she shakes and combusts in his arms. Sweet on his tongue, he swallows it all greedily.

He strokes her as she recovers from her high, climbing back up her body. So much for taking things slow, but he can't even think about regretting it when he sees the blissed out look on her face. He wants to imprint it in his mind. Nobody else will ever get to see this face but him.

"It's your turn." She says sounding loopy like she's drunk and he laughs as she reaches for the tent in his pants but misses his bulge and instead falls into him.

"You're tired. Go to sleep. That was enough for me, seeing you like that fulfilled every fantasy I've had. "

He truly means it. He's a giver. And it's not like he can't tug one out later in the bathroom with her face and moans playing on repeat in his brain.

She starts to argue, but her phone vibrating on the nightstand distracts her. Reaching over she picks it up before chuckling and flopping back into the bed.

"What?" He asks curious, jealous of whoever is making her smile like that.

Ignorant to his inner thoughts, she thrusts her phone into his face. The room is so dark it takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the bright lighting of the phone, but once he can see he reads the message on her phone and starts to laugh too.

"Dusik is missing! Nobody has seen him all day!! We started a search party."

[pixelgrotto]

Saltmarsh stories

One more Dungeons & Dragons campaign comes to completion! For over a year and a half, I’ve been running Ghosts of Saltmarsh for my girlfriend and her best friend, and the pair of them finally finished last Saturday after 23 sessions and nearly 100 hours of playtime. We started playing in person December 2019 and had to move online in March due to COVID, and eventually my gf’s best friend moved out of town and then out of the country. But in spite of global transitions and pandemics, we still surmounted the odds and finished without missing a single month.

Since Ghosts of Saltmarsh was my gf’s introduction to D&D (minus a few games she played as a child), it took up quite a bit of space in my crusty Dungeon Master mental cave of planning. Luckily, I found it to be a very enjoyable campaign to run, mostly because as an anthology of classic adventures, it lacks the overly convoluted storyline that plagues a lot of other D&D fifth edition campaigns I’ve either played through or DMed, like Tomb of Annihilation, Out of the Abyss and Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. 

Ghosts of Saltmarsh contains eight adventures united by their seaside themes. Three of them are updated versions of the classic U1-U3 Saltmarsh modules, which were among the first British D&D products produced from 1981 to ‘83. These three tales revolve around the players befriending local villagers and helping a lizardfolk tribe fight off invading sauhaugin, and they’re good, mostly as an example of early D&D material that required players to treat so-called “monstrous races” with diplomacy rather than violence. The other adventures are from old issues of Dungeon magazine, and run the gamut from a decent lighthouse dungeon crawl (Isle of the Abbey, from Dungeon #34) to a nifty survival horror-style ship romp (Salvage Operation, from Dungeon #123). Additionally, Ghosts of Saltmarsh contains rules for ship battles, which are good enough considering that D&D isn’t a naval combat simulator, and the book also devotes its first chapter to describing a great new version of the town of Saltmarsh to serve as a central hub. 

I think Ghosts of Saltmarsh’s anthology format is my preferred style of D&D hardcover book at this point. Just give me a main town that I can detail and populate with my own NPCs, a bunch of adventures taking place around the vicinity that I can hack as necessary for my players, and I’m good. This format is also reflective of D&D’s early roots, where campaigns weren’t 250-page books with save-the-world plots, but short modules focused on building clout in a certain region and establishing a base. I think it’s also a very newbie-friendly format, since beginning players can really become invested in one central location and the people residing in it.

Since I was only running this game for two people, I had plenty of time to help the girls grow attached to Saltmarsh and its denizens. These consisted of several faces from my other games, including the very first D&D character I played as - a ranger who settled down in Saltmarsh as the head of the city guard and served as mentor for the next generation of adventurers. Other NPCs evolved depending on what I thought might make my gf and her friend laugh. For instance, Oceanus the sea elf, a Saltmarsh mascot since the '80s, started out as a surfer bro but eventually morphed into a douchebag/dingbat a la Schmidt from New Girl, which I started watching with my gf sometime over the course of 2020. And Captain Xendros, the tiefling owner of the local magic item store, was only supposed to be a minor shopkeeper until her sassy banter stole everyone’s heart, winning her a place as a major character by the end of the game.

I also gave the girls their very own house to decorate and return to in between missions, which was another fun ode to the older D&D roots that Ghosts of Saltmarsh embraces, but also a chance to insert Animal Crossing-style interior decoration into our campaign. My girlfriend clocked a staggering 300+ hours into Animal Crossing: New Horizons at the start of the pandemic, and seeing her and her friend derive great pleasure from using Roll20′s wonky drawing tools to sketch out every room of the house (and create a shrine in the bathroom with random bits of gold on the floor, no less) was stellar. 

Aside from a house, the gals also received two animal companions - a pseudodragon and a shadow mastiff. The pseudodragon appears as a familiar that can be found after Ghosts of Saltmarsh’s first adventure, The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, but the shadow mastiff was an inclusion of my own because my girlfriend really wanted a dog for the longest time, and I figured I would give her one in-game before we got one in real life. (Yup, we now have one in real life.) Generally, I’m a huge fan of injecting a little Pokémon into my games with animal buddies, but in this case the pets also served as valuable fighting companions that helped balance Ghosts of Saltmarsh’s combat encounters, which are meant for four people.

On the topic of inclusions, I stuck a bit closer to the content in Ghosts of Saltmarsh than I usually do when running a campaign based on an official D&D hardcover, probably because the book in question was just more usable this time around. The final split was maybe 60% book material and 40% my own stuff. The end of the campaign was nearly all me, since I couldn’t quite formulate a way to include the final two adventures in the book, Tammeraut's Fate and The Styes. So instead, I gutted them for concepts and created an overarching story that tied Saltmarsh’s threats to H.P. Lovecraft’s Esoteric Order of Dagon. There’s a ton of Lovecraft influence in The Styes, after all, and Dagon was included as a demon lord in third and fourth edition D&D, not to mention Pathfinder. I drew inspiration from all of those versions, along with the stats included in Sandy Peterson’s Cthulhu Mythos book for fifth edition. 

Ultimately, it all made for an entertaining story that scaled mightily. At level 2, Thea the tiefling rogue (played by my gf) and Zora the half-elf bard (played by her best friend) were utterly outclassed by smugglers in a haunted house and had to use a door as a shield to escape. At level 12, the pair defeated a demon lord and closed a portal to the Abyss. (To be fair, both accomplishments are pretty epic. The door escape was one of the most creative D&D moments I’ve ever seen, and we’re still talking about it today.)

While I wish we could’ve rolled physical dice together for a little longer, I’m glad Roll20 was available to keep our game going through a period of global strife. In the midst of it all, there was always D&D to fall back on. And hopefully, there will be more to come. I’ve got Candlekeep Mysteries on my shelf, another anthology of D&D short adventures...and it’s just waiting for me to formulate a plot to tie ‘em all together!

[chaletnz]

Furano Trip

To make the most of my two days off I decided to drive to Furano after finishing work, to ensure I would be able to see the lavender first thing in the morning. I packed up the car and had a shower, then headed off. About 5 minutes after leaving home, I approached a cat sitting calmly in the middle of my lane, I screeched to a stop and the cat didn’t run so I rolled over the top and then it must’ve slunk away. It was enough to give me a fright, I drove a little slower from that point on since I was still in town. Well, after clearing Kutchan town I was on a country road on the way towards the mountains and the second cat was not as lucky... He darted out from a farmhouse and I saw his little ginger face in the split second before he bounced into the right front tyre. There was a bit of a thud but no bump. He ran off into the bushes. Very shakily I pulled over and went to investigate, there was a woman there who could speak English and she said she had seen him run down into the bushes surrounding the farm. I left with an eerie feeling that maybe I should go back home and drive tomorrow, like these cats were meant to be a sign. I drove on for about an hour, my lights on highbeam and my eyes on high alert – I was more concerned about deer now. I pulled over after another hour or so and sent a message to my mum just in case the universe was conspiring, and then the spookiest part... As I was sitting in the car recording my message, a third cat came running towards me! In the middle of nowhere! Very carefully I drove around it and back on to the road and that was thankfully the last cat I saw on the drive. After that it was smooth, I stopped for a late night McDonald’s at Chitose and then drove on until I found a nice big parking lot with a 24 hour toilet. There were bugs everywhere in the heat of a warm summer’s night, flying around the lights of the toilet building. I slept quite well all things considered.

The next morning I woke up around 6am when the heat in the car simply became too much to bear. It was gearing up to be at least 30 degrees today. Somehow the exact time I wanted to use the bathroom there was a cleaning crew surrounding it and I could just quickly brush my teeth and wash my face before leaving. I started by visiting a large campground park that I had intended on staying at last night but didn’t quite reach there, and luckily I hadn’t because it was a crowded carpark with a far worse toilet! I drove up to the first lavender field of the day, Choei Lavender Farm. There was a winding road up the back to reach a mountaintop viewpoint overlooking the lavender and the Kamifurano township. I battled to take some videos with my GoPro that seemed to be struggling in the heat already – by 8am it was already 28 degrees. Japan doesn’t do daylight savings so it means that sunrise is about 3am in summer so the hottest part of the day is earlier in the morning than you would expect. I parked down at the bottom of this farm and took a few more photos although it wasn’t possible to get a good angle of the word “Kamifurano” spelled out in Hiragana in large lettering filled with colourful flowers. I decided to get some gas because Kimbo was already thirsty again, and then arrived at Farm Tomita just before 9am. As Google maps directed me there, she made sure to inform me “this destination will be closed when you arrive” but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to wait for 10 minutes in the carpark. Well it seemed that the Japanese had the same idea! The main parking lot was already full and the parking attendant waved his lightsaber to guide me right down to the back lot. Furano has great flower fields but not much shade so poor Kimbo had to suffer in the sun while I went for a walk around. By now it was 30 degrees and humid. Japanese people carried umbrellas and wore full length sleeves in the heat. Many people were dressed up in their Sunday best to take family photos in the lavender with a bouquet purchased from the gift shop for 500 yen. Dogs were posed for photos and then taken back into the shade where they could lie down. I took my photos and walked around the perimeter but it was far too hot for me so I had to browse in one of the air conditioned gift shops to cool down. I tried to walk up the side of one of the more shady lavender fields but it was deceivingly steep and I struggled to get halfway! It was time for an ice cream break by 9.30am, and of course I had to try the lavender ice cream again. It was a soft purple colour, with a mild taste and started dripping immediately. Luckily there was a shady seat to sit and eat it and appreciate the views of Kamifurano and the mountains in the distance. In winter Furano is also a hugely popular ski resort that is often paired with Niseko for longer snowsports trips. To distract my thoughts, a child squeaked in with those annoying shoes that sound like you’re standing on a plush toy squeaker with every step. All heads turned to look at the child, who promptly trips up and starts scream-crying uncontrollably. And now my relaxing ice cream break was ruined. I walked around a little bit more and bought a few postcards and lavender things to send home then sat down for a drink and a potato croquette for an early lunch. I had been waiting around for a bit because I wanted to visit a café nearby that opened only at 12pm. It was relaxing anyway to sit and watch Japanese people enjoying the lavender and trying to get the best photos when the entirety of the scene is purple!

I drove to Kamifurano town and parked at the post office as I couldn’t find any free parking lots near the Polar Coffee café, I withdrew some cash and then walked there as a loud alarm sounded through the city – presumably a test as no one seemed even mildly concerned. On Instagram yesterday I’d seen that my colleagues Tim and Nick had come to this café which is owned by a Taiwanese guy (they’re also Taiwanese) and it had a good vibe from their photos so I was determined to try! It was even better than expected, I ordered a flat white and it was not only very Instagrammable but also cheaper than anywhere in Niseko. Cooling down in the air conditioned café was also a highlight. After my coffee I made the long drive to Asahikawa to see a rice field. But not just any rice field, one planted very carefully with different varieties of rice that had coloured shoots. The reason I made this long drive just for a rice field is because the second half of July is the perfect time to view such rice fields - the rice shoots have grown in and are brightly coloured at this time. I was very proud of myself as I directed myself to the field. Although a lot of people online said it was so hard to find, I had no trouble at all. Actually my Google map would have led me exactly there but I followed some signposts instead that said “tanbo art” on them in Japanese, and the reason I was so proud – I could actually read what it said! I was the only person there so I parked where I pleased and climbed up the viewing platform to see the art. Unfortunately the field was so wide that it was hard to take a photo of the entire thing, even with panorama! The design changes each year and this time it was a couple of anime characters, there was also something written way off to the left that wasn’t really visible from the platform and I could only see “2021” and some squashed Japanese characters from the ground. Anyhow, it was a very unique attraction and I was glad I had made the trip to see it. My next destination was the Ningle Terrace; a series of log cabin-esque boutique shops arranged along a wooden walkway in the forest. If my phone wasn’t so terrible with capturing greenery then it would’ve been another Instagram-worthy place to see but other than a cool photos the souvenirs were quite expensive and many of the shops were closed anyway. I took a long drive from Furano to Obihiro for tomorrow’s adventure and stopped at a mall for a KFC dinner. Usually Japanese KFC is great, but this one had unfriendly staff and they gave me a half frozen burger which I had to send back for a fresh one. I bought a few supermarket supplies and then drove towards the small Obihiro airport once it was dark to find a suitable parking space for the night. I passed the airport parking lot as it there were too many floodlights which would make it hard to sleep, further up the road there was a small shoulder so I stayed there in the pitch black instead, with a nice forest on either side. I got out of the car to change into my shorts to sleep but I heard rustling in the bushes and freaked out! Instead I changed inside with the doors locked. I felt a little uneasy falling asleep as there had been searchlights beaming around the sky that I’d assumed were to find intruders sneaking into the abandoned Gluck Kingdom theme park and I worried someone would knock on my car window and tell me to move on. Of course I didn’t want to get caught on my urban exploring but I thought “you would have to be absolutely insane to venture in there at night”. As it turned out though, the lights were for the airport perimeter security and nothing to do with the theme park coincidentally located about a kilometre opposite.

[terreisa]

Love Down the Line: Chapter 3

The last thing Indie musician Emma Swan needs is a gigantic wrench thrown in the workings of her biggest tour to date weeks before its launch.�� When her backing guitarist that caused the problem says she has the perfect solution Emma is skeptical but left with little choice but to accept.  Unfortunately she isn't really prepared for said solution to be former Rock Star and leading man of Emma's teenage fantasies, Killian Jones.  With no other options and a month of performing across the country ahead of her Emma just hopes she doesn't come to regret letting Killian onto her stage and into her life. 

Ch 1, Ch 2, AO3 ~*CS*~

 Portland, Maine- April 17th

Emma was lost in thought as she idly tapped at the rehearsal room’s piano keys, filling the space with a jumble of unmelodic notes.  She knew she needed to take a break and eat something, like everyone else was but she couldn’t.  There was something off about their last few run throughs and she was determined to figure it out.

One thing that wasn’t off was how well Killian Jones had enmeshed himself into the group in just one week.  He had bonded with Will over growing up in England leading to inside jokes and references that had the two of them snickering away between songs.  With Tink all he’d had to do was make one praising comment about the book she was reading and it looked like he was going to be in her good graces for the rest of time.  As for her, well, the never ending verbal sparring matches were almost as fun as playing her music with him was.

They sounded good.  Of course, there were still little idiosyncrasies and timing issues that needed to be worked out but Emma knew that by the time they hit the road everything would be running smoothly.  What had been a pleasant surprise was how Killian seemed totally at ease playing second fiddle, as it were.  She had seen him play live multiple times and knew exactly what a talent he was, and also how grand a showman.

The first couple of rehearsals after he’d joined them she’d waited warily for his ego to make an appearance.  She had been certain that he would have been like too many of the men she’d met: unable to help making suggestions on how to play her own songs or offering advice she hadn’t asked for or needed.  It had happened so often in her early days of playing paid gigs that Will had taken it upon himself to run interference after she’d had enough one night and given a guy a black eye.  As the week had gone on without a single belittling comment from him in their emails, texts, or during rehearsals she’d reluctantly accepted that he actually seemed content to follow her lead and let her shine, despite her admittedly more limited skills

She idly let herself fall into the familiar chords of her song Snowdrops and Buttercups as she tried to suss out what was bothering her.  It was the ballad that she’d picked to play towards the middle of her set, meant to give the others a little rest mid-show and her the chance to highlight her piano playing.  The song was good, they were planning on releasing it mid-tour as the third single from the album but there was something a little off about it that had her coming back to it, trying to figure out why it wasn’t sounding how she wanted.  She closed her eyes and played through the chorus again and then again, trying to hear what it was she was feeling.

“Did you have lessons?”

She smiled to herself at Killian’s question, only mildly startled by his voice.  The answer was in the bio of her official website and on her Wikipedia page but it was nice to know he hadn’t researched her.  Or at least was pretending that he hadn’t.

“On and off depending on the family I was with,” she said, not pausing in her playing though she moved on from the chorus, “Didn’t exactly make me a great player but a lot of practice and YouTube helped with that.  I’ll never play Beethoven, that's for sure.  Do you play?”

“Strictly guitar for me,” he said with a chuckle. “Though I do know Chopsticks and that one song from Big.”

She laughed, stopping her playing and turned towards him, “Your party trick I’m guessing?”

“Nah, my party trick involves a pair of handcuffs and my sparkling wit.”

He waggled his brows at her causing her to snort and shake her head.  He was a flirt, it oozed out of his every pore, and the worst part was it seemed to be a default setting with him.  It only made her feel off kilter and more resolved to not let herself get caught up in it, no matter how much her teenage self was obsessing over every syllable he uttered.

“The party usually ends when the cops show up Jones, but then again I’ve never been to the same kind of parties you have,” she said with a grin.

It faded as Killian grew somber.

“Aye, I suppose you’re right.  Frightful things they are.”

With horror Emma remembered that the accident that had shattered his life into pieces had been after one of those kinds of parties.  She turned back to the piano, embarrassed and a little ashamed of herself.  After a moment’s thought she began playing what she hoped was a sufficient enough apology.

It was Killian’s turn to snort, “I’m Still Standing, love?  Bit on the nose wouldn’t you say?”

“Figured it couldn’t hurt,” she said quietly, letting her hands fall still.

Silence settled over the room like an itchy blanket.  She tried to keep from fidgeting, still feeling like she’d upset him despite his genial smile.  Unable to take the quiet even though it had only been less than a minute she began playing again, deciding to speak through the music.

“I’ve noticed you’ve got quite the repertoire of classic rock in that head of yours,” he said, seemingly impressed. “First eighties Elton John, then seventies Billy Joel?  Plus all those songs you tortured me with during my audition.  Are you an audiophile as well?  Do you have multiple copies of your favorite albums in their various forms?”

“Seems to me you’re the audiophile,” she pointed out, continuing to play. “I just happened to have worked at the diner that Ruby’s grandma owns and she refuses to put anything on the jukebox that was released later than nineteen seventy nine.  The songs are considered classics for a reason, you know.”

“I’m well aware, seeing as I’ve learned to play my fair share of them.  May I?” He motioned to the piano bench.  She nodded and slid over, “And the eighties Elton John?”

“An attempt at saying sorry for putting my foot in my mouth,” she said, giving him an apologetic look. “It’s easier to do it with a song than actually saying the words.  I am sorry though.  Didn’t think.”

“There’s no need to apologize when I took no offense, lo- er, lass-” he reached up and scratched behind his ear, “Truth is, I’d rather endure the teasing than having people continue to tiptoe around me.  Playing with a steady group of people has helped with that.”

“Well if you were expecting tact and manners from Will you were going to be disappointed from the start,” she said sardonically as she seamlessly transitioned from Billy Joel back to the song she’d been playing when he’d shown up. “And Tink isn’t much better, just a little more… cheery about it.  Plus you’re friends with Ruby so you’ve kinda hit the jackpot with people not going to coddle you or whatever.”

“And you?”

“Pft, the nicest thing anyone’s said about getting to know me is that I’m prickly but in a good way.  Ask Ruby about how long it took me to agree to go to one of the bonfire parties the popular kids at school threw.”

Killian hummed, “I wouldn’t say you’re prickly, Swan, just a bit guarded.  No fault in that.”

She stopped playing, stunned by his comment.  Truth was she didn’t have many friends outside her bandmates and a select few people back in Storybrooke.  None of them had understood her so completely or so easily.  With a little jolt of surprise she realized she already thought of him as a friend.

“So is that how you met Ruby, at her grandmother’s diner?” he continued, somehow not noticing she was having a revelation beside him.

“Uh, sort of,” she said with a little shake of her head, turning to face him, “I needed money and Granny’s was the only place willing to hire me.  It’s not exactly easy to get a job in a small town when you’re already pinned as the school troublemaker even though you’ve only been there for a month.  Ruby was in a couple of my classes and put in a good word for me.”

“Have you been playing together all this time?”  He asked, genuine curiosity lighting up his eyes.

“No-” she winced, not used to telling her life story when most people she’d met lately were already aware of it from interviews or reading it online, “I hadn’t been playing much when I got moved to Storybrooke.”

“Got moved?”

She tilted her head at him, narrowing her eyes, “Really?  You haven’t already read all this?”

His shoulders slumped and when he looked at her his gaze was troubled but clear, “Swan, I, more so than most, know what it’s like when people think they know everything about you because of what they’ve seen or read.  I try to avoid the fodder as much for my own sake as for others.  I’d rather learn about someone the old fashioned way: through conversation.”

“Oh-” she relaxed before tensing up again in embarrassment, “I, uh, should probably tell you that I know a lot about you from the, uh, fodder.”

To her surprise he laughed, “Not to flaunt the size of my ego but I’m not surprised.  I don’t think there’s anyone, especially in our line of business, that doesn’t know my life’s story.  Made for quite a few headlines for a while there.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, apologizing for so much more than what she already knew about his life.

“Bah-” he waved his hand in dismissal, “No need for that.  It is what it is.  So, you hadn’t been playing…”

“So, if uh, it wasn’t clear before I was a foster kid.  I was moved around a lot, mostly in Boston, a few years in the midwest.  Some of the families had pianos or a neighbor that did and a lot of times they gave lessons for extra income.  A couple of them taught me because I wanted to learn and I was considered part of the family, at least for a little while.  It was nice, learning that way, but it never lasted,” she said with a sigh, giving him a half-hearted shrug.

“Best way to learn is from someone who loves doing it,” he murmured, his gaze intent.

“Yeah, well by the time I got to Storybrooke I was sixteen and hadn’t lived somewhere with a piano for almost five years.  So, of course, the group home I was placed in was run by big believers in the arts and creativity in keeping kids out of trouble.  They had all kinds of art supplies, ran a little community theater, and, surprise surprise, owned almost every instrument you could think of-” she felt herself frown and gave him a shrug, “I still don’t know how they knew but the Nolans showed me their piano the second I stepped into their house.  I thought I was only going to be there temporarily, I’d already been at three other homes in the six months before I landed there, and thought I would jinx it if I let myself get attached to playing piano again. Unfortunately while the Nolans weren’t strict about much you had to do something creative, even if it was just drawing stick figures in a composition notebook.  Which I did, by the way, for almost six months.”

Killian laughed, a rich sound that carried into his words, “Those I’d love to see.”

“Never,” she grinned, “That notebook will never see the light of day since it also has my first attempts at songwriting in it.”

“Ah,” he nodded wisely, “So after six months you finally ended up back behind the piano then?”

“Nope.  I picked up a guitar.  David, Mr. Nolan, would play almost every night after dinner and it seemed easy enough to learn.”

Emma could feel the heat rising in her cheeks.  That was only a small part of the reason she’d decided to learn how to play the guitar.  The real reason was sitting next to her, listening to her talk with rapt attention.

“It was months before Ruby found out I played and then a few more before I finally caved and started bringing a guitar to the bonfires.  By then I was back at the piano and had a few attempts at songs in that notebook.  I, uh, stopped again for a while-” she paused, not wanting to get into why exactly she’d stopped, not when it was the worst thing that had happened to her and while she had only reluctantly realized that he was becoming a friend.  She took a breath and gave him what she hoped was a convincing smile, “Ruby had picked it up by then too.  We’d play together at bonfires and picnics but she never got as serious about it as I did.  She’s the one that convinced me to try out some open mic nights.”

“And the rest is history?” He asked gently.

“More or less,” she answered, feeling much steadier. “When I finally got to the point of needing a backing band she was the first one I called.”

“And then Will and Tink?”

“Tink was brought in by the label and I’d met Will at an open mic night where he drunkenly read terrible poems about his ex and tried to steal my wallet,” she said nonchalantly, though she was glad to move onto safer topics. “I broke his nose and he found me the next day wondering if I was interested in a drum player.”

“In a personal or a professional manner?” Killian asked with a raised brow.

“Ew, as if I’d ever want to sleep with Will.  Gross,” she said with a scrunched nose. “He’d seen me at other mic nights and figured I’d be going places and wanted to get in on it.  He was the second person I called.  From there the rest is history.”

“Not much different from my own beginnings, though we were discovered at a pub we’d been playing at for a few months and already had a few EPs recorded,” he smiled wistfully, “We were also called the Jolly Rogers then.”

“Why did the name get changed?  I mean, you guys didn’t change your sound or anyone in the band or anything.”

“Aha, Ruby said you were a fan but didn’t say how much!” Killian crowed, as if he’d discovered a cache of hidden treasure. “Those EP’s weren’t even released stateside and I’ve never authorized them for streaming.  You’ve got a little pirate in you, don’t you Swan?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She quipped back despite her complete and utter embarrassment at having seemingly given away how big of a fan of his she was.

“Perhaps I would,” he said softly, his gaze somehow just as soft.

She was saved from having to come up with some kind of reply as Will burst into the room practically yelling into his phone with Tink trailing behind rolling her eyes at him.  Killian smoothly rose from the piano bench but paused, pressing his finger down on one of the higher keys.  When she looked up at him he was watching her carefully.

“What?” She asked, beginning to feel self conscious.

“You should move Snowdrops and Buttercups to later in the show.  It’s a good song but drags down the show where it’s placed now.  Bite of Iron is a better fit for the lineup as it stands.  Granted, it is a bit older but I believe it’s a fan favorite?  Something to consider, anyway.”

He gave her a hesitant smile, hitting the note one more time before moving towards his guitar.  She sat unmoving, wanting to be mad that he felt he could mess around with the lineup she’d spent weeks perfecting but she couldn’t.  Not when he’d figured out what had been bothering her and offered up a pretty good solution without being condescending.  She only wished the song that he had suggested hadn’t been the one that was the hardest for her to play.

Unfortunately she also knew it would absolutely fit in perfectly with the flow of sound and feeling of that section of the show.  It would also get a huge response from the crowd because as much as it was a fan favorite she’d never played it live before.  Looking at Killian, where he was absently picking at his guitar as Will talked a mile a minute at him, she thought that if he could get back to playing in front of an audience after what he’d been through then she could get through one measly song.

Taking a deep breath she spun around on the bench and addressed the room, “Hey, guys, I’ve got some changes I want to make to the lineup.”

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #424

“got no superspeed, but i’m running this town”

What is the first line in the song you are currently listening to/last listened to? "I’m running out of time; I hope that I can save you somehow.” Are you an easy lay? Not in the slightest. What was the last reason you cried? Life and how inexplicably I'm failing at it. What’s hurting you right now? More like what isn't. Do you remember important dates? Only some. I'm awful with numbers. Do you own anything with the Playboy Bunny on it? No. Do you own a bean bag chair? No. Have you ever played Gamecube? At a friend's house. Have you ever played with toy cars before? Yeah, with my nephew. He LOVES monster trucks. Have you ever touched a caterpillar? Oh, definitely. I loved picking them up as a kid. What is your favorite kind of salad? Just plain 'ole iceberg lettuce with ranch, really. Are you any good at Ping-Pong? Holy hell no, I SUCK. What was/is your high school mascot? A firebird. Can you make cute little animals by folding paper? God no, I'm awful at origami. Like, I have zero concept of how to do it. What kind of music do you like? Various types of metal and rock. Do you like apple juice? Yeah. Do you like to draw? It's funny, like I do love it, but I barely ever do it because I get frustrated when I can't get what's in my head onto paper. What do you put on your french fries? Generally ketchup. How many people can comfortably sleep in your bed? Two. Do you want to have a big family in the future? I don't want kids, just pets. Probably a lot of pets. Is Vegas one of your must-see places? No. Pet rat: yay or nay? I've had multiple pet rats and I adore them. I've come to find I'm not the best at keeping rodents because changing the bedding so much sucks ass, but nevertheless they are fantastic pets for people who don't mind the maintenance. Would you call yourself a writer? Written any stories lately? Yes. I haven't written in a while, though. I just have absolutely zero motivation to RP. Are you good at reading people's body language? I probably overanalyze it, really. Ever threatened somebody and actually went through with it? I don’t threaten people. Does holding newborn babies scare you? Extremely. I feel like they're made of thin glass. Piercings: yay or nay? I LOVE piercings. They add an interesting touch to your appearance and to me just (usually) look super cool. There are very few piercings I don't like. Do you have a collage of pictures in your bedroom? No, but I want to make a motivation board very badly. Favorite Nicholas Cage movie? Ghost Rider. Were video games better in the 1980s, 1990s, or the 2000s? Why? '80s games bore me honestly, but I love some '90s and many 2000s games. I've got to say ultimately newer games win, because of graphics increasing immersion (no, I do not whatsoever believe graphics are everything or always make a better experience), voice acting improving immensely, etc. Have you ever watched The Beverly Hillbillies? Yes! Mom loves it so I used to watch it a lot with her as a kid. I'd still watch it. Did your mother ever sing lullabies to you when you were younger? Yes. Are you ready to get out of this town? I HATE THIS TOOOWN, IT'S SO WASHED UUU-UP, AND ALL MY FRIENDS DON'T GIVE A FUUU-UUUUUCK god hell yes get me the fuck out. Do you know anybody that is pregnant right now? Quite a few. What are you listening to? "Superluv” by Shane Dawson. Have you ever gotten a speeding ticket? No. Does your father have any facial hair? Yes. Did your grandparents teach you anything? My maternal grandmother, the only one I really ever knew, taught me I'm a disappointment, pretty much. And a bitch. Do you want/have a Bachelor’s degree? It'd be nice to have one, but I don't, and I'm not pursuing it again. I've wasted enough of my parents' money. Are you into superheroes? Who’s your favourite? Not seriously, but I enjoy them well enough. I like Spider-Man. What did you have for dinner last night? Mom ordered Mexican. I had two shrimp and cheese quesadillas and rice with cheese. Do you think you look similar to your siblings? No. Have you ever played Cards Against Humanity? Did you like it? Yeah, it's fun. Do you know your best friend’s middle name? Yes. Are you close to your father? I am. Have you ever had a serious conversation with your dad? Yeah. Would you rather have long or short hair? I enjoy having short hair way more. Who did you go/plan on going with to prom? I went with Jason twice. Have you ever been to a debate and speech tournament? Hell no, and I never would. Arguing makes me cry lmao. Are you someone who enjoys stand-up comedy? Yep. What’s one thing that scares you about living alone and being independent? A lot of things do, but one thing in specific that I fear is that I let the house become cluttered and messy. I'm so shit at cleaning, especially when I'm depressed. It's why my own bedroom isn't even fully decorated, and we've lived here since I wanna say last November. If someone offered you an all-expenses paid trip to one European country, where would you go and why? Germany, 'cuz I enjoy the culture and would love to try some foods and visit places. Have you ever won anything on the lottery? No. Are you interested in the World Cup? I couldn't possibly care less. What’s the longest time you’ve ever been on a plane for? Idk. Do you let your hair dry naturally or do you towel-dry it or blow dry it? I use a towel to dry it some, then let it really get the job done naturally. How many of the Harry Potter books have you read? None. Who last gave you their number? When I posted on Facebook about going on a mental health hiatus, my good friend Alon messaged me her number if I ever needed to talk. I was really thankful. Are you often the last one to understand a joke? Honestly yeah. I'm slow to grasp a lot of things. Your first black eye: Did you give it or get it? Never gotten or given one. Have you ever slept in a tent, indoors or out? Yes to both. Are you mad right now? I'm annoyed, but not mad. Are you allergic to nuts or dairy products? No. Has anyone ever called the cops on you? No. Do you ever actually drink milk alone? Yeah, I love milk. Do you have a sensitive gag reflex? It is EXTREMELY sensitive. What was the last situation to upset you? I'd rather not talk about it. Have you ever had an online argument? I have been heavily active on the Internet since I was like, 11. Maybe younger. I have been in plenty. Are you at risk for any medical issues? A lot of heart problems run in my family. I'm also suspicious I may develop diabetes, which also runs very heavily in my family. What were you doing at 7:00 a.m.? Surprisingly, I was asleep. Do you own a robe? No. What would you consider your life to be? A wreck. What is your favorite mark of punctuation? I like question marks. Who knows your biggest secret? Nobody. Do you think anyone has feelings for you? Probably not. How do you know? I just doubt it. I'm so unlikable right now. Could you go a day without eating? I don't think I could. I do not react to stomach pain well, and that includes when I'm hungry. How many bracelets do you have on your wrists right now? None. What’s your favorite drink? Strawberry Sunkist, but I don't allow myself to have it. I will DESTROY a can or five of it. Who was the last person that texted you? My mom. What are you craving? Nothing really right now. What was the first thing you ate today? An everything bagel. What was the last type of meat you ate? Pork. Have you taken any medication today? Yeah, I take some prescription meds in the morning and at night. Have you ever been to Hawaii? No, but that'd be cool. Do you know anyone who has diabetes? My mom, for one. Have you ever made a boy cry? Sadly. Who are you talking to? Nobody. Do you think you’ve ruined your chances with someone? Absolutely. Your parents split; would you want to live with your mom or dad? My parents are divorced, and I stayed with Mom. Would you strongly prefer to go out with someone of your own skin color/racial background? I couldn't care less. For you personally, is abortion an option in case of an accidental pregnancy? For others, absolutely. It's your right. For me myself, it's possible, idk. If I was God forbid raped, I probably would have an abortion. If I accidentally got pregnant in a healthy relationship, I'd probably have a "too bad, so sad" outlook where I'd suck it up and go through with the gestation because having sex and risking pregnancy was my own decision. Even if I'm pro-choice, I think I'd feel too guilty aborting, especially with the child being someone's I love. Is it a requirement that you communicate every day with your significant other (via phone, text, in person, whatever)? IF I had an s/o, no. I like to, but sometimes you just want space. Are you fetish-friendly? I'm not gonna lie, some fetishes are just too fucking weird for me. I TRY not to judge, because I doubt you can actually help fetishes, but I inevitably do sometimes. If you're asking would I engage in fetishes because my s/o liked them, possibly, but it would really depend on what it is. Have you ever cosplayed? No. I think cosplay is really cool, though. Do you support the exploration of outer space? If yes, would you consider taking a trip into space, or even to another planet? As creatures who crave knowledge and understanding of our universe, I do support space exploration, but I do NOT believe we should be spending as much money as we do on it. Taking care of the planet we're actually on is far more important imo. I wouldn't personally go to outer space. Is it okay for men to wear makeup? What’s your opinion of male crossdressers? It's totally okay! Guys with makeup can be super attractive. Crossdressers, too. Go for it. You’re in a new relationship and your partner admits that they have had 14 sexual partners. Does that sound like a lot to you? For me personally, yes. I don't even know if I'd date someone with 14 past sexual partners, honestly. I would admittedly question their loyalty. Would you let your children under 13 watch movies with full nudity? No. If someone asked you, “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” would you know the answer right away? I would. What is your opinion concerning strip clubs? Not my scene at all, but so long as you respect the dancers, whatever. You do you.

[likesomekindofcheese]

Cottagecore  (Gwilym Lee x fem! Reader Oneshot)

A/N: Hello! For @queenandborhapevents​ I wrote this fic as a part of an exchange on Ao3 and now I can share it here and reveal who I am! Hello there @itsametaphorgwil​! I am your Secret Santa revealed! I am glad you enjoyed it and know I enjoyed writing it for your honor!

Word Count: 1,832

Summary: When reaching your dream job gets too stressful, Gwilym suggests an escape to the countryside to get you to relax.

Warnings: not much, some swearing, drinking, a touch of angst, but mostly fluff, and poor Reader being on edge.

“Y/N, if you would like this position, here are the things you need to work on for the next month. Then we might give you this offer,” the woman stated.

You nodded your head enthusiastically. Every word was put into your brain in the strongest part of storage. Your dream job was eminent. The people you have admired for ages were pushing you on. Every dollar spent, every hour clocked in, and every bit of training and studying and student debt was about to be worth it.

“We’ll try you out and interview at this point on the fifteenth of next month, sounds good?” she folded her arms in her black pantsuit, slightly serious.

A Pollyanna smile grew on you.

“Of course! I will!”

You wound up practicing and trying every free hour you had for this job. Cups of coffee devoured. Then water to make up for coffee. Then constant bathroom breaks. Words in front of you seemed fuzzy. But you kept at it.

Even when your boyfriend, Gwilym was around, it was all you could talk or think about.

“Hey Y/N…let’s escape,” he suggested. “There’s a place…it’s out in the country!”

“I don’t know…” you sighed.

“It will be fun!” he begged, taking your hand.

With a huff, you nod.

“Where is it?”

“Pembroke-near some family.”

Pembroke! Grassy fields, a nearby ocean…

And two whole weeks without work!

He led you into the cottage excitedly. Then his smile dropped briefly as he saw you pull out your laptop from its bag on the kitchen table.

“Annwyl, did you bring anything related to your job with you?” he asked sternly.

The laptop clicked shut and you let out a sigh.

“Yes, it’s just that…I’m really afraid of failing!” you cried. “It’s just…I’ve been…been afraid to relax. I’m just so close to my dreams coming true, and I’ve been struggling and hustling just to get the opportunity…I feel like if I let go…it will slip away from me.” Tears came out before you could stop them.

He hugged you. You could hear the rustling of trees.

“Then promise me this…every day you do one hour- and only one hour- of work and the rest of the day, you try to breathe.”

You nodded, “of course.”

“Oh, Y/N, I completely understand but…you’ve seemed so…it isn’t going to go away if you enjoy yourself for a bit.”

He kissed the top of your head tenderly.

Settling into the cottage, the sunlight poured in from everywhere. Dust specks flitted around in circles as if they were dancing. You only flicked the lights on when it got dark.

Both of you had to see the garden around the house. There were more roses, lilacs, and peonies than you could count and plenty of green sprouts not even Gwilym could name.

Soon you were walking down to the markets, drinking cold lemonades, and buying a large basket of strawberries in their prime: large, red, and juicy, almost like candy to devour.

The next morning, you felt him shake you awake.

“Cariad…look out the window…” he said softly, kissing your temple.

The sun was rising and the whole world was baked in a sweet, pink light. The sunlight was melting over the fields, making it glow.

“Are we in a fairy tale?” you asked.

You could sense the sleepiness in your voice and you felt two arms pull you close, so your back touched his chest. You heard the slight rumble of his laughter.

“No, we’re in Pembrokeshire, but close.”

There was a ten-minute stroll to town, passing herd of sheep or a goat enjoying its breakfast of dandelions. The town was tiny- the houses still had vines, dates from the 1600s in the upper corner and every nook had little shops and businesses and whatnot. People walked by, from children on bicycles to grandmothers ushering in guests for tea.

Nearby there was a stone bridge. A river babbled beneath it and across you could make out taller buildings, some painted a gaudy yellow or a musty red.

But something about the rust on the bridge’s sides made it feel surreal, ancient. Every step you took you held your breath because it might collapse and fall. It never did.

On your third day there you noticed there was a gaggle of little ducks, clucking nasally as they glided across the water’s edge.

“Look!” you cried, pointing to them.

Gwil leaned his brown head over in your direction. “Why, look at these little fellows!”

Normally at this time, as soon as your walk with Gwil was over, you took to your work: editing your resume, cover letter, and other items online and practicing and curating what the try-out would consist of.

But today was different. You felt tired at the thought of that hour approaching. You wanted to take your time.

“Should we get them bread?” you asked.

“Not bread, that will make them sick…”

Gwil ran up to a plant shop and got them seeds, you both took turns tossing it to them. Laughing at the way they shook their beaks as they ate. Soon a mother waded forward with a trail of ducklings behind her- all peeping in high little voices and in a line so straight it seemed mechanical.

He opened the bag and released the seeds into his palm. Their graininess against the softness of his skin. Reaching in for a bit, you could smell the earth it came from.

He walked closer over the edge of the bridge. His reflection looking back up at him from the blue of the water A few ducks hovered toward the mirror Gwil, quacking in curiosity.

He let a few seeds fall with a plop into the water.

They nibbled graciously. As they chewed with their beaks open, a pretty, little white duck passed by, sniffing for morsels as well.

Grinning, you obliged, letting a few seeds fall from your fingertips. They landed, creating ripples that went to the edges, growing fainter. But the white duck wagged its tail as if it were a canine and devoured the seeds.

“How would you like a beach day, tomorrow?” he asked. “It’s only an hour dive.”

“Is that even a question?” you replied, giving him a chaste kiss.

The hour drive long drive seemed to take forever with no beachy signals except for the smell. Until a road that went downhill showed the yellow sand right where it dipped down- flowing out of the grass until soon it replaced the fields as you drove onto it and parked.

The sand dissolved between your toes; the breeze was cool against your legs. Only a few people came and went as they day was slightly overcast.

“Yeesss! Let’s swim, Y/N!” your boyfriend cheered, leaping out of the car.

Gwil ran childishly toward the ocean in his swim trunks and you in your red one-piece, pulling you with him. Though you shrieked at the icy water, it soon seemed normal and refreshing to feel around your calves.

Both of you splashed at each other and got deep enough to swim. Often bending down to pick up interesting little seashells and collect them in a glass jar.

Suddenly Gwil turned his head, let out a slight swear, and covered your eyes with his hands.

“Oh, Y/N, I’m glad you said yes today…” he teased, walking against you so you had to walk forward.

“What! How come? What are you up to?” you asked.

“We havesome guests!” he announced.

“Are you really going to let us have all the fun?” a sweet voice asked in front of you.

He pulled his hands away and you let out a squeal. You knew that blonde bob and pair of bright eyes anywhere.

“Lucy! Lucy, what are you doing here!”

“Rami’s filming, and Gwil had told us you guys were vacationing. Might as well go over and say hello!”

Salt caught into your hair to where you smelt in all day. You missed the scent of the ocean and the sound of its lulling, but hearing Rami and Lucy catch up as Gwil drove back made up for it.

“Oh- we got two local Cabernet bottles to try…would you stay for a drink?” Gwil offered, pulling up near the cottage.

That night, the wine overtook you both, Lucy especially.

“It’s cold! Let’s go in the room!” Lucy insisted, as red as the strawberries in the fridge.

She went over to an extra guest room in the cottage- it was smaller with white walls, a few paintings, and a tiny window. But the bed was so large it took up half the space.

Ooooh! It’s sooooft!” she cooed as she settled on it.

Both of you pulled the duvet over the two of you and began talking softly. You heard Rami and Gwil catching up downstairs with talk of directors and long days of filming.

“Hmmph, do you think this shirt shows too much of my titties?” you asked.

Laying down in the bed had pulled the edge of your shirt down and you began to stubbornly pull it u.

Lucy began giggling like mad. She pulled the duvet over her head into a large lump.

“What is it?” you asked.

She poked her face out with an elfish gleam in her eye.

“Titties!”

You both began to giggle profusely. There are creaks upstairs as Rami and Gwil walk in, bemused at the two of you. Lucy and you pulled blankets up over your mouths to stop.

“You alright? You both had a lot…” Gwil began, walking closer to see your faces.

“We’re fine, it’s just…” you began.

“It’s about…about titties!” she blurted.

You both burst out howling.

Rami and Gwil looked at each other, beaming despite Lucy’s tipsiness.  They ran downstairs and returned with a small plate of cheese, crackers, and apple slices.

“We’ll leave you ladies be,” Rami promised.

He put it on Lucy’s lap. She grinned and gave him a smooch as thanks.

Gwil stood by the door, watching you take a bit of a red apple slice.

“Just have something on your stomachs,” he added before Rami returned to shut the door.

Lucy and you giggling over snacks was the memory you kept inside you. That and the beach, the ducks, the berries, as you and Gwil crossed the corner where the fateful building stood.

A month had gone since this was planned and the day you expected and dreaded had arrived. You whisper the right words and picture it. And none of it is forgotten- a muscle memory.

“Darling…thank you for the trip. No matter what comes to it-I needed to enjoy things and not let it all get to me,” you say, pausing before the door.

He cups your face, “you always put your heart and soul into things…and I love you for it.”

As Gwil walks with you to the building, saying he will wait outside. He kisses you on your forehead, leaving a subtle, shiny mark there as you walk in.

Taglist: @queenlover05​ @stardust-killer-queen​ @rhapsodyrecs​ @joeneslee​ @yourlocalmusicalprostitute​ @coincidence-ithinknots-blog​ @bens-jawline​ @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhye​

[boujeedolls]

rating the girls of the year (inspired by tiktok)

#18 they gave a white girl medium skin bc she has a “tan” lollll what. i dont know much about lea beyond that and her treehouse but when i opened her wikia page and read “1/8th brazilian” i was like close tab lollllllll just make a brazilian doll it’s ok!!!!!!!!

#17. grace was ok but definitely not my taste of person considering she can cook and romanticizes france and gets on a reality show ikufjfwefhuow remember that. and not the cool revolution france but like the macaroons and eiffel tower pandora bracelet after your holiday there tourist france. ag didnt use the ratatouille theme once in her movie

#16. i didn’t get too hype for blair but i feel like she is definitely gonna grow up to be a wine mom karen so i like her for that. also her hair, meet dress and of course....the overall and rainboot combo. she has a subscription to good housekeeping and she’s 10 i just know it. she has a pinterest board full of mason jars and is gonna name one of her kids mckaleigh

#15. saige was cute and love the southwest aesthetic but even as an artistic person i thought she was soooo annoyinggg in the fact that she acted like art class being taken away for a year was the end of the world. ik i sound like a boomer rn but saige you can just paint at home or in the fancy studio you have access to insert the kardashians kim there are people that are dying soundclip. (btw i think it was perfectly cool that they got funding for their school for arts education that’s fine and all but just her PRIVILEGE)

#14. i was obsessed with chrissa when she came out but like... not her. like the movie?? watched the trailor everyday and had the behind the scenes videos practically memorized. the friend dolls that were prettier than her doll. the outfits and most of all......the most chaotic ag product ever released....starburst. 2009. 

#13. mckenna was cool but she kind of scares me. i shant elaborate.

#12. you know what i haven’t read joss’s books at all but the fact that they brought back a surfing theme and finally have a cheerleader AND she has a canon disability makes her cool in my book.

#11. lindsey bergman was a sweet chicagoan jewish girl who just wanted to make people happy SHE DESERVES ALL THE HYPE 

#10. lanie was so adorable. like i really liked her camper even though it cost like a kidneys amount and i love her environmental theme and how truly passionate she was about it. the bunny on the leash is cute and she was the cutest illustrated girl imo also her sister playing the same thing over and over again until lanie lost it is so funny to me as a cello major 

#9. gabi was so interesting and DIDN’T DESERVE TO BE A RECYCLED DOLL!!!!!!!!! love that she was multifaceted and interested in many forms of expression whereas many times this line can get kind of one dimensional. love that we finally had representation for our speech impediment girls and oh yeah she’s still the only black contemporary character IN THE 19 YEARS SINCE AG DECIDED TO START MAKING 18 INCH CONTEMPORARY GIRLS. AND. THEY. REHASHED. A TRULY MEEEE!!! not her fault tho she’s a fictional character.

#8. isabelle was the only goty doll i owned but that’s not the point i mean i like her and her story and the ballet school thing but like....kinda rehashed marisol (i mean, they kinda had the right bc it was a new generation 9 years later and dance is a common interest) and her design was pretty boring but lovely nonetheless. she’s like the chocolate chip cookie of ag. like really plain but good.

#7. i honestly think kailey gets slept on i think she’s super pretty and an environmental queen and all around lovely 2003 hollister california surfer girl i miss when that was cool

#6 whoever thought of luciana deserves a raise someone really said “space girl with dyed hair” and everyone said mint SHE HAD A SPACE SHUTTLE SIMULATOR THING AND A WHOLE ASTRONAUT SUIT? the galaxy print? A STEM THEMEEEE FOR THE STEM GIRLSSSS

#5. kanani akina is like......the prettiest girl american girl ever thought of. like it’s almost unrealistic how gorgeous her doll and illustrations are. speaking of illustrations THE SEAL ONE??? REMEMBER THAT?? i had her in my hand and almost bought her once again gorgeous collection lives like a euphoric life IMAGINE living in a small kauai town and working at your family’s shave ice stand and coming home to your pet rooster goat and dog

#4. nicki fleming i adore her she is a beautiful and socially aware country girl who has trouble saying no i relate to her a lot and she grows so exponentially in her books, i would dare say even more than most of the other gotys. remember when she made cowboy hats look good.

#3. i genuinely love jess akiko mcconnell soooo fricken much our gorgeous girl getting kids interested in archaeology and halter tops her whole collection was amazing i really would’ve loved if they made more books of her traveling with her parents! 

#2. OUR LATINA QUEEN MARISOL LUNA she really was everything from her illustrations, her MEET OUTFIT her TRUNK her CAT her LITTLE MAZE GAME we love the west side chicago dancing queen she was everything no wonder ag decided to do goty every year after her ugh we stan

#1. and finally we have mia. iconic outfits. unique theme. amazing bedroom collection. humorous lawrence yep books. worked her way in custodial because money was tight, fun online games, once again need i remind you WE MET HER WHEN SHE RAN OVER THE BULLY WITH A ZAMBONI  

[eskewcity]

Cornfield

I listened to Dreamland by Glass Animals on repeat while writing this. 

(minor CW for alcoholism and drug addiction)

submitted by @bird-in-tennis-shoes

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Statement of Herbert Pope, regarding a visit to his parent’s farm.

I don’t know what’s happened to me. I don’t know what I’ve become. I don’t know when this will stop. I can only hope that whatever madness controls me will one day have had its fill. One day I will be allowed to sleep. Whenever I even try to comprehend what I’ve seen and done; just the magnitude of it makes me want to shut down. Or throw up. Or lock myself in the house and spread all of my belongings out on the floor so I can see and differentiate every part of the room. I tried to resist it at first, but there’s only so long you can go without sleeping. There’s only so long you can go without the temptation of another human being in your proximity.

I wasn’t always like this. You’ve got to understand I didn’t choose any of this. But before I get into what happened to begin with, I want to make it absolutely clear that I was sober when all of this took place. I don’t want this written off as drunken ramblings or a bad trip. I’m done with that. I’ve got myself a bit of a reputation, I know. But I’ve been sober for three years, and it was a hell of a journey to get that far. I’m not about to have my experience dismissed out of hand because your institute dug up some of the many bad decisions I made when I was younger. I was sober before I visited my parents last summer, I was sober the entire time I was there, and I’ve been sober since.

That’s always been a point of contention between us, actually. I’ve never had the greatest relationship with my parents. They were quite strict growing up, and when I got to uni I just wanted to be free. I guess that’s why I got really into the local party scene my first year there. By the time I was starting my second term, I was already addicted to just about everything I had access to. I even ended up dropping out. Naturally, this wasn’t something my parents were exactly thrilled about, and after a few bad arguments over the phone, I just stopped calling.

I know this isn’t really related. But I just want you to understand how I’ve turned my life around since. After a few months of sleeping on my friend’s couch and going to support groups, I was able to get a job and an apartment. It was several years after that before I felt like I could try to reconnect with my parents. They were happy to hear from me, and especially happy to hear that I had my life together again. I was definitely shocked to hear that they were moving out of the country, to America.

It had always been my mother’s dream to start a farm. We had a small garden when I was a kid, but that was never really enough. They’re both getting up in the years, and had decided that if they were going to do it, they might as well do it before they got too old to do the work of planting and harvesting. They’ve always been do-it-yourself types. I think the hustle and bustle of modern life was getting to them a bit. They’d been doing some research online, even joined a few forum pages to meet people. They’d been planning this for quite some time. Apparently my father has land in Gambier, Ohio that I never knew about. I don’t know all the details, but I think a friend of his, Samuel Fairchild, gave him some property with a farmhouse on it. It was quite a strange situation, from what I can gather. Sam only lived in the house for a few years before just giving it away. I never met the man, but my father once told me that he suspected Sam was in a cult. I don’t hazard a guess as to how they met.

Regardless, it was a nice house in a secluded spot. My father has been paying upkeep costs ever since he got the place, but never did anything with it. Might as well put it to use, I suppose. I made plans to visit them as soon as they got settled and I could take some time off work. When summer rolled around, I made arrangements and booked a flight to Columbus.

The house was about an hour’s drive from the airport, and once I really got out into the countryside, it struck me just how big everything was. Everything’s a lot more compact in the UK. Less space. Here, fields of corn and soybeans stretched out for acres. I would drive for a kilometer and never see a mailbox. Farm houses were tiny pinpricks in the distance. Sometimes barely visible behind a hill. Some farms seemed pristine and well taken care of. Others seemed to be only dilapidated, ramshackle piles of rusted machinery and half burnt out barns. I passed through a town on the way. Well, I say town, but it was little more than a few convenience stores and a post office with peeling paint. The few houses I passed were just as crumbly. Half finished renovations and wrap around porches that looked to be in danger of collapse. Termite eaten posts held up a gazebo roof, like Atlas’ arms folding under the weight of the earth.

The house my parents had moved into was a bit better. It looked homey enough, although the lines of the support beams curved and slanted in strange ways. It looked stable, but almost… impossible. I assumed it was either my imagination or a stylistic choice and didn’t give it another thought. The land surrounding the house was vast and impressive. The only way in and out was a little dirt road leading up to the garage. I noticed the fenced in corn fields and realized that they must have already started planting. In fact, it looked like it was nearly ready to be harvested. I parked in the driveway and went up to knock on the door. It swung inward immediately, and I was met with a massive hug. My mother smelled like cinnamon sugar, just as I remembered her. That evening was fairly uneventful. I told them about what I’d been doing for work, and they told me about the farm and how Sam had left them everything they needed to get started. There was even a chicken coop and a stable in case they ever wanted to get animals. My mother cooked dinner, and before I knew it, it was getting late and my parents were going off to bed. I got settled in the guest bedroom and tried to sleep.

An hour later, and I still couldn’t sleep. I kept tossing and turning. Everything felt sort of… wrong. The moonlight seeping through the curtains gave the place a strange feeling. The room felt different, somehow. Like I was suddenly in a completely different house that was identical to the one I entered last night. I decided I should go take a walk outside. To sort of reset my brain, you know? Maybe I’d be okay if I got some fresh air. There was no way I was going to be able to sleep anytime soon.

Outside, it felt even stranger. I don’t know how, but it didn’t even feel like I was on the same plane of existence anymore. I know for certain I had only stepped off the porch, but when I glanced behind me, the house was now barely visible in the distance. There was no way I had walked that far in an instant. I glanced up at the sky and nearly fell over. It was… bigger somehow. Now, I know the night sky is obviously endless, but it doesn’t usually feel that way. It’s usually more like a thin blanket of black, stretched over the world. The stars are just moth holes and missing threads. It didn’t look like that now. I don’t know how to describe it, but it was like a gaping hole in the fabric had opened over me, and when I looked up, I could see every atom of the infinite universe at once. Like I had put on 3D goggles, and suddenly the pictures on the movie screen popped out and moved around me. The moon suddenly seemed so close in comparison to the stars. Like it was in danger of smashing into the earth.

It was… unsettling to say the least. My head was spinning, and I felt unstable on my feet. The sheer mass of the space around me loomed, like it was threatening to consume me. I had somehow ended up in the middle of the cornfield, the house nowhere to be seen. The world swayed, catching me up in whatever it was. I felt huge and tiny at the same time, the air around me threatening to crush inward, my foot poised, threatening to crush it first.

And then it stopped. Whatever force was manipulating my perceptions was gone. The ground felt sturdy again, and my head was suddenly clearer. It was dead quiet. The moon was still close, illuminating every inch of the surrounding field. I could see infinitely in every direction, and there was nothing but corn. Even the curvature of the earth seemed to have gone; millions of kilometers rolled flat to form this endless plane I had found myself in. When I looked up, I noticed the stars had disappeared as well. The entire universe stretched out before me and there was nothing in it.

The only movement was my own feet as I began to walk. The sound of crunching dirt reverberated through every corner of the cosmos. I must have walked for hours, but nothing changed. It was just corn, corn, dirt, corn, empty black sky, and that awful, bulbous moon. My hands felt… wrong. My entire body felt wrong. I was big enough to hold all of existence in the palm of my hand and still have enough room left over for another universe. But the second I concentrated on any one thing, the feeling slipped away like sand through my fingers, and I felt tiny enough to be crushed by the molecules of air around me. Like I was shrinking forever. Like all of this empty world was expanding around me and I was in the exact center, the edges pressing in on me as it got bigger.

I started running. My feet snapping corn stalks in half, Punching them with my fists as I went. I grabbed a handful of leaves and pulled, ripping several out by the roots and dragging them. Causing as much destruction as I could. If this world was going to go on forever and never change, then by god I was going to change it myself. I ran as far as I could, leaving a path of destruction behind me. I ran until I got so tired that I nearly fell over, but nothing changed. It was still the same corn, the same moon. The whole world was just an endless sheet of repeating wallpaper. I ripped holes in the ground like a crazed gopher until my fingers were raw. Eventually, I sat down among the debris and started crying. I’m not ashamed to admit it; I was hopeless and trapped. There was nothing I could do, because there wasn’t anything at all.

I must have fallen asleep at some point, because I awoke to sunlight and the distant sound of my parents calling my name. I was still in the field, but not a single one of the corn stalks around me had been knocked down. My limbs were wound around the plants like string, not disturbing any. I knocked down a few trying to get up, but I was still too disoriented to care.

I took the first flight I could back to London. My parents were disappointed and understandably quite worried about me, but there was no way I was going to stay there another day. I’ve become a more cautious person as I’ve gotten older, and I was not going to take any chances with… whatever that was. Still, after a few weeks I had written it off as an especially strange dream. I had taken a walk at night and fallen asleep suddenly. That was it. It’s funny how our brains rationalize these things.

As I found out soon, that really wasn’t it. Because I had that dream again. And again. And again. First, it was only a few times a month. Then once a week. Then I began waking up every night in a cold sweat after running in that endless cornfield for eight hours straight. I was terrified to go to sleep, knowing exactly where I’d end up. Every night I would count and categorize everything I could see. My hat on the chair in the corner of the room; my coat hanging up on the wall. I could see the edges where the rug began and ended. The room was not endless. The room had walls and a ceiling. But as soon as I let my guard drop just a bit, or my vision blur slightly with fatigue, everything stretched and distorted and changed, and there wasn’t a thing I could do to stop it. I would suddenly be standing, running, the world silent and impossibly large. I couldn’t rest, because every hour I spent sleeping was an hour I spent awake somewhere else.

I fell asleep at work nearly every day. And even then, I was not free. That damn cornfield, with its horrific sky and endless wasteland of leering barbed javelins haunted me. I was so tired I thought I would die. I started hallucinating while I was awake. Every time my eyes closed I was there, the looming sky and bloated moon mocking me as I ran. I stopped going in to work. I was too tired even to write an email to my boss. The only energy I ever had was when I was running. My friends must have been worried about me, but I didn’t have the energy to talk to any of them. How could I explain what was happening?

Everything reached a crescendo about a week into this, while I was walking to the corner store. I was holed up in my house, tormented by visions of an infinite hellscape, but I still needed to eat. The ground felt more uneven than usual, most likely due to fatigue, but I felt constantly on the verge of tripping. I concentrated hard on the ground in front of me. It was difficult to keep from falling into the cornfield. Part of me was always there, waiting, constantly running.

 My concentration slipped for only a second, and I went sprawling directly into the stranger walking in front of me. He shouted at me, but I was already asleep before I hit the ground. In that single lapse I had slipped into the hungry other world. I was vaguely aware of the events happening around me, but I was somewhere else, running. I… Something happened then, when the man bent down to wake me.

 I don’t know what I did. I reached out somehow, manipulated the air around me. Manipulated the hungry other world and directed its endless appetite towards this man. I’m not sure. There’s really no possible way to describe what I did. Whatever explanation I can give won’t do the action justice. There’s no excusing it either. I did it because it felt right. I can’t even muster the consciousness to regret it. That man is gone now. Or, not gone, somewhere else. Running. The cornfield was satiated for a while after that. I was rested. I was allowed to sleep.

I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t even know what I am. That man was only the first of many. It’s the only way I can rest. It’s the only way the cornfield will leave me alone, at least for a little while. I always make sure it’s someone I don’t know, not that it matters to the cornfield. They’re all just souls for it to hold as they run about like rats in a never ending maze. They’re all in there together, but they will never meet. There is an infinity between every molecule of dirt in that place. Maybe someday everyone will be in that cornfield. I wonder if it would finally let me have peace then. 

[freshouttaparsnips]

Just Some Random AUs/Tropes for Writing Purposes!

sheewolf85 and I have been working on this for a while lol I couldn’t tell you who did which one at this point XD

But! This is a free ask game! So feel free to use it for whatever XD

~Mafia~

--Spies --Philanthropist/Hitman --Mafia Boss/Cop --Mafia Boss/Vigilante --Hitman/Assassin --Wounded Mafia Guy/Nurse --Wounded Mafia Guy/Civilian

~Space~

--Star Wars --Space Pirates --Cowboys and Aliens --Galaxy Quest AU --Space Hitchhiker AU --Star Trek --Signs AU

~Angst~

--Wounded soldier/medic --You’re the nicest person I’ve ever met and that’s why I have to kill you AU --I’m a tree spirit and you cut down my tree. I’m dying now you fucking prick AU --Old timey soldier/nurse AU --I’m the demon who comes when you call its name. You were desperate AU --We’ve been married for 25 years and you just woke up from a coma to ask me who I am AU --I was under a spell/hallucinating and I thought you were my enemy. I’m so sorry. Please wake up. --We’ve been going out for a year and I just found out you were cheating on me the whole time, so FUCKA YOU --Goodbye Kisses

~Fantasy~

--I got turned into an animal and the only way to save me is to fall in love with me AU --Mad Scientist --I made a wizard mad and now I’m ugly pls help AU --Angel/Demon AU --I’m a witch on the outside of the village and you could get me killed, pls don’t do that AU --I’m a tree spirit and I scare off ppl who want to hurt the trees. What are you doing here? Why do you look so sad? AU --I’m a pillaging pirate and I found you on board my ship and honestly I can’t just throw you off AU --I’m a god, and you’re the peasant begging me to listen. --Beauty and the Beast AU --Village AU --Little Red Riding Hood AU --Hogwarts AU

~Modern~

--I paid a lot for that restaurant reservation, what do you mean you gave it to someone else just because they’re famous AU --I made this reservation at a really expensive restaurant and they never showed, but you did AU --I’m drunk off my ass and you saved me from cracking my head on the pavement AU --I’m late to my first class and you just happened to be standing in front of the Campus Map, can you plEASE MOVE AU --Online gamers enemies to friends to lovers --College classmates and there’s ONE BOOK LEFT in the bookstore AU --Speed dating AU --I burst into your apartment because I smelled a fire and it’s just you trying to cook AU --I’m a vet tech and you brought in a really bad off animal and I thought it was yours AU --There’s never a wrong time to dress in drag. --I know martial arts and you broke into my house. --I shut you up with a kiss and now I have to confess I actually love you. --CEO AU --Tattoo Artist/Florist AU --Coffee shop AU --Flower shop AU

~Medieval/Victorian~

--Prince and the Pauper AU --Masquerade - I danced with this wonderful person all night long and--wait it was YOU?! --Arranged marriage between countries AU --”Evil” King/Queen Takes Local Prince/Princess/Prinxe to be his/her Wife/Husband/Partner AU --I’m the bounty hunter and you’re my score, but there’s really no way I can kill you AU --Prince/Thief AU

~Old West~

--Old Town Road AU --Vampire Cowboys --Sheriff/Stagecoach Robber AU --Outlaw/Bounty Hunter AU --I just wanted to mine for gold out in the badlands and I woke up an Ancient Spirit. --John Carter AU

~Modern Fantasy~

--Superhero/Villain --Super Powers --I made a deal with the devil and you’re the only person I trust to help me AU --Pacific Rim AU --Arranged Marriage between Companies/Billionaires/Oil Moguls --ABO AU --Spiderwick AU

~Soulmates~

-Handprints AU -Numbered Countdown To Big Event AU -Colored Streak in Hair AU -First Phrase AU -Tattoo AU -What if instead of the death counter, you have a number on your wrist that counts down the days until you meet your soulmate. Yours and your best friend's have always been at 0. It's not until later in life (like 30's or so) that you find out it's because you were born in the same room. You can never tell if the soulmate you're going to meet is romantic or platonic, or perhaps both at different points in your life.

~Song AUs~

--Faithfully (journey) AU --500 Miles (the proclaimers) AU --Please Me (bruno mars/cardi b) AU --S&M (rihanna) AU --flowers (in love with a ghost) AU

~Horror~

--I just wanted to do this little money spell for fun, it was supposed to be funny, nobody was supposed to get hurt AU --So you say your name is Beelzebub? That’s legit. (Horror/Comedy AU) --It was supposed to be a seance to speak with my dead relative… they weren’t who answered. --Shutter AU --One Missed Call AU -Someone is breaking into my house and you were the only person who answered, HELP AU --Alternatively, Someone is breaking into my house so I’m calling you for help. Is that a phone ringing? --I’m hearing tapping on my window and you’re in bed next to me, can you see what’s making that noise? --The Purge AU --I heard your voice from the basement, but you just called me from the attic the moment I stepped down the first stair --A Quiet Place AU --Can you check under my bed? --It Follows AU --There’s some supernatural dude trying to kill me and I’ve killed him like 20 times and I’m so tired, can you try? --The Shining AU

~Horror in Space~

--Alien AU --Dead Space AU --Cloverfield AU --Event Horizon AU --Prey AU

~Zombies~

--World War Z (fast zombies) --The Walking Dead (slow zombies) --Warm Bodies (zombies that can love) --I am Legend (sad zombies) --REC (demon zombies) --Resident Evil (scary zombies)

~Drama~

--Hanahaki Disease (Chronic or Love Induced) --You saved my life, now I’m your problem AU --Liar Reveal AU --Fish Out of Water --The Shut-Up Kiss (yes again) --Only One Bed --Help I’ve fallen in love AU

~Soft~

--Cuddling (platonic or romantic) --Breakfast in Bed --Platonic Dates --Surprise Gift --Late Night Chatting --Butterfly Kisses

[georgialouisea]

Home

Pairing - Dean x Y/N Singer, Sam, Bobby Singer, Craig (oc). Word count - 1.7k Warnings - Fluff, Dean being adorable, pregnancy.  Written for -  @spnfluffbingo2019 Squares filled - Buying a House Together.

SPN Fluff Bingo Masterlist

It had been a year of house hunting with no luck nowhere felt like it could be a future home, somewhere you’d want to raise your future children. If you liked a place Dean hated it and if Dean liked it you hated it. After a year of this, you were exhausted and disheartened.

Closing your laptop you gave up on your most recent house search in a nearby town, pushing your laptop across the kitchen table your arms resting on the table leaning forward your forehead resting on your forearms.

“What’s wrong?” Your dad asked looking up from the book open in front of him on his desk.

“Nothing.” You sighed.

“You house huntin’ again?” He asked getting up from his seat he walked across the room, his hand resting on your shoulder. “I’ve told you that you and Dean are welcome to stay here for as long as you need to.”

Sitting up your hand rested over your Dad’s. “I know and we’re so grateful you’re happy having us here, it’s just -”

“You want your own space, I get it, you’ll find somewhere when the time is right.”

“Hopefully.”

“When’s Dean gonna be home?”

“He said five, I’ll start to make dinner in a minute.”

Leaning down, he kissed the top of your head as his hand dropped from your shoulder. “It will all work out, trust me, kid.”

You were lucky to have the family you did even if it was small, it was filled with so much love. All you could remember was a life with your Father the memories of your Mother were very very faded if it wasn’t for photos you would have no idea what she looked like. She died when you were four, Bobby raised you single-handedly while dealing with the loss of his wife. He was an amazing father, he was so loving, caring, supportive and very protective.

Dean had been in your life for years he started at your Dad’s apprentice at the garage nearly a decade ago. Over the years the two of you grew closer spending more and more time together having lunch together a few times a week often driving out somewhere quiet where you could just be yourselves and talk. As time went on you felt yourself getting even closer to Dean, it was only inevitable that you would end up together.

The front door opened as Dean walked in. “Hey baby, have you eaten?” He asked as he shut the door behind him.

“You’re home early, not yet, we were waiting for you why?”

“I know, Benny said he’d lock up, can you go without dinner for another half an hour?” He asked with a smile on his face.

“Yes, why? You not hungry?” You asked wondering if he had already eaten.

“I’m starving but I want to show you something first.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see, grab your shoes.”

Standing up you slipped on your sneakers walking towards Dean you took his outstretched hand letting him lead you out of your Dad’s house and towards Baby. Opening the door for you Dean let go of your hand so he could walk around the car, getting in next to you he grinned at you. “Ready?” He asked roaring the Impala to life.

“Sure, I guess it is a secret where we’re going?” You asked as Dean pulled out of the salvage yard.

“No, but you’ll soon see.” He winked at you.

“I’m excited.”

“Should be, I think you’re gonna like it.”

“We’ll see Winchester.” Reaching out your fingers interlinked with his giving his hand a small squeeze as you got settled next to him, enjoying the ride.

Dean pulled the Impala up behind another car in a residential street, quickly killing the engine. “We’re here.”

“And where exactly is here?” You asked as you looked up and down the quiet street.

“Possibly our future home.” Bringing your hand to his lips he kissed your knuckles, letting go of your hand he winked at you as he got out of the car.

“Wait, what?” Scrambling out of the car you shut the car door behind you.

“Mr and Mrs Winchester?” A man got out of the car in front of Baby and walked towards the two of you.

Dean’s arm wrapped around your waist. “Miss Singer.” Dean corrected.

“Apologies Miss Singer, I’m Craig I understand you called the office earlier asking if you could view this property this evening?” He asked Dean.

“I did.” Dean nodded.

“I have the keys are you two ready for a tour?” Craig asked as he held up the keys.

“Baby?” Dean asked giving your waist a small squeeze.

“Yeah, so ready.” You had no idea what was going on but Dean obviously knew what he was doing.

The house was perfect, beyond perfect. After 2 walkthroughs you were in love with the place.

Craig left you and Dean alone to look around.

“Do you like it?” Dean asked as you walked into the master bedroom for the third time.

“Baby, I love it.” You grinned at him.

“You do?”

“Yes, oh my God it’s perfect how did you find it?”

“I had a look online earlier on my lunch break and found it and thought it was worth a look, what do you think?”

“I think this is our home.”

“You’re sure? You’re not just saying that because you’re tired of searching.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been more sure of anything ever.”

Craig knocked on the open door behind the two of you. “How are we doing in here?” He asked with a smile.

“Good.” Dean answered with a nod.

“Would you two like a little longer to look around?”

“I think we’re good.”

--

Watching your Dad and Sam carry boxes into the house taking them towards the bedrooms upstairs.

“Happy?” Dean asked as you started unboxing one of the boxes on the kitchen counter.

“Very, I didn’t think we would ever get here.”

“We have a home a five-minute drive from your Dad’s, we have a home with enough room for our family.” Dean’s arms wrapped around your waist from behind you, his palm resting against your stomach. “A home to raise our baby,” Dean whispered.

“What?” Bobby asked wide-eyed as he walked into the kitchen, nearly dropping the box in his hands. “You’re pregnant?” He put the box down on the table next to him.

“Shit sorry baby,” Dean mumbled kissing your cheek as he pulled away from you.

“Yeah, I am, we weren’t going to tell anyone yet it’s really early I mean we only found out two weeks ago.”

Crossing the kitchen in a few strides he pulled you into his arms hugging you hard. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks Dad.”

Holding an arm out towards Dean he pulled him into the hug too. “I’m happy for you both.”

“What’s going on?” Sam asked as he walked into the kitchen putting the box in his hands down next to Bobby’s.

“Y/N?” Dean looked at you as your Dad released the two of you.

“May as well tell him now.” You shrugged smiling at your boyfriend.

“Well, you’re going to be an uncle Sammy.” A grin broke out on Dean’s face as he shared the secret.

“You’re pregnant?” Sam asked looking at you.

“Yeah.”

“Congrats man.” Sam pulled his brother for a hug patting his back. “So which room’s mine?” He asked with a smile as he moved towards you.

“You can have the one next to the nursery.” Dean smirked.

“Eh, I think I’ll stick with Bobby’s house.” Sam hugged you gently. “I’m so happy for you two.”

“Thanks Sammy.” Smiling up at him he pulled away from you.

“We’ve still got like twenty more boxes to get in.” Bobby slapped his palm down on Dean’s shoulder. “You two with me, Y/N isn’t lifting a thing.”

“Dad -”

“Don’t argue with me.”

“I’m with your Dad.” Dean leaning in kissing your cheek. “No heavy lifting.”

Rolling your eyes at him you couldn’t help but smile. “Fine, who wants a beer?”

“All of us!” Your Dad shouted from outside as the boys continued to load the boxes off the back of Bobby’s truck.

-

“Where are the boys?” Bobby asked as he sipped on his beer after returning with the second truckload of boxes.

“They’re upstairs trying to put the new bed frame together, there’s been a lot of swearing so there could be a fight soon.”

“As long as you’re nowhere near it they can tucker themselves out, how are you feeling?” He asked resting against the countertop watching you unbox the newly purchased dishes.

“I feel fine.” You shrugged placing the plates into an empty cupboard. “I mean morning sickness is a bit of a bitch but I’m so happy Dad.”

“I know you are.” Putting his beer down on the counter he walked towards you pulling you into another hug. “Dean is a good man, I have no doubt he’ll take care of you and my Grandbaby.”

“He will.” You nodded as he pulled away from you.

His hand reached up to cup your cheek. “You know where I am if you need me, I’m only a phone call away if you need anything -”

“Dad you live five minutes away, I’m not moving across the country, we’ll probably still see each other every day you’re welcome here any time.”

“It doesn’t matter where you are, my baby girl is all grown up, moved out and having a baby of her own, I’m happy for you and Dean you’re both going to be very happy here.”

“We will.”

“For fuck sake Sam!” Dean yelled from upstairs.

“I’m gonna go break that up.”

“Ask them what pizzas they want me to order while you’re up there.”

“Will do!” He called out as you heard him stomp upstairs.

-

Dropping your pizza crust onto the plate on the coffee table you sat back against the couch, Dean’s arm wrapped around your waist giving you a small squeeze. “You okay?”

“I am more than okay, we’re home, we’re all moved in.” Cuddling closer to him your legs rested over his lap, your head and hand resting against his chest. “This is perfect.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes Mr Winchester, I am beyond happy with you, I love our home and I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Looking back towards the TV you both settled in for your first night in your new home.

Forever Taglist - 

@mega-loser1298 @smalltowndivaj @roxyspearing @emoryhemsworth @dwgrl1903 @cassieraider @deans-baby-momma @mogaruke @heyitscam99 @mouselovesmusic @supernaturaldean67 @atc74 @witchofenoch @malindacath @skathan-omaha @ain-t-bovvered @beffyblueeyes @serienjunkiegirl @jchona @polina-93 @thefangirlliveson @rhochradel @juanitadiann @amandamdiehl @dixonsunicorn @katieelementarymydearwatsonme @atlas-of-the-world @chelsea072498 @dean-winchesters-bacon @racheo91 @mrswhozeewhatsis @death-unbecomes-you @brewsthespirit-blog @shann-the-artist-moon @team-free-will-you-idjits-67 @claitynroberts @spnwoman @angelsandwinchesters @smoothdogsgirl @cdwmtjb8 @perkypolarbear @thisismysecrethappyplace @tatertot1097 @jessieray98 @gh0stgurl @starfirerules @kcrews74 @calaofnoldor @shadows-and-padlocked-hearts @screechingartisancashbailiff @malindacath @babypink224221 @natura1phenomenon @thehufflepuffblog @lemondropirwin @mariekoukie6661 @mymysosa @blackcherrywhiskey @lonely-skys @titty-teetee @foreverwayward @81mysteriouslyme @x-waywardaf-x @blueberrykushlovexoxo-blog @paintballkid711 @sandlee44 @deanwinchesterswitch @supernatural-harrypotter7 @ilovefanfic86 @sleepylunarwolf @lauravic @caryswhogoesbothways @broadwaybaby25

Dean Taglist -

@akshi8278 @spn-dean-and-sam-winchester @dramaqueenrolf @itsallaboutthedean @shadowysandwichcreator @amillionfandoms-onlyoneme @ruprecht0420 @hobby27 @05spn18 @stevieboyharrington @aussiefangirlwolfy @destiel-equals-life @waywardrose13 @supernatural13-13 @vickyfarley @musiclovinchic93 @spnskinnyballs @adoptdontshoppets @flamencodiva @parksandrecmyass @brightestflame @hhiggs @princessofthefandomrealm @clarewinchester​

[shadyb00ts]

How 2020 Turned Me Into A Swiftie Again

If you’d told me a few years ago that I’d have not one but two Taylor Swift albums in my year-end favorites list, I would’ve thought you were out of your mind. Then again, stranger things have happened in this hellscape of a year.

I’m really not sure where the first time I heard the phrase “Life is too short to pretend to hate Taylor Swift” was. I have no idea who originated it, but it stuck with me when I started to unpack that about a year ago, during her Lover era. By then, my perception and feelings about Taylor had been very... inconsistent, to say the least. I started out as a full-on stan, then it dwindled from there overtime until I basically became a hater, which then turned into indifference but silent respect. Now, I’m pretty much on the road to becoming a stan again. Revisiting her catalog, analyzing her lyrics, watching interviews, the works. 

I wanted to examine what it was that made my opinions about her go through so many steep rises and falls within this entire decade. Part of it was her shift in musical style that I didn’t quite mesh with, but another part was owning up to the internal biases I had when I was younger and how gullible I was in going along with whatever the media or the popular conscious was saying about her and the kind of person she is. 

I’m somebody who’s incapable of separating art from the artist. I simply don’t listen to artists when I don’t like them as people or don’t agree with their actions. Examples include but are not limited to Kim Petras, Melanie Martinez, Azealia Banks, Grimes, just to name a few. I have my own personal reasons for just not wanting to engage with any of their music, and if you still want to, that’s none of my business.

At some point in my life, I think Taylor got on that list. Looking back on it now, I find that completely ridiculous, because she never really did anything or acted in a way that warranted that reaction out of me. So I wanted to delve into how that even came about in the first place.

With that said, I want to take a trip down memory lane and go back through her eras, and go through the timeline of my strange relationship with Taylor Swift’s body of work as well as her public persona. Fair warning, it’s gonna be really cheesy and emotional at parts, but it is fully my truth. Thank you in advance if you manage to read the whole thing.

Part 1: The Country Era

It’s 2010 and I’m in eighth grade. I’m in an extremely Muslim country, the only son of an extremely Muslim family that enrolled me in an extremely Muslim school. I’m getting bullied by the boys in my class for being too feminine and being ignored by the girls for being a boy. The last close friend I had from elementary school had just moved away the year prior, and I’d never felt more alone in my life.

I was a closeted gay kid still trying to figure himself out and hating who he was. I escaped to cringey online chat sites like IMVU and catfished as a girl, because at the time I thought the only way to get boys to like me and want to be with me was to pretend to be someone else, someone I actually liked.

When I think back on this era, I mostly remember the girls in my class obsessing over these three albums and singing her songs with each other all the time. I desperately wanted to join them and fangirl with them over her music, though of course they never gave me the time of day. I remember I would memorize so many of her songs and write them all down on a special notebook I kept. When I wasn’t paying attention in classes, that’s what I would do; scribble out a collection of all the songs of hers that I knew by heart.

To me, these three albums represented a certain kind of vivid fantasy. Taylor’s songwriting has obviously grown exponentially over the past decade, but even back then she was always so damn good at storytelling and detail, painting you a very clear picture of a scene and placing you right there. For a miserable, self-hating fourteen-year-old gay boy that was always seeking escapism from a homophobic environment, this was the perfect outlet for me to live out a different kind of life, to play pretend.

I honestly can’t explain what it is about her style of songwriting but she always made me feel like I was genuinely experiencing everything she was talking about. Things like kissing in the rain, riding around in the truck of the boy of my dreams in a tiny one horse town, shedding teardrops on a guitar that I definitely didn’t own, experiencing crushing heartbreak. This was stuff that my sheltered ass couldn’t comprehend.

Taylor perfectly captured that ideal, that small town girl with big dreams and storybook romances. I was in love with her discography at the time, having memorized pretty much the entirety of Fearless because that was my favorite of three. Middle school was hell for me, but her music was definitely something that helped me pull through, because she sent my imagination into overdrive.

This was a time in my life where I didn’t really care yet about an artist’s public image or the media’s portrayal of them, It was purely about the music for me. Of course, when looking at these albums now, there were a few questionable choices she made lyrically, I have to admit. Particularly with songs like “Better Than Revenge” and “Innocent”, both having aged terribly with the former being bafflingly misogynistic and the latter being about Kanye. As of my writing this, Taylor is currently in the process of re-recording her old catalog, and I assume that she would skip these two songs in particular, as well as several others that haven’t exactly aged well.

This era really got me through some tough times and she provided much-needed relief for me within each of these three albums. I’ll always have an attachment to them because of the bittersweet memories they represent.

Part 2: Red

Red I decided to put in its own category, because this was kind of a weird era for Taylor. Even back when I was an ignorant teenager that barely had any critical thinking skills, I felt the dissonance of this album and its Max Martin produced singles. This album represented Taylor dipping her toe into pop music, which she made abundantly clear when she decided to release We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together as the lead single.

I actually remember this moment quite clearly. She premiered the single at some kind of fan event that I believe was streamed live on YouTube, and either I watched it live or I watched the full recording of it later on. At the time I remember feeling it was kind of bizarre to hear Taylor adopt this style of music, because it was so drastically different from her previous work and it took me a while to adjust. Obviously I enjoyed pop music at the time as much as I do now, but I just hadn’t been expecting it to come from Taylor. 

Fortunately it was just the three singles that were full pop, and the rest of the album still had her signature DNA and also includes some of her best work. All Too Well, for example, is I think one of the best songs she’s ever made, if not the best. I think if I were introducing Taylor to someone that’s totally unfamiliar with her, that would be my first choice, because it’s a masterwork in songwriting and emotionality.

I do think the thing that irked me the most about this album and era, even to this day, was the lack of cohesion. Of course I figured that she would eventually venture into pop music, but the way in which she did it just felt a bit too jarring to me. Perhaps if the album had a more even distribution of pop songs and country songs, it would’ve been slightly more palatable for me. It’s not even that the three pop songs were bad; they were quite good for their time. Though to be completely honest they’re the songs I barely ever return to any time I listen to Red now. They’re the kind of catchy pop songs where it’s difficult not to get sick of them at a certain point in your life. I’ve grown to really dislike the lead single, and even 22.

Her image was also starting to get much more scrutinized by the media around this time. I think this era probably marked the sharp rise of the “Taylor Swift has too many boyfriends!” argument people loved to throw around. I wish I could say I was smart enough to not buy into that shit at the time, but I wasn’t. While it didn’t bother me, it was something that I wondered about, why she dated and broke up with so many guys at such a young age. It was something that I judged her for. Obviously I didn’t yet understand that it was normal for people her age to date around. Plus it gave her some great material.

By this time, Taylor was making the gradual transition of country sweetheart to pop star, and while Red was kind of a rocky start to that, naturally she managed to pull it off. But not quite flawlessly.

Part 3: The Pop Era

Okay, I have a lot to say about these girls.

I think this era started off strong with 1989. It was a more fully realized version of Taylor’s little pop experiment, and it actually had the cohesion that I needed to be able to fully adapt to this new style she’d cultivated. She wrote yet another one of her best songs with Blank Space, which I like to think was a precursor to Reputation (and dare I say that one song did Reputation’s concept better than that album as a whole?).

However... Shake It Off. I’m sorry, I just hate that song.

WANEGBT, the first single off of Red, isn’t exactly the best song either but it made sense as to why she chose that as the first single. It was to signify her dabbling into pop. Reputation’s first single I also am not the biggest fan of, but again, made perfect sense as an introduction, but I’ll get to that later. Shake It Off, though? For the life of me, I have no idea why this song was the first single. Or to be frank, why it was even on the album at all. 

I’m sorry y’all, I just hate it. Everything about it. The verses, the chorus, the appalling rap bridge. She should’ve kept that song in the drafts and released Blank Space as a first single, and that’s a hill I’m willing to die on. Sorry Shake It Off stans, but I’m sure all three of you will get over it. ❤

That said, 1989 had some excellent songs, and I was finally starting to get used to Taylor doing pop. However, my excitement and enthusiasm for her music started to falter due to my weak mind at the time once again getting swayed by the media. 

This time, I began to see Taylor as someone that seemed to be very calculated and conniving in the way she curated her image. Something that didn’t sit well with me was the “girl squad” stuff, and how all of the women she surrounded herself with were essentially these supermodels with unattainable beauty standards, and also believing the rumors about how certain famous women were given private requests to join Taylor’s “squad”. And then of course, the Kim and Kanye thing happened. #TaylorSwiftIsOverParty trended worldwide, and that was probably my earliest exposure to an instance of a celebrity getting canceled, so I was just happy to join the bandwagon. My opinion of her shifted like that, and it’s crazy to think about it now, how I barely had the capacity to form my own opinions and was easily influenced by everything I heard.

Despite me kind of joining the Taylor hate train, I did like Reputation as a concept. I liked how she disappeared from the public eye and came back being like, “You want me to be the villain? The snake? Fine.” Look What You Made Me Do, as I mentioned before, was the perfect choice for the first single despite the song itself being sonically....not the best. The music video and the line about how the old Taylor couldn’t come to the phone was an iconic moment in pop culture, I have to admit that.

I didn’t listen to the album as a whole until later, though. I was having my own hang-ups about Taylor that I think are silly now, but at the time when I didn’t like an artist I would mostly avoid their work. When I did listen to the album, though, I thought it was... okay. There’s one standout track to me and that is Getaway Car, and it’s the only song from Reputation I can say I fully adore to pieces. The other songs on there I either just like, or I find to be meh at best. (Also I know Ready For It is objectively a bad song but I really enjoy the chorus, don’t @ me, @ god)

A few years later, Lover happened and.... Once again, horrible first single. ME! is a genuinely atrocious song, and I have no idea how esteemed, prolific songwriter Taylor Swift managed to reach a point where she had a song with the phrase “spelling is fun!” in it. I feel the exact same way about this song as I do about Shake It Off. It had no business being in the album whatsoever.

As far as Lover the album goes, this came out around the time where I was kind of feeling indifferent toward Taylor (which is hilarious if you know what the first track on it is). I was much more politically aware and had learned not to put too much faith in white women, and I was focusing on other artists so much that Lover barely even came onto my radar. I listened to it once, thought it was meh, and moved on. I revisited it earlier this year and realized I was a bit too harsh on it the first time around. Sure it was her weakest album overall, but it wasn’t bad by any means. It was perfectly alright, and there were songwriting moments within it that were still quite strong. The title track and also Miss Americana comes to mind as standouts.

She started to become more vocal politically around this time. A lot of people thought it was too little too late, which was a fair point. However to me it made sense that she stayed tight-lipped about politics when she was younger, considering she was operating within the realm of country music. Plus, upon watching her documentary, it was pretty clear she had old white men behind the scenes telling her what she should or shouldn’t say, to make sure she maintained that all-American country girl sweetheart image. Still, I do agree with the people who thought that she should’ve used her platform sooner.

Oh and for the record, I think You Need to Calm Down is a terrible song. The video was cute, and the message behind it is fine, but I just hate it sonically.

At this point my interest in Taylor was probably at an all time low. The era started off strong with 1989, but it progressively got weaker. She just wasn’t really giving me much in terms of lyricism, and her pop productions were starting to blend together to the point where a lot of them were sounding very same-y. Lover to me marked the point of stagnation in her music; it was solid enough, but it just wasn’t going anywhere. We’ve seen Pop Taylor, she was cute for a while, but what else? Where does she go from here?

Well... She went into the woods.

Part 4: The Cottagecore Sisters

When I heard about Taylor dropping a surprise album, I suppose I was intrigued. She is one of the few artists that are successful enough to be able to make a move like that and cause a lot of buzz and excitement. I didn’t think much about it though, because my 2020 at that time was still inundated with SAWAYAMA and Ungodly Hour on repeat. On a whim, though, I decided to listen to it one day, not expecting much out of it.

Earlier when I was talking about her country era, I mentioned that Taylor’s storytelling and her penchant for detailed descriptions were my favorite parts of her writing. Her innate ability to transport me into other worlds, to provide escapism when my life became too much to deal with. I feel like these aspects were missing in the several years that Taylor focused on pop music. There were flashes of it in some of her later work, sure, but very few. She was becoming a huge mega superstar and her songs started to lose that sense of relatability that had been easy for me to latch on too. These things definitely contributed to my loss of interest for her work in general.

And then Folklore managed to bring me back to that place of fantasy I described before, but heightened. Elevated. Evolved. This is why I think that Folklore is Taylor Swift’s magnum opus.

Storytelling is without a doubt her strongest skill as an artist. To be able to construct not just a narrative but an entire world through songs is not something anyone can pull off. Throughout her pop era, there was always that something missing because I knew that she was capable of more. I couldn’t explain it well back then, but despite her penmanship still being commendable during those years, it still felt oddly lackluster. I knew she could do better, but I didn’t have the proof yet.

This is it. Both Folklore and Evermore showcase exactly what I knew she was capable of. This is Taylor Swift at her most creative, at her full power.

I think in a recent interview I watched (though I can’t remember which one), even she herself acknowledged how it would’ve been a disservice to continue strictly writing autobiographical songs, and so she decided to write from the perspectives of multiple different characters while also occasionally inserting herself and her life experiences into these narratives. She essentially created her own folklore and managed to make me invested in characters that don’t even exist.

I have to talk about the love triangle trilogy: cardigan, august and betty. It’s a testament to her songwriting ability that these fictional characters feel like real people. The story of Betty, James and Augusta/Augustine is just so well done to the point where I forget that it’s Taylor Swift singing. When I listen to these songs, I am fully imagining the characters she conjured up. 

The song that I find the most profound out of the three, and also happens to be my favorite song on the album, is august. To me, it is the most heartbreaking song out of all of them. I relate so much to that girl who’s hopelessly in love with someone that just doesn’t give a shit about them and is merely using her for a summer fling. And it’s not even like I’ve experienced something similar to this in real life, Taylor just somehow made it relatable with the sheer power of her pen game. It’s even more heartbreaking considering we don’t know what happened to this girl, if she ever managed to find happiness, because in the Long Pond Sessions Taylor mentioned that Betty and James eventually got back together. They got their happy ending, but what happened to Augustine?

I can’t believe she’s got me this deep in my feelings over non-existent teenagers, I swear to god.

Just when I thought Folklore was going to be the end of this new side of her for a while, she releases Evermore in December, its sister album. While I don’t think it’s quite as strong as Folklore, it still delivered immensely in terms of lyricism, productions and vocals. Evermore’s release pretty much solidified the realization that I was basically becoming a Swiftie again, a whole decade later.

I was embarrassed by that thought at first, but honestly now I’m at a point where I don’t think there’s anything to be embarrassed about. Taylor is too skilled of a songwriter for me to consider her a guilty pleasure. I just needed something to help me come to that conclusion, and these two albums did just that. She finally gave to me what I was waiting for.

Final Thoughts

I don’t really stan artists the same way I used to now, which I mentioned previously in my review of Chromatica. I don’t deify them or hold them to an impossible moral standard they could never live up to anymore. I see them as flawed human beings that have the capacity to make great art. So when I say I’m becoming a Swiftie, I’m still fully aware that Taylor Swift is a thirty-one year old rich white woman who is bound to have shortcomings and missteps as a person. In my mind, she hasn’t done anything drastic enough or stupid enough for me to become uncomfortable in listening to her work. I had my own ideas about how she could’ve been fake, conniving, manipulative or whatever else the media was trying to convey about her, but there really is no way of knowing who she truly is as a person.

Celebrities and influencers have the power to curate their image however they want. The relationships they have with us, the audience, are entirely parasocial, so of course we base our judgments of them based on very limited knowledge, or just the surface-level view of what they’re like. I don’t know if Taylor is as down to earth and genuine as she appears to be now, and I honestly don’t need to know. If she does things I disagree with or acts a certain way that deserves criticism, of course I’d still call her out, and depending on the severity of what it was she said or did, it might end up with me not wanting to engage with her work anymore.

But the reality is, as a person, I’ve realized that she is just fine. I was holding on to a certain idea of her in my head where I think at one point I dubbed her “the Anne Hathaway of music”, meaning someone that comes across too perfect to the point where it seems calculated and disingenuous. But honestly, I just don’t feel that way about her anymore. I don’t feel particularly attached to her as a person, either. 

But I do feel an attachment to her music. At the end of the day, that’s where I’m standing now when it comes to her. I don’t have any expectations or delusions about her as a human being, and I’m not going to remain devoted to her if she does something dumb, but I believe that she is an insanely gifted artist who has written so many songs that genuinely speak to me and make me feel intensely. She lost me for a while, but now I’m right back in it.

So yeah, like I said in the beginning of the post, life’s too short to pretend to hate Taylor Swift. I’d rather just pretend to live in a mystical small town as a sad gay witch. And I’m at peace with that.

[lubbuthedigitalnomad]

A PERFECT PLACE

Happy Bob Marley BD (it was Feb. 6), Tibetan New Year (Feb. 12) and Valentine’s Day week! I hope you and yours are happy and healthy. Communications from America say that things are a little less crazy now that the election is over. That’s good. Even the most pro-American Asians were thinking we went a little wacky!

With any luck, folks in the USA will continue to take deep breaths and calm down. With a little effort, things will become less hateful and more loving as both the reds and blues start to realize that working together is the only way things will ever work at all. With that sentiment in mind, this week’s 1000 words are from the Fearless Puppy On American Road book, and about a time and place that remembers the more beautiful part of the American experience.

Once something changes, it can never go all the way back to what it was. In many ways, that is a good thing. We can preserve some better parts of the life we already had while allowing room for new and improved ideas. Insisting that both those new ideas, and the parts preserved from the old, are employed as actual improvements that benefit the vast majority of us has become the non-negotiable, essential responsibility of each and every citizen. Like it or not, it seems we will have to stay actively, consciously, and intelligently involved in order to insure success.

Please be well & stay well. Love, Tenzin and the Nepali Crew

FEARLESS PUPPY WEBSITE BLOG

FEARLESS PUPPY ON AMERICAN ROAD/AMAZON PAGE

REINCARNATION THROUGH COMMON SENSE/AMAZON PAGE

FEARLESS PUPPY ON AMERICAN ROAD WEBSITE

Rural Vermont

Helpfulness. Tribalism at its best. Everyone works together on everything. Lives depend upon each other in temperatures well below zero.

Hitchhiking is no longer just getting from here to there while barely knowing my host. Nearly every ride establishes or increases a friendship.

More cows per square mile than people, more open space than cows, and more forest than open space. Pronounced seasons and cycles. Cold, white winters. Muddy springs. Vibrant green summers pulsating with life that knows it only has a few months to do what needs to get done. Rainbow autumnal foliage so brilliant that guests come from continents away to view it. Streams clean enough to drink from.

Eggs come from happy chickens — not from the cruelty of large “animal production” warehouses.

Everyone waves hello to anyone driving by.

There’s always time to speak with whomever you meet at the General Store or Post Office. There’s always time. No hurry. Life comes first. Being is more important than doing (once the doing gets done).

The only store in town is the size of five closets but has everything — food, hardware, videos, clothing, beer, and more. A giant empty cable spool acts as a table around which to enjoy coffee, home- made donuts, and the company of neighbors. A best friend makes maple syrup. Everyone grows incredible gardens.

I have spent a lot of time with four other people and five beers staring into the open hood of a pickup truck that was not in need of repair.

Wood keeps you warm three times — once when you chop it, again when you carry it in, and the third time when you burn it. Overflowing abundance lives here. Some folks want more. Few need more.

Theater groups that produce professional-quality plays thrive in the forests of nearby vest-pocket towns.

The purity and clarity of omnipresent Nature rubs off on its human inhabitants. Crime, violence, and assorted hatreds appear only in newspapers and on TV stations. No one here has seen those things in person.

The Town Treasurer has a sign on his office explaining, “It’s very hard to get away with anything in a town this small.” Live and let live. If it hurts no one, it’s legal.

Resourcefulness is a way of life. Anything you need can be built from left over parts of things that you don’t need anymore. If you don’t know how, someone will show you. They’ll be happy to help — even happier if you bring a beer to say hello and thank you.

Deer hunters and trout fishermen deny slaughterhouses and corporate supermarket chains their abuses and profits. Unprocessed foods, hard exercise, low stress, clean air, and clean water deny the medical industry their profits from unnecessary surgery and drugs.

Awe inspiring natural beauty excludes land developers and their profit-over-people motivation. Their concrete and steel are not welcome here. The industrial decay that would lead to profits for a large assortment of unethical folks in fancy suits is denied entry by the conscious decisions of simple, intelligent farmers in overalls.

There will never be a Wal-Mart or a crack house here. There are many guns. They are never used for anything but hunting food. People are constantly helping each other to build a barn or house, dig out snow and mud, care for the children, cook, clean, weed the garden, and feed the animals. Anything that can be done at all is usually done by a group, even if it’s actually a one-person job. Folks enjoy each other’s company. Except in the most extreme circumstances, everyone deserves inclusion.

Parties get thrown together instantly for no other reason than that someone feels like being the host.

On a Tuesday, my friend Mike told me that he was having a party at his house on the following Saturday.

“What’s the occasion, Mike?”

“The occasion is that I just came up with the bright idea of having a party. I’ll get out a side of venison and buy a keg of beer. Tell everyone you see to tell everyone they see. If anyone wants to bring more food and drink, that’s good. If not, we’ll be fine with what we’ve got, I figure.”

“OK, Mike. I’ll get everyone but the assholes informed.”

“Inform the assholes too, buddy! Who knows? Maybe if they got invited to more parties, they’d figure out how to act better and wouldn’t be such assholes.”

It was hard to argue with Mike’s logic, but then again it is hard to argue with much of anything in a clean, friendly village.

During those years of having a home community and base station, a lot of work got done elsewhere. Rest time there made hitchhiking across nearly every inch of road in Northeastern America possible. I probably hitchhiked as many miles regionally during this period as the number of miles that were traveled in all the previous cross-country trips. Each full month of whistle stops working for environmental groups and charities included many towns and cities. It included talking to independent business folks all day about various causes, sleeping wherever possible, and celebrating whenever plausible. At the end of road tours like that, staring at mountains in between long naps was more of a necessity than an option. It is a lot easier to burn yourself up on the road when you know that a perfect place to revive is waiting for you.

The focal points of the road binges included Greenpeace, Citizen’s Awareness Network, and self-organized efforts to help support a Mexican orphanage, raise awareness and funding for American homeless folks, and help the victims of a very severe African famine. The results varied. My little part as a team member in the environmental efforts worked consistently for over a decade at each. The orphanage and homeless projects I organized worked minimally. The famine relief effort worked very well. It involved a governor, two senators, labor unions, school systems, businesses, major league sports teams, rock bands, and more. Thousands of people in the Northeastern section of America gave massive help.

This is a short chapter, but it covers a long period of years. Eventually, my good friend who allowed me this cabin in paradise had to liquidate his properties. This put me back out on the street at age fifty. But for a while, my life was as close to normal as it had ever been. It included long term friends and neighbors.

Those years seem to have gone by very quickly.​

About the Author

Doug “Ten” Rose may be the biggest smartass as well as one of the most entertaining survivors of the hitchhiking adventurers that used to cover America’s highways. He is the author of the books Fearless Puppy on American Road and Reincarnation Through Common Sense, has survived heroin addiction and death, and is a graduate of over a hundred thousand miles of travel without ever driving a car, owning a phone, or having a bank account.

Ten Rose and his work are a vibrant part of the present and future as well as an essential remnant of a vanishing breed.

Follow him on Facebook, Doug Ten Rose

Travel Adventure Books can be an excellent gift to your friends and family, buy from Amazon.com

#traveladventurebooks #keepreading #kindlebooks

The books Fearless Puppy On American Road and Reincarnation Through Common Sense by this same author are also available through Amazon or the Fearless Puppy website, where there are sample chapters from those books. Entertaining TV/radio interviews with and newspaper articles about the author are also available there. There is no charge for anything but the complete books! All author profits from book sales will be donated to help sponsor an increase in the number of wisdom professionals on Earth, beginning with but certainly not limited to Buddhist monks and nuns.

If you missed the Introduction to the new book that will be titled Temple Dog Soldier, or would like to see several chapters of it that are available for free online, go to the Puppy website Blog section. This is a book in progress. You will be reading it as it is being created! Just like you, I don’t know what the next chapter is going to be about until it is written. As the Intro will tell you, this is a totally true story — and probably the only book ever written by and about a corpse journeying completely around the world!

[wolfpawn]

I Hate You, I Love You, Chapter 99

Chapter Summary -  Tom and Danielle continue their holiday. When they are spotted at a tourist attraction, Tom is slightly surprised at Danielle's reaction.

Previous Chapter

Rating - Mature (some chapters contain smut)

Triggers - references to Tom Hiddleston’s work with the #MeToo Movement. That chapter will be tagged accordingly.

authors Note - I have been working on this for the last 3 years, it is currently 180+ chapters long.  This will be updated daily, so long as I can get time to do so, obviously.

tags: @sweetkingdomstarlight-blog​​​ @jessibelle-nerdy-mum​​​ @nonsensicalobsessions​​​ @damalseer​​​ @hiddlesbitch1​​​ @winterisakiller​​​ @fairlightswiftly​​​ @salempoe​​​​ @wolfsmom1​​​​

If you wish to be tagged, please let me know.

The Burren

Tom stared at the landscape in front of him and inhaled deeply, taking in the sight in front of him, when he turned to look at Danielle, he smiled. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” She smiled back, looking over at an island a mere few kilometres from the shore.

“It’s incredible.” He agreed. “I had no idea there was something this beautiful over here.” “Why do you think people make Ireland their ‘Holiday of a lifetime’ spot? Wait until I show you the rest.” “The rest?” He asked, worriedly.

“Yes, this is only a part of it.” She explained with a smile. “Do you want to head back to the car?” “I can drive if you want?” He offered, noting how much he had been slacking on driving on their trip. “No, I know the roads better and you get to look and see the scenery.” “Speaking of driving, you’re really at ease driving a big car.” Danielle looked at him with a raised brow. “I thought you were uneasy with it, and that is why you would not drive mine.”

“No, I won’t drive that because it’s a sixty-thousand-pound car.”

“It’s a car and you are a safe driver.” Tom pointed out. “You will need to drive it sometime.” “What possible reason could I have to drive it?” “In the case of an emergency,” Tom suggested light-heartedly.

Danielle laughed as she got back into the car. “What sort of emergency requires me driving the Jag? If we go to some fancy event at a Polo Club and it’s either that or a Bentley?” Tom laughed at her as he sat back into the car. “No, seriously, ‘it’s an emergency, someone get this old rich dude to the hospital, preferably a private one, he is having an allergic reaction, a peasant touched him, he’s in anaphylactic shock, we have an ex-paramedic, she can take him, but we only have Hiddleston’s Jag or Montague’s Bentley Continental’.”

Tom just laughed as she put on a ridiculous upper-class British accent. “Very funny.” Danielle grinned at him. “I thought so.” “You never plan on driving it?” “Nope.”

“This is a BMW and you are driving it.” He indicated to the car they were in, one that Danielle was less than impressed to see waiting for them in the airport after Tom had stated that he would arrange the hire car.

“Yes, well, I was unaware of your idea of a rental, seriously, a Kia Cee’d would have sufficed.” “They have terrible legroom.” Tom pointed out. “The last visit gave me cramp.” “Okay, I’ll give you that.” Danielle conceded. “By the way, tell me when you see the sign for the perfumery, I want to get some more perfume for your mum.” “How will we get it home, you can’t bring liquids through customs.” “I’ll do what I always do, post it over.” Danielle shrugged. “How do you think I always got you that fancy Jameson for Christmas?” “I knew it was not available over home, I could never find it anywhere,” he declared.

“Yeah, we keep the best for ourselves,” Danielle smirked.

“It’s ten kilometres ahead.” Tom pointed out as he noted the sign for the small perfume place that Danielle had asked him to keep an eye out for.

*

Poulnabrone Dolmen

“So, there were people buried under this?” “Yep, thirty-three adults and children.” “That’s incredible,” Tom looked at the dolmen in front of him, “Do we have any?”

“I think there is literally a handful, this was sort of an Irish clan thing.” “Amazing.” He smiled enthusiastically as he walked cautiously around the structure, not wanting to fall and injure himself on the peculiar ground. “How do you know all about this?” “My dad brought me around here more times than I can count, we spent every other year in Lahinch for a week.” “Lahinch?” “A surfing town not far from here.”

“Surfing, you can surf?”

“I did lessons as a teenager, only for something to do, never really liked it though.” “I was not aware of that,” Tom confessed. “I did it when I was in Hawaii for Thanksgiving since of course, such a holiday was wasted on me, I felt somewhat similar, it did not really entice me to want to continue.” *

Incoming call – Luke

Tom pressed the answer button on his phone, frowning slightly at what his friend could want. “Luke?” “So, how is Ireland, it looks as though it could rain.” The publicist spoke as though it was a simple conversation.

“We’ve been noticed I take it?” “Well, I have Googled the top attractions in that entire country and it is arguably the winner as to most visited slash the greatest must-see, so it is no surprise you were spotted,” Luke commented.

“What are they saying?” “That you chose to let the public know beforehand to be hoping for some privacy. That it is the Swift and Rome thing all over again,” Tom’s jaw clenched at that, “But the general consensus is that you are the cutest pairing since, well, whatever is deemed cute these days.” There was no response for a moment. “Tom?” “So you are telling me that people are not attacking Elle?” “Of course there are people attacking her Tom, she is your girlfriend, there are people saying they want to push her off the fucking Cliff, but to say they are the minutest of minorities and that people are rounding on them or ignoring them is an understatement.” Tom swallowed at Luke’s words that some people would willingly say such a terrible thing about Danielle. “Jesus.” “Tom, you knew that these people were out there, so does Danielle, they are keyboard warrior’s, the most they ever do is spit venom online, you know to ignore them.” “I know, but Danielle…” “Is a big girl and stronger willed than most any other woman you have ever looked at.” Luke pointed out. “Can she hear us?” “No, she is gone to the bathroom.” “Are you going to tell her?” “I am not sure.” Tom felt wrong for considering telling Danielle, but at the same time, he was certain no one ever wanted to hear that other people who did not know them would want to be pushed off a huge Cliff. “What is the person who wrote it, to begin with, saying?” “Just that they saw you and your new girlfriend at the Cliffs of Moher, I am not sure I pronounced that correctly, and that you look like a normal couple, that Danielle is shorter than they expected and that you are wearing those grey shoes.” “Really?” “Yes, I have read more comments on those shoes in the past year than your acting.” Luke sounded bemused on the phone. Tom chuckled. “There was no malice and no threatening words in their comment, just that they saw you.” “No pictures?” “Just one, sort of a ‘proof’ one, it is grainy and taken with zoom yet still far enough away, there are people around you both and you are looking at Danielle while she is speaking, nothing odd.” Luke rambled off, though it was clear he was focusing on the picture in front of him for details as he spoke.

“Okay, they won’t go accosting her so.” “If someone says something to Danielle, she will not be the victim, she will tear them asunder. I had the guys go through the page, the person seems harmless, a big Marvel fan, they met Evans before, got an autograph, nothing creepy.” “Good.” Tom saw Danielle coming back to him. “Thanks for the call, Luke.” “Enjoy your holiday, I will keep you posted on everything that comes up.” “Please do.” Tom smiled as Danielle looked at him as though contemplating giving him the space to finish his phone call. “Take care, Luke.” He hung up. “Sorry.” “What is it?” Tom looked at her, feigning ignorance. “You said it was Luke, is everything okay?” “We were spotted, just someone noticed us and put it online.” “Okay.” She shrugged and walked on.

Tom stared at her in disbelief, “Are you okay with that?” “I have to be, it’s done and nothing I say or do will change that,” Danielle stated as though it was obvious. “What do you expect me to say?” “Nothing, I just…” Tom kept in step with her as they walked a little further along the path. “I thought you would be more upset, I know you said you wanted to keep away from that.” “Well, we did come to the largest attraction in Ireland, so it is not like we can say we are shocked someone spotted us.” Danielle laughed. “As long as no one gets in my face with a camera, I am okay with it, because there is nothing I can do about it.” She pointed out as she looked out across the water, the wind blowing the free strands of hair that had escaped her ponytail off her face as she did so.

* Tom had to agree, the B&B was a lovely spot, quiet and tranquil as they placed their bags on the ground next to their bed. As soon as Danielle placed her phone on the bedside locker, he brushed up against her. “What are your plans for the next half hour?” he gently kissed her neck as his hands snaked around her waist. “Get a shower and throw a cold bucket of water on you apparently.” She jested, but she leant into his touch. “Why?” “I am craving you.” He gently tugged at the hem of her hoodie.

“We need to get dinner.” Danielle scolded. “I am hungry.” Tom gave a slight growl. “Behave.” “Or what?” “I’ll have to spank you.” Tom looked at her, slightly aghast. “What do you think of that?” she grinned. “I know you love me digging my heels into that incredible ass when you are pounding into me, I think you actually make the sexiest sounds if I smack it slightly as you…” She giggled as Tom pushed her onto the bed, she turned with a wicked grin on her face as she noted the wild glint in his eyes, telling her that her teasing had the desired effect. “Or maybe we should test how good the walls really are.”

Lahinch

Leminagh Castle

Dungaire Castle

The Burren is an odd landscape unique to County Clare Ireland. Lahinch is a holiday village in Ireland, renowned for its surfing. Poulnabrone is an Iron Age burial site. The Cliffs of Moher is Ireland's premier attraction and almost made the list for the Seven Wonders of the World, I think it is number 8/9.

I do not own any of the images, but I am lucky enough to have lived a mere 1-1.5 hours away from the furthest one of them. These would all of been places Tom and Danielle would have seen on their drive from Galway down through Clare.