#and polluting more from that than every flight I’ve ever taken

[radkindoffeminist]

Every now and then, I feel like a bad environmentalist. I’ve never considered myself an avid environmentalist, but sustainability is something I’ve considered more over the past 2-3 years and I have been trying to ensure that I am more considerate with my purchases, only buying something to replace items which have run out/can no longer be used or items which I am going to use. I look after what I have and sew up clothes until I basically can’t get a single wear without it falling apart. But I’m not a perfect person. I probably have more clothes than I realistically need/items I should probably get rid of, I do still buy most of my clothes from Shien so I do end up sewing up some pieces quite a lot (though others have been really good!), I have duplicates of some items which I probably didn’t need duplicates of, I have a couple of items I just collect for fun and have no ‘practical’ use in my life, and I still go on holidays which people would consider to be unsustainable/damaging (a few flights, one cruise, etc).

But then I go on TikTok and I see people clearing out the stuff from periods in their life when they over consumed.

I saw one woman who cleared out her purses of which she had like two dozen and decided that 6 was enough. I think I’ve had 3 in the past decade? I replaced one because I thought that I lost it, had another one I think all through university, and then my current one I replaced when I started my new job because that old purchase was falling apart.

I saw the same women and another clearing out their collections of hand sanitiser key rings/holders. One had maybe 30; one over a hundred with lots of duplicate. One cleared out to 8; one to around 60 if not more. I think I had two at my peak - one for my uni/laptop bag; one for my backpack which I mainly used for going to the shops.

I saw another clear out their makeup bags. Must have been like 50 and she kept half of them, justifying that some are pretty and some do get use when she travels. I think I have like 4 and all of them were gifted to me.

I see people with shelves full of bags like loungflies or other name brands. One woman was showing off the collection of about a dozen bags she had just for the Halloween season! Meanwhile, I felt bad buying a tote bag from one of my favourite theatre shows (which I now use whenever I go to the theatre) because I have other tote bags (all given to me, mostly from uni taster days and have started to clear out a little) and felt weird having to get a new laptop bag because my work laptop didn’t fit into my work bag or uni laptop bag.

I’ve been trying to look after my curly hair properly and gotten a little into perfume too. I watch all of these content creators have a dozen types of shampoos, conditioners, curl creams, gels, and foams. Meanwhile, I am just trying to use what I currently have, only order to replace what I have, and felt a little odd having two different gels which I alternate between now and then.

I’ve also been getting more into perfume/smelling nice. I saw multiple TikTokers with walls full of full-sized perfume bottles, with one saying that their collection was like 1000 bottles. Meanwhile, I’m wondering if I’d be consuming too much if I have one perfume which is work-place safe and one or two perfumes which I use at weekends/going out because I like them.

I could go on and on about the masses of collections that people have vs how I’ve felt to have more than one of the items. As I said, I do have a couple of collections where I admit that I consumed more than average, though one is DVDs which I’ve purchased almost exclusively second hand. I am not a perfect person and I do often feel bad for not being the perfect environmentalist. But it is so difficult to actively try to be better (not just continue at my normal consumption which is typically replace when required anyway) when you’ve got one side pushing you to try to be perfect and constantly telling you to be better, if not just attacking you for failing and then on the other side having people consuming more than you possibly can within a lifetime as a collection so it’s difficult to see how your extra item here or small collection there is a problem compared to that level of hyper consumerism.

[minshookie]

All Play, No Work. Pt two

Pairing | CEO!Yoongi x reader

Genre |angst, dark themed, yandere, gore.

Summary | “ Eunji just couldn’t play nice, firing her just wouldn’t be enough.”

!Warnings! 18+, yandere Yoongi, character death, descriptive scenes, murder scene, infidelity.

| this is not in anyway shape or form a true depiction or representation of BTS, this is a work of fiction and is not to be taken seriously. For entertainment purposes only.|

(this is my work, please don’t repost or steal)

Requested [request closed] words 3k

A/N : link to part 1 I hope this is enjoyable!! Unedited but I will edit soon.

“Yoongi, don’t talk so drastically...it was just a joke.” He heaved deeply, gripping the door handle severely. “It can’t be a joke every time y/n she’s done worse before, her and her husband.” Sighing, unsure if it was safe to touch him you put your hand on the handle next to his. “Min, they hate me because you love me, if you want it resolved maybe we should lay low...take something like a break?” Of course you didn’t mean it, but the complications at work were becoming a bit detrimental.

His head turned at lighting speed, with a look of disgust almost. “Break? You can’t be serious don’t ever say something like that again, and I’ll do what I please, we should we hide ourselves she’ll start waking around with her head high like she won.” He let go of the handle leaning against the door looking deeply into you. “I’ll fire her.” You rolled your eyes “Yoongi please she needs to work.” “Stop being so damn sweet, this is the same person that soiled your clothes, cracks jokes about you...she bullies you she should’ve been out of here.” He put his hand in his pocket, checking his watch on his other wrist. “We’re almost done for the day anyway... you go to my place without me I’ll meet you there.” Taking his watch clad hand in yours, you could tell he was still furious.

“Alright if you insist, but what’ll you be doing yoongs?” You attempted to turn the atmosphere playful. “Baby, you insist on disobeying my requests.” Chuckles dryly. “I’ll be talking to Kim, and Lucy.” “Lucy, why?” “I’m giving her Kim’s position, a promotion.” He leans swiftly pecking your cheek before opening the door for you both to exit, not giving you a chance at questioning him further. He follows closely behind all eyes on you, a grimace on Eunji’s features. It’s like you had a fat red target right in the middle of your face. “Actually, why don’t you just head out now.” Yoongi mumbled before leaving your side, quickly heading to his office his fist curled in a rough grip.

You hung your head low like a shy school girl, going to collect your bag and belongings from your cubicle. Only to find Jimin completing the papers you’d left. “Heading home miss Raman booty?” He mumbled without turning, a pen between his teeth, his fingers typing with stealth. “I hate you Jimin.” Laughing he let the pen fall, leaning in the chair finally facing you. “You ok?” You nodded giving a warm smile. “Good, here’s your thousand dollar sack.” He handed you your purse, he’s full of jokes today, you responded with a low chuckle. “Wait before you go, whats the 411 on the bosses mood?” “Mm angry, go in quickly and quietly and leave the same way.” He nodded going back to the computer, “Ah, so not the day for pay increase forms? Gotcha.” You laughed before walking away, ready to be rid of the grimy feeling you were getting from work today.

Avoiding eye contact, you focus on the rythmatic clicking of your pumps until you entered the silver elevator. Leaning against the glass window you watched as you descended through the building. Finally meeting the last floor quickly freeing yourself sighing one more trek to take, that being into the parking garage. Silent and eerie, it oddly relaxed you you found your car quickly. It’s always there right next to Yoongi’s ever since the first day you started.

The thought warmed you, feelings of your boyfriends love floating around you. Hopping in your car you threw the gifted purse in the back seat, just before you could start up your phone rang, Yoongi of course. “Hey Yoongi” ”Ah, you sound happier already.” Reclining your seat you sighed. “I was thinking of you.” He hummed in approval. “Cute, hm I do the same to calm myself...thinking of you of course.” Giggling you responded “reason for calling?” “I wanted to say I love you, and I want you to go straight home.” He orders blandly. “Tsk I wanted to shop a bit.” You joke putting your seat back into position. “Y/n straight home, no questions.” “Yeah I heard you Daddy.” You joked starting your vehicle. “Good, I’ll see you soon, love you...say it back.” “I love you Yoongi, of course.” He sighed softly, checking your surroundings you pulled back waiting for him to hang up. “Alright bye...Jimin get out.” The phone call ended.

Relaxed you drove through your city, it’s a bit later in the day the faces of people passing linger in your mind. A soft tune plays from the radio, resting at a light your eyes wandered to the beagle place Yoongi always insists on getting breakfast from. His friends little hole in the wall. Letting your mind wander, he really is a romantic. Finishing the length of the trip you finally reach your destination, a discreet apartment on the edge of town with a not so discreet price. Reaching for your purse you got out of the car, frankly mentally and physically exhausted. “Mrs min! Welcome back!” You’re warmly greeted at the door, “no still y/l/n,good afternoon.” Warmly you smile thanking him for opening the door, yet another elevator to take you where you needed to be.

On the home stretch, trudging towards the door unlocking it you fumbled inside sighing taking in his scent that floated about. With your eyes closed you dropped your bag shuffling to the couch. Kicking off the shoes you let gravity take over thumping onto the firm furniture. The light jingling, made a smile spread on your lips. “Is that my best boy!?” You opened your eyes, greeted with Min Holly his coffee colored paws giving you pets on your head. “My Beautiful little one.” Kissing him on the temple, and gifting him to a few pets and scratches he was satisfied with your greeting he let you be at rest.

Pulling from the couch, you fulfilled the routine of grabbing a snack and skipping upstairs to shower. Stripping you ventured Yoongi’s bedroom in the nude, in search for the clothes you’d left there. Giving up you opted for a pair of briefs and a t-shirt.

Finishing the shower, you cuddled into bed wallowing on the plush mattress in search of a comforting position, engulfing your senses in Yoongi’s scent. Turing on the tv you rolled over, the bed felt cold without your cuddle baby. “Hmm Holly! C’mere little boy!” Joyously he ran in jumping next to you cuddling into your warm side. “We’ll nap and wait for Daddy huh?”

NOW READING FROM: Yoongi’s point of view.

“Are you sure Min, I mean I’m flattered but I just started about a month ago-” I held up my hand to stop her nervous speech. “I’m positive, I’ve observed your work ethic I’m sure you could keep up Lucy, the pay is great the work is easy....more time to speak to Jungkook hm?” Her cheeks blushed light rose at the mention of his name. “But what about uhm..Eunji?” She spoke of her coworker in hushed tones,like she was some sort of demon.

“Kim Eunji has been polluting our work area, making others feel uncomfortable...and uncomfortable means less work getting done, I’ll see about her don’t worry.” Toying with her manicured fingers, such a shy girl, “so what’s your answer?” She sighed brushing a stray hair behind her ear, “Mr Min, when do I start?” She held a coy smile, slowly looking up to make eye contact. “Ah! Smart girl!” I distributed my hand for her to shake in agreement. “You’ll start Monday, we’ll have it all sorted by then.” Nodding she let go of my hand, “thank you Mr Min.” “Of course Lucy I know I won’t regret it, enjoy your night sorry for keeping you late.” Now almost all of her face had a glow of blush, “oh it’s fine Mr Min I don’t mind I didn’t have anything to do tonight anyways, how a-” “ask Eunji to come in for me please, Good night Lucy thank you.”

Shutting up he gave a quick smile and nod before leaving quicker than she came. Eunji pranced in almost eagerly a subtle smirk playing on her cherry lips. “It’s late Yoongi I have to get home.” “Home to what...a cold shower and empty bed? Come sit.” I smirked as she complied, “what do you want Min...if you’re looking for apologies you wont-” “I just wanted to talk to you.” She shut her painted lips, nodding giving me room to speak.

“You’ve been acting out Kim, and I think I know why.” She folded her arms defensively humming a response. “Oh yeah?” Her cocky tone only deepened my concealed rage. “You’re missing someone, your husband maybe?” She rolled her eyes, poking her tongue along her cheek. “What about it?” She began to toy with the small figurines that decorated my desk. “Well, he misses you too...I’ve made the decision to let you go if you’d like.”

“It isn’t time for him to come back, he’s been on the trip for months.” She mumbles smiling down at a framed picture of Holly. Scoffing I took the image back, “Joon, he likes it there he’s been having issues contacting you so he’s said....but he’s made the choice to transfer and stay at the location.” She looked intensely Into my eyes, confused yet gullible.

“He’s gotten a good place, he wants to move you there...he misses you more than you know, and the way you’ve been acting out of line I think you feel the same.” She huffs, nodding slowly. “Alright, you’ll treat my flight the same you did his?” Greedy little bitch...“yes, paid and full, you’ll be able to contact him at the airport hm?” Finally a soft smile spreads her lips, she huffs a low chuckle. “Really?” “Would you like to see the messages and paperwork?”

In hopes she’d say no I still pulled open the side drawer, a single word held her fate as I gripped the heavy weapon. It would be messy and against the plan if she’d decided to take this route. “No..no, why would you lie about sending me on all expenses paid long term vacation.” I smirked nodding while closing the drawer. “So you’ve agreed to joining him?” Sighing she tamed wisps of her dark hair, raking the back into her loose ponytail.

I pushed the legal paper forward a ballpoint rests atop of it. “When do I leave, do I get a chance to say goodbye?” She mumbles leaving her signature along the dotted spaces. Goodbye? Who would want to farewell a she-demon like you. “I’m afraid not, your flight is scheduled for tomorrow 7AM...you should get home actually.” I checked my timepiece briefly.

She stood silently, “ah ah wait, Eunji...it’s late you’re tired allow me to drive you home.” She furrows her brows, giving a suspicious look. “I’ll miss you Kim, you were one of the first people here you and Namjoon.” She lowered herself in the seat her expression now compassionate.

I didn’t lie, Eunji was exhausted...the bags under her eyes almost frightening. She was once the best dressed, best looking, and best worker here. Jealousy had eaten her, and the absence of her Lover only made her worse. “Ah Min, you won’t miss me...you’re sending me away to protect your little hook up, she moan like I used to?” My cheeks began to redden, “no, her’s are better.” Guilt set in sourly. I lied right to y/n’s face to save my ass.

Kim Eunji had made me a liar, a cheater and a bad businessman...all the more reason for her fate. “Hm, if you say so.....how about we go to your place.” Her smirk detailed more than she’d let on. “One last time.” She’s always been scandalous, she could never learn a lesson, she’d never get enough. She saw an opportunity to finally sink her teeth into what she envied, and sinking her teeth is what she planned on doing.

“Tempting, can’t wait for mr kim huh?” I attempted to participate in her now lustful staring. “Hmm, you won’t make me will you?” I set free a chuckle, letting my fingertips glide my lip. “Your place, we can make it an all night thing...you can bring me to get my car in the morning.” She collected her expensive shoulder bag. “No, y/n is at my place, probably out cold by now....I’ll bring you somewhere with a romantic view, you’ll get back to your car tonight.” She frowned at the mention of her name, pulling her wisps of hair back.

“Fine, but don’t say her name anymore tonight.” Nodding I stood offering a hand to help her up and she refused with a bratty giggle, leaving the office. She removed her heels walking barefoot to the elevator, I paced hot on her trail, finally catching her as she stood idle in the spacious elevator.

The elevator couldn’t reach the final floor fast enough for me, she’d gotten comfortable the guilt of cheating on her husband nonexistent. Sighing in frustration eyeing my watch. She toyed with my fingers leaning against me, “why’d you replace me huh?” She pouted interlocking our fingers, her fridged rings kissed my skin harshly. “Excuse me?” She sighed, “we were messing around and you...found y/n.” I chuckled as the doors pulled open. “You were engaged...nothing more would’ve developed anyway.”

Eunji and I had held countless endeavors right under Namjoon’s nose, flirtatious, casual, sexual. But he was everything but oblivious, he was just lenient until he found out the depth of our friendship. So he decided to test the waters with y/n, it was extremely unacceptable. Eunji was engaged after all, I do have some self respect. I never replaced her, I just found someone I actually loved, someone who needed me and only me.

She only laughed at my reasoning, following me giddily to my car, I opened the passenger and let her inside. I already had her fate planned. She’d been the thorn in y/n’s side ever since she’d started, she’d come running to me in tears over the things Eunji would say...the things she’d do. They treated her like a rag doll the new girl fresh to adulthood, she knew nothing better than to follow and comply.

Eunji was given warning after warning, I hate firing people but for her I’d make an exception. But y/n she’s so sweet...it’ll kill her to know Eunji was walking around jobless because of her sensitivity. So what am I to do? I’ll just make her leave silently...on her own. I’ll make her disappear.

“Where are we going?” She pushed my knee aggressively, I’d zoned out completely roaming my thoughts a dangerous thing to do behind the wheel. Absentmindedly I’d driven past our false “date”, ultimately finding ourselves in the dark. “There is this bridge, it’s romantic y/n loves it.” I fibbed, how much of an idiot could I be...this mishaps could fuck everything I’d planned. I pulled onto said bridge, vacant, thankfully just how I needed it. I turned the car off, in pitch black I could feel her looking at me.

“Huh, what a view.” She quips, “well don’t be ungrateful.” The moment before the fall is always awkward, “hm...recline the seat.” She ordered, I personally didn’t enjoy her tone. I let my seat slowly fall back and she leaned over the center console. Blindly fiddling my pant buckle. Oh shit. Oh no. Waves of guilt washed over me at the simple thought of what she was attempting.

This had to be it, she’d made it to my briefs with ease, trailing her manicured fingers along my member. This had to happen now or the outcome I’d been planning would definitely go to shit. I put an end to her exploration, gripping the back of her neck with great force she mewled like a harmed animal. “F-fuck Min, feeling rough?”

No way would this be easy or clean in the car. “Shut up.” I gritted, now griping her hair making her whine and cry out. “P-please wait.” “What the fuck did I say?” Opening my door I pulled her from the car on my side. This needed to be quick and clean, this bridge was all too public and constantly frequented for me to be leaving a messy scene on.

What smart girl, she tried to escape only to be pained by my iron grip on her mane. “Why so scared...you wanted me right?” “M-m-Min! Please I’m sorry, tell her I’m sorry...sorry-so sorry.” I kicked the pit of her knee causing her to collapse on the cold gravel. “One sorry Bitch you are, I couldn’t even pay you to keep your mouth shut.”

“Think of all you did to that innocent woman...ruined her clothes, sent her on wild goose chases in a county she’s never been in, made her fall down the stairs, turned half the office against her...so evil you even made your sleazy husband her personal predator.” She sobbed pathetically, “w-what....he did-wait?” Of course she was unaware as any idiot would be.

I knelt mumbling in her ear. “He touched my fucking girlfriend for months on end...She was so ashamed do you know how much it took for her to come and tell me?” She gagged on her sobs, choking herself on her cries. “I’m sorry, I’ll quit I’ll leave-no need to do this I’ll be gone by tomorrow.”

She whispers letting her body go limp. She thinks it’s so easy. “You sure will.” I grumbled reaching to pull my tie from my back pocket. “You can’t do shit to me- Joon- Joon will be lo-” “Joon his fucking dead. This right here.” I kicked her down pressing my foot into her soft back, to keep her still. She struggled to breath with my weight on her back, I crouch looping the long tie around her neck she ceased from fighting back as I wrapped it around my hands as well. Pulling with my angered strength, “this is the fucking business trip...enjoy the flight whore.”

She stoped struggling all together, pulling the fabric as tight as I could, I made sure the deed was done. She quit breathing, the ceased the struggle. Violently making sure she was gone, before I stored her in the trunk. My hands shook, the rush made my figure quake, I did my best to climb into the drivers seat.

Starting the car, it’s best in mind to flee as fast as I arrived. He’ll be pissed to high heaven, but at this moment theirs only one person to call. I scanned the road feeling beyond the edge, unsure of my final destination. Finally he felt the need to answer “Min, Min Yoongi-ah it is too late to be calling me this way!” He croaked through the phone .

“Jimin, hm a bonus?” “Excuse me?” He shuffled, I couldn’t continue to circle around here “Jimin...I need your help.” I groaned, I’d have to find somewhere to go before someone saw me driving suspiciously. “I’ve made another mistake....a messy one.” He gasped before mumbling complaints. “Why,Who and how much?” He grumbled, “meet me and I’ll let you know that.” “You know where to find me.” When all else fails, Jimin is the one to call. Partner in crime, cheater of justice and death.

NOW READING FROM : readers point of view.

Fear rolled over you as you came to the realization that is was almost 5 AM and Yoongi wasn’t in bed. Holly still occupied his spot, sprawled out in pure comfort. Enjoying the luxury of sleeping in the big bed.

Rubbing sleep from your eyes you shuffled your feet along the chilly floor, slipping in Yoongi’s slippers to adventure to the bathroom. You’d have to be back at work in some hours, Yoongi as well. It’s never like him to be late. After reliving yourself, washing up you’d realized the dryness of your mouth.

Aiding the feeling you took the trip downstairs, Holly’s paws hot on ur heels. “You thirsty too?” Rhetorically you questioned setting his dish for him, and grabbing a water for yourself, drinking it almost instantly. “You’ll get sick that way kitten.”

You choked in response, spitting the water onto the marbled counter. “What the fuck Yoongi, where’ve you been?” You spoke into the darkness, you didn’t hear him come in, maybe he was already home. “After I cleared some things up at work, Jimin and I had to...do some heavy work.” His voice held a quiver, unsure if it was of sadness or fear, maybe even anger.

“Ah well....come out of the dark, come over here.” You closed the the water, Holly had already met him in the living room. He neared, his features being shown from the glow of the kitchen lights. “Here, c’mon.” You sat on the island, back to him.

Something was off...he was hiding something, he was moving strangely with his words and actions. He came, leaving Holly on the floor he centers between your legs. Leaning on his palms on either side of you, “my shirt, my slippers, dressing up as me today?” You gave a soft smirk, “when’d you change?”

“At Jimin’s the work was messy.” “Ah...what’s that on your lip?” Taking your nail, you scrapped the flake of red from his top lip. “Been kissing other ladies...ladies in cheap red lipstick?” You giggled. His face ran pale at your joke, “n-no probably from Parks food, we were hungry.” You gazed in his eyes, “what’d you eat?” “Why?” Sighing you blew it off, “no reason, just curious...how’d it go with Eunji.”

He sighed leaned forward on the counter to stretch his back. It’s then when you caught a glimpse of something odd. “There was a struggle, but it’s all over now.” You held his shoulders, stopping him from moving back up, “Yoongi, you have this stuff all in your hair, where were you?” You brushed the stubborn dried substance with your fingers. “All on your neck.” You groomed him awaiting his answer. “Painting at Jimin’s.” Overpowering you he stood to his height.

You didn’t believe him, how could you? What paint job takes that long? How could it get on his hair? Down his neck? On his lips...nose as well? “I’m going to bed, kiss.” He pecked my cheek moving from my legs, Holly followed his escape. “Oh, and Jimin’s buddy gonna look at my car for a while I had to clean it out...left your lipstick.” He threw the tube for you to catch, it fell in your clutches.

“Yoongi, stop...where’d you get this?” “In the car, it’s yours baby.” He stood stiff on the stairs not turning around. “No, it’s not I can’t wear this...it fucks up my lips, I’m allergic.”

“It was Kim’s huh? You were out doing what you said you didn’t.” He turned glaring sinisterly. “I was out doing what I should’ve a while ago.”

You scoffed, he’s unbelievable, how could he. You’d began to plan your breakdown, how you’d destroy his home in a fit of rage. He’d cheated, lied, and didn’t care. “Kim Eunji and Kim Namjoon are dead.” He shared coldly, “any more questions miss curiosity?”

“No? Good now come up and clean me.”

In utter shock, you shook on top of the kitchen island. He’d made his way to the shower quickly, you heard the faint sprinkling. Sliding from your seat, in fear you followed his orders “now my love...don’t be afraid of me I do all things for you out of love.”

Minshookie 2021 | Not my image

[crystalstar8]

Knights of the Night (Epilogue)

Epilogue

Ch 1, ch 2, ch 3, ch 4, ch 5, ch 6, ch 7, ch 8, ch 9, ch 10, ch 11, ch 12, ch 13, ch 14, ch 15, ch 16, ch 17, ch 18, ch 19, ch 20, ch 21, ch 22, ch 23, epilogue 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/29139240/chapters/71536491

pairing: Jungkook x oc

genre: vampire au, college au, twilight, romance

word count: 1,587

warnings: blood (obviously), kidnapping, child kidnapping, needles, France, human trafficking

notes: vampires, vampire au, college, college au, so many twilight references, blood, needles, kidnapping, children, homelessness, dance, ballet, flashbacks, romance, slow burn, probably no smut, idk yet tho, France, French things, attempted genocide, inaccurate French history, bisexual main character, @strawberriewithchocolate-blog @mozy-j  @daechwitad-2​ @zobadak​ @fallenstar-7​​​

summary: Catalina starts college in a small town all the way across the country. She doesn’t know anyone and isn’t exactly looking for friends. She just wants to focus on dance. But when she meets fellow dance major, Jimin, and adventurous, fellow freshman, Jungkook, Catalina ends up discovering a whole new side to the small college town; one that is dangerous but oh so enticing...

                 Catalina took one last glance around her room before heading downstairs. She heard Jimin’s voice, which put a wide smile on her face. Him and Taehyung were back on time, which meant they’d be able to come with everyone that afternoon.

               She ran down the stairs, taking them two at a time, before landing in the foyer. Taehyung and Jimin were taking their shoes off and setting their bags down, chatting with Hoseok and Namjoon. Catalina threw her arms around Jimin and asked him, “How was your trip?”

               He pulled away and smiled wide, his eyes disappearing. “It was incredible. I’ll tell you all about it later.”

               “I can’t wait,” Catalina said, smiling just as wide.

               “We were gonna go to the beach later,” said Hoseok. “Do you want to go with us?”

               “Sure! I think we’ll mostly just relax, though,” said Taehyung.

               “Here, I’ll help you unpack so you can get yourselves settled before we go,” Hoseok said, following them back out the car. Catalina left the foyer and went into the kitchen. The kitchen was beautiful, so different from when she first came into this house. They had it remodeled, actually, they had a lot of the house remodeled. Everything was a bit more modern, but their antiques were mostly still around. Even Yoongi redid his bedroom, saying he didn’t want to sleep in a rat’s nest anymore. He made an incredible amount of money on the antiques in that room, the museums practically begging him to part with them.

               The light was on in the kitchen when Catalina entered, which meant Jungkook was in there. Sure enough, he was standing in front of the fridge, staring into its contents with bleary eyes. His hair was a floof on top of his head and his pajamas were rumpled. Catalina came up behind him and wrapped her arms around him. She laid her head on his back and listened to the steady rhythm of his heart, something she’s become so very familiar with.

               “What will you have for breakfast?” she asked. He grunted in response, shifting some containers around on the shelf. He finally chose a container of leftovers and cracked the lid to sniff it. He sniffed it three times before deciding it was edible and dumping it on a plate. While it was heating up, he turned and opened his arms, letting Catalina settle into him.

               “Are you gonna surf today?” he asked.

               “You asked me that yesterday,” Catalina said with a giggle.

               “And you said no yesterday!” he said. She could feel his laughter in his chest where her head was resting.

               “Maybe,” she said. “I heard the teaching process is very hands on.”

               He chuckled and said, “Where did you hear that?”

               “Hm, I don’t remember,” she said. The microwave beeped and Jungkook let Catalina go so he could grab his food. She pulled a blood bag out of the fridge and sat down with him at the dining table, sipping at her drink while he ate.

               “What are you guys doing up so early?”

               Yoongi wandered into the kitchen with messy hair and tired eyes.

               “It’s beach day!” Jungkook said, much more awake now that he was eating. “You’re coming, right?”

               “No.”

               “Yoongi, you don’t have to swim or surf or anything,” said Catalina. “You can just sleep on the beach. Or drink wine on the beach. You need the fresh air, you’ve been at your piano for days. Plus, I think everyone would really like to spend some time with you.”

               “When are you going?” he asked.

               “We’re heading out around eleven,” said Catalina.

               “Oh. I’ll think about it,” Yoongi said. “Are Taehyung and Jimin back yet?”

               “Yes, they just walked in a little while ago,” said Catalina.

               “Good,” he said. “I’m glad their flight wasn’t delayed.”

               With that, he left the room.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

               During the drive to the beach, Catalina made sure to sit in the back of the Jeep with Jimin.

               “So, tell me about the trip,” she said, a giddy smile on her face.

               “Ah, it was perfect!” said Jimin. “I’ve never been to Arizona before so I didn’t really know what to expect about the weather or anything. It really is very dry there. The heat is like heat from an oven. And the places we saw were so beautiful. We camped in the Grand Canyon and… it was insane. The Grand Canyon is insane. Everything was so incredible. And at night, you could see the stars perfectly. When we camped in Death Valley, there was absolutely no light pollution for miles so the sky was amazing. We saw the Milky Way.”

               “Oh wow,” Catalina sighed.

               “You and Jungkook should go next summer,” said Jimin. “You’d love it.”

               “Yeah, I would do that,” said Catalina. “That sounds like a lot of fun. We need to make up for our last trip.”

               They sat in silence for a while before Jimin said, “I can’t believe we’re going to France in two weeks.”

               “I know!” said Catalina. “I can’t believe it! This is something I’ve been waiting for my entire life and I’ll finally be able to do it!”

               “Is your solo ready?” Jimin asked.

               “I mean, as ready as it’ll ever be,” said Catalina. “You know how it is.”

Her and Jimin had both taken the winter semester off to recover from their transformations and to get used to their new bodies. Catalina used that time to choreograph a solo worthy of an audition in France. By now, the beginning of summer, she had perfected it as much as she could.

“I’m going to the studio to practice it tomorrow,” said Catalina. “You should come with me. You can help, or just watch. You haven’t seen it finished yet.”

“What time? I’m babysitting tomorrow,” said Jimin.

“Oh right! You’re doing that every Tuesday now, aren’t you?” said Catalina.

Jimin nodded and said, “Yep, Caleb’s sister has dance on Tuesdays, so I’ll just be there for a few hours.”

“Are you still gonna do that when classes start? You’re signing up for classes in the fall, right?” she asked.

“Yeah, I don’t want to fall behind any more than I am,” said Jimin.

“Me too,” said Catalina. Then she smiled and grabbed Hoseok’s shoulder over the driver’s seat. “And you’re starting classes with us too, aren’t you?”

He laughed and said, “I sure am!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The weather was perfect, and according to Jungkook, the water was ideal for beginner’s surfing. They got set up on a relatively empty patch of the beach. The family closest to them had a few kids, who were building a sandcastle near the water. It was Monday, so thankfully there weren’t too many other people there. Yoongi laid out a beach blanket and immediately laid down, covering his face with his sun hat. He was almost completely covered, with long sleeves and long pants. Catalina figured he was trying to protect his pasty white skin.

               Jimmy K settled down beside Yoongi with a thick book. Catalina had assumed he would be surfing with them that day; he seemed like the type to surf. Jimin and Taehyung lathered themselves in sunscreen and took their spots near the cooler, relaxing and watching the fun just like they promised. After shedding her shorts and tank top to reveal her new white bikini, Catalina lathered herself in sunscreen, since she could already feel herself burning. Then she grabbed her board and met the others down by the water.

At some point, the family next to them left and they were left to themselves on their private stretch of beach.

Catalina, Namjoon, and Hoseok kept their eyes on Jungkook and Jin, who were teaching them the basics of how to surf. They all had boards, rented ones for the newbies, and Catalina was excited to get out on the water. With every glance at the ocean behind her, she felt nervousness twist in her stomach. She had to keep reminding herself that she wouldn’t drown and she wouldn’t get hurt. Her body was stronger than it used to be, which was something she still hadn’t completely gotten used to.

                They were standing on their boards, Jin showing them how to position their feet. Jungkook went to each of them, giving them pointers or fixing their positions. He stepped onto Catalina’s board behind her and nudged her right foot forward a bit, hands on her bare waist.

               “Just keep your knees bent and your legs spread a bit more,” he said. His bare chest was pressed up against her back.

               “…And if you guys fall off, just let the current roll you until it’s settled, then come up,” Jin was saying. “But you guys won’t drown anyway, so no harm.”

               “Right, no harm,” Jungkook said, his hand sliding down to her butt.

She giggled and turned around to face him.

“Did Hoseok get this treatment when you helped him?” she asked with a wide smile on her face.

“He would probably like that,” Jungkook said with a laugh. “But this is only reserved for my favorite students.”

“Ooh, so Namjoon got this too,” Catalina said, winding her arms over his bare shoulders. He threw his head back and laughed. This was her favorite song. The sounds of his laughter, the waves hitting the beach, The seagulls calling overhead, his heart beating in his chest.

Catalina leaned up to press her lips against his, the board wobbling in the sand beneath their feet.

She never wanted this song to end.

[zacc-attacc]

Nature: A Javid Oneshot

A/N: My first ever oneshot on this website! I hope y’all enjoy!

Word Count- 1.2k

Jack loved the open sky. He loved the stars, the sounds of nature, and everything in between. But, more than anything, it calmed him, something that not many things were able to do. As a kid, he had always dreamed of falling asleep under the stars every single night. And when he was bounced around in foster care, the night sky had been the one common variable. Always there, like a blanket. Luckily for Jack, Some of the Newsies had put together a camping trip in the woods near campus. They had tents (from the Dollar Tree, probably), a bunch of marshmallows, some hotdogs, and a whole lot of energy. And Jack? Jack an invite and a limited will to live. At least Davey would be there, which, to be honest, had its ups and downs.

Ups, because Davey was single-handedly the sweetest human alive and a fun dude to hang out with. And downs, because Davey was Mom Friend Supreme™ and also had an annoying tendency to make Jack’s normally stoic heart do a tap dance in his chest. Which really was inconvenient because Jack’s last relationship had ended only four weeks ago. It wasn’t a nasty breakup, he and Katherine were actually still friends, but the boys still expected him to be depressed about it. But Jack didn’t like to linger. He was upset for a few days, but now he was over it. Katherine obviously was as well, since she was seen going on a few coffee dates with some girl. 

But tonight, none of that mattered. Tonight, he could be whoever he wanted to be because that’s just how it was with the Newsies.

Tonight, he could eat bargain hot dogs and s’ mores, and avoid the fact that he was hopelessly in love with the only man he couldn’t have; because god forbid David Jacobs dated a mess like him. 

Jack knew exactly where he lay in David’s mind. He was a close friend, maybe a sort of Uncle to his future children with his perfect little life with his husband in the suburbs. David liked him well enough, but he would likely never love him. And Jack had tried to accept that, even though, thus far, it had only made it much worse.

“Ay! Jack! You packed?” Crutchie yelled from his lower bunk. Jack was stretched out on the top bunk, staring at a half-finished political cartoon for his class. 

“Yeah… What time’d the guys say to be there?” Jack sat up, hitting his head on the low ceiling. He wasn’t even that tall and it managed to injure him on a daily basis. 

“...In five minutes.”

“Shit-” Jack muttered, scrambling to jump down the bunk, only succeeding in hitting his head yet again on the ceiling. After hitting the floor in the heap, all Jack could hear was Crutchie’s cackles. 

“Just kidding, It’s actually in 20- I just wanted to see your reaction,” Crutchie wheezed, wiping a tear from his eye. 

“Yeah, real funny, Crutch,” Jack mumbled, rolling his eyes and smiling. As much as he loved his little brother, he, unfortunately, knew exactly how to get Jack riled up quite easily, which normally ended in Jack running into a wall or stabbing himself in the arm with a pen in a panic.

“S’funny to me,” Crutchie choked out, still laughing. Jack pushed himself to his feet, brushing off the assorted chip crumbs that had migrated from the shitty shag carpeting of his dorm onto his shirt.

“I know, I know,” Jack muttered, grabbing Crutchie’s crutch from the wall and handing them to him. Looking at his laughing face, Jack couldn’t help but crack a smile. 

“Alright, let’s get a move on… You ready?” Jack shook his head while still grinning, snatching his duffle bag and Crutchie’s backpack from beside the door. 

“Ay! I can carry that!" Crutchie protested, making a grab at the bag. 

“Wow, brother dearest, won’t even let me carry a bag,” Jack joked, sticking out his tongue and popping into a dead sprint down the hallway. 

“NOW THAT’S JUST UNCALLED FOR!” Crutchie yelled from the hallway. 

“LET ME TAKE CARE OF YOU, STUPID HEAD!” Jack shouted back, slamming open the door for the stairs and sliding onto the railings down the flights. Once he reached the bottom, he pulled out his phone.

“Text RaceyBoi.” 

“What would you like to say?” that stupid automated voice asked back, not fully human or robotic. 

“‘Can you go walk Crutchie to the campsite? Left him for CPS reasons.’” CPS was not, in fact, Child Protective Services, but instead Crutchie Protection Squad.

Smiling to himself, Jack started walking towards the woods on the outskirts of campus. He thought he saw Kid Blink and Spot at one point, Heely-ing towards the woods. He couldn’t help but wonder how the wheels would hold up amongst all the vegetation, and quietly hoped he wouldn’t have to call an ambulance tonight. 

“Hey, Jack!” came a familiar voice from behind him. His heart automatically deciding to kick into overdrive, Jack turned around to see none other than David Jacobs, grinning and clutching a duffle bag. 

“Whaddup, Dave,” Jack grinned back, clapping the taller boy on the shoulder. Seriously, who gave him the right to be this tall? He was like a noodle with a head and arms. 

“You heading down to the campsite?” Davey asked, falling into step with Jack. 

“That’s the plan. Race is taking Crutchie so that idiot won’t try to carry his backpack again.” 

“...You realize he can carry it perfectly fine, right?” Davey said, looking slightly confused.

“Yeah, but I just feel like doin’ something nice for him, y’ know?” 

“You may be stupid at times, but you are a good brother, Jack Kelly,” Davey chuckled, taking off his hat and flipping it backward. 

“Ey, now don’t get to tellin’ the boys that, I have a reputation as a jerk to keep,” Jack couldn’t stop smiling. Why couldn’t he stop smiling? He felt like someone had turned him into the fucking sun from the Teletubbies. 

“I don’t think you could pass as a jerk if you tried,” Davey shrugged, looking into Jack’s eyes so he could get the point across. God, his eyes were brown. Beautiful, chocolatey, perfect brown. 

“You would be surprised,” Jack said, tearing his eyes away. 

Don’t let yourself get attached, dammit. 

“Hey,” Davey stopped. Jack stopped too, staring at him. He put his hand on Jack’s shoulder. 

“Don’t… Don’t talk like that. I know you, Jackie. Okay? And you aren’t an asshole.” 

“Jeez, David, only a few minutes into the trip and you’re already on the late-night talks-” Jack turned away, hoping Davey couldn’t see that he was blushing. 

“I need to hear you say it, okay?” He turned Jack around, forcing him yet again to look into his eyes. 

“Fine. I… I ain’t an asshole. Ya happy?” Jack bit his tongue forcefully. That almost physically pained him to say. 

“Yeah. I… I’m sorry Jack,” Davey said. Jack still wasn’t looking at him. 

“Don’t apologize for caring, Davey.” 

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

It was late. The shitty fire that had taken them almost a full hour to make was burning low, and Jack had to keep prodding it with a random stick to keep it lit. Most of the boys had already retired to their tents and sleeping bags, and Davey was fast asleep on his chair. Race was the only one still out. 

“Do you think we should wake him up?” Race said, tossing the remains of his s’more into the fire. 

“What? Oh, nah, I’ll wake him up when I head in. Poor kid, being a pre-med student probably never sleeps,” Jack pointed out. 

“How long do you think you’ll be staying out?” Race asked, standing up and stretching. 

“‘Till I get tired,” Jack prodded the fire again, before throwing in another stick. 

“Then he’ll be out here all night,” Race joked, cracking a smile.

“I’ll wake him up before then. Wouldn’t want him to get hypothermia or some shit.” 

“It’s the middle of April, I highly doubt he’ll get hypothermia, Jack.” 

“...Did Racetrack Higgins seriously just say an educated statement?”

“Goodnight-” Race turned away suddenly, seeming intent on changing the subject. 

“YOU CAN’T CHANGE IT NOW, WE KNOW YOU’RE SMART,” Jack whisper-shouted, not wanting to wake any of the boys up (especially not Davey). 

Race replied with his silence. 

Sighing, Jack sat back in his chair. Not having any will to sleep, and nothing more to do, he grabbed out his sketchbook. Nature was always good for inspiration. 

Well, it could’ve been nature, or it could’ve been Davey. Because, without even realizing it, Jack had started to sketch the sleeping boy’s figure. His right fist was supporting his cheek, his hat was half-tipped onto his face, shading it slightly. His legs were crossed, and his left arm was set on top of them. 

Behind him was a backdrop of pine trees, and, even though that wasn’t the actual view, a full moon, and stars. So many stars. All spelling out little words of love in Spanish, Jack’s first language. 

Precioso. Bonita. Perfecto. 

His hair was mostly tucked under his cap. His eyes were softer when he slept. A ghost of a smile played at his lips. 

Increíble. 

Perfect. 

Just as Jack was signing his name and dating the piece, Davey began to stir. 

Quickly shutting the book, Jack simply stared up at the stars he could see despite the light pollution and thick trees. 

“Hey, Jack, saw you drawing there,” Davey said, quietly. 

“Oh- uh- yeah, just�� lookin’ through some old pieces,” Jack stammered. 

“Can I see?” 

“Uh- no, this isn’t my graded stuff, it’s all just sketches-“

“Y’know, for an art student, you really don’t like showing your art.” 

“Uh- Fine.” Jack gave up and strode across the fire to hand him the book. It was mostly drawings of the boys, maybe he wouldn’t look that far. 

...Spoiler alert, he looked that far. 

“...Is this me? Right back then, when I was sleeping?” 

“Uh-“

“You really made me look better than I’ve ever seen myself.” 

“Well, that’s how I see you,” Jack said before he could think about his words. Y’know, like a normal person who is trying to hide a massive crush that could end one of his best friendships. 

“Th-that’s… how you see me?” Davey was blushing now. Blushing. Not disgusted. 

“Uh… yeah. Y’see here, th-the moon behind ya, the way it… it focuses on you.” Jack said, kneeling by his chair and pointing to it. 

You are digging your own grave, Jack Kelly. 

“Jack, I… that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” Davey was still blushing. He turned his face to Jack’s. He was so close… 

“Well… I draw what I think, Dave, ‘cause words… they ain’t my strong suit,” Jack chuckled, pulling back. But Davey leaned forward. 

“Your drawings don’t need words, Jack. But the artist of them… That is a man that deserves millions of words said about him.” 

“D-Davey… Don’t. Please, don’t do this,” Jack shook his head, standing back up. 

“Did I make you uncomfortable? I- I’m sorry, I thought that we-“ 

“No, David. You didn’t. That’s the exact issue! D-d’ya really think I want to end up breaking your heart? We… We can’t do this, ‘cause it’ll end with me hurting you just like I have a million people! And you don’t deserve that fate! You’re too good for me, David,” Jack might’ve been crying. He wasn’t sure. But he sure as hell was ranting. 

“Jack-“ 

“Don’t Jack me, don’t try to act like it could be any different. We know exactly how this is going to end, and I- I can’t stand losing you, Dave.” 

There was a moment of silence. It was obvious Davey was picking his next words carefully. 

“You won’t.” 

“How could you possibly know that?” 

“You won’t because I won’t let it, Jack Kelly. I won’t let you lose me as a friend, ever. You’re stuck with me, whether you like it or not.” 

“Da-“ 

In two strides, Davey crossed the circle of chairs and shut Jack up with a kiss, half-crushing him with how tightly he was holding him. 

He did this… this thing that made it obvious this wasn’t his first kiss. The way he moved his head up and down just a little bit. The way he seemed all in but ready to pull away if they needed to at any second. 

But more than anything, there was a definitive Davey-ness to him that made it all perfect. 

So Jack had found one more reason to like nature. It was where he shared his first-ever kiss with his boyfriend, David Jacobs.

[carsworld41]

Cars of Tomorrow The Future of Automobiles

Everyone knows self-driving cars are coming and will upend the automotive experience, but what other jaw-dropping inventions are headed our way? Here I’m talking about the cars of tomorrow and the future of automobiles.

Let’s start with electric vehicles (EVs). Elon Musk, the visionary CEO of Tesla, and when he announced that the company is working on a million-mile battery.

Well, the battery won’t allow you to drive for a million miles without recharging, but it will last for a million miles before it must be replaced.

This is a big step forward considering EV batteries typically last 200,000 miles. With a million-mile battery, the car would fall apart long before the battery goes dead. This also means the owner can sell it or transfer it to a new car, resulting in less pollution and waste.

It’s nice to have a battery that can outlast the car, but what about the headache of charging an EV?

The brains at Huawei are working on a solution. They want to make charging your car effortless and are developing a system for wirelessly charging vehicles.

These charging pads could be placed anywhere, from parking garages to carports — and maybe even on city streets. At some point, we may no longer have to worry about charging our cars. It will just happen.

If we look further out into the future, Daimler and Toyota are developing fuel-cell vehicles, which will convert hydrogen into electricity.

A hydrogen-powered car would emit only water vapor, saving both money and cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions. Hydrogen can also be produced on site. Already, in the UK, they have refueling stations that produce their own hydrogen on a commercial scale using solar power.

Hydrogen cars typically have longer ranges than EVs, and they only take five minutes to refuel. These are tangible benefits, but hydrogen still has a long way to go. Unlike EVs, which consumers can recharge in their garages by simply plugging them in, hydrogen vehicles lack this infrastructure. Refueling stations are few and far between.

Thirteen companies, including Toyota, BMW, and Daimler, have committed to invest $10 billion to develop hydrogen technology and infrastructure over the next ten years. By 2023, Germany should have 400 hydrogen fuel stations. And California is expected to have 200 hydrogen stations by 2025.

Hydrogen isn’t the only alternative fuel.

In the United States, there are already 175,000 natural-gas-powered vehicles on the road, along with 1,600 refilling stations. Despite being available for some time, however, natural gas-powered vehicles haven’t taken off for several reasons.

They don’t get nearly the mileage that gasoline vehicles do. They are considerably more expensive to buy — and the models available are limited and uninspired.

Methane is another possibility.

In the United States, the oil industry spews 13 million metric tons of methane into the atmosphere every year. If we harvested this potent greenhouse gas, it would be enough to power millions of vehicles and homes. And it’s not just the oil industry.

Cow-Powered Car? Okay by me!

Cattle contribute 37 percent of all industrial methane emissions. A single cow produces between 70 and 120 kg of methane per year. With 1.5 billion cattle spread across the globe.

his is why Toyota is even considering harvesting methane from cows. Scientists are working to capture this gas whenever cows burp it up. So, don’t be surprised if cow-powered cars appear on the road one day.

Parking

On a more practical level, have you ever forgotten where you parked your car in a crowded parking garage? If you have, you’ll know how infuriating that can be. The good news is that Huawei might have a solution in the works.

The company told me how it’s developing AI that will

guide the owner to the correct parking spot

using their smartphone. This means no more blindly wandering around the garage searching for your car.

If misplacing your car isn’t bad enough, falling asleep at the wheel is. In the United States, there are roughly 90,000 crashes involving drowsy drivers every year, leading to an average of 50,000 injuries and 800 deaths.

Huawei is working on solving this problem too. Using neural networks, the car analyzes the driver’s facial expressions and sends out an alert when the risk of nodding off is high. This same technology can potentially be used to detect drunk drivers.

Every year in the United States, approximately 10,000 people die because of alcohol-impaired driving, accounting for roughly 30 percent of all traffic-related fatalities. If the AI solution determines that the driver is intoxicated, it could send out an alert or even disable the ignition.

With the rapid developments in autonomous driving technology, we can see cars transforming into entertainment and productivity platforms.

Once cars start driving on their own, the drivers will be free to do whatever they want. This means they can kick back, watch movies, play games, get work done, and even enter virtual experiences. It may become commonplace to virtually appear in one meeting as you’re driving to another.

The interiors of cars will change. People may sit at a table facing one another, like in railway cars. Cars may also become a second bedroom. When people have a long drive, they may choose to travel overnight, saving the hassle of flying.

Speaking of flying, will cars soon be taking to the air?

Sky Drive, a Toyota-backed startup, has already tested its flying car and expects to launch a manned flight within two years. Not to be outdone, the Alibaba-backed startup, Xpeng, just revealed its flying vehicle. This one looks less like a car and more like a giant drone with seating for one passenger.

Hyundai is thinking bigger. It has plans for models that will carry up to six passengers within metropolitan areas. They anticipate entering the market by 2028. Many experts I’ve spoken with believe that the first generation of flying cars will be used mostly for flights ranging from 50 to 800 miles.

If you want to travel between cities, taking a flying car may become a viable option. Flying within cities is a bigger challenge because of concerns around privacy, noise pollution, and safety. Imagine what could happen if a flying car slams into a home or skyscraper.

For these reasons, ground vehicles will remain the dominant form of transportation within most cities for the next decade or so.

AI and the future of cars.

As AI takes over and driving becomes safer, there will be less need for rigid frames. Cars may even be built from flexible, rubbery nanomaterials that don’t exist yet. Or cars may end up looking like inflatable bubbles or hovercraft. Nanotech could entirely alter how cars operate.

Someday in the far future, cars might be able to morph into almost any shape and configuration the driver desires. Want a pickup truck? No problem. Your car simply flattens out, creating a bed in the back for hauling stuff. Prefer to go faster, and the car reconfigures itself for speed.

Removing cars from our streets would also make cities more livable, but is that the future of cars?Most people don’t think about noise pollution, but it has an impact on our psychology and physical wellbeing. Electric cars are already much quieter than gasoline-powered vehicles. In the future, we may have cars floating overhead that are not only silent but invisible.

At the University of Rochester, scientists have developed technology that bends light so as to make an object invisible. If we apply this technology to cars, we may not even know they are there. We could be in the midst of a bustling city, but it might appear as peaceful as a country meadow.

https://carsworld41.blogspot.com/2021/09/cars-of-tomorrow-future-of-automobiles.html

[queenbirbs]

surrender | Edward Mortemer x f!MC

Pairing: Edward Mortemer x Elena McTavish

Word count: 7.5k+

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: N*FW

AN: In the words of Kacey Musgraves: I’m alright with a slow burn. But when you want to speed it up a little, that’s what fics are for, right? Takes place pre-chapter nine and also kind of skirts around the very end of chapter eight.

**Re-post due to my dumb ass trying to edit the original on mobile and it wiped the whole damn thing. Cool. Cool cool cool. 

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“Good evening, Miss McTavish?”

The words aren’t so much of a greeting as a question. It’s silly, then, that her breath catches a little. She hides it with a stretch, raising her arm above her head and letting out a throaty noise of content when her spine lengthens. Dropping back onto her heels, she watches Edward finish his ascent up to the crow’s nest where she stands watch.

“Nothing but sea and sky,” Elena replies.

“Aye, should be more of the same on through ‘til morning.”

He settles at his preferred spot, just a few feet from her. She wouldn’t be surprised if his boots have worn divots into the wood from the amount of time he spends up here.

“I’m no Al Roker, but I’d say the nice weather will continue. The sunset was as gorgeous as ever.” She tips her head to the side and bites down on her lip, trying to pull a script line from her memory. “What’s that saying, ‘red sky at night, sailor’s delight’?”

“Al Roker?” he repeats the name, his brow furrowed.

“He’s... a person who predicts the weather. Sort of.”

Edward’s gaze flickers from the sea to her, and then back again, huffing out a short laugh.

“It seems that you speak another language, sometimes.”

“Comes with the territory, I suppose.” Elena shrugs. “What with being a twenty-first century transplant and all.”

She doesn’t miss the quick search he does of the ship below, looking out for any wayward pirates with curious ears, but she knows, just as well as he does, that most everyone is tucked away in the galley below deck. The only other soul around is Maggie back at the helm, who makes a show of feigning interest towards the starboard to give them more privacy.

“I hope you don’t find me rude, that I still don’t know what to make of your… claims.”

“No offense taken,” she assures with a nonchalant wave of her hand. “I thought about what I would do if someone suddenly appeared in my house, claiming they were from your time.”

“And what would you do?”

“Call the cops and then threaten to sick my dog on them.”

“The dog wearing the life preserver?” he lifts a single eyebrow at her, the corners of his lips twitching upwards. “Aye, a truly terrifying sight to be sure.”

“Was that a joke?” she asks, her eyes wide as she makes a show of looking him over.

“You didn’t care for the one about falling in battle, so I thought I’d try out another.”

“Not bad. But I wouldn’t give up your day job quite yet.”

Edward hums his agreement and turns his sights on the ocean before them. Elena understands why he enjoys being up here -- she likens him to a king, high in his tower, or a lion, perched atop his rock; all the world is an oyster from such a height.

Tipping her head up, she takes in the night sky’s view. With little to no light pollution, especially this far out at sea, the stars come out in droves. The Milky Way is a cloudy, violet river that commandeers the horizon. It’s almost dizzying, the amount of stars visible, layers upon layers of them blooming across the sky. Elena’s never seen anything like it. Even when she and her sister would skip their Friday classes, drive up to the nearby state park, and spend the weekend up there, pretending they knew how to camp.

She thinks of the text on her phone from Gabby and the plans they were in the process of making for her to come visit Elena in Los Angeles. When she dropped out of college to follow her dream, the few family she remained in contact with ceased their feeble attempts at communication. When she made it to LA (or, rather, to the one-room hovel she could barely afford), Gabby was the only person on the other end of the line, trying her best to cheer her up. The pang of loss strikes her hard, somewhere behind her ribs. Other than her sudden departure from the set, Gabby might be one of the only people that notices her disappearance -- which is kind of sad, when Elena thinks about it, given that her sister still lives back in Austin.

That thought launches a thousand others. How long has she been gone? Is time moving at the same speed in the future? Is she even going to make it back home?

“Lovely, isn’t it?” Edward’s voice jolts her from her thoughts.

“Yeah,” she agrees, clearing her throat of the emotions that clog it. The railing is steady below her hands; she clings to it, trying to ground herself as best she can.

“Tis... not the same, where you’re from?”

“Where I live, it’s hard to see this many. I feel like if I could get a little bit higher, I could almost touch them.”

Edward looks back to the east, where the moon hangs low in the sky.  

“I don’t see why not,” he murmurs, making a show of leaning close to continue, “if what you say about the moon is true.”

“The stars are a lot farther. And the moon isn’t exactly suitable to live on. At least, not right now. Or,” she pauses, her lips twisting into a grimace, “well, not in my time, it’s not.”

“I’m glad, then, that I’ve made the sea my home.”

If his words are tinged with melancholy, Elena doesn’t mention it. Though she could encourage him to elaborate, she doesn’t want to ruin this peaceful moment. The thought brings with it the memory of their afternoon swim: of his arm wrapped tight around her waist, of the hungry look in his eyes as he took his fill, of the ache in her chest when their moment was broken by the need to surface.

The crystal-clear, turquoise water of the cove brought its own reminder of the summer before her sophomore year of college. It was Gabby’s idea to use their open water diving certifications for something other than taking up space in their wallets. Having spent so much time after her gender affirming surgery entertaining herself with shipwreck documentaries, she booked the trip to the Florida Keys, flights and all, before informing Elena -- in typical Gabby fashion.

“I would never get tired of the views, that’s for sure,” Elena sighs. “Or the constant opportunity to explore whatever island I sailed upon. Like that tiny island we stopped at, I would love to dive there, spend some time exploring underwater.”

Glancing over, she spots Edward’s furrowed brow; she sifts through what little historical knowledge she has of diving. Have those weird, space-age looking suits even been invented yet?

“Sometimes, Miss McTavish, I wonder if I have not happened upon a selkie, with the things you claim.”

“Selkie?” she repeats, rolling the word around in her head, but recognition never comes.

“Aye, a creature of myth, though some people believe they do exist. My mother used to tell me stories when I was little, of the women who came from the sea. Once they reach dry land, they shed their seal skin and transform into a human.”

“So... kinda like a mermaid?”

Edward tips his head in consideration. “In a way. But selkies are usually considered to be gentler. Unless their seal skin is stolen, they favor their time spent among humans. And, when they tire of us, they return to their skin and resume their life under the sea.”

“That sounds sad, in a way. But I promise I went down in a diving suit, not a seal skin.”

“I’ve heard rumors coming out of England, of a man who salvaged sunken ships by trapping himself inside of a barrel. I assume that is not what ye mean, though.”  

“No, not in a barrel,” she grins, pulling her phone from her pocket. “I can show you, though, if you’d like to see.”

“Ah, the black box of witchery.”

He moves closer as he speaks, though, clearly interested in taking another look at it. If he was truly frightened of it, she supposes, he could just lob it into the sea. Her grip tightens on the phone at the thought.

Navigating to her photos, she taps at the folder (embarrassingly titled we’re in miami bitch!!) and turns the phone so the images can expand into greater detail.

“Some of these I took with a disposable camera, so they aren’t the best,” she laments, swiping her thumb across the screen every few seconds. “But my sister -- she has this fancy underwater housing, so her pictures are nice and clear. I would message her for more, but I don’t think Verizon has that great of service.”

She can’t help but chuckle at her own bad joke. Edward, it seems, couldn’t care less -- entranced as he is by the colorful images of the coral reefs and the sponges sprouting from the USS Spiegel Grove’s rusted frame.

“These paintings are exquisite.”

“Pictures,” she corrects.

“You say that as if I’m to know what it means,” he counters.

She swipes to a selfie her sister had taken, the image capturing little else but their masks and the blue world around them. The next photo is better: a full-body shot of Elena in her wetsuit and gear, a cloud of bubbles floating above her head. “I suppose this explains you being such a strong swimmer, when you jumped in after Ginny.”

She shrugs at the veiled compliment and returns the phone to her pocket, avoiding his intense look that she can feel burning into the side of her head.

“Well, swimming in thirty-foot waves is a bit different from the calm waters of Key Largo, but thanks.”

Edward reaches down and skims two fingers under her chin. He tips her head up to meet his gaze, his dark eyes flashing with certainty.

“Make no mistake, though: I am to see that you do not perform such a stunt again.”    

Elena knocks his hand away; irritation bubbles up inside her, heating her cheeks and neck.

“I wasn’t performing. I’m not the Wonder Twins. And I’d do it again, if Ginny or anyone else went overboard. Even for you.”

His expression sharpens, his mouth twisting into a frown. She crosses her arms across her chest and serves him a look right back. Whatever he’s about to say, she cuts off as she continues, “Just because I haven’t been sailing the high seas or… or crossed swords with some real buccaneers as long as you all have been doesn’t mean I’m not capable. I fought Robert and won -- I even got his fancy-schmancy sword -- and I sailed our ship through a storm, didn’t I? You need to learn to trust me and-- and… why are you smiling?”

The irritation fades from his face in one fell swoop, there and then gone, replaced by a soft smile that he seems to reserve only for her.

“Something you said, Miss McTavish.”

“I said a lot of things,” she points out. Despite the opening she leaves dangling for him, he doesn’t elaborate. She’s not sure why she expected him to; the man is stubborn to a fault. “Okay, fine. You can keep your charming and mysterious act. You certainly have it down pat.”

“As you do with your… turns of phrase.”

The tension between them cools, aided by the winds that blow towards them from the north. Elena settles at his side once more, the railing at her back. He gives a cursory glance over the horizon.

“You know,” she says, “I realized today that I never said thank you.”

“For what?” he returns his sights to her, curiosity warming his eyes.

“For getting me the hell off the Admiral’s ship. I knew he wasn’t a stand-up guy when he shot one of his own men, but knowing what I know now, I’m especially grateful.” She reaches out to touch his wrist, squeezing it for a long beat. Edward brings his other hand up and covers hers. “I know you took a risk, not knowing if I was a navy spy, but you brought me aboard anyway.”

“Even when we made you stand trial to prove such innocence?”

“Do you think I would’ve been given such a chance on his ship?” she asks, her tone thick with sarcasm.

“No, I do not.” Edward’s face darkens for a moment. “A man capable of such depravities would have treated you… terribly, no doubt.”

“Hey, like I said: white dude of high rank in the eighteenth century? He’s got about a two percent chance of not being an awful person.”

“You--” Edward pauses, lowering his voice as he continues, “are things… different, in your time?”

Elena bites at her lip, wondering how much she should divulge about the twenty-first century. Hope works much better if the outcome is still uncertain, and she doesn’t want to dash any he has for his own future.

“Different, sure, but also very much the same. There’s a famous expression: ‘those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.’ It’s -- let’s just say it’s been accurate more than once or twice.”

“I’ve never heard of such a phrase, but I understand its meaning rather well.”

“And, hey, that’s the second time now that you’ve referred to my ‘situation,’” she marks the term with air quotes. “Does that mean you believe me?”

Edward makes a show of heaving out a sigh. “I am making a valiant effort to do so. Your box certainly helps your case. It -- all of it -- ‘tis still rather wonderful and strange, though.”

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Edward, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

“You’ve read Hamlet?”

“I’m an actor by trade. Of course I’ve read it. And by read it, I mean that Shakespeare’s works were forced on me in every English class in school.”

That gets an exasperated chuckle out of him. She can’t help the smile that forms; she really enjoys the sound of his laughter. For as much as he tries to play up the stoic, unfeeling pirate captain, he seems to lose the battle whenever she’s around. “It’s all right, you know, if you don’t believe me. I know this is kinda crazy.”

The humor on his face is there one second and then gone the next.

“’Tis… not that.”

“Then what is it?”

No answer comes.

“Charlie was right,” she teases, knocking her elbow into his. “You’re really not great at changing the subject.”

That gets her a snort of amusement, but nothing more. Before she can prod, a cold gust of wind sings through the rigging, whipping up past them and sending her hair into disarray. Despite the residual heat of the sun-warmed railing, Elena can’t help but shiver, and hugs herself to conserve what little heat she can. Edward wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her close, his hand running up and down her back with gentle strokes. Her heartbeat quickens at the gesture, now familiar since he helped pull her up out of the raging waters.

“I apologize, Miss McTavish. I shouldn’t have kept you up here so long. You should go down to the galley -- you missed dinner, after all, while on watch. Can’t have you on a chameleon diet. And you’ll be much warmer down there.”

Elena shakes her head and reaches up, placing a hand on the warm plane of his chest where his shirt parts. His breath catches under her palm.

“No, I’m alright. I’m glad you were the next on lookout duty, actually. I wanted to ask you a question.”

“Ask away.”

“Do you really think the Admiral cares about getting his property back?” Edward’s body tenses under her touch; she shoves down the wiry ball of nerves in her stomach at the movement. “That lieutenant I ran into, he didn’t mention anything about--”

“Need I remind you of what I promised on our walk from the mayor’s estate?” he interrupts.

Confusion sweeps through her. Elena quirks her head to the side, trying to connect the dots between that conversation and her current fears. “You are no man’s property,” he spits, his voice gone rough from obvious fury. “And for as long as you are here, you are under my protection.”  

The wave of realization hits her.

“I was, uh, talking about the compass.”

“Ah.” He sucks in a deep breath and lets it out. The hard line of his shoulders softens. “I… see.”

“But it was interesting, to say the least, to see you puff up like that. I’m sure it would make any other lass swoon. I mean,” she lifts her hand from his chest and holds her thumb and pointer finger inches apart, “I was this close.”

He rolls his eyes at her. “Aye, I’d pay top coin to see you swoon.”

“I can think of a few things you could do to make that happen,” she teases.

Edward takes her hand in his and drops a kiss to her knuckles. Before that familiar swell of longing in her chest can rise, though, he shakes his head.  

“I will not risk it.”

“You would sail your ship into every storm across the Caribbean, but this,” Elena glances down to their entwined hands, “you won’t take a chance on?”

“That should tell you how serious I am.”

“I can’t follow your line of thinking, Edward. Do you think the Admiral will suddenly know? That he’s some omniscient god, overseeing all that goes on?”

“People are fond of gossip.”

“Who? What people? Because if it’s the crew, I trust them with my life, just like you do, and I don’t--”

“Not them. But anywhere we’d go, we’d have eyes on us -- eyes that could report back to the Admiral. And if we were -- there would be no world where I wouldn’t want to have you by my side.”

“But we--”

“Jealousy is a hideous trait to have, but I’m afraid I would not be able to stop it from affecting my actions. I’ve seen the people at port, the way they flirt with you.” Edward frowns at the dark sea ahead. “You don’t think I wouldn’t challenge anyone who tried to -- to woo you? I would not be able to stand idle while--”

Elena barks out the short laugh she’s been holding in. “What is so humorous?”

“Because you already do all that.”  

Self-awareness rushes in like the tide, flooding his brain. His jaw goes slack, as does his hand in hers, before he collects himself. Elena feels pinned under those eyes of his. She watches them drop down to her lips before returning to her gaze.

“May I?”

“You really have to ask?”

“Aye, of course.”

He starts to say more -- probably a long-winded explanation about his gentlemanly values -- but she’s waited too long for this to be delayed another second. Elena leans up and silences him with a kiss. He doesn’t turn and flee, like she expects; when he breaks the kiss for air, she gets but a second to collect her own breath before his lips return to hers. She hums her encouragement when he lets go of her hand to sink his fingers into the loose wave of her hair.

His lips, cold from the ocean breeze, warm under hers. Elena finds that his kisses are exactly like him: brash, and quick, and intoxicating, with the slightest hint of steel. When she draws her tongue against him, she can taste spiced rum and saltwater. He growls from the deep well of his throat when she bites down on his heavy, bottom lip. His arm cinches tight around her waist and hauls her against him; their bodies meet in a delicious roll of pressure.

“Miss -- Miss McTavish--”

“Elena,” she corrects, her hand skating up his back, searching for purchase so she can drag him closer.  

“Elena.”

His breath is hot against her skin where his lips trace the line of her jaw. The world dips and sways suddenly, the railing digging into her back. She clings to him when the sensation of weightlessness shoots up her spine.

It takes her a moment to register that it's only the ship underneath them, crossing over a rough wave. Concerned that she’ll end up pitching over to the deck eighty feet below, he picks her up and spins until her back meets the mast. Elena reaches for the lapels of his coat, but he’s faster, and snatches her hands in one of his and pins them above her head.  

“I have dreamed of this,” he murmurs, skimming the pads of his callused fingers along her throat, his mouth trailing behind with fervent, open-mouthed kisses.

She swallows back the moan that wants to form. A shiver dances under her skin, now damp from his attention.

“I have too,” she admits with a sigh. “Except mine deserve an NC-17 rating.”

“You know I don’t understand what that--”

“I certainly fuckin’ can!” someone shouts from below.

The wonderful spell they’ve found themselves under shatters. The voice might as well have been a gunshot, with the way Edward leaps back from her. Elena mourns the loss of his mouth on her as she adjusts her waistcoat and smooths down her hair.

Flipping and tumbling their way across the deck, Ada and Ax continue their argument about who can reach the top of the main mast first. Charlie, Jonas, and Ginny trail behind them, wagering their bets. Maggie’s thick accent carries across the ship, telling them off for circusing about, and ordering them to stay away from the rigging.

It’s not as if their tryst could have continued much longer, Elena considers, given that the crow’s nest wasn’t exactly a secluded spot. The twins make a good show of pouting, but eventually head for their quarters, Ginny giggling as Ax twirls her round.

“Maggie deserves a raise,” Elena tells him.

“Because she knows how dangerous ‘tis for them to be climbing about with no light?”

“Because she knows they would’ve caught us up here, making out like a pair of horny teenagers.”

“Ah. You--” his hand lifts in an aborted move towards her before he redirects it through his tousled hair. “--you should get down to the galley. I’m sure Henry is waiting on you, by now.”    

“Okay,” she says, because it’s the only thing to say. Swinging down onto the rope ladder, Elena starts to descend but pauses, peeking over the railing to catch his eye. “But don’t think this conversation between us is over.”

“Aye.” A wry grin flickers across his face. “I know much better than to assume that.”

+

Edward is right -- about the food, at least.

When she makes it down to the galley, Henry sits her down with a covered plate. Well, as covered as it can be with the dirty rag he’s thrown over it. She’s learned not to make a fuss, though, especially to the man cooking the food.

“Thanks for keeping it warm for me.”

“Took ye long enough,” Henry huffs, but makes a show of looking over his shoulder at her. His face, streaked with ash that he sifts with a makeshift poker, makes it easier to spot his sly grin. “Find somethin’ interestin’ up there, hmm?”

“I was distracted by the view.” Which is the truth, although she doesn’t include that Edward’s lips were part of said view.

“Nothin’ beats a clear night at sea, to be sure.” Swinging the stove door shut with a satisfied grunt, he jerks his chin towards a small barrel on the nearby shelf. “Charlie made some punch, if ye want more’n water to wash yer food down.”

She shakes her head; she’d made the mistake once of drinking their ‘punch.’ It put the jungle juice she drank back at college parties to shame. Charlie now called it Caribbean moonshine, thanks to Elena and her fiery round of swearing after taking a sip.

With the comforting noise of Henry’s humming as he cleans up, she takes a seat on the tin-lined floor and eats her dinner. Not for the first time, she notes Maggie’s touch in the confined space. Fitted across the shelves are iron bars to keep the contents from taking a tumble in rough waters. Tied round the necks of bottles with twine, scraps of parchment label each oil and spice in her spidery handwriting.

“I worked up a new dessert for ye to try, if ye’d like.” He produces a bowl of something that might come out the other end of her garbage disposal back home. Elena inspects the concoction with interest. “I boiled some hard tack in a little bit o’ rum and brown sugar, and then boiled mangoes with some sugar to mix in with it.”

“Ooh, like a compote?”

“Aye, sorta.”

In another world, three hundred some-odd years in the future, she could easily imagine Henry with a cafe or food truck, selling ‘deconstructed desserts’ and other kitschy items. Scooping up a sample, she’s surprised at the delicious flavor of it. The enjoyment on her face must be obvious, because a grin appears behind the ash. “Good, init?”

“Really good! Except, and this is going to sound weird, but maybe add a pinch of lime juice? I think it would really bring out the sweetness of the mango more.”

“Yer right, lass. That might do. And then maybe I can finally get the others to try it.”

“I’ll vouch for you,” she promises after sampling another portion. “Unless I die of food-poisoning tonight, and then you’re shit outta luck.”

Henry shakes his head and huffs out a laugh. “Edward’d have my head first.”  

“Did he at least try it?”

“I doubt he would’ve, if he’d come down for dinner at all. Too busy broodin’ in his cabin, I suspect.”

Elena hands off her empty plate when he motions for it. Curiosity, instead of hunger, gnaws at her insides.

“Can I take this with me?” she gestures to the bowl in her hands.

“Aye, have the rest of it -- and see if ye can convince the cap’n to get in a few bites, hmm?”

She doesn’t bother asking him how he knows where she’s going; the rest of the crew isn’t as blind as Edward claims them to be. “But if ye break it, yer buyin’ me a new one.”

“Deal. Thanks, Henry!”

+

Elena climbs up to the deck carrying her pilfered bowl.

From where she’s manning the wheel, Charlie throws her a two-fingered salute from the bridge. High overhead, Jonas wishes her goodnight from his post in the crow’s nest. Grateful that she won’t have to try holding onto the bowl while climbing up the rope ladder, she continues on towards the stern.

“What can I do for you, Miss McTavish?” Edward asks before his door is fully open.

“How’d you know it was me?”

He shoots her a deadpan look. Moving aside to allow her entry, he shuts the door behind her.

“No one else would dare bother a captain’s sleep, lest there was an emergency.”

“Henry told me you skipped dinner, so I brought you something to eat.” Elena gestures to the bowl in her hand. Stepping close to give it a thorough once-over, Edward grimaces.

“I will take my chances with starvation.”

“Hey,” she scolds, “it isn’t that bad.”

He does a double-take between her and the food. “You ate it?”

“In college, I once ate stale Wheat Thins drizzled with an expired bottle of honey mustard. And before you say anything,” she holds up a hand to stop the statement she knows is coming, “I know you don’t know what either of those are, but trust me: it was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever eaten.”

“And this bowl of slop is better than that?”

“If it weren’t, would I be forcing you to eat it?”

He mutters something under his breath, too faint for her to catch, but seems to concede. After a brief hesitation, he takes the bowl and spoon she offers him and shovels in a mouthful of the mixture. His eyebrows pinch down at the initial taste, and then lift in bewilderment.

“Not bad, right?”

“Not… horrible, no.” He sounds just as surprised as he looks. “This is one dessert of Henry’s that I may live to tell the tale of.”

“Good. But that’s not the only reason I came.”

“Aye, would it have anything to do with continuing our conversation from earlier?”

“All that time, Robert was accusing me of being a witch, but here you are, able to read minds.”

Edward gives a soft snort at that, collapsing into his chair. The desk in front of him is littered with maps and parchments and various trinkets. Elena crosses the room and comes round the side of the desk, taking in the starry view from the windows. Out of the corner of her eye, she watches the spoon swirl round and round in the gruel as he assesses her.

“Ye would’ve been a good jester, Miss McTavish, in a previous life.”

“It’s just us,” she murmurs. “You can drop the surname.”

“No, I can’t.” The grief in his voice is as clear as a bell. “In another life, yes, but here--”

“--here,” she interrupts, turning at the waist to study him, “in your cabin, alone. Not even then?”

Edward sets the bowl down onto the desk and glares at the floorboards. “We can’t let our emotions cloud our judgement.”

Folding her arms across her chest, she lifts a single brow at his attempt to backtrack.

“Says the man hell-bent on playing cat-and-mouse with an enemy to exact revenge on him for something he clearly feels guilty about? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.”

His gaze shoots up to her, those dark eyes of his flashing in the candlelight. “That phrase I indeed do know.”

“Then you should know that you can’t kiss me like the world is ending, and then shoe-horn me back into a neat, little box, Captain Mortemer.” Elena doesn’t see it coming, she’ll admit that. She’s too busy ranting at the starry night, too pissed off with the man beside her, too afraid she’ll lose the runaway train of her thoughts if she focuses on him and sees all the emotions he claims to be above, all that longing and heartache and desire, painted across his face. “Since you’re so insistent on using surnames to avoid--”

In the second it takes her to draw a breath, Edward surges out of his chair and crosses to her. In the next, his lips are on hers. That passion she saw the mere beginnings of up in the crow’s nest roars with intensity. He cups her cheek and tilts her head just so, deepening the kiss; she can taste the mango’s sweetness on his tongue.

All at once, he pulls away. She mourns the loss of him with a quiet moan.

“My -- my apologies. I’m--”

Before he can worry himself into the ground with another fit of propriety, Elena holds up a finger to his lips.

“Stop being so polite and kiss me again.”

That familiar grin breaks free, lighting up his face with a naked delight that sends her heart racing.

“As you command.”

His mouth claims hers again. A muscled arm circles her waist, one hand splaying wide across her back to pull her close. She comes easily, readily into his embrace. His shirt twists in her hand where she holds on for dear life, parting for a quick breath of air, before diving back in. His other hand strokes a molten path up from her waist, brushing over the beaded point of her nipple. The moan she releases is louder this time, wanting more than anything for him to do it again.

For all his faults, he’s no fool. Sure, he takes his sweet time with it, dragging his fingertips along her collarbone and up into her hair to push the blonde curtain back, but he eventually makes his way back down. Cupping her breast, his thumb rubs circles against her -- even through the layers of lace and cotton, Elena’s breath catches at the immediate flare of pleasure.

Emboldened by her response, Edward backs her up against the cool, glass panes, his mouth leaving hers to suckle at her throat. Elena tips her head back, her lips parting as his stubble prickles against her skin. His thumb works steadily over her and she’s dizzy with the primal need to have him.

Braced by the window behind her, she hooks a leg up and around his ass. He needs no more encouragement to invade the space she’s created, his hips rocking tentatively against hers. Frustrated with the buffer of all her layers, Edward retreats to the buckle at her waist, his eyes searching hers.

“May I?”

Elena swallows to free the words from her throat, but they won’t come; instead, she nods her permission. The belt hits the floor with a thwack. Her waistcoat comes next, which she tosses off with a flourish. Edward captures her hands and tugs off her gloves. Spotting the gleam in his eye, Elena distracts him with a roll of her hips and frees her hands, chuckling when he mutters a curse at her.

“You’re a cunning lass.”

“I can’t wait around for you to strip me of my garments.” Her fingers making quick work of the corset’s laces. “Besides,” she drawls, “between the two of us, I’m probably the one with more experience taking off a lady’s corset.”

His eyebrow raises in response to her claim. The image of her and another tangled together plagues him; his jaw clenches tight at the thought.  

“That may be so,” he growls, reaching down for his own shirt and tearing it off, “but it won’t be their names you’ll be calling soon enough.”

Her blood flash boils at the promise. She grabs the hem of her blouse and yanks it up over her head.

“Jealousy is a good look on you,” she teases, tracing the line of his jaw with her fingernail.

Seizing her hand, he laces their fingers together and presses a kiss to her wrist. Goosebumps raise across her skin as his mouth trails from the tendons in her forearm to the curve of her shoulder. Nudging her bra strap down, Edward continues his trek to the rosy flush blooming across her chest.

Not one to play the passive participant, Elena cards a hand through his shoulder-length locks and nudges him down. He takes the cue and moves further south; she whimpers at the wet heat of his mouth closing over the lace of her bra.

“God, stop teasing and--” her gasp echoes across the cabin at the sharp bite of his teeth closing around her nipple. His tongue darts out, soothing any hurt, and turns to lave at her other breast.

Once she regains motor control, Elena unlatches her bra and flings it to what might possibly be the furthest reaches of the universe -- she doesn’t care, as long as Edward will keep doing wondrous things to her with that mouth of his.

“Miss McTavish,” he rumbles, tilting his head to run his stubble along her naked flesh, enjoying the ragged, little noises she makes. “You are well on your way to looking thoroughly ravished.”

Her wandering hand smooths over the tight curve of his ass and grabs hold. She smirks as he bucks up into her.

“Then get on with it, Captain.”  

Deft fingers pop the button on her pants and dip down below the waistband. Elena stretches up and rests her bare shoulders against the glass, tipping her hips up to encourage his exploration. She cries out when he slides two fingers inside of her. He gives her a moment to adjust to the intrusion, nuzzling the curve where her neck meets her shoulder.

“I’ve long wondered,” he murmurs, his tongue skimming across the salty sweat of her skin, “what you taste like.”

At the sudden loss of his hand, Elena opens her eyes to tell him off for his teasing -- but her throat goes dry when he brings his fingers to his mouth and sucks them clean. It’s a long moment before her world centers on its axis once more for her to ask.

“How do I taste?”

“Decadent,” he growls.

Crowding against her, he props himself up with one hand spread wide against the window above her head, while his other draws a wet trail down her belly. A short grunt of pleasure sounds from both of them when he slips back inside her.

Elena reaches a shaky hand up to hook around his arm, her nails digging into the muscles there. Arousal clogs her veins like molasses -- slow and syrupy and sinfully sweet. The movement of her hips turns clumsy and erratic. Sweat beads across her forehead as his fingers work her open, the heel of his hand circling her with delicious pressure.

“Edward -- fuck, I--” she cries out.

“Will you come for me?” he asks, his gaze snapping to hers. Desire clouds his eyes, the brown irises eclipsed by the black of his pupils.  

“Please--” he cuts off her begging with a kiss.

“Will you?”

“Yes,” she answers with a gasp.

Covering his hand with her own to guide him exactly where she likes, she stretches up for another kiss and grinds down against his hand. The heat inside of her reaches its critical point, flaring to life and scorching through her bloodstream. Clenching tight around him, her hips convulse as she rides out the quake of her orgasm.

Edward slides his fingers out, dropping a kiss to the crown of her head when she whines with oversensitivity. He brings her into his arms, smoothing a hand over her hair as her body shudders with the last of its tremors.

“Fuck,” she sighs, a delirious sort of giggle bubbling up. “Well, how do I look now?”

“Exquisite.”

Leaning down, he captures her lips with a kiss. She blames the blush from her recent orgasm.

“I think it’s my turn, then, to ravish you.”

“We don’t have to--”

Elena silences his gallant protest with a heady kiss, raking one hand through his hair. Her other runs along his side, where she hooks two fingers into his waistband and yanks him closer. Continuing down, she runs the flat of her palm against the obvious sign of his arousal. Edward groans into her mouth; he ropes an arm around her waist and carries her to the desk. With a wide sweep of his arm, he knocks documents and equipment to the floor before depositing her atop it.

“Careful!”

He jerks back at her yelp, casting a worried eye over her form. “Have I harmed you?”

“No, no -- I promised Henry I wouldn’t break his bowl.”

Edward rolls his eyes and grabs the dinnerware before she can reach for it, then tosses it to the floor.

“I will buy him a new one when we stop at the next-- why are you laughing?”

Elena shakes her head at him, avoiding any explanation by dragging his mouth back onto hers. It’s a rather effective technique, as she’s finding out tonight. Their remaining clothes join the messy pile on the floor. Edward huffs a laugh at her threat of injury if he rips her underwear, but seems to heed her words and takes care to drop them onto the desk. Moving into the space between her thighs, he grabs two handfuls of her ass and drags her closer. The soft giggle that sounds from her delights him; he leans down and savors the taste of it on her lips.

Elena’s hand wanders over his stomach and down the trail of coarse hair to take hold of him. He thrusts into her touch with a grunt, choking on an inhale when she twists her wrist on the next upstroke.

“May I have you?” he manages to rasp.

“You may,” she purrs, and guides him to her entrance.

With a surge of his hips, he plunges into the slick heat of her. At her gasp of encouragement, he slips out and then back inside, grinding his teeth against the clench of her. Pleasure is a ripple on the surface, building into a wave that banks higher and higher as they move together. The world outside slips from its perch, losing what little control it has over the confines of the cabin. There is only the two of them, lost in the frantic rocking of their bodies.

A shameless staccato of moans falls from her lips as he fucks her. Edward wraps a fist around a length of hair and pulls her head back, exposing the long line of her throat; he nips at her pulse point and then at her bottom lip, swallowing her cries of pleasure.

“If you shout any louder, the whole ocean’ll hear you,” he playfully scolds.

Spotting her opening, Elena tightens her legs around his hips and digs her heels into his lower back. Retaliation sings its sweet tune as she jerks him forward on top of her, the both of them crashing back onto the desk.

“Don’t underestimate me.”

“Nay, I would never.”

Edward props himself up with one hand next to her head, his other clamped firmly around her thigh as he drives into her, the angle somehow that much sweeter. “God, but yer a pretty sight, spread underneath me.”

It’s impossible -- that she’s here, that the desk underneath her is scattered with papers that would be considered treasure in her time, would be framed in a museum and ogled by historians. A quill digs into her spine and she’s certain they’ve spilled a pot of ink, but Elena can’t find it in herself to care. If she’s lost in time, then at least she has Edward to guide her through it; her beacon of light, keeping her adrift, illuminating her way through the confusing, treacherous world she’s been transported to.

“Elena,” he gasps, his chest gleaming with sweat in the candlelight. “Elena.”

His hold slips from her thigh and down to where they’re joined, rubbing quick circles against her bundle of nerves. Whatever he’s asking of her, she gladly surrenders. The wave of her climax rushes over her, flooding her veins and drowning her with euphoria.

The sight of her lost in the throes of pleasure is an anchor; he sinks.

Edward curses with his release, collapsing beside her onto the desk. Their sweat-slick bodies heave as they catch their breath. Something catches flame in Elena’s chest and simmers there when he folds her into his embrace, his palm cradling her head against his chest. His heart thunders against her temple.

She sees no better time than now, lying naked in his arms.

“I have a question.”

He hums with what little strength he can gather for her to continue.  

“When we were up in the crow’s nest, after discussing our love of Shakespeare--”

“--as I recall,” he interjects, “I am the only one who willingly read his works.”

Elena makes a waving motion with her hand, which would prove more effective if his fingers weren’t laced with hers.

“Whatever. What I want to know is, when I said that it was okay if you didn’t believe me, why that made you…?”

“Disquieted?” he finishes for her.

“Yeah.”

She can feel the weight of the sigh that empties out of him.

“Because I do believe you. Your mannerisms, your accent, your magic box with its…?”

“Pictures.”

“Pictures, aye. Everything about you should not fit here. But it does, you do. You’ve adapted remarkably well, given what’s happened to you. You are a strong woman, Elena.”

“I would blush, but I’m too tired from our activities.”

He brushes a kiss against the crown of her head and huffs out a laugh.

“Yet, despite how well you’ve adapted, I know that this is not your home. Your true home, that is. I promise you, once we stop the Admiral, I will do everything in my power to send you back home. But, I confess, I will be… terribly upset to see you go.”

Tears prickle at the corners of her eyes; she shuts them against the fading candlelight.

“Me too.”

His palm skims up and down the soft skin of her back, marred here and there by the cuts and scrapes from life aboard his ship.

“Stay.”

For a terrifying moment, Elena isn’t sure what he means -- and is terrified all the more that she isn’t sure if she wants to return home, at least not so soon. Realizing that he’s probably (hopefully) meaning for the night, she musters up a reply.  

“The crew will talk.”

Edward scoffs. “They do little else.”

Her shoulders shake from her smothered laughter.

“Is this what passes for pillow talk in the eighteenth century?” she wonders aloud, making a show of stretching and enjoying the noise of interest he makes. “But yeah, okay, I’ll stay. I might even make it worth your while.”

“Of that, I have no doubt.”

+

+

+

References: an LMFAO song (it was between theirs or Will Smith’s “Miami,” but MC skews younger to me, so I went with the former), a line from Peter Pan, the ‘those who forget history are doomed to repeat it’ is actually a misquote, but I consider it enough of a ref to list it here. There’s a few slang terms from 17th/18th century and various pirate research sprinkled throughout. The USS Spiegel Grove is a real artificial reef, located off the shore of Key Largo. You can dive it with an OWD certification, though it’s recommended to have an AOWD to properly explore it. ~~the more you know~~

Thanks for reading!

[purecamp]

shalaska + 1, 5, 30

(apologies in advance anon, i couldn’t find a way to link them together so i chose to just go with 1 and 30!! hope it’s okay x)

Of course, it’s late at night when Alaska spots her. The train station is nearly empty at such a late hour, and the last train has been delayed a further ten minutes, so she sits on a cold green bench outside and waits. There isn’t much to look at, so she scans around for something to focus on.

Moths flap around the displeasingly orange lights, sparsely scattered in a feeble attempt to light up the place, illuminating nothing save for the spider webs wrapped around them. The man in the ticket booth is half asleep, his job nearly redundant. Alaska clutches her ticket between her fingers, rereads it four times, and goes back to searching.

She’s in her work gear, the blazer and pencil skirt combo, coming back from a meeting that dragged on far longer than it should’ve done. A series of missed trains, delays and unmoving traffic led her to the crummy little station she found herself in now, cold and tired.

There’s a girl stood next to the ticket machine, her back facing away from Alaska. She’s fumbling inside her bag, but her search seems fruitless as she continually pulls out nothing. Scantily-dressed, she shivers in the night’s chill and grows more frantic in her search. Alaska recognises the shape of her body instantly, and fills with dread.

“Shit!” The girl yells, cutting through the eerie white noise. “Come on!”

She kicks the machine, and the ticket guy lazily chastises her. Alaska battles within herself for a moment - she doesn’t want to approach, but she doesn’t want to reread her ticket for the fourteenth time. It’s geniunely a difficult decision, but she ends up pulling herself from the bench.

“What’s going on?”

The girl jumps, frightened by the sudden voice. Then she locks eyes with Alaska, and seems to freeze.

Sharon hasn’t changed much. Her skimpy band t-shirt, shorts and fishnets combo seems to be the source of her shivering, but Alaska remembers how she was never good at taking care of herself. Her eyes were presumably smoked with black eyeshadow when the night began, but they appear smudged and almost disastrous now. Her plum lipstick is cracking at the edges of her mouth and her eyes are red, and Alaska notes the painfully knotted state of her bottle-blonde hair and winces. There’s a rapidly forming bruise on her cheek, next to her right eye, that has her slightly worried.

“Fuck! You scared me.” Sharon rushes out. “What are you doing out at this time of night, Alaska?”

Alaska snorts derisively at the question. “I could ask you the same thing. I’ve been at work.”

“Ah.” She nods. “I was at a concert.” She points to the fresh bruise. “Mosh pit got a little intense and some six foot four asshole decided to batter me.”

That’s just Sharon’s way - chaotic, dangerous, as though her life isn’t really worth anything. She’s the type of girl to stand on the edge of the train platform as it rushes past her just to feel the wind in her hair, just to feel alive. Alaska used to wonder if she even had blood, or if it was just pure adrenaline coursing through her veins.

“And you’re attacking the machine because...?”

Sharon huffs. “The fucking website said tickets would be £15.60 to get home! But they’re not!”

The ticket prices go up after 9pm, but Alaska thinks it might be pertinent to just sympathize with her ex, rather than antagonise her.

“I don’t have it! I can’t find the pennies and if I can’t find them soon I can’t get home and-”

Alaska wordlessly hands her a few notes, if only to shut her up. Sharon’s an idiot, but she’s an idiot who needs to get home safe. It’s this, or the possibility that she’ll do something dangerous for money. Alaska can’t let that happen on her conscience.

“You’re helping me?” Sharon sounds geniunely surprised, and it tugs on Alaska’s heart.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

They step away from the ticket machine after buying and back out into the night, out of the ugly light and into the darkness, away from the public toilet smell and into the blood-like metal and polluted air of night. Sharon is still shivering, but Alaska knows offering her blazer is a step too far.

“Because I hurt you.” She mumbles. Alaska knows she’s been drinking, and knows by the blown pupils and redness of her eyes that she’s taken something, and just prays to God that this isn’t the night it kills her. Sharon’s always surprisingly coherent and functional on drugs, but the internal danger of it terrifies Alaska to no end.

She sighs. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Fuck off, it wasn’t.” Sharon dismisses her. “It was entirely my fault. Not even a second of it was you, you did nothing wrong. I just fucked up and left. You’re way too good for me, I knew that.”

Alaska doesn’t want to dredge this all up; she knows it’s too much, and it’s too late at night to be anything but emotional about it. She’s fine now, she took her time to get over it, but it stings like an old wound reopened with a fresh blade. Sharon is unchanged, even if it’s been a year since Alaska has seen her in anything but photographs.

“Why did you do it?” The question slips out before she can stop it. She turns to the side, realising she had been avoiding even looking at Sharon, and finds her with a cigarette between her fingers, halted on the way to her lips, her first exhale still curling from her mouth.

Sharon blinks, takes a drag, shifts uncomfortably. No doubt the metal is unpleasantly cold against her skin. “You held back my hair when I was throwing up.”

Alaska says nothing.

“You used to take me to dinner in restaurants I hadn’t heard of. You used to phone taxis and steer me away from bad people by distracting me with sex. You never complained when you knew we were fucking and I was high as shit. You held me when I was coming down, when I lashed out at you. You fed me soup and bread when I was sick. You forgave me when I had an affair even though you knew I wanted it, because you loved me.”

Her hands tremble. “You loved me. Nobody ever loved me. Nobody loves me. That’s how I like it, it’s easier. You can’t hurt anyone when they don’t love you.”

Alaska still dreads going home, sometimes. The ache has lessened, and it’s less raw, but every so often a spike of fear hits her as she approaches the door. A seemingly ordinary work day had thrown her into a spiral of heartache when she thrust open the front door to find the place in disarray as Sharon gathered her things, leaving a hasty note that said nothing except for I’m sorry. She hadn’t even signed her name, just left in a flash. Sometimes she thinks she’ll get home to find the place a mess, and Sharon gone - even though she’s long gone.

It’s better now, but it hurts.

“I was scared, and I ran.” Sharon shrugs, but the way she desperately huffs on her cigarette betrays her blasé attitude. “You didn’t deserve a shithead girlfriend who can’t pay for anything herself. Even a fucking train ticket.”

Again, Alaska says nothing, because it’s easier. In the distance, she can see the lights of a train approaching, but it isn’t theirs. Sharon stands up, starts walking towards the yellow line.

“Sharon. Step back a little.” She calls, out of habit.

Sharon turns back to look at her, somewhat imploring. Before, she would’ve nodded and stepped back, slipping her hand into Alaska’s, understanding her girlfriend’s fears about her safety.

Now, she turns away again, taking one small step forwards, her toes almost over the edge of the platform. She spreads her arms as the train rushes past, the wind blowing her hair and her thin jacket backwards, and Alaska swears Sharon is about to take flight.

[mehradnoori]

Acceptance and Analysis: Group Alpha

This week’s unit made me realize that I think I have always gone through “Acceptance & Analysis” when approaching problems, even if I never categorized it like that by name.  I reflected on the things that consist of my typical routine for both, and wrote them down in two lists:

Acceptance

Does the subject matter excite me?

Is it something that I’m passionate about?

Do I have the experience, knowledge, and/or ability to make a positive impact? I.e. do I have something to offer?

Do I know someone or have access to someone who does?

Do I have the necessary time and resources?

Do I have the right to win?

What is the opportunity cost?

And most importantly, can I not do it? Meaning, if I don’t partake in this challenge, will it eat away at me until I do. I've found that some of the hardest projects and problems I’ve ever tackled have also seemingly been the easiest. That’s not because they weren’t difficult, but because I literally couldn’t sit still or just simply be until I had taken care of the task at hand. To put it in other words, I had no choice but to do it. The same way a parent can be on zero sleep for days and days, but still finds the energy and will to take care of their child in the middle of the night - I find that the problems I’m most eager to solve are the ones that I feel so passionate about that I have to complete them to feel complete myself.

Analysis

Streamline the core attributes on a macro level

Organize all of the aspects on hierarchical level and start to compartmentalize them

Visualize everything somehow - post-it’s, flow charts, models, lists

Put together a to do list organized by these hierarchies

List out all the contacts I know who I can interview or ask for their expertise

Side note: The irony isn’t lost on me that even for the problem of this process journal had me break things down into lists on both a macro and micro level. We are what we are.

With that in mind, I followed similar method for this unit’s prompt. Our group chose aviation as a subject, and more specifically the negative impacts it causes on us and our environment. The topic is rich with content and data to dig into, so we broke it down into four components that seemed like a good place to start (though these are not meant to be all encompassing:

Noise

Pollution

Flight Shaming

Health

The subtopic I took on was Health. It actually started as “Disease” prompted by the recent issues with the spread of COVID-19 from airplanes, but I quickly saw in my research that the subject can be much broader, so I increased the scope to cover Health in general, so as not to overlook something that might be important.

I seemed research mostly through online searches, going to sources such as the CDC, WHO, and other medical/public health institutions. I also found a wealth of research from business/industry/trade outlets and some great anecdotal examples from more consumer faced publications that cover since and/or lifestyle like The Verge, Conde Nast, Wired, etc. I have also reached out to friends and family who work in the aviation industry but they haven’t been able for an interview just yet.

The most interesting thing that I found thus far is something very topical with respect to the spread of disease. It turns out that despite popular perception, the spread of communicate diseases isn’t necessarily increased just because you fly on an airplane. Modern ventilation systems on aircraft are very good at filtering air and, furthermore, distribution radius of the air that is recycled is relatively localized in the cabin, meaning that if one person is sick, it doesn't mean that the air they inhale/exhale is being shared with every other person on the plane. That being said, the standard land-based methods that diseases (such as contact with skin or fluids, etc) can spread still apply, so all of the health organizations recommend that those who are sick still should not fly, and those who aren’t should still take precautions by washing their hands, wiping down their seats, etc. The moral of the story that planes don’t add any extra risk than other forms of transportation and they are not hotbeds of germs or disease as some may think; or to put it as a USC professor and former aviation doctor in the military, “It’s not a floating hospital, it’s a bus.”

[type-a-nomad]

April 10

April 10

Last week I went on a road trip and it was an incredible way for this adventure to come to near its end.  

I left for the road trip at 8am on Wednesday morning, packing my clothes in a trash bag I found under the kitchen sink.  It was decided that I was going to be the driver for the road trip and, therefore, I would be renting the car in my own name.  That process really hit me as an adult thing to do.  The only time I’ve seen a car be rented is by my parents.  Now, I’m the one signing the release form and grabbing the keys. To say I was nervous was an understatement.  I was flooded with anxiety about driving.  Firstly, I didn't know where we were or where we were going because I am entirely unfamiliar with the area.  Secondly, in South Africa, you drive on the left side of the road and the steering wheel is on the right.  This means the usual mindset I have of where I need to check for space is entirely thrown off and I need to re-calibrate the way I think of a car when I drive it.  Thirdly, I had never driven the car we were about to take off in.  Most cars here are manual— but I can’t drive manual so I paid extra for an automatic.  Calling the car an automatic is a drastic overstatement.  It was more like an automatic that had the brain of the car taken out so you cant change the gears, and it doesn't know how to either. Moreover, when it would accelerate if I really just floored it, the engine would hit 500-600 RPMs.  That’s not supposed to happen in a Toyota Corolla.   The first stop after getting the car and camping gear was Hout Bay.  This is on the other side of Table Mountain from where I live.  It’s secluded and smaller than the other alcove-like beaches around Cape Town.  There was a long pier and a dock that was filled with little fishing boats that looked like they were off of a postcard from the 1970s.  The entire scene was beautiful— except for one thing.  There was an obese seal.  Now, the image of an obese seal is kind of funny in a ridiculous way.  But the reason it’s so fat is that a man sits with a huge bucket of fish and feeds it constantly so it’s more human-friendly and dependent on him.  This seal is so fat it can’t hunt anymore. This is an animal that a human has taken out of the wild and essentially ruined it’s life through isolation from its own species and overfeeding.  It was so fat it could barely move.  I got over it though and got a large tray of fish and chips with salt and vinegar.  It was fried heaven.   Hout Bay is surrounded by mountains.  When you’re there, it feels sort of like it could be God’s fish bowl.  It’s so contained and observable from above, a little biome all by itself.  We started from the bottom of the fishbowl and drove up the side along the mountain, eventually coming to Chapman’s peak, which looks down on all of Hout Bay.  It was so surreal to see the tiny little dock where I had been 20 minutes before as a little speck and simultaneously knowing how many people with stories and families and dreams were sitting there, munching on fish and chips.   After Chapman’s Peak, we headed down to Cape of Good Hope— the most Southwestern tip of the African continent. If that definition is confusing, it basically means there is one other place that is farther South than it, and it’s in the Eastern Cape.  So, their claim to fame is the farthest Southwestern tip. The view was so incredible and expansive, that it actually looked like you could see the curve of the Earth on the horizon. On one hand, that makes sense because the slope of a sphere would be steepest at the poles.  On the other hand, maybe I was just overexcited. There are two ways to describe what happened at the Cape of Good Hope.  One is that we were adventurous and unconventional and hiked on a ledge to a cliff nobody else dared to go to.  The other is that we lost the trail to the main peak with a lighthouse and just went with it.  You can choose which narrative you like better-  full reader’s discretion.   We finished up the first day by driving to the first town we were staying at.  It was night by then.  We bought a cooking pot and pasta supplies for the rest of the week.  I was absolutely starving even during grocery shopping, so by the time we pitched the tent and were lighting the fire it was not only pitch black outside but I was also getting grumpy.  I made the responsible and courteous decision to curb my hunger with white wine instead of being snippy until I had finished cooking.  The pasta was heaven by the time I finished, even though the mushroom cream sauce was out of a plastic bag container we had bought for approximately $1.50.  We ate directly out of the pot of pasta with forks and were asleep by 10pm. The next morning was magical.  I woke up to the sound of the waves crashing on the beach that was 50 yards from where I slept: in a tent, on a lawn, under a tree with a little fire pit near it.  I walked down to the beach after eating leftover pasta for breakfast and it was breathtaking.  I was so calm.  Sand between my toes, watching the waves crash on the shore at 7:30am.  That is me at my calmest.  The second day was a long day of driving, so we pulled out of the camping grounds around 8.  We drove up towards the Eastern Cape coast.  The highway was mainly empty.  For lunch we pulled into this little farm stand with a cafe and got amazing cheeseburgers.  I don’t like driving for extended periods of time, especially on the opposite side of the road in a place I don’t know for more than 5 hours.  But, the company and music in the car made it more than tolerable— I was blissed-out behind the wheel of a 2005 Toyota Corolla.  Past that, I bought a huge bag of peanut M&Ms.  The blue ones are my favorite.  The right company is everything.  I’m not sure if I’ve ever laughed that much in a single car ride, whether you measure that by straight time or percentage of time laughing, the statement holds.   The best part was that I got to go to Myoli Beach again.  This is my heaven on earth.  This is me in my element.  This is what bliss looks like and feels like to me.  It is a sacred space.  I will only go there with people I love.  I also know that when I am an adult, if I ever need time or an escape, that’s where I am going to go.  I don’t care about the flight time.  I don’t care about the distance.  I am going to make it happen.  When we got there, I almost sprinted into the water.  Soon, the lifeguards were screaming at me because apparently the currents are so chaotic and powerful that you have to swim between two cones they set up.  I was mildly irritated by this because I wanted to just be alone, but I didn’t let it cramp my style.  I was too happy.  I was so proud.  I did it.  The first time I was there, I promised myself I would go back, and I executed.   I think execution is one of my strengths.  I am very creative and I dream a lot, but I also make the dreams happen.  I don’t allow myself to be overwhelmed to the point of being paralyzed by all of the options and ideas my brain can create.  It is really wonderful to live that way.  However, there is a slight drawback and that is that I don’t really believe in just “letting things turn out the way they should”.  I don't buy a laissez-faire mindset.  I don’t think things just work themselves out.  You make things turn out the way they should and I don’t really cut people slack around that, because I know that you can make things happen because I do all the time.  It’s hard.  It takes a toll on me.  There’s pressure and sacrifice, but I am always trying my hardest to execute and a lot of the time it happens.  I think the harder you try, the more things fall in your direction.  Effort generates luck.   The camping grounds we went to next we were staying at for two nights, so the drive was efficient and worth it.  We pulled in and my jaw dropped.  In front of us was the Indian Ocean.  When I mean in front of us, I mean the tent was maybe 30 feet from the sea.  Huge waves, crashing on the rocks that were the only thing in between us and the most beautiful thing in the world: the ocean.  The other day, a friend asked me if I thought the ocean was conscious.  I said I think it’s more complicated than that and I don’t really see it as a united, conscious being per say.  I was then met with a brilliant observation: foam.  There is so much yucky foam from the ocean that is filled with the pollutants of the sea.  The ocean cleans itself.  If the ocean wasn't conscious, why would it clean foreign objects from itself? Food for thought. Now onto the real food.  For dinner that night I made an absolutely stunning pot of spaghetti and meatballs.  I really was proud of myself for this one.  I made it out of various ingredients and cans of meatballs all from the OK-minimark.  It irritates me that it’s not called the mini-mart, but instead the minimark, like market.  Why not just use mart? C’mon now people, I can’t be the one supplying all the good ideas.  While the pasta cooked, I went and took a super quick shower in the facilities graciously provided by the camping site.  I was walking out of the bathroom, towel securely turban-ed in my hair, and I saw the ocean light up in front of me.  I thought I was hallucinating.  Then I remembered that my friend Tim told me about seeing bioluminescent waves on one of his road trips, and I started sprinting towards my tent.  I was completely out of breath upon arrival because I am in literally the worst shape of my life.  I just said “bioluminescent… waves *gasps*” and pointed towards the ocean.  Then, miracles took place in front of my eyes.  For the next hour, the ocean was alive.  The waves were lighting up.  Millions, maybe even trillions, of plankton were crashing against each other and lighting up the waves as they curled and crashed in front of us.  It was magic.  Every time, it felt like my brain was glitching, but it was real.  This was really happening.  Then Mother Nature decided to test whether or not she could give us a heart attack and the clouds above us parted, revealing the Milky Way.  In front of us, bioluminescent waves.  Above us, the Milky Way.  In our tummies, amazing spaghetti and meatballs.  If this isn't what life is about, what is? The next day was quite lazy.  It was raining and super windy.  To the point where we were afraid to leave our little tent all alone in the storm in fear it might be blown away.  Thankfully, as we went and got breakfast at the restaurant that was on the nature reserve we were camping at, it held it’s ground. It was not completely out of the question that the tent could have blown into the sea. I’m not sure what we would have done.  That would have been no bueno.   Because it was so rainy and cold, we decided to forgo the hike we had planned and went to a vineyard instead.  No complaints from my end.  Give me a tapas-style restaurant and a wine tasting and I am, literally, a happy-camper.  The food was delicious and we were so full that we ended up just heating up the leftovers of the spaghetti that we had negligently left in the pot and eating that for dinner.  The next morning, we packed up fairly early and hit the road.  We stopped at a gas station for breakfast and I got a grilled cheese with tomato and a large cappuccino.  This was the second to last day and I was in no way ready for this magical adventure to be over.  The route to get to the last site was so incredibly scenic.  We drove through ravines and over the mountains of Africa.  The ground here is incredibly red and it contrasted with the green of the plants growing on it.  The scientific reason for the redness is because there is a lot of iron in the soil.  The locals say that the reason the earth is so red is the blood that has spilled over it.   The last place we went to was in the mountains, our first venture inland away from the beach.  Naturally, I was a little hesitant about this because the beach is my happy place.  Oh, how wrong I was.  And happily so.  We stayed at an amazing hot springs in the middle of the South African Mountains.  The pools each varied in temperature.  It was all outside and directly out of the mountain beneath us.  There was iron in the water, naturally, so it was a little reddish-brown.  I loved it.  I was so at-ease.   Africa has pushed me to grow in many ways.  One of the biggest, most important ways, is the groundedness I feel here.  I am not a laid-back person.  But the closest I get to that is feeling rooted and calm within myself.  I don’t look for other people to tell me that I’m doing the right thing as much as I used to, I just know what is right and I pursue it.  That’s how I feel here.  Feet on the ground, heart in my chest, lungs full of beautiful air, eyes staring directly ahead: I am here.  I am here.  I am hopeful and present at the same time.  I am settled in my own body and mind.  I am centered in my own existence.  I am ambitious without being discontent with my own reality.  I am seeking and finding and accepting balance in my life.  Namaste, motherfucker. That night, we made the most complex dinner yet.  It was the last night of the road trip, so the special occasion warranted extravagance.  We made fish and pasta.  I made the pasta, naturally.  It was all delicious and wonderful.  The stars were so clear.  It blows my mind to look up and think about the infinite expanse of space that we are hurtling around in like a little speck of dust carrying over 7 billion individual realities.  It was freezing.  Even when we were cooking dinner, I was shivering.  The wind was impressively strong, blowing anything under 5 pounds at will.  I felt a little annoyed at Mother Nature for that kind of treatment, given the amount of appreciation I had for her during the rest of the road trip.  I thought she might do me a solid for that, turns out she really just doesn’t care.  It’s alright.  My feelings were only a little hurt.  I can bounce back with pesto pasta.  And I did.  That night we stayed up late.  Talking about the universe and morality and politics.   It always amazes me when people say they don’t like politics.  I understand not liking conflict.  That’s one thing.  But not “liking” politics doesn’t really seem like an option to me.  Politics is your life.  It’s your education.  It’s your job.  It’s your health.  It’s your rights.  How can you not “like” politics?  That being said, I generally don’t like conflict.  It feels like an attack and takes a lot of energy from me.  Talking about conflicting political views taxes me a lot (no pun intended).  When I hear about political issues, I want to do something about it.  I want to take the steering wheel and fix all of the unfairness and damage that the world is doing to itself right now.  I am usually an empathetic person, but when people don’t have that same urge, I find it really hard to understand.  I think a large aspect of this is immaturity.  My passion blinds me to an extent.  I get carried away.  I get overwhelmed by how necessary the issue is.  I am unable to moderate my tone or conversation points to make what I’m saying digestible.  This is somewhat of a pattern for me.  It makes me feel very immature, embarrassed, and like I lack self-control.  I know that if I really wanted to convince people of my views, if I wanted to really get the outcome I want, I would actually moderate what I’m saying.  People don’t respond well to accusation and conflict.  If I defend somebody or a view of mine, the natural response for the other person is to either take the offensive or see what I’m saying as the offensive and take the defensive of their (wrong…) opinion.  It makes me think of an Albert Einstein quote: “insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.  I go into arguments with the same amount of stubbornness and passion and intensity, and expect it to sway people.  I get tunnel-vision and let go of what I know is persuasive and just unleash my feelings and views in one huge Tsunami Quinn.  I am very evangelical about what I believe.  When I really care, I suddenly become a Mormon with a picket sign screaming at girls in skirts that God hates them.  When I think I know I’m right, usually because I’ve done extensive research I assume most people are way too lazy to even do a fraction of, my words slap people in the face like a verbal picket sign. This is one of the things I’m working on this year.  I think I’ve become significantly more aware of it and it’s going to take time, but I’ll get there.  I know I can execute, this goal will just take some more time than is ideal.   Another point of self-improvement I am working on is self-image.  That is, I don’t balance confidence and self-assurance well.  I am either entirely confident, set in my views, plowing forward with full force and self-righteousness, or I am entirely insecure and see myself as the problem of a situation.  Neither of these is ideal.  The goal is to moderate.  To find a point of confidence and humility and implement that into the way I approach the world.  To be assured in my values and who I know I am, without being so confident that I have a closed-mindset and, therefore, close myself off to more improvement and learning.  I have a very complex mind and am able to see a lot of nuance in the world.  I am also empathetic.  I can see the different elements and viewpoints of any situation.  For example, I see why ISIS would be a persuasive institution to join in a desperate, isolating, and unfair situation.  That being said, there are some absolute truths that I believe that I am not sure if it helps or harms me to see as absolute truths.  The main of these is that I don’t believe in cutting others more slack than I would cut myself.  I don’t think anyone who is persuaded to join ISIS is a good person.  I think a bad person can regret and then move towards becoming a good person.  I think a bad person can become a good person.  I don’t think there is a fixed state of goodness or badness.  Your goodness or badness hinges entirely on your actions and beliefs.  That being said, if you are convinced that the right thing to do is kill others in an act of Jihad because they are Shi’iet Muslims instead of Sunni Muslims, or because they are of Western Culture, you’re a bad person.  There is never a “right” reason to kill people you don't know.  Those people are stories.  They are families.  They are lives and experiences and relationships and heartbreak and loss and happiness and complexity in the same way anyone else is.  It is so selfish and entitled to claim a life that is not your own.  To intervene in somebody’s path like that.  To step into a family’s reality forever.  To influence hundreds of people in an act of destruction.  There is no information, persuasion, or excuse that justifies that mindset.  That is an absolute badness to me.  I hesitate to say evil because it is weighted by the connotation of Satan and religion and I don’t want this to be about that.  It’s about goodness and badness.  Killing people is bad.  That is an absolute truth to me.  Stealing from people is bad.  That is an absolute truth to me.  Whether that is robbing people of objects, of experiences, or of honesty, it’s all stealing.  Material stealing is the least important.  Money, objects, material, it’s all societally constructed and most of the time doesn’t destroy somebody’s wellbeing or happiness.  Not to say that’s never the case, but *usually* it is not the case.  However there are more dramatic versions of stealing.  Lying is stealing the truth from somebody.  Cheating is stealing a natural, right sequence of events from somebody.  It’s all stealing, and it is deceptive, and selfish.  Nobody has the right to change what should happen.  Nobody has the right to pretend the truth is something it isn’t.  That’s an absolute wrong to me.  How am I supposed to live in a world where I have to doubt what the people around me say?  That is an incredibly exhausting existence.   That mindset towards lying and trust is another thing I have recently realized about myself.  When I begin a relationship with anyone, friendship, professional, romantic, etc., I give that person my trust.  I am vulnerable.  I am open.  I am true and I don’t hold back unless it will cause damage to somebody other than myself.  However, if that trust is exploited, it is taken away by me in an extreme way.  I withdraw entirely.  It hurts me deeply to be betrayed, and it has happened many times.  Yet, I would rather be hurt many times, than not keep my heart as open as I do.  I feel everything so deeply and connect with people in an honest way on a daily basis, because I am brave enough to open myself to betrayal and pain.  Often, I feel that pain.  But, the worst pain and biggest loss of all is if I would let that betrayal make me close my heart off, and I need to have the courage to preserve that.   A sort-of example of this is making dear friends here in South Africa.  The wise thing to do is to keep my heart to myself.  We all live on separate continents.  Why would I get attached? I don’t accept that.  I’ve thrown my heart to people here and, when they leave, it breaks.  But I would rather feel love, loss, and pain than nothing at all.  

- Q

p.s. I haven’t written yet about april 10+11 but that will come when the time is right.  stay patient.  

p.p.s if you haven't listened to the Fugees seriously, do it now.  You might die tomorrow without hearing this genius.  

[lindsay36ho]

Cyprien Katsaris – Beethoven in a New Light

Beethoven – a Chronological Odyssey is a set of six surprising CDs that must count as one of the most original new releases in the Beethoven year. Cyprien Katsaris has gained renown as a Beethoven interpreter not least because he is one of the few pianists to have recorded Liszt’s transcriptions of the symphonies – and also because he has a solo piano version of the Emperor Concerto in his repertoire. But to this French master of Greek Cypriot origin, adding a further complete recording of the piano sonatas to the seventy that are already on the market did not seem to be a good idea. Instead, with his Beethoven Odyssey, Cyprien Katsaris takes us on a fascinating foray through the composer’s output – which we may know rather less thoroughly than we had imagined.

While musical life is suffering profound disruption as the coronavirus crisis causes havoc, Katsaris works at home in Paris with his piano. He is in good spirits and can even see the positive sides of this enforced house arrest: less pollution, less CO2, good air quality. ‘It seems that nature has taken on the task of restoring balance.’ Fortunately pianists – with their many hours of practice per day – are used to social isolation in the company of their pianos, and this applies to Katsaris too, who does not partake of holidays or weekend trips even in normal circumstances. ‘I’m always practising, except the day of a concert, because I want to be fresh and natural. You might compare it to a rendezvous, a dinner with a much admired, beautiful lady; you wouldn’t meet up with another woman earlier the same day.’ Our interview is highly stimulating – and, with the exception of a conversation I had long ago with the (now deceased) Dutch prime minister Ruud Lubbers, the only one out of many hundreds in which I myself had to answer questions. We frequently deviated from the topic of Beethoven, touching on the coronavirus, mutual acquaintances such as Eliane Reyes and the Liszt specialist Koos Groen, and also Frits Philips, who passed away at the age of 100 on the very day that Katsaris gave a concert with the Brabant Orchestra in his Philips’ birth town, Eindhoven.

Czerny

For a long time Katsaris had no idea what contribution he could make to the Beethoven year. Finally now he presents a very personal selection from Beethoven’s complete works, arranged chronologically from his first attempts up to the very last notes he committed to paper. Here sonatas, bagatelles and variations alternate with a total of fifteen transcriptions, mainly of chamber music – either by Beethoven himself or by contemporaries or later colleagues such as Liszt, Wagner and Mussorgsky. Over the years Katsaris has collected so many scores that he himself lost track of what was piling up at home. ‘It started twenty years ago. Michael Ladenburger from the Beethovenhaus in Bonn gave me a photocopy of Czerny’s solo piano transcription of the second movement of the Kreutzer Sonata. it sounded good!’ Concerning the piano sonatas, specifically the Appassionata, Katsaris remarks that many virtuosos are tempted into making errors. ‘They play the third movement much too fast. Beethoven writes Allegro ma non troppo; only the coda is Presto!’

Horowitz

The most interesting Beethoven transcriptions are still Liszt’s arrangements of the nine symphonies. ‘Young pianists might not regard it as helpful, but whether they believe it or not: you understand Beethoven much better if you start with the symphonies rather than the sonatas. In an interview from 1988, Horowitz called the symphonies the “greatest piano works ever written”. Of course they are very difficult; I myself worked for ten years on my Teldec recordings from the 1980s.’ The new CDs also include Wagner’s arrangement of the slow movement of the Ninth Symphony. ‘Liszt’s arrangement is in every way superior, but I wanted to include Wagner if only because nobody would have expected to find him here. Beethoven was Wagner’s idol even when he was a child. Wagner claimed Beethoven and Shakespeare appeared to him in a dream when he was a teenager. He copied the scores of the Fifth and Ninth Symphonies and his piano arrangement of the Ninth retains the singers and choir in the finale, as does the one by Friedrich Kalkbrenner, which was recorded by Etsuko Hirose, one of the finest pianists of her generation. Nobody knows these transcriptions, but there is so much repertoire out there! A Berlin musicologist once told me that we modern pianists play only two per cent of the music that was composed in the nineteenth century!’

Busoni

Should a transcription make you forget the original? ‘No, an arrangement is something totally different. It’s like comparing a black-and-white photo with a colour one. I myself can better understand an orchestral work by playing it on the piano. Arrangements are as old as the hills; the fables of Lafontaine are often nothing more than adaptations in beautiful French language of fables by Æsop, the poet from ancient Greece.’ Busoni once said that every composition is actually a transcription – of the original idea that was in the composer’s mind when he conceived the work. ‘For me there’s hardly any difference between my approach to an original piano composition and the way I tackle an arrangement. Perhaps I feel a little freer if the composer himself was a great improviser. It’s all about the spontaneous creation in the moment. Chopin never played repeated passages in exactly the same way. It’s a question of remaining true to the composition whilst at the same time contributing something personal to it. If I, as a jury member in a competition find someone’s playing convincing, then I agree with him inwardly, even if I myself wouldn’t play it the same way.’

Cziffra

The fire, the enthusiasm and the grandeur with which Katsaris plays Beethoven are reminiscent of his old mentor György Cziffra. ‘I never heard him play the symphonies, but he played Beethoven’s and Mozart’s sonatas very beautifully and elegantly. I once presented his very refined recordings of Scarlatti sonatas on French radio without saying in advance who was playing, and everyone was surprised, because they know him only as a virtuoso. Nowadays his genius is finding greater recognition. We appear together in some TV show from 1975 – you can find it on YouTube if you search for “Cziffra Katsaris”. He gave me his original arrangement of the Flight of the Bumble Bee. It’s even harder than the official version. Cziffra was the greatest pianist I have ever heard.’

Bechstein

The new edition was recorded on two Bechstein grand pianos. Is there a connection with Artur Schnabel’s historic recordings in the combination of Beethoven and Bechstein? ‘I don’t know; in any case before World War II Bechstein was out in front – Rachmaninov, for example, composed his first two concertos at a Bechstein. What I find very good with Bechstein is that they never sound hard, even if you play very loudly. In any case, though, I have never confined myself to a single type of piano. I want to maintain the absolute freedom to be able to play on all good pianos, and I’m keen to help all the major manufacturers – Steingraeber, Steinway, Yamaha or Bechstein. The first grand piano I had at home, when I was a teenager, was a Steingraeber. For 35 years now I’ve owned a Steinway D. I also enjoy playing on a Yamaha CFX, especially when I’m in Japan. In general the piano technicians are better there too. I don’t agree with those who say that in principle you need to use a different instrument for Debussy than for Haydn. You have to be able to make music on every piano. A lot of what we believe is largely in our minds, in our heads. A blind test often produces surprising results.’

Rachmaninov

In the course of his career Katsaris has worked with a large number or famous conductors: Leonard Bernstein, Mstislav Rostropovich, Neville Marriner, Simon Rattle, Myung-Whun Chung, Christoph von Dohnányi, Charles Dutoit, Antal Doráti, Iván Fischer, Kent Nagano, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Charles Mackerras, to name but a few. Exceptional even in this illustrious company was his collaboration with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, with whom Katsaris played Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto, which of course they recorded with the composer himself. They had first become acquainted a year earlier at the first CD recording of Liszt’s Concerto in the Hungarian Style, a work that was completed by Tchaikovsky. ‘I’ll never forget that. A day before the recording, Ormandy invited me to his apartment, for a single rehearsal on his piano. When I told him that I was intimidated he answered he had the same feeling when, as a young man, he had to conduct Rachmaninoff with the Paganini Rhapsody and during the concert Rachmaninoff had a memory problem. Ormandy thought that he caused the mistake, and looked at Rachmaninoff who was very angry and who told him in his deep bass voice: “Play!” Afterwards Ormandy, terrified went to Rachmaninoff in his dressing room, who told him: “I was not angry with you, but with myself!” The famous New York Times emeritus critic Harold Schoenberg later told me how Ormandy once, in Beijing at a rehearsal of the state orchestra there, was asked by the conductor to lead to orchestra for a few minutes and without him even needing to utter a single word, the orchestra suddenly sounded totally different. I believe in this magic, in spiritual communication at a high level. Why can someone who plays perfectly leave you cold, and why is the playing of Horowitz or Cortot – who also made mistakes – so fascinating? It’s a mystery, something spiritual, something that is detached from the physical world. There’s something similar between composers as well. Franz Xaver Mozart composed Polonaises mélancholiques that remind of the early polonaises by Chopin, but Chopin was only five years old at the time. The same with the scherzo from one of Czerny’s sonatas, that sounds like Schumann, although it was written while Schumann was still a child.’

Respect and tolerance

A lot has been said about Beethoven’s humanitarian message. ‘Of course that all culminates in his Ninth Symphony. But the idea itself underpins many of his works. All these sforzati are like a protest against social injustice. In his time wars were raging incessantly and, alongside the protest, we hear the clarity in many works – the full gamut of emotions from fear, rage, strong interest and enthusiasm all the way to the ultimate, to serenity, to zen.’ Katsaris regards himself as a citizen of the world. ‘Beethoven wanted us to become brothers and sisters, but that is the message of every great composer: respect and tolerance. Without any chauvinism, I can see a parallel to the great philosophers of ancient Greece. They have the same universal and humanitarian message that people of all cultures, all over the world, can perceive and understand, whether they are in Korea or Argentina. People everywhere have tears in their eyes when they listen to music by Mozart, Chopin or Beethoven.’

Author: Eric Schoones Photo credit: Jean-Baptiste Millot

Ludwig van Beethoven | A Chronological Odyssey Cyprien Katsaris, piano – 6 CD | PIANO 21 Listen to samples at willowhaynerecords.com

This article is a contribution from the German and Dutch magazine Pianist through Piano Street’s International Media Exchange Initiative and the Cremona Media Lounge.

Pianist Magazine is published in seven countries, in two different editions: in German (for Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxemburg and Liechtenstein) and in Dutch (for Holland and Belgium). The magazine is for the amateur and professional alike, and offers a wide range of topics connected to the piano, with interviews, articles on piano manufacturers, music, technique, competitions, sheetmusic, cd’s, books, news on festivals, competitions, etc. For a preview please check: www.pianist-magazin.de or www.pianistmagazine.nl

from Piano Street’s Classical Piano News https://www.pianostreet.com/blog/articles/cyprien-katsaris-beethoven-in-a-new-light-10692/

[okikouji]

to the place where i won’t sway

One part buddy cop movie, one part mind-numbing domestic fluff, one part redemption fic but not in that (or any) order.

ao3 link: [ ⁂ ch1] [ ✦ ch2] [ ◇ ch3] [ ✦ ch4]

non-linear

Arc 2 - ✦ Bakugou Katsuki realizes some shit aka Feelings

Ch4- ✦ -  Going to wait, Far away, I'm awake    

Summary: Bakugou and Uraraka have a talk (3.7k words)

✦

24 years old

He'll never openly admit it but Katsuki knows there are a handful of people who he's pretty incapable of saying, 'No', to. Those who in their own separate ways have earned his unspoken acknowledgement and respect. Not that he'll ever make anything easy for hem when it comes to himself, mind you, so he makes as if to walk away, but slowly enough for Uraraka to place herself in front of him to stop him. They stand there in the quiet of the night, the apartment complex where the Midoriyas have always lived next to them. He stays silent, waits for her to speak up and get whatever this is done and over with. He just wants to go home and sleep until morning comes again so he can keep his routine of the past few months going. He doesn't want to stop, cant afford to really, not yet at least. But Ueno and Yasumori have made it quite a point to remind him that maybe that's exactly what he needs; a break in routine. Uraraka lets out a breath, visible in the cold. She doesn't seem to have dressed for the weather, only wearing a thin jacket and a dark green beanie on her head. He wonders if she came here straight from her work as a side-kick. "I was a little surprised to see you there, today," she says, eyes still glued to his own. He raises a brow at her in return. She definitely seemed more than a little surprised to see him, what with the way she almost dropped the flower base she'd been carrying on her way inside the room as he was exiting. "Ok, a lot surprised," she concedes with a small shrug of her own. "No one's ever mentioned seeing you visit before-" "I'm my own boss, I pick my hours as I like," he says, a little half-truth, cutting her off. "The rest of you go in when you can, at least that's what aunt Inko says." He doesn't say, "I've been going there every day." He hopes aunt Inko didn't as well. Uraraka nods, biting onto her lip like there's more she wants to say but is thinking better of it. "What?" She opens her mouth and blurts out, "can we talk?" "We're talking right now," he points out. He wants her to leave and though he knows he could try and maker her, if only by aggravating her enough for whatever this is to not seem worth the trouble to her, part of him is curious enough to not outright deny her request (The Ueno in his head tells him to stop being a brat; the Yasumori in his head says, clear and heavy, "talk to someone, whether it's me or someone else you trust.") "Bakugou," she says, not quite glaring at him but coming pretty close. He huffs, looking away from her and towards the sky. There's not a star in sight, clouds and light pollution both keeping them hidden. They're there though, not being visible doesn't mean anything otherwise. Ignoring the problem won't make it disappear. He looks back at her. "How important is this to you?" If his question confuses her she doesn't show it. "Very." "Here", he says as he pulls the extra face mask he carries around, internally thanks Ueno for having nagged the habit into his skull, and hands it to her. She raises a brow at him but pulls it on none the less. "Do you want the papzz to recognize you?" he says before pulling his own mask on. The vultures are starving right now, even though society and heroes as a whole are still healing, they don't give much a shit, trying to find whatever little scandal they can get their hands on. He takes a second to figure out where to go from there. "Keep close, I know a place we can go to." She does, keeping silent all the way to the train station and though she doesn't say anything he catches the glance she throws his way when they take a train going the opposite direction to his place. She's never actually been to his penthouse in all the years they've known each other, only a handful of their old classmates have, but she (like the others) knows the general area from all the pictures and stories Eijirou's told over the years since Katsuki moved into it. Everyone knows the view form his balcony is a sight to behold, Eijirou's made more than sure of it. Even Deku agreed. (Katsuki still remembers the look on Deku's face when he'd stepped out onto the balcony for the first time. Katsuki has finally made sense of the feelings that ran through him that night.) Half way through the trip he wonders if he should have just taken them over to the agency, pick an empty conference room and have the talk there. He ignores the thought as soon as it comes. They'd be in his home turf (plus he knows Ueno, ever the workaholic, will be there and there's no need to get her remotely involved- which she would eventually be, also ever the busy body and over protective older-sister type she is). So even ground it'll be since it doesn't matter how many times he's been a patron at Imperium, the Boss is indifferent to him. If he can count on someone to be a mediator, if it gets to the point where one is needed, it's that tiny old man. Two minutes from Korusanto Ward he lets her know that's their stop. If she thinks anything about the fact that they're going to one of the busiest wards in the whole country she doesn't say. They leave the train station with haste. Incoming trains to Korusanto are never usually full but it's never a good idea to hesitate when exiting unless being trampled by all the people leaving the ward sounds like a fun time. He grabs her elbow when he notices the crowd push her back, lets go when they exist the station. "Where to?" she asks sticking her hands into her jacket's pockets. He takes a moment to look around. The masses walking around won't be diminishing anytime soon and not for the first time he wonders how the heroes and police force of the ward deal with the crowd disasters waiting to happen one after another. "This way,'" he says walking into the crowd. They have to get to the heart of Korusanto to reach Imperium. He keeps an eye out for her over his shoulder as they make their way through the crowd. They pass shops and restaurants, bars and clubs, Monument Plaza, Infantino Arcology, the ward's branch office of Galactica, and Red Guards' main office building. Not two blocks from there is Imperium, as inconspicuous as he remembers. As inconspicuous as it needs to be. Still, he leads Uraraka to the back entrance instead of the front. When he turns to her after pressing the intercom he finds her squinting at him, brow furrowed like she's trying to figure out what he's up to. He doesn't blame her, even he was apprehensive the first time Ueno brought him here, years back. The back door opens and Katsuki immediately scowls. "Where's Boss?" he asks, crossing over his arms. He can't stand Hashiraishi, never has been able to and never has been able to figure out why. Hashiraishi for his part ushers them inside without pause, fake smile plastered so hard on his face all four of his eyes are shut. When he closes the door after Uraraka enters they open, revealing that annoying and off putting shade of milky green irises Katsuki would rather not look at. "Boss is entertaining guests at the moment. Important people he can't put on hold, you understand," he explains with a flick of his wrist. He turns to look at Uraraka, who straightens her back at said look, before turning back to Katsuki. "Miss Ueno not with you today?" "This ain't business," Katsuki says, pulling his face mask and scarf off. Uraraka hesitates before doing the same with her face mask. "Pity, I'm sure Boss would have loved to see her. Me as well" "There a room available or not?" Katsuki cuts in, aggravated to be kept standing. Another reason to hate Hashiraishi- always goes on and on over meaningless small talk even when it's been made clear no one wants to talk back. Hashiraishi doesn't roll his eyes- it's a close thing however, Katsuki doesn't miss the aborted motion. Thankfully he keeps his mouth shut, simply motioning to them to follow him. He doesn't lead them to the usual room Katsuki's been to before when Ueno requests one. Two flights of stairs later Hashiraishi leads them to a slightly smaller room. It can still sit around 6 people from the looks of it. The interior design is different too. The walls are a warm red, there are orange cushions on the brown seats, and multiple but softer lights on the ceiling. Nothing like the simple black, white, and silver of the room he's used to occupying. Then again he did say he wasn't here for business. Hashiraishi points to the tablet atop the table and says, "I'm sure you the drill by now. Please, enjoy your say." Katsuki walks to the table, pulling his jacket off before throwing it with the scarf across the seats. He slides in easily, and in this the new room is much better as he doesn't have to kneel down to sit, taping away at the tablet before glancing at Uraraka. She's still standing by the door, deep frown in place. "You gonna stand there the whole time or what?" That brings her back into action as she stomps to the seats across from him. "I had some questions, now I've got so many where do I even start," she grumbles, glaring at him with puffed out cheeks as she takes her seat. He shrugs with one shoulder, handing her the tablet. "That's the menu for today, pick something if you're hungry. Or don't, up to you." She looks it over. "Where are the prices," she trails off. Her head snaps up. "I don't trust anything with no prices." "You're not paying for the food." "I don't want to owe you money either-" "No one pays for the food," he cuts in. "That's why the menu changes every day, it depends on what Boss has in stock." "Then how does this place make any money-" "The room." "The room?" she repeats, baffled. "I could let off the biggest explosion I can right now and at most this entire floor would shake, slightly. No one would hear it, at all. You and I would probably be dead considering the small enclosed space but the rest of the patrons would be none the wiser. Complete isolation," he explains. "W-why-" "'Secrets are profitable', that's how Ueno put it. That's why Boss put so much money into the building being this way. Top dogs, from military to economic blocks, rent out the rooms here to talk about all sorts of shit that they can't even on those fancy, wait-a-year-to-even-make-a-reservation places." He shrugs. "The patrons also know that if they're doing something obviously illegal and the cops come with a warrant he won't do squat to save their asses. The rooms have a shit ton of cameras," he continues, watches her look around. "Probably within the walls or something. No microphones so they gotta be placed with good view of the patrons faces for lip reading." "Then how much does the room cost?!" "Don't worry about it, neither one of us is paying. Ueno is the Boss' little darling, he calls her his granddaughter. When she pays it's more out of courtesy than anything, and only does so every 5 times she, myself, or Old Bones, asks for a room. It's because her old man is a regular here," he tells her, dragging his hands over his face. "Look are you gonna keep panicking over nothing, or are you gonna start talking any time soon? You're the one who wanted to talk, so talk." She opens and closes her mouth before huffing. He's pretty sure she mutters, "ass", but he doesn't bother calling her out on it. "I'm not really hungry..." she says, hesitating before finally setting the tablet aside. When she looks at him again her eyes have that same look they did when he saw her waiting outside by aunt Inko's apartment complex. "So," she starts, letting her elbows rest on the table as she leans forward. She threads her fingers together. "You were visiting Deku's hospital room today." Katsuki nods, tries to make it seem nonchalant. "Mrs. Midoriya says you've been gong there practically every day." He makes sure not to twitch but inwardly he groans and wonders if aunt Inko told her on purpose (nah, she wouldn't, Deku's her freaking kid after all; two peas from the same pod and all that). "Yes," he says simply. Uraraka looks thrown off. "Seriously- no I mean, if you've been going once a week or something that's different, she said-" Uraraka snaps her mouth shut. She's looking at him like she's seeing him for the first time, unease in every line of her face. "I don't understand." He clenching his fists, hidden from view inside his pants pockets. "It's fucking simple. I've been visiting Deku every day that I can." It feels different, saying it to Uraraka of all people when he hasn't even told Eijirou. Ueno knows by virtue of being in charge of everyones' working hours, constantly working around his requests for even a single hour off every freaking day. Yasumori knows because it's the only thing he's said during their sessions in the past months. Old Bones and the rest over at the agency know without him saying anything to them because it's his selfish requests that have them working to make up for his missing time (he's yet to thank them for it, though he knows he should already, somehow). He feels defensive, affronted about having to- to admit it.

He's not ready. He probably won't be until after Deku wakes up. "So it has been you, every day, it's been you," Uraraka says. What she doesn't say outright but her tone implies is, confirm this for me, tell me it's been you. He nods. "Even if it's just for 15 minutes to pick up aunt Inko and walk her home. Usually I can get 30 minutes to an hour to my visits-" "We're in rotation," Uraraka cuts him off suddenly. "Seven of us. Me, Tenya, Todoroki, Hatsume, Tsuyu, Tokoyami, and Hitoshi. One of us for every day. One of us going to check on him during visitor hours and letting the rest know any updates through line," she says pulling out her phone, movements a bit frantic as she taps away one handed and sets the phone down in front of him. He can see the group chat, the messages Uraraka got from the others after she had sent hers today. He doesn't see her mention him anywhere. "I know Kirishima and the others have visited him too, but you've never gone with them. No one has ever mentioned seeing you." "So I need to know, and don't you dare bullshit me, I need to know how you've been visiting him every day when none of us have seen you before because Mrs. Midoriya wouldn't say," she finishes and glares at him full force. He looks at her, senses something off now that he pays attention. There's something else to this- Oh. Right. He sighs and digs through his pockets. "If you're afraid Himiko Toga's been to his room with my face you're wrong." He pulls the hospital pass out and throws it at her over the table. She grabs it, confused, looks it over with a focus that rivals his own during villain encounters. "This isn't a regular visitor's pass. This is-" "A special pass for family members, yeah. Aunt Inko's got one just like it that's how she's allowed to be in his room during all hours." "You're not family," she points out but her gaze is still on the pass, cradled on her hands like it's something precious. He keeps his mouth shut. He's not- he's not explaining that to her. He's not saying it period. As it is the fact that his agency knows is already too much. Ueno knowing is fine, there would have been no way to keep her in the dark anyway, but he knows the rest have put two and two together already and he hates it. But what he hates the most is that he doesn't have the balls to be honest with them. Not yet.

It's yet another thing he has to apologize to Deku for, when he wakes up. "This is why none of us have seen you, you don't go during actual visiting hours," she breathes out. "You don't have to worry about that bitch either," he says instead, "didn't half-n-half say she ended up totally fried by his brother-" "Why." She looks up at him, slides the pass back towards him. He remains silent. "I- I know the two of you have gotten much closer. That you're nothing like the way you used to be back in our first year, both of you. From Deku I get it, I do, your friendship- that's something I knew he wanted so much but- I can understand it from him, if your positions were switched. I wouldn't be surprised then. But I cant understand it. I don't understand why you're doing this, been doing this-" welcome to the club- "Aunt Inko figured it out before I did," he blurts out. He looks away, berates himself for it with an curse and grinds his teeth. Uraraka says nothing. Not at first. Not after a minute. And not after five. He loses count by the time she speaks up again. "You know, when I heard your shout that day, it really freaked me out," she starts, she's not whispering but the way she's talking is so soft it makes him wonder if she really trying to talk to him or if she's merely talking out loud. "I knew you for years by then. I knew you could be so loud but that day, that day you gave Present Mic a run for his money, you know," she says followed by a snort. "You know how freaked out it made me? It made me so freaked out that I almost dropped a freaking building over my own head but I didn't. You know what I did instead?" her voice wavers. He keeps his eyes down. "Bakugou." "What." "Look at me, would ya?" He takes a moment to close his eyes and breath. He should've ordered some alcohol. "Bakugou," she says again and when he finally turns back to look at her her eyes are already bright with unshed tears. "I lifted a whole building over my head and left it floating in my hurry to get to where you where, to where both of you where. I didn't know I could do that you know, keep something that heavy floating for hours, because that's what I did. Adrenaline's awesome stuff, huh? It stayed up even after I ran from under it and had Tenya's brother-in-law take me to the two of you. After we found you," here her voice waivers but doesn't break, not yet, "after the four of us took Deku to the closest safety station around. After I dragged your ass to get check out, do you even remember that?" He doesn't. He doesn't remember much besides making sure Shigaraki stayed the fuck down and then seeing Uraraka kneel beside him and Deku. Doesn't even remember four eyes' brother-in-law being there (to be fair to himself, he's not sure he even knows what said brother-in-law looks like). Only remembers the aftermath of the next day, and barely at that. Uraraka shakes her head. "Of course you don't. You were in shock you know, I had to use my quirk on you to move you because you just would not budge, damn you I had to get back out there and you just wouldn't move." She takes a breath but it's shaky. She's losing her composure and his gut keeps getting heavier and heavier as she goes on. "I thought I was seeing things back then, you know, in your eyes. It was almost like looking in a mirror. I thought, 'is that what I would've looked like had this happened during out first year in UA?'" she says, and she's looking right him but it's different than before. It feels like she's seeing all his secrets out in the open. It feels like they were only ever really secrets to himself. Fuck, who else figured this shit out before he did? What a fucking joke. If she teases him he's leaving- She laughs, a short, sad thing to listen to. "I thought he was dead," she blurts out instead, her face crumbling in grief. "I- when I saw him, I thought he was already d-dead. There was so much blood, on both of you and- you!- you were holding him up with a broken arm, you idiot! Your freaking thumb's bone was poking out to say hello and everything, I only noticed it after we handed Deku over to the doctors, that's- I ended up focusing on your stupid thumb for hours because it was so much easier than thinking about Deku and- shit," she says rubbing her hands over her eyes. "Shit, shit, shit," she mutters under her breath, stops rubbing her hands over her eyes in favor of just covering her whole face with them. Shit is right. "I thought he was dead," she repeats, once, twice, and at the third time she breaks half way through and starts sobbing. They're quiet sobs really but they shake her whole frame, make her look smaller than she is. There's a knot on his throat, swirling emotions at the pit of his stomach, and a stinging in his eyes he refuses to acknowledge. "I thought he was dead too," he admits quietly to her and her sobs go from quiet to full on wailing. It's not the first time he's said it out loud. It's only the third.

Notes:

#this was actually cut in half because the rest was them getting absolutely hammered and being picked up by kirishima and iida since i felt it made the stuff before it weaker and as a stand alone its more of a pointless omake so i might just not post that part at all, or post it separately if you all want to read it anyway

Notes 2:

#I keep hinting at all these OCs and not properly introducing them to yall, i apologize

#Yasumori's name is written as 保護, or "hogo" meaning shelter, taking alt. readings to each separate kanji (保 "yasu" and 護 "mori")

#Horikoshi isn't the only star wars nerd around!! Korusanto Ward is named after Coruscant, written as 孤塁三徳 , using the kanji for isolated stronghold ("korui" 孤塁) and the 3 primary virtues aka valour, wisdom and benevolence ("santoku" 三徳)

#places named that Kacchako pass by are: Monument Plaza as a shout out to Coruscant's Monument Plaza, Infantino Arcology as a shout out to COMPNOR Arcology and Carmine Infantino famous artist and editor from the silver age of comic books, Galactica to Battlestar Galactica of which i've only seen the first season and in spanish to boot, Red Guards as a shout out to Palpatine's red guards, Imperium as a shout out to the Empire itself

#Hashiraishi's name is written out as 柱石 which would usually be read as "chuuseki" meaning pillar but takes alt. readings to each separate kanji (柱 "hashira" and 石 "ishi")

#this was actually the third piece i wrote for this verse months ago, i finally got it as good as i can get it, not having a beta sucks sometimes, if someone wouldn't mind being a beta reader lemme know

#second chapter from the 2nd arc and chronologically follow the first by a couple of months

#ch title comes from theCharmpark's Kawareru

#comments letting me know how good or bad i'm doing w/ characterization or style would be greatly appreciated

[moviesihaveseenbeforeiamdea-blog]

#434 The Red Desert (Il Deserto Rosso)

Source

Released: February 8, 1965 (US)

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni

Written by: Michelangelo Antonioni and Tonino Guerra

Starring: Monica Vitti, Richard Harris

Had I Seen it Before? No

Creative differences: Richard Harris, who plays Corrado in this film, had some difficulties with this film. He was an Irish actor who, as far as I can tell, did not speak Italian fluently, which got in the way of Antonioni, who did not speak a word of English. Harris took LSD on set and made a scene before locking himself in a hotel room. Eventually, he punched out Antonioni and was fired from the set, the rest of his scenes being performed by a body double shot from behind. 

The Red Desert is a beautiful film. A languid plot inches along with restrained performances all around that unfold in a vague, often times unclear way, but goddam this movie had more jaw-dropping compositions in its two hours than I have seen from the rest of these movies combined---and that’s not a knock on what I’ve seen so far, but a testament to Antonioni’s use of color and framing to create gorgeous images. This was his first color film, and he claimed his intention was to use the celluloid like he was painting a canvas, and it shows. 

What makes this all the more striking is that Antonioni does not indulge himself to stick to the easy compositions. A more thoughtless director might also claim to want to make every shot a painted canvas and then default to the uncontroversial subjects: a sunset, a beautiful Tuscan landscape, the Alps, the Venetian canals. Antonioni refuses to indulge the romantic myths of Italy, however, and instead portrays a hellish industrial landscape that is too alien to be welcoming and too intimate to distance escape the near-psychic trance it puts over the viewer. 

The industrial wastes of Ravenna house Giuliana, a businessman’s wife, and her husband’s associate, Corrado Zeller. Giuliana is a bored and alienated wife, left to her own devices and suffocating in the polluted world created by men like her husband. Corrado is a handsome businessman, equally alienated but used to living a rootless life, traveling for business often and adapting to a constant state of being out at sea. The two of them are united in their loneliness and begin to take comfort in each other’s presence. 

The movie is slow and methodical, and I think the specificities of the plot are best left unexplored for those who haven’t seen it yet. Instead, please enjoy the following anecdotes and these beautiful stills from the movie. 

(Source)

It is sometimes very strange being a man. I don’t think we have the same sense of community between each other that women often seem to. The openness women seem to express around each other would be intimidating, uncomfortable between most men. I love both of my grandparents, but while I tell my grandmother this often, it would be awkward to talk to my grandfather and tell him that I love him. It’s just not the way he is, and at this age, I think there’d be no point in trying to get him to open up. He is the way he is. 

But this difficulty in expression isn’t confined to the older generations, I can feel it all around me. And often feel like Giuliana near the end of The Red Desert, at wit’s end with the endless slog of trying to keep some semblance of identity that is worth communicating in a world that implicitly forbids it. Giuliana finds herself attempting to sail away from her life with a boat captain, who speaks a different language than her and can’t understand what she’s saying as she unloads on him all her dissatisfaction, all of her loneliness, punctuating it with the perfect thesis “we are all separate.”

I imagine everyone---regardless of gender---feels this way once in a while (obviously, Giuliana is a woman), but loneliness to me has always held liquid properties: having a definite volume but no necessary shape, contorting itself to fill whatever vessel it occupies. The loneliness of a man and loneliness of a woman may carry the same weight, but they probably differ in their specifics, in the particulars of their shape, their feeling. I wonder if Antonioni had this in mind when he filled his movie with boats and sprawling oceans. 

(Source)

I went to visit my friend from high school at his college in Chicago one winter. I got stoned one night with him and he passed out, and I was stuck awake. I was hungry and tried to wake him up and get food with me. Instead, he directed me to where his keys were and gave me vague instructions on how to walk to the nearest open fast food. 

I went off on my own, purposefully leaving my phone behind to see what it would feel like to have to pay attention to the city around me. It was late, maybe one or two in the morning. It was a stupid thing to do. I had never been to Chicago before and knew nothing of the safety of the area I was in, and did my best to review the instructions my sleepy, stoned friend half-heartedly relayed to me. 

Mostly though I took in my surroundings and made mental notes about which directions I had turned and where. A city has so much detail when you are forced to look at it as a means of survival. Ravenna in The Red Desert is often an empty, drab city. There are so few people throughout this movie and they often are cold with one another, or at least withholding. I felt much the same about Chicago. The people seemed absorbed in their own lives (why shouldn’t they be?) and the city itself seemed to sprawl endlessly in every direction with no regard for aesthetics or history. 

But I got my cheap food and made my way back without incident.

(Source)

Right before my aunt died, my uncle bought a cabin in the thumb of Michigan. It seemed like a weird purchase---he wasn’t any kind of outdoorsman---but maybe it was intended to be some form of escape. I think my aunt always wanted to buy a cabin, and it was meant to be a consolation for the fact that, well, maybe she’d never get to see her children get married or even graduate, never see another Michigan winter, or do much of anything ever again. 

The first time my uncle went to that cabin after she died my mom and sister and I went with him. My cousins were there too. 

The surrounding area wasn’t much, about what you’d expect. In the movie, a man named Max owns the cabin and sells it to one of his workers, who comes to see his boss for a moment. Later, when the worker is gone and everyone else is still in his future cabin, Max and the others start to destroy it. When some reserve is expressed about destroying something to be given to a man who has invested himself into it, Max waves it off and they all go about destroying it. The cabin means nothing to them, it’s someone else’s dream. 

It wasn’t anything spiritual or cathartic to be there. If anything it felt a little weird, out of place, like we were forcing some communal feeling between us all when the truth was, after months of dealing with a horrific trauma collectively, none of us much wanted anything to do with the others for a while. But we did our best. We built a fire, made hot dogs and ate them while listening to the radio (I tried to get an NPR signal, but my mom wisely suggested that maybe no one else gave a fuck about what was happening with politics right now), and even played a game of Monopoly that went smoothly. 

I didn’t go back to that cabin too many times after that. There wasn’t a point. I’m not even sure if they still have it, I can’t imagine they would, but I haven’t spoken to most of that side of the family in a while. But sometimes I do think about that cabin and wished I had gotten to experience it with the one person who seemed to have wanted it. 

(Source)

The first time I ever took MDMA it was at a party at my friend’s apartment. He lived in the yuppie part of the student housing around campus, and even though I liked him a lot, I didn’t much care for the other people in the neighborhood. I was dating someone from another college at the time, a relationship that was fueled mostly by a shared appreciation of drugs. 

Anyway, neither of us had ever done Molly before, and we were nervous but went to my friend’s anyway. We took our capsules and waited. I’ve never been an upper guy, I prefer my narcotics anesthetizing, but I’d only heard good things. 

The party was going alright and I wasn’t feeling anything yet, but then my girlfriend began to run her fingers through my hair and paw at my face. It wasn’t too much later that I began to feel it too, and it was coming on strong and soon enough so was I. We walked upstairs, hand-in-hand, grab-assing the whole way and locked ourselves in my friend’s private bathroom and turned the lights off. He ran up the stairs, tipped off to our flight by someone else at the party, and banged on the door and begged us not to fuck in his bathroom. We weren’t going to, but we made it sound as though it were too late. He ran downstairs to get some help, but I guess no one took him seriously because he never came back. We laughed and laughed at our poor friend wondering what we were doing to his sacred space. 

We didn’t have sex, and anyone who’s ever taken Molly can probably guess why we didn’t (hint: we couldn’t), but we lied down on the ground, face-to-face, and touched each other’s faces and stared at each other and talked about whatever was coming to mind, and so many things were. We talked about our feelings for each other, what we wanted to do, where we wanted to go, where we saw the relationship going. This was all during the time I was in love with the girl who loved the Beatles, and---as shitty as this sounds---my relationship with the girl now with me in the bathroom was more a coping mechanism for that failed relationship. 

I told the girl on the bathroom floor with me that, when we were sober, we would move together to Uruguay, and that I would become a professor of English, and she would become a biologist, and we would smoke as much legal weed as we could afford and be the cosmopolitan expatriates of Montevideo. It all seemed so real at the time. 

The next weekend she asked me if we should start saving money. I laughed and asked for what? She said for the move. I felt horrible. I’d said all of that because I was on drugs, and it had meant so much to her. I was twenty, and it hadn’t yet occurred to me that my words could mean something real to someone else. We broke up soon afterward, but I still feel bad about that night. 

There is a certain amount of performance when we’re around anyone else, and that amplifies when we’re around several people we don’t know. Corrado and Giuliana, in that cabin together with her husband and some acquaintances, you can feel their discomfort. And when they begin to experiment with aphrodisiacs, the tension ramps up and you can see the spiritual distance in Corrado’s eyes as he alternates between wanting Giuliana and knowing the futility of trying to bridge that distance with his attraction to her. 

The two of them are lost souls, adrift in the industrial sea, and the realization there seems to be the hope in both of them that the other is some flotsam from a past shipwreck that they can cling to so that they might stay afloat. But one drowning person can’t keep the other afloat, and in their desperation, they might only expedite the inevitable. 

There’s a certain amount of performance when experimenting with drugs with other people, especially when they fuck with you the way MDMA does. All that expression, that enthusiasm, it feels so genuine in the moment. But you either realize in a moment of calm or after the fact that you meant little to none of it, and it’s a very lonely feeling to think that what you thought was some kind of revelatory euphoria was chemical exchanges, and that they meant nothing beyond their immediate feeling. 

(Source)

There was a summer in college where I had to go back to my parents’ to work and save money. My parents arranged two jobs for me, combining to be about sixty hours of work a week. My first job, Monday - Thursday, was at a factory of bolts in southeast Michigan. They supplied auto manufacturers with bolts for the construction of vehicles. The foreman of the plant was a family friend, and it was arranged that he would drive me there in the mornings and my father, who was a cop in a nearby city, would pick me up to bring me home after work. 

The other job was bar-backing at a bar nearby my parents, within walking distance. I worked that one Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night. My schedule was eleven hours Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday at the factory, seven hours on Thursday, and then somewhere between five-to-seven hours Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights at the bar. I had every Sunday off, which became a day I worshipped for reasons independent of any god. 

You hear a lot about manufacturing jobs every election cycle. They were once the backbone of the American economy, or so I’ve been told. Having grown up for a chunk of my life in southeast Michigan, the automotive plants were the tragic history of the region, lifting up an entire generation into the middle class and then defaulting on their promise to future would-bes of the financially comfortable. Those jobs left and the region was crippled. Everyone wants those jobs back, but I was an economics major in college long enough to understand that those jobs are never coming back. And, you know what? Fucking good. 

I feel as though the only people advocating for the return of jobs in areas like manufacturing and mining are people who have never worked those jobs. They are miserable to work. I was a painter at the factory I worked, making sure the machines looked nice, the pylons were bright and noticeable, and that the walls looked suitable. There wasn’t much to paint, and so I painted the same shit over and over. The factory was hot, loud, sweaty, dirty, and full of the kinds of people who look as though they understand they fucked up somewhere along the line, but haven’t understood yet where it was that it went wrong. And that’s not a knock on them, none of them were bad people, but a factory job grinds you down. 

When the last manufacturing plant is shipped out of this country, I won’t lose any sleep. 

(Source)

I lived in Alaska for a time when I was young. My father was in the military and was stationed there. My mother came with him, and so did I. There is very little I remember about Alaska, but from the way my mother talks about it I imagine it to be an imposing and lonely place. She has many sad things to say about that time, and it feels so strange to me that I was there with her for all of it and never knew how she felt. No one told me. 

Final thoughts:

Richard Harris’s lack of understanding of Italian may have been frustrating to deal with on set, but I think it translates to a finer performance for what the movie needed. Much like the German actors doing their best English in Herzog’s Nosferatu remake, the language awkwardness and difficulties heighten the sensation of Corrado being alone. I imagine filming this movie must have been, at times, lonely for Harris. 

I think the greatest success an artist can have with his or her creation is to put it out there and have it mean so much to someone that they voluntarily seek out more of the artist’s work. As a consequence of The Red Desert, I am looking forward to the next movie of Antonioni’s that I watch for this blog (and there are several). 

I watched this movie on FilmStruck, which I am starting to enjoy very much. I also heard of a service called Fandor, which is supposed to be another streaming service that caters to the cinephile and niche crowds. I haven’t tried Fandor yet, but they have a free trial, so I’ll give it a go. I also bought six months of Real Debrid, but haven’t gotten a chance to delve into it on my FireStick.

Giuliana to Corrado, looking out at the ocean: “I can't look at the sea for long or I lose interest in what's happening on land.” I wish the world could have done better by you, Giuliana. 

Recommended: Eraserhead, Mrs. Dalloway

[thebeakerblog]

Paying Back Our Intellectual Debt To The Natural World

Artist and experimental philosopher Jonathon Keats says his newest exhibit is a doorway -- a portal into a world where turtles threatened by expanding cities are given street camouflage (see above) and magnetized drones help guide confused birds journeying on ever-changing migrations. 

“I don’t know that there’s a lesson to what I do. I hope there isn’t, because that would be very easy to state and then why would one bother to get out wire cutters and duct tape and build these things?” says Keats. “I think it’s more about bringing people into this alternate reality.”

Keats has opened a business school for bacteria, worked to clone Lady Gaga, and designed a camera to take a picture with a 1,000 year exposure -- so he’s something of an alternate reality expert. 

His latest project is the “Reciprocal Biomimicry Initiative,” which opens at Bucknell University’s Samek Art Museum today. WNPR spoke with Keats to learn more. The following conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

For starters, we’ll talk about biomimicry. Explain what it is.

Biomimicry is a principle that has been around for a very long time. If you look back, historically, you find even the history of the airplane is very much based on the flight of birds. 

But it has taken up a whole new level of sophistication in the past 30 or 40 years. For instance, the beaks of kingfishers have provided inspiration for the noses of bullet trains, based on the observation that kingfishers are able to dive into water without perturbing it, in order to catch fish.

That led me to think about how this incredible portfolio of intellectual property has been exploited by us for a long time, and in many ways. We continue to stripmine other organisms for their intellectual property even as we use that knowledge to increase our own hegemony.

That’s, of course, rather contrary to the green image that biomimicry tends to have and led me to undertake what I call “reciprocal biomimicry” with my Reciprocal Biomimicry Initiative.

Pull out a few examples of things that you are trying to re-jigger to pay it back to the natural world.

Reciprocal Biomimicry is based on the principle that our technologies might be of use to other organisms for their survival, just as their technologies have proven highly useful to us.

For example, if you look at the effect of climate change on birds and their migration patterns, many birds now find themselves in patterns that are inappropriate. So, I started thinking about whether we could make use of a number of our technologies, all put together in a new way, that would be specific for birds -- and that would be drones, that could fly with flocks and lead them.

Climate change makes the world far more unpredictable. And that unpredictability requires a degree of resilience that we have increasingly been working to build into our systems.

Above: The prototype drones have a set of coils that cancel out Earth’s geomagnetic field and also have a strong electromagnet, which provides an alternate field -- to help guide the birds. Keats says the idea would be helpful for birds who have lost visual cues on migration routes due to human development.

Below: Another Keats model demonstrates how solar panels could be floated on the surface of the ocean could help facilitate underwater photosynthesis. As global dimming and water pollution make less sunlight reach corals, fiber optic cables route light into the ever-darkening depths of the ocean. Keats says the device could also be powered by wave energy.

There are several other technologies that I am looking at as well. I guess maybe the most peculiar of them -- perhaps, or the most eccentric -- might be looking at the sex lives of flowers. And realizing that with colony collapse disorder, plants no longer have the benefit of natural pollination by honey bees.

Humans have come up with all sorts of plans for taking care of plants, or so they say, but really taking care of us -- by ensuring that plants get pollinated. These range from various sorts of rods that might be used to spread pollen to, very recently, drones that might do so.

But for the plants, it’s not very spectacular. It’s lacking in the pleasure of sex. As a result, I’ve been developing sex toys for flowers -- mini vibrators that attach to the plant and vibrate like honey bees (pictured below). They’re using technology that we’ve developed for our cell phones that make them vibrate -- and that are perfectly scaled to serve as surrogate bees. Not in order to spread pollen, but simply to give flowers that experience.

A lot of what we are talking about here is climate change -- and a lot of what goes along with climate change is stuff we can’t predict. We guard against that by building more resilient infrastructure. So was resiliency your north star in this project, when you’re trying to figure out how to engineer things for that natural world?

I think resiliency is the main thing that is on the mind of technologists who are looking to sustainability for humans. And because I am engaged in a process of taking our technologies and making them available to other organisms, inevitably, I crib on that.

In terms of the genesis of the project, it was equally looking at this whole question of intellectual property and the ways humans are so eager to patent inventions that come from other organisms. 

I’ve been interested in trying to pursue a means by which to patent, on behalf of other organisms, their technologies. In order to then license those technologies to human corporations and make that funding available to take care of an organisms’ habitat.

I love that idea. When I’ve thought about intellectual property and animals -- my mind generally goes to art. Like the black macaque monkey that took a selfie, and then there was debate about who owned that picture. But you’re saying, animals created a lot of cool technology that we’re just riffing off -- so maybe we should give them some credit for that.

I don’t think it’s just a matter of credit. It really, I think, requires that we think about the world we have created because it’s not a world exclusive to us. It’s a world that, inevitably, affects every species on the planet in ways they did not sign up for. 

If they are all going to be affected by the global economic system -- this thing we call civilization -- then we need to account for them and provide a means for them to operate within that system fairly.

Above: Life support systems allow mollusks to to migrate from land to sea (or vice versa) in order to escape the harmful effects of acid rain or ocean acidification. In conceptual models, Keats says tubes and valves are used to maintain required micro environments inside shells. 

It also just makes us more humbled. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, when we talk about ideas of human exceptionalism and the natural world.

Absolutely. Biomimicry has this humbling effect to some extent. There is absolutely an admiration implicit in a lot of biomimicry. The engineers who engage in it are certainly appreciative of the genius of evolution, for lack of a better term.

So there is a lot of admiration, but I just wonder to what degree that admiration is equivalent to the admiration we have for ourselves.

So if I want to assuage some of my guilt, should I go out and start putting camouflage on turtles?

The systems I have developed are at a very primitive stage. The camouflage for turtles, at present, resembles a sort of camouflage that you put on an army helmet. And, to put that onto a turtle may be inadvisable for all sorts of reasons. Turtles are not quite the same as helmets.

We need to take this a lot farther than, most likely, I am capable of doing. I think we need to, next, start thinking about this principle in terms of how we might apply it in the real world. But, recognizing that I come at this as an experimental philosopher. As someone who is interested in the ideas -- also to recognize that perhaps, this is not a very good idea, ultimately. 

Perhaps we should take this not as something we should go out and do -- but as a means to reflect on ourselves and our relationship with the world.

(Image Credits: Jonathon Keats)

[seashellsoldier]

Going to share more of my English master’s thesis, without too much PII, in regards to my Russian roots, for V.

“Growing up in a Russian house in inner-city Cleveland couldn’t have been easy for mom. Her dad was a backstreet bullfighter that didn’t take crap from anyone. 5-foot 6-inches tall and hewn from rock, he boxed in the Air Force during WWII because he boxed for the steel mill he worked at when unions were ironclad and individual chapters acted like street gangs. In Cleveland, the mob ran rampant up until the 70s. Danny Greene and all that, with labor unions being prized jewels. I remember as a kid, grandpa’s ritual would be to flex his bicep and taunt all the kids to hit it as hard as we all could. It felt like marble and he’d just smile his big-toothed smile, the huge underbite keeping his cigar in place as me and my cousins thumped little fists upon the stone of his Gibraltar. Popeye the sailor man. I can only imagine him when he was angry. I never saw him angry, but I did see him drunk. I bet he could knock out a charging rhino in mid-step. ‘Spring steel and rawhide,’ he used to say was what he was made of as he thumped his chest and went out to sit in the driveway with a cold beer.

Russians are amazing people. Their history is a flowing epic of personal suffering. No Russian is happy without their grief. They revel in it, carry it around like a royal cape, and drink heavily to drown in the glory of it. The story of my mom’s family is a cardboard cutout of other Russians who ran when the Bolsheviks took over.

As the Reds were lopping the heads off of the learned and those loyal to the czar in 1917 and 18, my great-grandfather, whom relatives claim to this day was linked to the royal family through distant blood, took the garb of a priest and shepherded his family from Moscow to Kiev, through Poland, and eventually to America. His wife didn’t survive the Atlantic journey, but he signed on in New York with a steel mill in Cleveland. She was buried at sea. Once in Ohio, with his two small children in tow – my grandfather and his sister – the local Russian Orthodox priest set him up with a young Polish woman, who came to be what everyone in the family called Bubba, our great-grandmother.

Life, it seems, was never easy for any of them on that side of the tree. Russians by nature are typically construed as pessimistic, dour alcoholics who tolerate misery better than any other folks on the planet simply because they are genetically imbued with such resilience. It could be the heavy foods saturated with butter and onions, it could be the centuries of abuse by leadership and the ravages of wars, it could be the harsh weather and tough lands the Russians inherited, or it could be the Viking blood passed down through the generations as the nation was being carved out from the brush and scree of an unforgiving wilderness. In any case, my mom’s side of the family fit the mold perfectly. Celebrations were frequent and yet happiness seemed a fluttering, fragile thing few could grasp for very long. Cigars and strong liquor were met by pirogi, stroganoff, shashlyk, and kasha. Everyone was blue-collar in an industrial city mired in the mass pollution of its steel mills and iron works, famous for the Cuyahoga River catching fire in 1969, and the mob wars of the 1970s. My father labeled it 'the armpit of America' as we drove the then-exhausting five-hour road trip to Cleveland on the Ohio Turnpike at least once or twice every year, marveled at the Ohio border arch of powder blue, the churning acrid smokestacks of Toledo, and the brown-stained world of inner-city Cleveland.

Although I’ve never seen it, there is a photograph – or at least there was reportedly a photograph – that showed my great-grandfather side by side with Tsar Nicholas the Second. Perhaps he was an army officer. Over the years my mom and her sister mentioned this photograph, often many, many times. I’ve heard murmurs of conversations about it amongst great aunts. I really have no reason to doubt its authenticity, but I have often wondered if many of those that fled the Bolsheviks had similar stories to tell, to explain their fears and prove their value to those that lent aid before the days of airplanes and mass transit. I have to believe that a well-told story went a long way back then.

All of this history wrapped around my great-grandmother, whom everyone simply called Bubba. I’m not sure why, but it must be some Slavic label for matron. I never knew my great-grandfather, because like most men in my family, he died young, assisted by alcohol abuse and hard labor in places that today would be condemned, bulldozed and built over with parks and condos. My mother said he met me twice when I was a baby. My mom insisted that we visit her side of the family at least twice a year. The center of my mom’s world was Cleveland, Ohio, where she was born and raised and where all the other members of her family stayed put to this day. My mom was the rebel, tired of living under the yoke of my grandfather’s bohemian ways and iron-fisted rule of law. She fled to college in Indiana, married my dad and settled just east of Chicago, where he was from. It was a tactically sound choice. We were close enough to visit Cleveland, but not close enough for the Cleveland relatives to visit us.

Family gatherings were strange, old-world events that my sister and I just didn’t understand. We traveled five hours along the Ohio Turnpike to get there, the furthest farawayers for these displays of cohesion and unity. The entire clan would gather at Bubba’s apartment as a ritual. The most magical memories I have of my childhood are us meeting with my aunts and uncles outside Bubba’s apartment building, as if it were a staging ground. As a whole group we’d enter, walk up the two flights of stairs. There would be a knock on the door, always by Uncle Myron, and Aunt Rose would open the portal with her bowed back and altruistic smile, and language would – I swear if by magic – switch from English to Russian in one simple greeting of zdrastvooytyeh!

Every stick of furniture became crammed with people or piled with food that spilled from the kitchen by huge platterfuls. People stood in pressed groups with their small decorative plates in their hands. My sister and I were the little ones, made to fend for ourselves under the tables or in the closets as hands patted us on the head and pirogies, cheese fritters, bowls of borsch and kazakh were shoved in front of us in the constant throng of moving bodies and boasting, alien conversations. My mom would join the other women in the kitchen, lending hands, adding ingredients, chopping vegetables, chauffeuring trays back and forth while chattering away in a foreign tongue. Bubba’s grandchildren hovered around her, orbiting her celestial sun, cared for her every whim and need. Choreographed obedience. Old World Slavic ways. Cigars were lit, glasses of vodka with silver rims clinked and Bubba would be seated at the end of the kitchen galley in a simple chair, looking like some peasant Queen and I swear everyone there would have jumped at the snap of her fingers if ever she thought to do so. For a young kid, it seemed otherworldly, like being a Roman prisoner trapped in a camp of the Visigoths, or a puppy trying to understand the giants of humankind. She would beckon us to come to her, grant us hugs and a tousling of hair, bestowing blessings upon the youth with a smile shadowed by a century.

Now this photograph existed in Bubba’s possession, supposedly prominently displayed in her apartment after my great-grandfather passed away. The story stays true to this day, that in the fires of the October Revolution, as anyone associated with the royal family or the Whites were hunted down and killed like dogs, my great-grandfather took the guise of a priest and escaped with his young family from Moscow to Cleveland, and a Polish widow became the matron of the family tree. She wore the invisible, patchworked mantle from which the ruminations of being linked to Russian royalty flourished. Great-grandpa, that old steel worker in the heart of Cleveland, was supposedly a distant cousin to the murdered Tsar.

After the death of my great-grandmother, this photograph vanished from Bubba’s apartment. Rumors spread quickly amongst the grandchildren as to who was in that holy shrine first and what could have been taken before the will was read. Accusations were flung, fingers pointed, and to this day those embers still burn in Cleveland. Bubba didn’t own much from what I can remember. Sure there was old furniture with patterns that dated back to the Second World War, a black & white television, and enough kitchen equipment to feed a small, entrenched battalion. The true treasure however seemed to be a handful of artifacts that came from the motherland, the crown jewel being that photo of a young great-grandpa standing with his parents and the extended family of Tsar Nicholas II in some outdoor space, probably a far more luxurious gathering than the confines of the 500-square foot apartment with cigar smoke and the smell of onions and cabbage brewing out of it every time the door opened. Was he wearing a uniform in that photo? Opinions vary.

One of my great cousins was fingered as the culprit and he has basically gone underground as that branch of the family tree has pruned itself from the remnants of the others. It’s funny now, and sad, how Bubba seemed to have kept the semblance of family true and proper when she was alive, as if she was the last toehold to the bastion of Slavic life for our family. Since she died in the mid-1980’s, the family has been fractured and no get-togethers have ever taken place again outside the realms of funerals or weddings, and even then they have been poor showings. The older generation of great aunts and uncles are all but gone. All that really remains now is my mom’s generation, and I can’t recall the last time she spoke to her own brother. My godmother hasn’t returned a Christmas card in years. Cousins have broken the stranglehold of Cleveland confinement and moved on.

Times have changed. Bubba was the center of that alien, religious world of saints and soldiers that I was never able to truly understand, but those memories left such a profound impression upon me as a young child growing up. It was only thirty years ago. It was that photograph that seemed to, at least in part, tear the world apart and end a humble legacy of having all the members of one side of the family together, in one spot, for a day of celebration, story-telling, exotic food and hearty laughter. Year after year. This was the world my mom grew up in as a child in the 1950s, and this was the world she lost as a mother in the 80s.”

Painting:

Morning Execution of the Streltsy, by Vasily Ivanovich Surikov, 1881.

[sassycassie-s-writing]

Blue July London

By: SassyShoulderAngel319

Fandom/Character(s): YouTube - Dan Howell/danisnotonfire feat. Phil Lester/AmazingPhil

Rating: G

Original Idea: A writing prompt on Pinterest that said, “Take your favorite color, month, and city, and make a story out of the three words.”

Notes: (Masterlist)(About Me) I NEED some summer weather right now.

^^^^^

Six-thirty in the evening. The sky—miraculously—was cloudless and a pale cobalt. A white half-moon was soaring over the city. I inhaled the air. Polluted, hot, tired—hardly “fresh.” But it was familiar.

Not home. Oh, heavens, no. London wasn’t home. London was too big—too loud—to ever be called home. For me. Millions of people were willing to call the big city their home. But I grew up on a quiet street in a peaceful neighborhood in America where the only noises were me and my friends running around—shouting across yards to be heard as we played make-believe. That was all the noise I could really tolerate. The perpetual grumbling of car engines, wailing of sirens, and chattering of pedestrians—because everyone walked in London—was just too much for me.

Honestly, I was a bit disappointed that it hadn’t rained yet. I’d heard all the jokes about the rain in England, and growing up in a desert state I always got excited when it rained. Maybe it was just because it was mid-July—and hot out. I wasn’t entirely sure, but I was eagerly looking forward to some rain. Rain was not “bad” weather.

“And what is on your mind?” Dan asked as I stared up at the blank canvas of evening sky broken only by the idly drifting moon.

“Rain,” I answered simply, distracted.

“Oh let’s pray we don’t get any of that while you’re here!” he exclaimed.

I whacked him in the chest. “Oi!” I protested. “I like the rain! It will really complete the London spirit!” Dan laughed and grabbed my wrist to pull me out of the way of some passing business people in suits and trench coats.

“You’re hilarious,” he remarked sarcastically. “‘The London spirit’—honestly!”

“Oh, you know you love me,” I teased nudging him in the arm by leaning over as we walked.

“You’re lucky that I do,” he retorted. His hand rested just above my elbow. “Come on. In here. This is me and Phil’s place.” We entered the apartment building and climbed up several flights of stairs until we got to their apartment door. Dan unlocked it and let us both in. I slid in after him and closed and locked the door as he went up more stairs. I bolted up them two at a time until I was standing right next to him. He stared at me blankly. “Where do you get that energy?” he demanded.

I shrugged. “I’m younger than you,” I replied.

He rolled his eyes. “Okay, then, child, let’s get Phil and then go get some dinner.”

I narrowed my eyes and pursed my lips before nodding. “Alright.”

Not needing to be agreed with twice, Dan tilted his head up a bit, and shouted at the top of his lungs, “PHIL! SHE’S HERE!” making me jump.

The door to the lounge flew open after a moment and Phil appeared, a ray-of-sunshine smile on his face. Not even greeting me he quickly jogged down the hall and threw his arms around my neck. He was just about a foot taller than me so leaning on my neck was about to make me fall over as I put my arms around his waist. “Hello there,” I greeted, voice a bit strangled.

“It’s so good to see you! We’ve missed you!” Phil howled enthusiastically. I smirked.

“I’ve missed you both too!”

“How was your flight?” Phil asked. He reminded me of an excited little puppy that was ready to party.

I laughed and pulled out of the hug and adjusted my purse strap. “It was lovely! A bit long, perhaps, but I had a couple books and a notebook and a sketch pad, so I wasn’t too bored,” I replied, feeling Dan tug on my bag strap. “But we can talk about that over dinner. Come on! Let’s get going before all the places are too crowded!” Dan and I both gestured down the stairs towards the door but Phil glanced down at his Cookie Monster pajamas and Papyrus-from-Undertale T-shirt.

“Give me… two minutes!” He rushed down the hallway into his bedroom and closed the door.

Dan and I sat on the stairs to wait for him. Dan was idly playing with the silver and blue ring I wore on my right hand. “How long do we have to keep us a secret?” he murmured. I looked up at his dark eyes—which were desperately searching mine.

“From Phil? We can tell him at dinner—if he hasn’t already figured it out by now. But from the rest of the internet… we may want to wait for a while. Neither of us want to get any more roasted than what we’ve already done to ourselves,” I replied quietly. “I know you want to tell everyone right now… but I just feel like we should wait.”

“I know that you’re right, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be able to hold your hand in public whenever I want or kiss you even when there might be hundreds of subscribers watching.”

I sighed. “I know. Trust me, that’s all I want too. But we both know that the Phan shippers would… destroy us.”

“And by ‘us’ you mean you,” he commented casually.

“Well… yeah. But you can’t tell me you wouldn’t get hate and crap from people,” I admitted, still talking quietly. Dan’s eyes searched my face desperately for a moment, like he wouldn’t be able to look at me ever again, and heaved a cleansing breath.

“That’s true,” he mumbled reluctantly. “But I just want to hold your hand and kiss you.”

“And you think I don’t?” I hissed. “It’s torture to see you all day at conventions and not be able to give you more than a platonic hug because there are subscribers and vlogger cameras watching us.” My right hand rested on his left knee as he continued to fiddle with my ring. “And after I haven’t seen you face-to-face in months too, it’s even worse.” I leaned my head against his shoulder and closed my eyes as I sighed.

Phil’s bedroom door opened. Dan and I sprang apart and jumped up before Phil had even had a chance to see us. “Well, let’s get going!” he said brightly.

Dan gestured for me to go first. I trotted down the stairs and slipped out of the door. The boys followed me and then locked the door behind them. As Phil started going down the rest of the stairs to get to the ground floor, Dan gave me a lingering look before letting me rush after Phil with Dan trailing behind. I gave him a small grin over my shoulder.

Then we were out under the pale cobalt sky again, the half-moon shining brighter than it had a few minutes ago when we went inside. I barely even remember the walk through London. There were cars and pedestrians and sirens and then we reached a restaurant.

We were seated at a booth, Dan and Phil on one side and me on the other—though with the way Dan stared at me whenever Phil would look at the menu, it looked like he wasn’t the most pleased by the arrangement. I gave him a reassuring glance and shook my head subtly as Phil prattled about the choices. Apparently he was debating between a hamburger and a pasta. Dan and I offered our opinions before turning our attentions to our own menus, occasionally sneaking a quick peek at each other over the tops of our menus.

“Isn’t great that we live in an age where there aren’t any forbidden romances?” Phil asked after we ordered.

“Come again?” I inquired, glancing up from where I’d been idly fiddling with the paper wrapper that I’d taken off my straw—squishing it down the straw and then adding a drop of water to the compressed thing so it sprang apart like a white, wet worm.

“Isn’t it great that we live in an age where there aren’t really forbidden romances,” Phil repeated. “Just secret ones.”

“What are you getting at?” Dan wondered.

Phil rolled his eyes. “I’m older than both of you. Don’t think for a moment that I haven’t noticed that something’s been going on between you two,” he retorted sharply. I gave Dan a shocked but relenting glance.

“Great. Well then, we don’t have much to tell you,” I remarked.

“No you don’t. So, Dan, sit next to your freaking girlfriend!”

Not needing to be told twice, Dan got up, edged out of their side of the booth as I scooted over, and then plopped down next to me, holding my right hand under the table, one of his fingers wiggling my ring back and forth. “Now that we know that you know, I have to ask, when did you figure it out?” I asked. Phil smirked.

“Well, those lingering, longing glances at each other at every convention—plus the sneaking off—made it kind of easy. I’d say… last VidCon?”

Dan and I glanced at each other and sniggered. I leaned into his side and looked up at him. I gave him a small little lip pucker. He smiled, bent down, and kissed me quickly. I kissed him back quickly and smiled brightly. It felt so good to be open about it—at least just with Phil.

By the time we were done with dinner, it was sunset outside. The moon was shining even brighter, having drifted across the sky quite a bit, and the few wisps of cloud that had appeared in the sky were turning a pale coral. There was a band of dusty gold on the horizon where the sun had gone down. The three of us walked slowly through the city, Dan and I hand-in-hand, despite the fact that we could run into subscribers at any given moment. We didn’t particularly care. Not yet.

After a pleasant walk through London, we got back to Dan and Phil’s apartment. Dan and I cuddled on the sofa as we watched a movie with Phil. We were very comfortable.

It was so comfortable that I fell asleep.

[bunvoyagesarah]

Myanmar

Me-and-mom trip

Wednesday, January 29 I arrived in Yangon, Myanmar around 6pm and met mom at the airport. She had been there for a little bit so had already picked up cash and sim cards for us.  Then we took a Grab to our hotel, Hotel Lavender, near Shwedagon pagoda. There was a rooftop dining area and bar, so we enjoyed a beer there, as well as the free (!) beer from our room’s mini-fridge to see the beautiful view of the pagoda.  Then we went to dinner down the road, at AKS. We had chicken stir-fry, fried cauliflower, and Aung Kaung San Soup. After dinner we took a walk down the main road.  

Thursday, January 30 In the morning, we had breakfast at our hotel, which consisted of soup and noodles.  We got up pretty early to walk around the Shwedagon Pagoda, which was right around the corner.  It was massive and covered in gold. We took lots of pictures, and even had some random people ask to take pictures with us.  I had to rent a very pink wrap, as my pants were too tight, despite them covering my knees and already having my shoulders covered, this was another rule they enforced.

Then we walked to Bogyoke Aung San Market. I found some looser fitting, breathable capri pants would serve to be very useful during the rest of my time in Asia.  I also got some flip-flops.  Both items were about $6 total. I had no idea that I would be in Asia, so everything in my bag was winter clothing along with some t-shirts that I could layer. These items were definitely necessary, and thankfully also very lightweight.

Next, we went to the mall across the street, where mom got some more money, we checked out a grocery store, and then enjoyed some of their traditional Burmese tea. We walked back to the hotel and grabbed our bags before the check-out time and then got another grab to the airport. We went to the wrong terminal, but luckily there was a free shuttle to the Domestic terminal. And then we couldn’t even check in because they only check-in the next departing flight at a time, which in my opinion is extremely smart and allows the people to get to where they need to go in a “first in, first out” type of deal.

We arrive at He Ho Airport and then drive to Kalaw.  Unfortunately, there’s no Grab here and all the drivers are buddies, so once one quotes you a price, they’ll all quote you the same price. We arrived at Hillock Villa, an eco-friendly B&B and then went for dinner in the town at Gloria’s, which consisted of spring rolls and “pad-thai”.  

We were both craving ice cream after dinner and went on a search for anything similar to a Magnum bar.  After asking around with no success, we gave up.  But then, it one final effort, we went into a store and sure enough they had an ice cream bar.  We got one to share, but mostly to test if it was good.  It was terrible.  Possibly the worst ice cream I’ve ever had.  We didn’t even finish the one ice cream bar between the two of us, instead we watched the 50 cent ice cream bar melt down the drain of our sink.  

Back in the room, we backed our small backpacks with everything we would need for the next day’s trek.  

Friday, January 31 Mom and I started the day with breakfast this eco b&b where we were staying, which mom thought was great, and I thought was just ok.  The van from the trekking company, picked us up from our b&b, along with a German couple in their 30’s and we drove to the office, where we picked up another German couple in their 20’s, and our big bags were dropped off and were to be delivered to our hotel in Inle Lake. 

We drove about thirty minutes, and then everyone got out and we started our trek with our guide, Yelay.  We went through a couple villages, saw them weaving baskets out of bamboo. We stopped for a delicious lunch of noodles and this amazing avocado salad. Yelay helped us make some “sunscreen”  out of one local tree’s bark and then made into a paste with water.  Then we continued on our way.  

We stopped again as we passed this old woman’s home.  She had us in for green tea and snacks- fried rice paper and nuts. Then the guys played some soccer with the kids that had just gotten out of school.  Mom and I checked out the monastery that was right by the soccer field. By this point, the younger German guy had hurt his ankle so bad during our walk that he couldn’t walk anymore and someone took him on a scooter to the home where we were spending the night.   Once the soccer game finished, we continued on our walk.  Around 5:30pm we arrived at the home, where Yelay than proceeded to show us the outhouse, and shower, with no running water, let alone warm water.  No one showered.  We hung out outside, enjoying a couple local beers until dinner was ready inside, prepared by the chef that was following the same route as us but often behind or ahead of us.  Dinner was excellent with peanut curry, lots of different veggies, and roasted chicken. One of the cats came over, jumped on the table and took a giant bite of chicken.  The cats had clearly been fed before. After a long dinner, and chatting, Yelay came back to tell us the plan for the next day and we all went to bed upstairs, on mattresses on the floor, in little 2-person mosquito tents.  

As much as I tried to avoid having to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night in an squatty-potty outhouse with no toilet paper, I didn’t even make it until 12am without having to pee.  So I woke up, unzipped my tent, went downstairs, went through the now bolted door, slid open this gate on the porch that wasn’t there earlier, and around the corner to the outhouse.  Just as I closed the gate behind me, which I am assuming was to keep the stray dogs off the porch, Mom came up behind me.  We both went pee, then retraced our footsteps back into the house.  Quite a nightly adventure!

Saturday, February 1 We woke up at 7am and all got dressed and then went downstairs for breakfast.  We had tortilla pancakes with an eggplant curry and lots of fruit.  The curry was especially good, even though I wouldn’t have normally eaten it at 7:15 in the morning.  

Then we set off on our trek. It was a lot more uphill and then a lot of downhill into Inle Lake.  We walked through a village that had a yearly ceremony going on for the monks.  In Myanmar, all males have to be a monk twice in their life, each for a least 10 days and one of the times before you are 18. Yelay’s parents decided when he was about 10 years old he would be a monk.  He said he remembered stealing food for the kitchen every night, since he was supposed to fast after noon. He had not yet done it a second time.  He currently is a guide and also works on his family’s chicken farm with about 400 chickens and then goes around and sells them based on their weight.

There was so much pollution but Yelay pointed out as we were coming down the hill that we could see Inle Lake.  We walked along this canal for a while and were all quite quiet.  At one point when I was right behind Yelay, he turned around quickly and yelled “Boo!” I wasn’t expecting it at all and it did give me a fright!  

After we walked for the majority of the morning with another short stop along a canal, we arrived at a fishing village on Inle Lake. This was where we all ate lunch, with these animals carved into fruit.  Then the older German couple got into one boat to go to their hotel on the lake and the rest of us got into motorized long boat with Yelay and went to town, where our hotels were. The boat ride into the town was vey cool with lots of house on stilts in the fishing village.

We got dropped off right beside our hotel and sure enough our bags had arrived there, so after a welcome drink and a well-deserved shower, we relaxed for a little bit. Then we went out for dinner to get some dim sum.  Along the way, we found a woman offering her son’s services for a boat tour the next day and checked out getting some massages.  

Sunday, February 2 The woman met us right by our hotel and we met her son.  The boat’s motor was very noisy, so not much talking on the boat.  He took us around the lake stopping at all these different villages.  The first stop was at the lotus and silk weaving, where a woman took us around showing how the thread is made and then into a room with dozens of loom, and then finally into the shop where you can purchase anything made of silk, lotus, or cotton that your heart desires.  This trend of showing you how it’s made, and then going through the shop continued the rest of the morning at the cigar making (my favorite), boat carving, long-neck ladies, silver jewelry, and paper making. We also went into the cat jumping monastery and pagoda, where there was no one trying to sell us anything. We could have taken up to eight hours with our boat driver, but since we didn’t shop too much, we were done in four.  

When we arrived back in town, we did some scoping out of massage places and had barbecue fish for lunch. The place we went to for the massages, was one room with a divider in the middle and two tables. While people on one side of the divider were getting their nails done, we were both naked getting a full body massage. I did not enjoy the massage very much, as it felt like she was ripping my hair out at one point, but it was $6 each for an hour massage, so definitely the best value I think I’ll have ever.  

We both showered all the oil off and went to a rooftop bar, which happened to be a hostel’s happy hour bar.  We watched a mediocre sunset with clouds and smog and then walked to a pancake/crepe place for a crepe and “milkshake” dinner.  

Monday, February 3 In the morning, we were picked up for horseback riding around Inle Lake.  First, the woman and owner of Inle Horse Club took us around a market just for fun. It was cool to see all the spices, meats, and produce, especially in the height of the market.  It was crowded! Then we drove up to the horse club and were the only ones there.  She gave us a little spiel about the environmental work she’s doing, for example composting the manure which she then received a grant from England for doing.  

Then we got on our horses and walked around the ring a little.  It was a little challenging with the horses difficult to keep separate and a pretty uncomfortable seat, but the views were amazing.  We made a stop at the caves, where lots of Buddhas were hidden inside. Then we made a stop for lunch at a restaurant, which was excellent. Finally, we cantered into a winery for a wine tasting at Red Mountain Estate.  The sauvignon blanc was especially sweet and surprisingly my favorite of the four (two whites, two reds) that we tastes. Finally, we rode back to the horseback riding center. We received some juice and our certificates and then driven back to our hotel.  

In the evening, we caught an overnight bus to Bagan, which left Inle Lake around 8pm. We bought a couple snacks for the journey and also made a dinner stop around 9pm at a rest stop.  The seat were pretty comfy as they reclined quite far and had foot rests.  

Tuesday, February 4 At 3:30am, not 6am, like we were suppose to, we arrived in Bagan.  We fought with a cab driver to drive us and another German girl that we had become friendly with to our respective hotel/hostels. When we arrived to our hotel it was almost 4am and we had decided to just pay for another night, so we could go to sleep.  Side note: the bus ride was the bumpiest ride I’ve ever been on and very little sleep took place. After talking to the receptionist, he said we could check-in at 7am for $20, which we got him to agree to 6am. Then we were trying to decide what to do until then, he mentioned getting e-bikes to watch the sunrise. After the e-bikes arrived and the guy was not going to give us a very fair price, we decided to go back into the reception and just have a cup of tea and wait another 45 minutes until we could check in. We fell fast asleep once we got into the room and slept until noon.

We walked to get lunch nearby, and then looked at a couple e-bikes, which is when Mom realized they were electric scooters and not bicycles. Instead of renting two, we shared one and ended up getting it from the hotel. We drove around to the different pagodas and stupas.  We went out to the jetty for the sunset, which was a very nice place to watch the sunset as there were not very many people there. I got some sugar cane juice from a place while we were there.  On the way back to the hotel, we found an ice cream spot—finally!!

Wednesday, February 5 We woke up extremely early for the sunrise by hot air balloon! The company, Golden Eagle picked us and some other people up from the hotel.  The girl we had met on the bus also happened to be on our shuttle.  When we arrived at the field, they had tables and chairs set up with some tea and coffee and croissants.  Our guide, JP met us and explained how the day would go.  We had 10 people plus JP in our hot air balloon. It was definitely very cool to see all the other balloons in the air, to see the stupas from above (100s of them), and of course see the sunrise. When we landed we were served more cakes, fruit, and champagne.  

We learned some of the science and maneuvering of the hot air balloon.  Like it’s a 315,000 cubic feet of volume inside and JP carried 80 gallons of propane for fuel. The balloon is made of nylon and nomex so it won’t catch on fire. There were six companies you could fly with in Myanmar, and each of them were allowed about six balloons in the air at a time.  Myanmar is a very calm, predictable place to fly.  Also, JP has a pilot’s license and degree in meteorology. 

JP told us the history of drinking champagne upon landing, which is because the first successful manning of a hot air balloon landed in an farmer’s field in the 1780’s.  Having never seen anything fly before, the owners thought these people were crazy and the balloon was some sort of dragon. The people in the balloon offered the farmers some of the Royal champagne they had been given upon their farewell as a peace offering and apology for disturbing the animals. The farmers accepted the bubbly and a tradition was born.  

After enjoying a more substantial breakfast back at the hotel, we sat by the pool to rest, nap, and read. Later in the afternoon, we walked to Nightingale Foods for a cooking class with Mae.  There was another Irish couple that was my age joining us and they were both teaching in China, but currently on their “corona holidays.” Little did we know what the world would turn into two months later. We made four stir-fries/curries and four salads.  My favorite dishes were the tamarind tea leaf salad, pork curry, and tamarind, peanut, garlic paste as add-ons to the other dishes.  

Thursday, February 6 I was very gassy on the way home from the cooking class. And my stomach was making lots of sounds.  In the middle of the night I threw up this delicious meal we had just made.  Mom was surprisingly fine with her stomach.  In the morning, I threw up again and had no appetite as well as feeling very weak.  Luckily, I could rest until check-out and then we went to the airport to fly back to Yangon—this was also lucky because we had considered another overnight bus, but decided not to have the first one had been quite miserable with the bumpy roads.

By the time dinner time arrived, I still did not have much of an appetite. We hung out at the hotel and then went on a walk, which was a bit of struggle for me.  We found a ramen place and also ordered some dumplings.  We walked back through Chinatown, along 19th St. We looked for a place to get our nails done but they were all gel nail salons, so ending up going back to the hotel for a movie.    

Friday, February 7 I was finally feeling a little hungry.  We had breakfast at the hotel, checked-out, but left our bags there. We did a self-guided walking tour around Yangon. By early afternoon, it was quite hot and were getting hungry.  We stopped at the famous Rangoon Tea House.  We had a lot of time to kill, so we spent 2.5 hours there, ordering each dish separately and taking our time between each one.  We got duck empanadas, fried squid, soft shell crab bao (the best!!!!), chocolate samosas, and Burmese tea.  On the way back we stopped in this cool store next to the tea house and spent some time perusing. We went back to the hotel and were able to sit in the dining area for an hour with our computers before we left for the airport. I flew to Bangkok and Mom flew back to Dubai.