#and the last room has plaques on plaques on plaques forming a larger than life looming humanoid shape with a disapproving expression

[threetrenchcoatsinatrenchcoat]

i wanna collaborate with a painter (and a secret sculptor) and put on an art exhibition where the plaques are written by someone going increasingly crazy about the art. the plaques end up numerous and enormous and covering up the paintings

[xmint-conditionx]

☆ flanked ☆ ch2 | knj

(verb) flank -

guard or strengthen (a military force or position) from the side.

attack down or from the sides, or rake with gunfire from the sides.

☆ pairing: soldier!namjoon x widow!reader; namjoon x fem!reader ☆ word count: 3.1K ☆ summary: you’re a recently widowed military spouse who is stationed at camp walker, south korea. you’re dealing with the tragedy of your husband’s recent death, and in the process, you accidentally meet a k-pop idol you’ve had a crush on for years. who knew you’d both be at the same post while he’s doing his compulsory service? who knew he’d be so damn nice? who knew it would be impossible to get him out of your head? ☆ warnings: angst, mentions of death, grieving, lots of fluff in this chapter tbh and you might die because dork namjoon has come to the party ☆ a/n: hey everyone c: sorry this repost is a little late; i've been sick the past two days and holed up in bed for the last one. i'm so excited to release this for you and start on the next chapter.

It is 6:05 in the morning, and you are awake. Not wide awake, but awake. You can’t believe you let Namjoon convince you to get up this early, because frankly, nobody has ever convinced you to get up this early. When he said that you’d have to get there first thing in the morning so you can see everything, you really didn’t think he would mean you’d have to get there at 7 AM. It’s always been your philosophy that it’s wrong to wake up before the sun, and you’re finding that getting out of bed in your pitch black room isn’t easy. You’re gonna have to make sure to clarify everything that man says in the future. Ugh, military men, you think.

You groan, muscles stiff as you finally manage to get yourself out of bed.

Bananas is obviously not getting the memo, the only sign of him being his fluffy tail poking out from under the covers. He’s never been into early mornings either.

Namjoon sent you a text yesterday and told you that the exhibit that he really wants to show you requires tickets. He then told you that because they only sell 100 tickets per day on a first come first serve basis; getting in line any later than 7 AM would surely be entirely too late, apparently. The Daegu Art Museum opens at 10, tickets go on sale at 9:30, yet you need to be in line no later than 7? Sure.

He seemed really excited about the exhibit, though, saying that Yayoi Kusama, whoever that person was, was a genius. So… you couldn’t exactly turn him down. Her works were deep and breathtaking and spoke so much about life, according to Namjoon. He had promised it would be worth it, and you thought about that promise as you groggily did your morning routine. Yeah, you thought, it had better be. If only he hadn’t sent too many pleading-eye emojis.

You grabbed your over the shoulder bag and gave Bananas a good belly rub before heading outside.

Despite being almost non-functional this early in the morning, you beat Namjoon to the museum. Gawking at the massive modern building, you walk up to the front doors, where a decent line has already formed. Okay, maybe he was right.

You find yourself a place at the back of the line and just as you reach in your bag to grab your phone to text him, you see Namjoon walking in your direction, long legs making short work of catching up to you. You catch his eyes lingering on your bare legs as he approaches, and for just a moment, you’re glad you chose to wear this skirt.

“Morning, Namjoon,” you groan, leaning up against the museum’s outer wall. More people start filing in line after you, and you’re thankful Namjoon wasn’t too late. “I guess you were right. Look at all these people.”

“Morning, peach,” he says with another one of his dimpled grins, “Glad it’s warming up out? It’s supposed to hit 20 degrees today.”

“Okay, it is entirely too early for you to be this happy,” you say, voice groggy. Namjoon just shrugs.

“Guess I’m just excited.”

You look around the small crowd that has formed and notice that a lot of the people are sitting up against the wall while they wait. You decide to do the same.

“I am too, trust me,” you say, back resting against the cool stone, “I’m just not usually up this early.”

“I see. Maybe conversation can keep you awake. Are there any other places in Daegu you want to see?” Namjoon inquires.

“Well, there is that aquarium I keep hearing about. One of my coworkers on post says that there are mermaids that do a little performance with the fish.”

“Oh! I know which one you’re talking about! I’ve actually been there a few times. I love it there! Fish are so cool.”

“Before I went into veterinary science,” you say, “I was originally planning on being a marine biologist.”

“You’re a vet? I didn’t know that! No wonder Bananas looks like such a happy pup!”

“Yeah,” you say, letting your head fall back, “he really is. But, I really want to go check it out. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to an aquarium.”

“The mermaid performers swim around with a bunch of stingrays. Stingrays are actually not that dangerous, especially if they have the barbs removed from their tails.”

You feel your eyes growing heavy.

“Wow, I didn’t know that.”

“A lot of people think they’re really dangerous because Steve Irwin died from a sting from a stingray, but his injury was a result of the barb piercing his thoracic wall. Most stingray injuries are actually very mild.”

“That’s interesting,” you say quietly, eyes fluttering closed.

“Some people think that cutting down their barbs is abuse, but it’s like cutting off a fingernail to humans. They don’t feel it at all and it grows back over time.”

“Mhmmmmm,” you say as you feel yourself slipping back into sleep.

“It’s the touch tanks that can be a little problematic,” Namjoon continues, oblivious, “Stingrays have a type of mucus that covers their body that protects them from bacteria. If that gets rubbed off, they become vulnerable. A lot of zoos and aquariums are taking plenty of precautionary measures though, like making sure the guests wash their hands before and after they experience the touch tank. In fact, I think that given the proper precautions, touch tanks…”

______________

The warmth next to you feels like home, and threatens to pull you back to sleep. You feel yourself holding onto something... firm and yet so soft, but it’s comforting, so you tighten your grip and nuzzle further in. You then feel a gentle breeze run across your legs and wonder where your blankets have gone. Bananas has probably hogged them all. You breathe in and smell laundry detergent, a little musk and… men’s deodorant? There’s the quiet chatter of birdsong, and an unmistakable trickle of water, and you instantly remember where you are.

Your eyes snap open to find yourself snuggled up to Namjoon, arms hooked around his bicep and cheek against his shoulder. He seems un-bothered by your lack of respect for his personal space; he doesn’t even look up from his book. Like it’s the most natural thing for you to be attached to him like this. Embarrassed, you quickly distance yourself from him and apologize profusely while he just chuckles a bit. He puts his bookmark in to keep his place and turns towards you as you blink yourself awake, tasting the dryness in your mouth. Oh god, you must have had your mouth open.

“It’s fine, peach. I didn’t even realize you were asleep until you started snoring.”

You gasp. “I did not!”

“Oh, you did,” he says, eyeing you playfully, “It was only a little though. And it was really quiet. Kind of cute, actually.” You play hit him in the arm that you had just been latched on to.

“Hey, don’t be mad at me. I bought your ticket!”

“You what?! What time is it?” you ask, scrambling to look at your phone. It was 5 minutes until open. “Namjoon, why didn’t you wake me up?”

“I was going to, but you were sleeping so hard...”

“Well, at least that means I wasn’t all over you this entire time.”

“Oh, no," he says, "you were.”

You groan. “How did you get up and buy the tickets then without me knowing?”

“A man has to have some secrets, you know. Come on, let’s go look at some art.”

The inside of the Daegu Art Museum is stunning. The lobby is bright and open; the sunlight pours into that first room through the large windows, casting a lovely morning light on all of the bright and cheery visitors. Some of the larger pieces are displayed in this grand lobby, some towering ten of feet above you.

“Namjoon, this is beautiful.”

“Just you wait, Come on, first we’ll do classical, then lunch, then modern art. The best one we’ll save for last.”

Classical art wasn’t your favorite, but Namjoon got absorbed in just about every piece. When he saw one that really grabbed his attention, he would sit there gawking at it, mouth open as he read from the little plaque next to it. The way his eyes filled with wonder and widened with discovery at the newly rotated paintings was absolutely adorable. He almost had this child-like wonder about him, eagerly looking back and forth from the plaque to the painting and back again. You almost enjoyed studying Namjoon instead of the art.

You let him take the lead, showing you some of his favorite pieces as you navigate through the galleries. He is definitely in his element here. After he finishes his embellished tour of the classical works, you both decide it would be a good time to break for lunch. The museum has a little cafe, so Namjoon takes care of waiting for your orders while you are tasked with finding a nice spot to spread your blanket outside on the grounds. You see a spot beneath a tree offering up a little shade, so you spread the blanket over the soft grass and take your place, closing your eyes and breathing in the fresh air. Namjoon soon arrives with your food, and settles down next to you.

Before you start to eat, you remove your cardigan, exposing your chest and arms to the air, hoping to enjoy some of the new warmth in Daegu. You hear Namjoon take a sharp inhale, and thinking something’s wrong, you quickly look over at him. He’s got his eyes trained on you, and he swallows hard before he realizes you’re looking at him. He jerks his gaze away, finds something else to look at and shakes his head, as if to clear it. Was he… checking you out?

“Sorry, I thought I uh…” he trails off, “thought I saw a bug. It was, uh, just a shadow.”

“Uh, thanks for uh, looking out,” you say, before a thought strikes you, “Hey, Namjoon. I brought my painting stuff with me today. I was hoping to paint a little while we eat, is that okay? I don’t want to be bad company.”

He perks up, “Oh, yeah, sure. I can just keep reading my book. Hypervelocity stars aren’t going to learn about themselves!”

You set about getting out your watercolor palette, planning on using some of your bottled water to wet your paints. For some reason, you glance back over at Namjoon. He’s sitting with his back against the tree, legs crossed at the ankles, book in one hand, and bao in the other. His eyebrows are slightly furrowed together in concentration, and he lazily takes a bite, not even looking at the bao bun. You hold back a giggle when you see he got some sauce on his mouth. You can’t help but point it out by getting his attention and tapping your own bottom lip. Namjoon studies you for a minute, and slowly licks his bottom lip, almost too slowly. Before you can register what he had just done, he just smiles at you innocently and goes back to reading his book.

This man is going to kill you, so he might as well be the subject for your art. The way he’s positioned himself is just too adorable to ignore.

After getting the basic shape of his outline done and halfway through the details in his face, he stirs from his place under the tree. You watch him as he places his book down carefully on the blanket and walks toward your back, steps ever so gentle. You turn your head and see a little bird hopping around on the grass, and Namjoon is after it. He breaks off a piece of bread from his second bao and extends it towards the bird, who eyes him suspiciously. To your surprise though, it hops forward and takes the bread, chirping up at Namjoon. He goes to sit cross legged on the ground, but doing so ends up startling the bird, who then flies a short distance away on the lawn. Namjoon sulks and pouts a little before getting up and walking after the bird. This is the craziest thing you have ever seen. You love animals so much that you’ve dedicated your career to helping them stay healthy, but this is on a whole other level.

You go back to refining your art, throwing some color into the sky and on the tree, seeing as your main subject has wandered off.

You’re startled when he comes back from behind you.

“How’s the art coming?” he asks, looking over your shoulder at your book, “Hey! Is that me?!”

“Well, it was going to be until you started playing Snow White.”

“Yeah…” he says, looking down at what’s left of his sandwich, “the little guy ate all my bread.”

You laugh a little at him as he frowns at the char siu pork filling barely being contained by the thinnest bun dough you’ve ever seen. Widening his eyes, he downs the rest of the bao bun in one bite.

“Dind youh whanna fhinish youhr phaintingh?” he says, covering his full mouth as he speaks.

“I can finish it some other time. Let’s go see the modern stuff before I want another nap.”

Stepping into the large room that houses the modern art, you take in a sharp breath with how absolutely full it is. Sculptures, paintings, installations; and in the back of the room is a line leading to a small door. You don’t know where to look first, so thankfully your personal tour guide is there to show you the way.

You’re reading the plaque on a minimalistic piece when Namjoon comes and grabs your wrist, excitedly ushering you to follow him. He leads you to the other side of the room where he stops in front of a section of blank wall, gesturing for you to look at it. You sit there and wonder what in the world he could be talking about when you see it. A piece of bright pink gum is stuck to the pristine white wall.

“This wasn't here last time!” he exclaims in a whisper. “I can’t believe this.”

“Yeah, kinda sucks that someone did that.”

“No, you don’t get it. This is an installation.”

“... are you sure about that?”

“Yeah! Look, it's about how such a simple thing can ruin something so large. Like finding a fly in your chardonnay, or there being a hair in your food, or one small imperfection in a person ruining your whole view of them.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s actual trash, Namjoon.”

“Of course it’s actual trash. I don’t think the artist could have gotten the point across without using actual chewing gum. It says so much. It might also be depicting the actual process of tainting something too! Like, how long did the artist chew the gum before they stuck it there? How much time and effort did it take them to ruin this whole wall with their gum? Where’s the plaque?”

As Namjoon searches the nearby walls for a plaque, a janitor comes by and scrapes off the gum, smiling gently at the both of you. You send Namjoon a pointed look, one that’s screaming “I told you so,” and then you both start laughing, having to hold back most of the sound in the quiet of the viewing space.

“Okay, last but not least. You ready?” The two of you were next in line to enter that small door you had seen at the back of the room when you first entered. The lady taking the tickets had already informed you that you would have five minutes once the door shut. You still had no idea what to expect.

“Yeah, I guess I had better be.” The door opened, letting out the museum goer who had just been in there.

Namjoon leaned up to your ear from behind and gently said, “Close your eyes.”

You were about to protest when he continued speaking, placing his hands on your shoulders, “I’ll walk you in there and tell you when to open. Trust me?”

You answered him by letting your lids drop. You felt him guide you by your shoulders as you walked gently forward and then to the right. You could tell that the floor texture had changed from the concrete you’d been walking on all day to something more plastic. You heard the door softly click shut behind you.

“Open,” he commanded softly, and you complied.

You could not make sense out of what you were seeing. The view went on forever, but you could tell that the actual room was so very small. Directly in front of you and on all sides were mirrors, infinitely reflecting off of themselves into the horizon. You were both completely surrounded by them. Scattered around the part of the room that wasn’t the black platform that you were standing on were delicate fairy lights in a cool white tone. It felt like you were floating in a void, so endless and empty. There were specks of brightness, but they did nothing to change the darkness enveloping you. Though it felt infinite, there was a nagging sense of being trapped. Surrounded on all sides. It was beautiful and terrifying to look at. Consumed by everything and nothing. You forgot Namjoon was there until he spoke quietly against your ear.

“This is what I think grief looks like. If it could take a physical form, this would be it.”

He’s right. He’s so right. You’re being swallowed by emptiness. You both are.

You both stand there in silence for the next few minutes, Namjoon’s warmth radiating onto your back, his hands still on your shoulders. Occasionally, his breath would brush against the nape of your neck.

“You really get it, don’t you?” you ask quietly.

“I can’t say I understand what it’s like to lose a spouse, peach. But I understand grief in my own way. I know this sounds crazy, because I don’t believe in any higher power, but I think we were supposed to meet each other.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean... “ he starts, “I just feel better when I’m around you. I feel like a… better person. You don’t treat me like... “ he stops himself.

“Like what, Namjoon?”

“You don’t treat me like other people do. In a lot of ways. That’s... the easiest way to say it.”

You just nod, wanting to soak up these last few moments in this room with him. In this dark space, it’s not so scary to get close. You allow yourself to lean back into him, and he stiffens up for a moment before circling his arms around you.

“We’re gonna get through all of this together,” he says against your ear, “I promise. Together.”

[thesleepysphinx]

chp. 1: Whatever, hi

A/N: Here’s chapter 1! Let me know if I made any mistakes, I am super new to this! <3

Masterlist • Next

As you pull up to the historic university, you can’t help but gawk at the architecture and greenery surrounding it. Sure, you had visited her before on tours when deciding which university to attend, but you will never get over the beauty of the campus. You pull your car into the parking lot designated for students moving in and turn it off, draping the lanyard for your keys over the back of your neck to make sure you didn’t lose them. Before you even think about unloading anything from your car, you text your soon to be roommate, Mina. 

Hey, I just pulled up! Are you here yet?

You shove the phone in the pocket of your shorts immediately as you get out of the car, grabbing your backpack from the passenger seat. You get the bag situated on your shoulders and peer over towards your new dorm building. It was four stories tall and extremely wide, meant to house quite a number of the upperclassmen on campus. You sighed in relief knowing that you wouldn’t have to deal with 18 year olds who were being let loose for the first time in their lives. But you also sighed in annoyance remembering the dorm is co-op and you may have to deal with boisterous boys at all hours of the night. This should be interesting…

As you get lost in thought, still staring at the dorm and consequently the huge crowd of people forming in front of it, a buzz goes off in your pocket. You reach down and pull it out to see a response from Mina. 

Yeah I’m here!!!! There’s so many people! I’ll meet you at your car what does it look like??? Where are you parked???

After giving her a detailed description of your location and car, you lean against the back of it, observing the crowd. You notice there are a few other people hanging back, not wanting to get involved in the frenzy. So many people were so eager to move in all their belongings, but you just wanted to relax. After the two hour drive there, it felt good to just stand. But you wouldn’t be standing for long… Without warning, you’re tackled from the side and nearly fall to the ground, but you steady yourself with your sturdy car. Now draped over you is a pink haired and pink bodied girl in a similar outfit to yours, a black tank top with jean shorts. You recognize her from the selfies you’d sent back and forth. 

“Mina! You can’t kill me yet, we haven’t even moved in!” You laugh in feigned annoyance as you embrace her back. Though this is your first time meeting in person, the two of you had bonded a lot over text. She basically told you her entire life story, but it was all too much to digest. The most important details were that she was from Japan and came to the university with some friends from high school in a prestigious exchange student program. Apparently, she and her friends all excelled in different aspects of STEM fields and had worked on a large project together back in high school that earned them country-wide recognition. After she told you about all that, she wanted to add you into her group chat with her friends, but you declined, saying you’d rather meet them in person with her. She had responded to this with an “awww,” saying you were so sentimental and thoughtful. You were basically under the impression that she never has a negative thought at any moment of the day. 

After a few moments of squeezing the life out of you, Mina let’s go and excitedly starts talking. “I can’t believe I’m finally meeting you! And you’re even more adorable in person! And look! We have the same style, even!” She gestures to your basically matching outfits. 

You blush at her rushed compliment as you respond, “Normally I prefer leggings, but I didn’t want to be dying of heat stroke and drenched in sweat while we move our stuff in! Speaking of, where’s all your stuff?”

She points in a direction, and you follow her finger to a group of cars quite a ways out in the parking lot. There are five total cars all parked next to each other, with four people standing with them, the trunks of the cars open. 

“Oh, are those your friends?”

“You bet’cha! Come on! Come meet them!” She starts to pull you by the hand with all the might she can muster. You follow along, letting her drag you to the group. As you get closer, you can see that all of her friends are boys, with three of them standing while one sits on the tailgate of a truck. Mina yells out to them, “Hey, guys! This is her! This is Y/N!” 

Three of the boys wave, waiting till you get closer to actually say anything. Meanwhile the fourth one just glances at you, keeping one hand in his pocket while his other hand holds his phone, an earbud resting in one ear. Finally, Mina stops right in front of them and you come to a halt beside her, trying to catch your breath. 

As you wait to breathe normally, Mina speaks for you, “Everyone, this is my new roommate!” She presents you to them with enthusiasm, so much so that you almost feel like you’re supposed to be putting on some sort of show. 

You nervously lift a hand to wave to them and say, “Hey, guys! I’m Y/N, it’s nice to meet all of you! Mina told me a lot about you guys!” You can recognize their faces from pictures Mina sent of all of them together, but you were having a hard time remembering the names. You rub the back of your neck in embarrassment. “Sorry, but I didn’t learn your names from the pictures she sent very well!”

“Don’t worry about it!” A boy with spiked red hair pipes up. He scoots himself off the tailgate of the truck and walks straight up to you. He holds a hand out for you to shake as he says, “I’m Kirishima! But since we’re in America, you can call me by my first name Eijiro!”

His positive vibes rival Mina’s! You think to yourself. You take his hand and shake it enthusiastically. Before you can say anything, a boy with black hair steps up as well. 

“And I’m Hanta! It’s nice t-.” Before he can finish, he’s lightly shoved by a golden blond boy. 

The boy points to himself with a thumbs up as he says, “Denki Kaminari! Y’know, Mina never mentioned how cute you are!” He leans in closer, as if to get a better look. You shrink back a little bit at having your personal space invaded. 

Mina speaks up for you once again. “I never mentioned it cause I didn’t want you bein’ creepy! Cut it out before you scare her and she never talks to me again!”

You giggle at Mina’s overdramatic nature. If there was one thing you were sure about, it was that you and Mina would get along very well as roommates. But as you surveyed the new friends standing in front of you, you noticed someone was missing. You look over Hanta’s shoulder to see the boy with ash blond spiky hair still has one hand in his pocket and is acting like you don’t exist. 

Eijiro notices your gaze and follows it. “Oi, get over here Bakubro, stop being such a downer!”

The boy responds in an angry growl, “Don’t call me that, Shitty Hair.” Though his voice is angry, he doesn’t even look up from his phone. 

Eijiro crosses his arms at him. “Dude, come on, you know you’re being an asshole. Just say hi.”

He sighs and finally tears his eyes away from his screen, locking eyes with you. “Whatever, hi, name’s Bakugo.” His eyes instantly move back to his phone. “There, happy?”

You move your hand to cover your mouth a bit to whisper to Mina, “Is he like this all the time?”

Mina basically deflates at this question as she answers, “Everyday since the first day of high school… It grows on you…” 

You seriously doubt that, but you take her word for it. You’re broken out of your thoughts as Bakugo speaks up with annoyance, “Are we gonna check in or what?”

You look behind you to see that at this point the check in area is much less crowded. “Yeah, it looks a lot less chaotic now!” You turn over to Mina once again. “So, um… Do we grab our stuff right now or do we grab it later?” You feel stupid asking that question, but you’ve never moved into a dorm before. Before today, you’d always lived at home with your family. 

The boys stare at you a little dumbfounded. But out of all the people to speak up, it’s the one that you deem the resident asshole. “Aren’t you a third-year? Haven’t you done this shit before?”

You look down at the asphalt in front of your feet as you explain, “I am, but I just transferred here from another school that doesn’t have dorms, so this is all new to me… Sorry if my stupidness gets in your way.” 

You’re instantly met with different phrases of reassurance, all of them melding together so you couldn’t decipher a single one. The only one to not provide reassurance is Bakugo… How the hell are all these positive people friends with him?

“Jeez, Mina, did you pack a damn dumbbell in here? The box is heavier than all hell!” You strain out through your teeth.

She strains to speak as well as she jokes, “Haha! Kiri would be the one packing dumbbells! But no, all of this is - is makeup!” She grunts as the two of you set the box down finally in the center of your shared dorm room. You have to admit that it is much larger than you expected. You each have a full size bed and full sized dresser and desk, all supplied by the university. All you were really expecting was a twin sized bed with little to no closet space. This was more than a pleasant surprise. 

You and Mina had worked together to get all of your stuff up to your second floor dorm. Unfortunately, the building didn’t have an elevator. You really didn’t envy those living on the fourth floor. With the last box finally set in the room you step back outside the door to observe your new home. You look to the side of the door to see “Room 226” on a plaque above a whiteboard meant for you and Mina to draw on as you pleased. You were lucky to get a corner room, so you would only have one neighbor. But, lucky you, that neighbor happened to be an asshole.

As you stood there marvelling, a gruff voice took you out of your trance. “What’s with the dumbass look, extra?”

You don’t even have to look to know who it is. Instead, you cross your arms and respond, “What does it take for you to not be an ass?”

Mina looks up from her unpacking to see you standing in the doorway and you listen to her desperate attempt to get you out of his line of fire. “Hey! Y/N, come help me figure out how to organize all this!”

You clench your jaw before making any other move. As you start to walk back into your dorm, you glance at Bakugo to find that he’s glistening in sweat from carrying his belongings up and down stairs in the heat. You only see his face for half a second, but you almost think you see amusement in his grin. How the hell am I supposed to stand living next to a smug asshole like him? Finally inside, you shut the door behind you with a loud slam. 

“How in the hell are you friends with that gremlin?!” 

Mina obviously tries to hold in a laugh, but fails miserably as she erupts into laughter. You look on in confusion, trying to wrap your head around why this is so funny. Eventually, her laughs subside a bit to answer you. 

“I’m sorry, it’s just that normally when people meet him they just avoid him instead of calling him out. He’s pretty rough around the edges, but he’s a good friend.” She starts to organize her makeup onto a shelf as she continues on. “Honestly, the rest of us are pretty eccentric and make a lot of bad decisions. Bakugo is the one to chew us out when we fuck up and set us on the right track.”

You start to rummage through your own belongings, hanging up some shirts in the closet. “Well if you ask me, he doesn’t have to be an asshole about everything. I knew him for all of five seconds and he was a dick!”

Mina giggles at your words, finishing up her display of makeup. “To be honest, so far he’s been pretty tame. You should have seen the guy back in high school. Hell, even last semester he was worse! Maybe something happened over summer to mellow him out.” She reaches for another box of her belongings as you finish up putting all your clothes in the closet and dresser. 

You reach for your own box and find it’s the one containing your sheets and comforter for your new bed. As you uncrumple the fitted sheet and turn to the bed, you realize something pretty significant. 

“Oh crap, I might have to share a wall with him… Ugh, whatever.”

“I can always switch with you if you like?” Mina suggests. 

“It’s fine, I can deal with it.” You fit your fitted sheet to the bed and throw your regular sheet on top of it, smoothing it out. “Besides, maybe I can subtly annoy him if he happens to share the wall. I don’t mind being petty.” 

After going back and forth between boxes and in-dorm storage for an hour or two, you and Mina had completed your move in. You both sit carefully deconstructing the boxes for your eventual move out of the dorms. Might as well save the boxes to save the trouble later! With the last boxes folded and tucked underneath your beds, you both step back to the doorway to observe the now decorated room. Luckily, this dorm building allows things to be mounted to the wall. 

You are more than impressed. “I still can’t believe the dorm is this big! Are all the dorm buildings like this?”

“Most of them are a lot smaller, but upperclassmen are given bigger spaces. With all this room for activities, we could have huge sleepovers!” Mina reaches her arms up towards the ceiling in excitement as her smile beams. 

Just as Mina let her arms down, a knock comes at the door behind you, making you jump a bit in surprise. Mina opens it immediately and comes to face Eijiro. His smile is so big that it matches Mina’s almost exactly. 

“Hey girls! We’re gonna go grab some of the free food they have over in the quad, you wanna come?”

Even though you didn’t think it was possible, Mina’s smile grows even bigger. “Hell yeah, perfect timing! We just finished up here! Come on, Y/N!”

You swiftly grab your keys from your desk and clip them onto your lanyard before walking out the door to join Mina and Eijiro in the hallway. As you do, you see he is also waiting in the hallway. You avoid eye contact with him, instead opting to keep your attention on Mina as you walk down the hall towards the stairs. But as your attention stays on her as you walk down the stairs, you feel eye burning holes in the back of your head. You ignore it for now, knowing that Bakugo is trying to get under your skin. Instead of looking back, you allow your pettiness to show. 

“I can’t believe how fun today already is, Mina! All of your friends have been so nice to me! Well, almost all of them!” You make sure your voice is projecting enough for Bakugo to hear. 

It sounds like you succeeded as you hear a soft, “Tch,” comes from behind you. But another sound catches your attention. 

Eijiro starts laughing uncontrollably at the comment, tears clouding his eyesight. He starts to stumble on the steps, unable to fully see where he is. He looks back at Bakugo and says, “She’s calling you out, bro! That’s rare!”

“Shut the hell up, Shitty Hair. Like I give a shit.” He continues walking down the steps past everyone. As he steps past you, the space is tight so he has to brush against you. The skin of his arm is warm, but no longer sweaty from moving in like it was earlier. You also notice the rippling muscle under the warm skin, his form fitting tank top leaving them completely exposed. You scold yourself in your head. Why do the assholes have to be so hot?

You continue after him with Eijiro finally catching his breath and recovering his eyesight. Mina grabs your arm and loops her own through it. “Damn, you really don’t mind petty! I must admit, it’s funny to see someone get Bakugo pissed off like that. And the best part is that he’s stuck with you since you’re our friend!”

You laugh at her point, countering it with, “Well, if he kills me one of these days, he won’t be stuck with me anymore!”

Bakugo continues walking, reaching the bottom of the stairs, as he mumbles back just loud enough for you to hear, “Don’t push your luck, dumbass.”

With a plate of free pizza in hand, you walk towards a nearby empty table. The tables are all round and have a white tablecloth on them. As you sit down, Mina sits on your other side, filling up another one of the 6 chairs around the table. Then next to her is Eijiro… then Denki… and Hanta… until there is just one seat left next to you. Bakugo sits down without hesitation with a plate of grilled chicken and a salad. As you look around, you notice everyone else has followed your lead and gotten pizza. Bakugo notices this too, it seems. 

“What the hell are you doing eating that crap?” he says to no one in particular. 

Eijiro is the first to answer. “Come on man, you know I’m a health nut, but I can’t turn down pizza!”

Next to you, you hear a, “Tch,” no doubt that it is once again Bakugo. “Health nut my ass, you’ve never even touched a stove to make your own food.”

“That’s a great idea!” Mina yells immediately as she stands from her seat, hands planted on the table. “We should all cook our food together! It’ll be so much fun!”

Once again, Mina’s enthusiasm triumphs over all. 

Hanta speaks up to add to Mina’s vague plan. “It’ll be cheaper too. Might as well!”

Everyone nods in agreement, mouths full of their food. Except Bakugo. He just keeps eating with no response towards your friend. How apathetic can one person be?

[violinsweetiemiss]

Phoenix Aurora Chapter 4 (Got7 Jinyoung X OC)

The rest of the trip to Yuan went rather uneventfully. Up until the last day of traveling, Jang Soyoung’s warning went unexplained, and for the time being, Jinyoung decided he didn’t need to know more. In time, he would find a chance to observe them for himself once he settled in at Yuan. For now, he would make do with learning what he could from the materials Soyoung had given him. 

And besides...there were other things he had to wonder about before he could even think about court officials.

For example, his upcoming wedding to the woman sitting across from him who he had just met. 

Jinyoung shook his head as he imagined the wedding that he knew he couldn’t avoid, barely able to suppress the sigh rising in his chest. He directed his attention instead to the scenery outside the carriage they were sitting in, and noticed they were arriving at the city gates. His heart skipped a beat as he realized they were arriving at his new home. Seeming to realize the same thing, Jang Soyoung put down the documents she was reading and pulled back the flap covering the front of the carriage.

“Hyojun.” She called. Im Hyojun turned from his place at the front of the procession, and without another word held out the reins to the riderless horse that was walking alongside him. In one fluid motion, the empress leapt from the carriage and landed neatly on the horse, slipping the reins into her hands as she did so. Jinyoung stared at her in shock as the entire procession continued towards the city gates. 

How…?

Somehow, she had managed to do all of that in one fluid motion, without even calling the procession to a stop! Jinyoung sighed and shook his head, deciding it was better not to ask. It seemed there were still plenty of tricks his fiance had in store. 

“Should I take a horse too?” Jinyoung called, pulling open the carriage flap. 

“No need.” Jang Soyoung replied, turning her head ever so slightly to look back at him, “You only need to open the window slightly so the people can see you.” Slightly confused, Jinyoung nodded.

“Okay.” He replied. As the procession passed the gate checkpoint and entered the main street, Jinyoung heard the sound of delighted cries rising on the street.

“The Empress has returned!”

“Your Majesty!”

Jinyoung peeked out of the window curiously, wondering what was happening. His eyes widened as he saw people lined up and down the street, waving in delight at Soyoung as she rode by. Soyoung kept a soft warm smile on her face as she waved back, and for a moment Jiyoung found himself mesmerized by the young ruler. There, in the warm sunlight, she looked every inch the ruler that she was, tall and elegant, her long hair blowing in the wind, the receiver of adoration from her people. She may be just a woman, but Jinyoung could already tell that she had held the throne better than many other men before her. It was rare to receive such open adoration; it was clear the empire had been thriving under her rule. 

Some of the people looked curiously at Jinyoung as they passed by, and he hesitated for a moment before offering a tiny smile to the people looking at him, half hidden behind the curtain covering the window. The people would be curious about him for sure; what kind of man had the adored female ruler chosen for her prince consort? Was he a warrior, just like she was? Would he be helpful to her in court, or a useless stone that would drag her down? Was he worthy to take her hand in marriage? Those questions, and more were certainly running through everyone’s mind at the moment. 

In this new, foreign place, Jinyoung would have to prove his worth. He wasn’t sure how he would have to do it, but he had a feeling trials would come and find him without him even trying.

When they arrived at the palace gates, the carriage came to a stop, and Soyoung pulled open the flap covering the carriage.

“Come on.” She said, holding a hand out to Jinyoung, “We’re going to walk in.” Jinyoung peeked his head out curiously at the gates in front of him. The gates were made of plain red stone, dotted by straight black lines perfectly spaced out from each other. It was a bland door at best, but Jinyoung had a sinking feeling that it was deceptively simple. There was no guessing what lay beyond those doors, in both splendor and the messy net of relationships that surely were waiting for him as soon as he stepped inside. He sighed softly.

Grin and bear it, Park Jinyoung.

He looked over at Soyoung’s hand, hesitating as he wondered if he should take it or not. He didn’t want to look weaker than necessary in front of everyone; Jang Soyoung’s dominance was clear enough as it was. But the carriages they used in Yuan were different from the ones used in Goryeo; the ones in Yuan were lifted much higher than the ones he was used to, because they were pulled by horses rather than by people. It made things easier for the servants of course, but that also meant the distance from the carriage to the ground was much bigger than Jinyoung was used to. Jinyoung sighed, then took Soyoung’s hand before jumping to the ground below. Soyoung waved a hand at the doors, and soldiers quickly rushed to open up the brick red gates. Jinyoung’s eyes widened as he followed Soyoung into the lavish Yuan palace. The royal palace had to be at least double the size of the Goryeo palace, with structures spreading on his left and right as far as the eye could see. At the far end of the grand courtyard they had walked into, Jinyoung saw a long flight of stairs leading up to a glittering golden building. Above the long set of doors leading into the building, Jinyoung spotted three Chinese characters etched into a polished wooden plaque.

Harmony Hall.

It was the place where the emperor usually held audiences with his ministers in the morning. And before long, that was where Jinyoung would be sitting at Soyoung’s side every morning. Soyoung paused and let Jinyoung take in the sight of the Yuan palace.

“From now on, this will be your home.” She said, “I will have servants take you to your rooms.” 

“My rooms?” Jinyoung asked, “But where are you going? Where exactly are my rooms?” Jang Soyoung paused midstep from where she had been walking away, and then turned to smile teasingly at him.

“Don’t worry.” She replied, “They are only temporary quarters. You will move into my quarters after our wedding, naturally.” Jinyoung felt his cheeks grow hot at the statement.

“That’s not what I was asking about!” He protested. Jang Soyoung took one look at the expression on his face and then laughed. Shaking her head, she turned back and continued on her way.

Jinyoung sighed, and turned to the small army of servants that had appeared by his side.

“Lead the way.” He said, and followed them off.

________________________________________________________________

The rooms that had been prepared for Jinyoung were large and elaborately decorated, far larger than what he had ever lived in at Goryeo. 

“The Empress’s rooms are just across the courtyard in that direction.” A maid said helpfully, pointing out the door. Jinyoung sighed. At the moment, he could care less where her rooms were, but he appreciated the sentiment.

“Very well.” He said, “You are dismissed.”

The servants left him alone, and Jinyoung took to exploring his temporary rooms. It was so fascinating; all of a sudden, all the things that he had only ever seen in books were all in front of him. The soft and elaborate curtains that hung from the archways leading into each new part of the chambers, the tall four post bed that sat perfectly made on the far end of the room, the elegant porcelain cups that sat waiting for use on the small table by the bed. Jinyoung marveled at each of them in turn. He wasn’t sure how long he wandered around marveling at this new world he was to be living in, but he was drawn back to the present as he heard someone clear his throat. Turning sharply, Jinyoung felt his cheeks flush at being caught exploring the room like a child. His gaze fell on a young man standing behind him, gazing at Jinyoung curiously. The newcomer was a willowy youth dressed in long white robes that were belted at the waist, his clothes decorated with light silver thread that had been clearly hand-stitched to form a complicated array of patterns.  Although it was warm outside, Jinyoung spotted the edges of a fur lined collar at the top of his clothes that perfectly covered the young man’s neck. It was a deceptively simple outfit, but Jinyoung knew better than to think this was a regular person. The young man gave off an aura of grace and elegance, signaling his high status in the palace. Still, unlike many other nobles Jinyoung had met in his life, the young man had a warm welcoming smile on his face.

“You must be Park Jinyoung, the Fifth Prince of Goryeo.” The young man said, “My future brother-in-law.” Jinyoung paused for a moment as he tried to place who the young man was.

Ah.

Jang Eun-seong.

Jinyoung had long heard that the Empress had a younger twin brother that she doted on deeply. He had been born with a weak body, and so had been kept from practicing martial arts like his siblings during childhood. When the fight for the throne had broken out between the elder brothers, Royal Consort Hua had taken the twins and fled the palace out of fear for their safety. When the fighting had ended, Eun-seong was the only son left, and Soyoung was the eldest unmarried daughter. Because of Eun-seong’s weak body, Soyoung had instead been placed on the throne, thus resulting in the near impossible result that was a female ruler on the Mongol throne. Eun-seong, who had been taught medicinal arts since childhood, had instead become a royal physician, and the Empress’s unofficial personal physician.

“You are...Grand Prince Eun-seong?” He asked hesitantly. The young man’s face lit up, and he grinned as he bowed politely.

“Yes, I am Eun-seong.” He said cheerfully, “It is a pleasure to meet you, Brother-In-Law!” Jinyoung chuckled softly. The boy was Soyoung’s brother, but he was completely different from his sister. Although he looked every inch the prince he was, Eun-seong was less hardened from the daily political battles that his sister had been facing for years. He still had a slight boyish air to him behind the dignified princely look, and bright curious eyes that told Jinyoung he didn’t have to keep his guard up around him.

“You can call me Jinyoung.” He replied, patting a gentle hand on the boy’s shoulder. Eun-seong looked up, his eyes wide.

“No, I cannot do that.” He said, “That would be far too rude! Instead...may I call you ge?” Jinyoung hesitated as he turned over the unfamiliar word in his mind, then smiled as he realized what Eun-seong was asking about. The Mongols had long adopted the Chinese language; in their language, ge was the same as hyung in Goryeo. 

“Of course.” He replied, “You can call me whatever you like.” Eun-seong beamed at Jinyoung’s response. 

“I can see why my royal sister chose you!” He declared, “You’re so kind and observant. I’ve heard you are quite the scholar as well.” Jinyoung laughed and bowed politely at the comment.

“You are too kind, Your Highness.” He said, “I have just been a lover of books since childhood.” Eun-seong grinned and shook his head.

“Please call me Eun-seong.” He said, “We will soon be family after all.” Jinyoung could barely suppress a grimace at the words. The other young man was right; before long they would be one family, although Jinyoung still didn’t know how he was going to handle it.

“You are so different from your sister.” He said, steering the topic lightly away from marriage, “It is hard to believe you are siblings.” Eun-seong laughed softly at his comment.

“I have heard that many times in the past before.” He said, “My sister has been likened to a goddess of war, a strong ruler and strict ruler who punishes and rewards fairly. She is the complete opposite of the gentle and demure woman that most people expect to see, even in Mongolia.” A light cheeky grin lit up Eun-seong’s face as he looked around carefully and leaned closer to Jinyoung.

“But in reality, my sister has a gentle side to her too!” He whispered, “Not demure, but there’s times when she’s kind and warm too. She’s just really good at suppressing it around people. But as her brother, I see it all the time!” Jinyoung raised an eyebrow.

“Really?” He said, looking at the other young man skeptically. As far as he had seen, Jang Soyoung was anything but kind and warm. Eun-seong laughed at the expression on Jinyoung’s face.

“You’ll see in good time, ge.” He said, clapping a hand on Jinyoung’s shoulder, “There will be plenty of time for you to see that the strict ruler side of my sister is not all that lies in her.” Jinyoung laughed dryly.

“Yes, I do hope you’re right.” He replied.

________________________________________________________________

While Jinyoung was meeting his future brother-in-law, Soyoung was sitting in her library facing her ministers. The elder men were standing in four rows in front of her, with an aisle left in the middle for anyone who wished to step forward and address the empress. She had just announced her choice for prince consort to the gathered ministers, and from the looks on their faces, Soyoung could tell that they were less than thrilled.

“Your Majesty…” Finally, Minister Sou stepped forward, keeping his body half bowed respectfully, “If I may be frank?” Soyoung motioned for him to continue, although she already had an idea what he was going to say next. Minister Sou hesitated for a moment before continuing. 

“Your Majesty...while we have all heard of the Fifth Prince’s intellect, I am worried whether he is a good match for you.” He said, “Fifth Prince Jinyoung is nothing like our Mongol men. He is more suited to be indoors, reading and writing as he wishes. Your Majesty’s husband should be a powerful player in the Goryeo court, and someone who can lead warriors at your side, should he not?” Soyoung saw many of the other court officials nodding in approval, and bit back a sigh.

Superficial fools. They only ever know to look at the things on the surface. 

“Park Jinyoung is the second son of the former Queen of Goryeo.” She stated firmly, “He is by far one of the most favored princes in the entire court. With his position as my husband, there will certainly be the peace and support of both countries that we want. And besides, what I need is someone with his intellect to help me deal with the daily affairs of running the court. What is wrong with that? I do not need a warrior for a husband who only knows how to fight and do little else.” The ministers looked at each other briefly before Minister Han stepped forward.

“Your Majesty, you may approve of his intellect, but the Fifth Prince has spent his life either hidden behind books or writing works of poetry. He has little to no experience in court.” He stated, “If he comes to court and makes a fool of himself-”

“He will not.” Soyoung replied firmly, directly cutting the older man off, “It is precisely because he is a learned scholar that he would think of things differently from everyone else. I will not ask him to attend court every day, but when I do, I am certain he will do well. Whatever he does not understand, he will learn ahead of time.” 

And it is precisely because he has spent so much time among the common people that he knows what they want best.

“But Your Majesty…” Minister Han said hesitantly, “What about your future heirs?” Soyoung gazed at the older man coldly for a long moment as she pondered over how to respond. It was clear what he was referring to; the descendants of Yuan were expected to be warriors, particularly the men. If Soyoung and Jinyoung had children, they would surely be expected to be strong fighters capable of leading the country to victory on the battlefield. Perhaps for a daughter it would be alright if she didn’t have a natural aptitude for martial arts, but for a boy, the expectations would be high. 

“Your worry is that our children will all be scholarly and gentle rather than fierce warriors, and then there would be no heir who is suitable to hold tightly onto the Yuan throne.” She stated, raising an eyebrow. Minister Han gulped before bowing.

“Your Majesty, I simply wish for the best for our future rulers and descendants.” He replied. Soyoung crossed her arms and leveled a cold gaze on the older man, making him squirmy.

“The ability to fight will come from the child’s mother, and the intellect will come from the child’s father.” She stated, “It would be the perfect balance.”

“But Your Majesty-” Minister Han began again, then cut off as Soyoung slammed her hand against her desk.

“That’s enough!” She growled, “Or are you trying to tell me that you all, the revered ministers of the Yuan court, have the power to control which man is worthy to stand by my side and put a child in my womb?” The ministers’ soft murmurs fell silent, and they quickly fell to their knees.

“We do not dare to, Your Majesty!” They chorused together. Soyoung glared down at the elder men as she let her anger stew over them for a long moment. That was exactly what they wanted to control, of course. They wanted to put a man they thought worthy by her side, not one of her own choosing, and if one thing was to be sure, Soyoung knew it was the prince they chose would not be to her liking. They wanted a man that was strong, that could turn around and indirectly control her. But when she blatantly put it that way, no one would dare to say it out loud. 

If you would like to make things difficult, then I will play this game with you all until the end.

Soyoung tapped a finger against her desk for a long moment before speaking.

“I chose the Fifth Prince after careful consideration and in front of the entire Goryeo court.” She stated firmly, “I will not send him back for reasons as ridiculous as the quality of children he would give me. That would be a slap to Goryeo’s face that you all know very well I will not give. And in any event, I am not choosing a man to marry simply for producing heirs.” Soyoung fixed her gaze slowly on each minister, challenging them to say more.

“I trust that I will not hear anymore of such talk.” She stated firmly.  

“Your Majesty, we will listen to your wishes.” Soyoung was startled at the first voice to speak in affirmation of her decision, although she kept her face calm as she turned her gaze over to where her Uncle stood. Up until now, he had said nothing, either for or against her marriage to Park Jinyoung. And now, he was suddenly voicing his implicit affirmation for the Fifth Prince. One who didn’t know better might have thought the Grand Preceptor was on his niece’s side. 

But Soyoung knew better than to come to that conclusion.

Jang Jaewon was a crafty and careful man, one who only acted after taking into account all the factors and weighing which would be to his greatest personal benefit. Instead of voicing his opposition against Jinyoung outright, it was clear he would be watching the future prince consort’s every move, calculating until the timing was just perfect to make his move. If Jinyoung proved to be a great asset to Soyoung, then he would get rid of him within a short period of time. If Jinyoung turned out to be as weak as the court ministers feared, then he would let the young prince live. After all, any shame would be on Soyoung and the reputation her reign left behind. 

For now, Soyoung would play along.

She pressed a thin smile to her lips as she looked at her uncle.

“I thank you, Grand Preceptor, for your support.” Soyoung said. Her uncle smiled and bowed to her.

“I will always support Your Majesty.” He replied. Both niece and uncle smiled at each other, but Soyoung knew better than to believe him entirely. When her father was young, Royal Uncle Jaewon had been his greatest competitor for the throne. If Mongol law hadn’t allowed for a daughter to take the throne, Soyoung knew he would’ve snatched it for himself long before she had been found and returned to the palace. Ever since she had taken the throne, Soyoung knew that more than one of many incidents that had occurred had been instigated by her uncle. But in the end, he always had a perfect scapegoat to escape taking the blame for the matter, and her attention had always been pulled to solidifying her grip on the throne and stabilizing the Yuan borders, leaving little time to push the matters further. In the days after her wedding, Soyoung knew she had to keep a close eye on her uncle, just like how he would be keeping a close eye on Jinyoung.

The other ministers, seeing that the de facto second most powerful person in the country had seemingly acquiesced to the marriage, dipped their heads and said nothing more. Sensing that the conversation had temporarily come to a close, Soyoung rose to her feet.

“You are all dismissed.” She said firmly. Then, without waiting for another word more from her ministers, Soyoung strode out from the royal library and into the bright welcoming sunlight.

________________________________________________________________

In the days following Jinyoung’s arrival in Yuan, he rarely got the chance to see Soyoung, save for the few times she came to check on him and see what he was doing. She was always busy catching up on the work she had set aside while visiting Yuan or meeting with her ministers. Not that he minded; he had no idea what to make of his future wife, and it was easier for him to acclimate to being in Yuan without having her around him at all times. He spent most of his time in the massive Yuan library, spending hours pouring over whatever books he could find to learn as much as he could about the country he was about to marry into. For the rest of the time, he divided the time among the many court officials that had begun inviting him to their homes for a visit. Jinyoung had originally been against the idea; he preferred to do as he wanted, rather than smile and put on an act before different court ministers like what Crown Prince Jaebeom had to do on a daily basis. In the end, it was Eun-seong who talked him into accepting the invitations. Perhaps he wouldn’t like it, the Yuan prince had said, but there would be plenty more of such situations in the future. It was better to get used to it early on rather than push it off until later. And besides, it was part of Jinyoung’s duty as Soyoung’s future husband to impress as many court officials as possible, so as to keep their complaining mouths silent. 

And so, Jinyoung went and visited each minister that invited him.

It was difficult at first, for sure. Jinyoug found the whole matter rather awkward; the ministers were overly polite to him, but at the same time he could tell that his every move was being judged. Over time though, Jinyoung began learning how to charm them with his knowledge and stories of Goryeo, and his opinions about the old classics. Before long, news was spreading throughout the capital that the Empress had picked a prince consort that was both kind and well-taught, a person that you could hold hours of conversation with without even noticing.

Then, two weeks before the auspicious date picked for the wedding, Soyoung gave orders to Jinyoung’s servants to dress him in casual clothes and meet her at the palace’s front gates. When he arrived, Jinyoung was surprised to find the Empress dressed in casual clothing men’s clothing. A small smile turned up the corner of her lips as she saw him approach.

“Not bad.” Soyoung commented, “The clothes I chose fit you well.” Jinyoung squirmed slightly as he tugged at the sleeves of the Yuan attire he had been dressed in. Soyoung had chosen an outfit made of deep purple fabric trimmed with simple gold designs. The inner shirt was made of deep blue fabric, creating an overall image of elegance but short of royal extravagance. Unlike the broad sweeping sleeves of casual Goryeo attire, the sleeves clasped loosely around Jinyoung’s wrists, causing him to tug at them uncomfortably. Soyoung reached out and lightly pulled his right hand away from where it was tugging at the left cuff.

“You are not used to it.” She noted. Jinyoung sighed softly.

“It is my first time wearing Yuan clothing. Would you be used to Goryeo clothing, if you were suddenly ordered to switch?” He replied. Soyoung gazed at him for a long moment, and Jinyoung wondered if he had said too much. Then, she smiled faintly and nodded in agreement.

“Fair point.” She replied, “Come on, let’s go.” Jinyoung looked at her curiously as she turned to go.

“Where are we going?” He asked. Jang Soyoung turned and beckoned to him.

“We’re going to the marketplace.” She replied.

__________________________________________________________________________

The marketplace was as teeming with people as the day Jinyoung had arrived in Yuan, the loud sounds of sellers calling out their wares mingling in the air with the scents of fresh food being cooked. Jinyoung’s gaze roamed around the busy streets excitedly, taking in the lively sights. He had often passed by the marketplace on the way to visit various ministers, but had been unable to properly take in the sights from the carriage he traveled in. Soyoung strode calmly along the streets as if she had been there a million times, stopping here and there to buy a snack or chat with the stallkeepers. Jinyoung watched as she leaned in to speak with a waiter at a little tea shop, chuckling softly before she handed the  man a couple coins. 

“What are you talking to them about?” He asked curiously, “You’ve been doing that all day.” Soyoung smiled mysteriously as she sipped on a cup of tea.

“Obtaining news.” She replied simply, “The Second Young Master of the Lin family has been frequenting the brothels again.” Jinyoung frowned in confusion.

“Why does that matter to you?” He replied. Soyoung laughed softly and shook her head.

“The Lin family is one of the most powerful families in the nation.” She replied, “Their second son is a known womanizer, unlike the far more stable eldest son. He is always creating trouble around the city, throwing out his family’s status as a shield if anything goes wrong. But if something does go wrong, it would be a shame on the family and create trouble in court.” Jinyoung thought for a long moment as he caught onto what the Empress was saying.

“Then...before something goes terribly wrong, you receive news of it and step in before it becomes public knowledge and matters spiral out of control?” He guessed. Soyoung smiled and nodded.

“Or prevent something bad from happening in the first place.” She added, “As expected, you caught on quickly, Park Jinyoung.” Jinyoung’s heart skipped a beat at her praise.

“Then...surely the antics of a rich second young master are certainly not all you keep an eye on.” He said. Soyoung shook her head.

“Of course not.” She replied, “Whichever minister or his family has been acting unusually lately, which merchant has been doing business in matters he usually never touches, even small things like which nobleman has been mistreating his wife...those matters are what reaches the common people first. And in the end, I hear of it.” Jinyoung stared at her in amazement.

“How many eyes and ears do you have in the city?” He asked. Soyoung smiled wryly.

“I set up an information network soon after I took the throne.” She replied, “It was the only way to suppress any rebels and solidify my hold on the throne. In the end, I made use of it to maintain peace in the nation. If the people have done nothing against their conscience, there is nothing to worry about. But if they have, they will receive the proper treatment they deserve.” 

“Why are you telling me all of this?” Jinyoung asked curiously. Soyoung smiled slightly.

“You are the man who will be my husband.” She responded, “I hope you can make good use of this information network as well. Once every two months, I come outside and see what information I can gather, and make sure the capital is doing well. You would be surprised what things the court officials will try to hide from me.” Jinyoung raised an eyebrow.

Incredible. 

That was all he could think of to describe the woman sitting next to him. She was just a woman, but at the same time, she was no ordinary woman. Her hold on the throne, and the tactics she had successfully used, had worked far better than many other men who had tried the same thing. It was no wonder the country was doing so well. The waiter reappeared and placed a dish on the table in front of them.

“Please enjoy.” He said before disappearing again. Jinyoung peered curiously at the dish in front of him. The shape resembled the pancake sweets that he had eaten in Goryeo, but this was slightly flatter and covered on the top with a brown colored sauce with something else sprinkled on top.

“What’s this?” He asked, looking at Soyoung curiously. She smiled and pushed the dish towards him.

“This is called gambir.” She replied, “It is a pancake sweet made with butter and sugar and covered with a sweet sauce. I thought you’d like it.” Jinyoung poked at the stack of pancakes in front of him cautiously before picking one up and biting into it. His eyes widened as the sweet coated the inside of his mouth, the soft crunch of nuts adding to the pancake’s chewy texture.

Delicious!

Soyoung laughed softly at the look on his face.

“I knew you’d like it.” She said, “This is your reward for learning well during these past few weeks. I heard all about your visits with the court ministers.” Jinyoung pouted slightly at the comment.

“I am not a puppy.” He grumbled, but continued nibbling on the sweet anyway. Soyoung laughed again in amusement, but her smile faded away quickly as she saw someone approach Hyojun, who had been following them closely during the course of their trip. The newcomer whispered something to Hyojun, and Jinyoung frowned as he saw Hyojun’s expression darken.

“What is it?” Soyoung asked as the man left. Hyojun hesitated for a moment before responding.

“We must return to the palace immediately.” He said, “Minister Han has been killed.” Soyoung’s eyes widened.

“What did you just say?” She demanded. Hyojun nodded solemnly.

“That’s not all.” He said, “Prince Jinyoung has been named the primary suspect.”

[http-jeetjisungjult-skz]

District 9: Chapter 1

Jisung let out a tortuous scream as the acidic chemical dragged down the skin of his ankle. He didn’t bother to beg for mercy, knowing already that his only purpose was to serve as a testing subject. This was what he was born to do. 

The Doctor sent Jisung a disapproving scowl before applying a few more drops of the eroding substance, and Jisung tightly gripped his restraints, tears forming in his eyes. The Doctor harshly scraped at the chemical coated skin with a tool, Jisung’s skin readily peeling off. Jisung let out a distressed whimper from the pain, and the man shook his head in disapproval before writing something down on his clipboard. 

After the doctor finished writing, he picking the dropper tool up again, distributing more acid to Jisung’s other ankle. Jisung tried to mute his helpless cries as he felt more of his skin beginning to melt away at the harsh liquid, internally begging for all of this to stop. The doctor let out another sigh of disapproval as he scraped more skin off. 

“Useless,” the man muttered, as he wrote down more notes. Jisung wasn’t sure if the word was directed to him or not, but he didn’t care just hoping that he would be done for the day. 

“Please…” Jisung whispered powerlessly. 

Just as the man was about to pour more acid up his leg, the door slammed open, revealing a towering man who wore a uniform different from the rest. Jisung was unfamiliar with him, but he looked dangerous, the doctor cowering away from him as the man moved closer. He glared at Jisung in pure revolt.  

“Has it improved?” he suddenly asks, and the doctor flinched at his words. 

“No sir...no improvements with the Acid. The-” 

“Then fix it!” the larger man said, cutting the doctor off. 

“Y-yes, sir!” The officer watched as the doctor scurried like a rodent, frantically trying to find what he was looking for. More silent cries left Jisung’s mouth as his fear began to increase. Jisung pulled on his foot restraints as the doctor neared him, a large needle in hand. The foot restains began to dig into his skin violently as Jisung desperately tried to do anything to get away from the doctor. 

The doctor got a good grip of his leg, his fingers digging deeply into Jisung’s skin, the needle edging through his flesh. Jisung let out an agonizing scream as the serum from the needle made its way into his bloodstream, the caustic dose blazing through his body, devouring the lining of his veins.  

The towering man watched closely as the doctor continued to pump the serum into Jisung’s leg. Jisung’s throat felt raw, his lips not being able to stop the screams from leaving his mouth. Jisung got one last look at the doctor finishing the dreadful serum through his blurry eyes before his vision completely failed him. 

“Damn...They really fried you…” was the first thing Jisung heard when he began to grip consciousness again. It was a voice he had never heard before and he opened his eyes as fast as his body would let him so that he could see the new face. 

At the end of his bed sat a tall lanky boy wearing the same white uniform as every other boy. His eyes were thin and sultry as he looked over Jisung, and scars decorated his face and neck to accompany the scabs that looked like they were fresh. 

“W-who...who are you?” Jisung asked fearful, pulling his knees into his chest. The boy chuckled. 

“Rumors around here are true...you are more flighty than the rest…” he smiled. “I’m Hyunjin, your new roommate, quarters partner...whatever you want to call it.” 

Jisung didn’t say a word, only pulling the scratchy white sheet over more of his face. Hyunjin let out a sigh, and placed his hands on the mattress, pushing himself to stand up from Jisung’s bed. 

“Get some more sleep then I guess,” he said, walking over to his own bed, and picking up his mattress to reveal a book that he then opened. He plopped on his bed, his back resting against the metal headboard as he began to read. 

“Where did you get that!” Jisung suddenly bursts. Hyunjin cautiously glanced at the door before glaring at Jisung. 

“I got it from the archives,” he shrugged. “Barely any security.” 

“Those books are off limits! They’ll realize it’s gone!” 

“Hardly,” Hyunjin scoffed. “This book hasn’t been touched in decades, I bet you.” Jisung still glared at him horrified. “They won’t,” Hyunjin assured rolling his eyes. “So your name is Jisung.” 

“It is....” 

“You’re obviously a Physical Regeneration subject as well…” Jisung nodded, confirming. 

Though he had never been told by anyone or heard directly he knew what he was. He had read it enough times on glances of clipboards, or signs around doorways. He knew Woojin always spoke about Mental Cognitive Advancement, whatever that was and Jeongin, his missing roommate, always explained how the doctors often mentioned that he was being cloned. 

“Well get some sleep then…” Hyunjin dismissed. “Wouldn’t want to scar…” 

Jisung pouted at his comment. It was obviously supposed to be a joke, but Jisung didn’t find it amusing. He never did find humor a thing he could enjoy with such a painful life. 

“You look like you have something to say.” 

“I don’t like you,” Jisung stated bluntly, and Hyunjin let out a loud uncontrollable howl of a laugh. 

“You- you don’t like me?” he asked before bursting into another fit of laughter. “Aw kid, you must think that really hurts, huh?” 

Jisung’s pout only grew. 

“Now stop sitting there like you have a stick up your ass before I lose my mind.” 

Jisung huffed but pulled the blanket from the foot of the bed up over his head, trying his best to ignore the boy. He hated this. He didn’t want some gross rebellious scum of a boy for a roommate. He wanted Jeongin back. Jisung took a breath, knowing that he never got what he wanted, and he wished that Hyunjin wouldn’t last nearly as long as Jeongin. 

Jisung woke to the harsh ringing of the alarm as it rang. The same damn alarm that rang every morning to get each of them up. 

Jisung sat up, and climbed out of his bed, shivering when his feet made contact with the cold floor. He was barely up but his muscle memory and desire not to be punished drove him towards the hallway. As he glanced over he wasn’t surprised to see Hyunjin fast asleep, a thin string of dribble hanging from his mouth. He has obviously fallen asleep while reading, his arm stretched out, the book spread open on the floor, exposing its pages. 

Jisung sighed looking at the boy. He really didn’t want the stress of someone being punished this earlier in the morning so Jisung quickly lifted up his leg and kicked, sending Hyunjin’s body falling to the floor. 

“Shit!” Hyunjin cussed lazily as he rubbed the back of his head, slowly sitting up. “I’m going to kill you,” he groaned, glaring at Jisung. The younger boy rolled his eyes, grabbing the handle of the door and opening it. 

“If you don’t get up right now, someone else is going to kill us,” he scolded before walking out into the cold hallway. He pressed his back against the wall of the hallways, his body covering the plaque with the room number. 

Jisung looked down the hallway and watched as a Ward walked down the hall, scanning each boy’s code tattooed on their wrist. As he walked down the corridor, the same familiar boy with dark hair and hateful eyes pushed a cart behind him, like every other morning. The same bright stretch marks never seemed to fade from his large arm muscles. 

As Jisung watched the boy beside him hold out his wrist to be scanned, Hyunjin finally slipped out of the room, standing straight against the wall on the opposite side of the door then Jisung. Hyunjin rolled his eyes at Jisung’s glare before Jisung was suddenly wiping his face of emotions and looking straight ahead. 

Jisung tried his best to keep his expression blank as he held out his wrist for the Ward. The man harshly grabbed his wrist scanning the barcode before moving on to scan Hyunjin’s. As the boy with the cart reached out to hand Jisung his pill, Hyunjin didn’t hold his wrist out for the Ward. Angrily, the man reached for Hyunjin’s wrist, but he resisted earning him a harsh smack across the cheek. 

Jisung slightly jumped, looking over startled to see Hyunjin’s face turned, a large red mark on his cheek. Jisung decided that he must have done something stupid. Why else would the Ward have done something so harsh? Maybe he would get rid of his new roommate sooner than he initially thought. 

“Here,” the boy with the pill said harshly, handing him the pill and a set of clean clothes. 

“O-oh…” Jisung said, quickly taking the pill and popping it into his mouth. The cart boy continued to wheel the card behind the Ward, handing another stack of clean clothes and a pill to Hyunjin. He didn’t immediately pop it into his mouth like everyone else did, instead shoving it into his uniform pocket. 

Jisung watched the Ward make it all the way down the hall, scanning the last person’s wrist. He nodded as the Ward turned the corner, and he turned to enter back into his room to set into the new fresh clothes. 

“You should really take that pill,” Jisung nodded, as Hyunjin made his way back to the room to change as well. Hyunjin let out a mocking scoff as he made his way over to their bathroom, dropping the pill in the toilet, and flushing it down. 

“H-hey!” Jisung yelped, struggling to wiggle out of his shirt. “You can’t do that!” 

“Says who?” Hyunjin asked, walking over to his bed and starting to undress to change out of his night uniform and into his day one. 

“Says...says the ward!” 

“I didn’t hear anyone tell me to take it,” Hyunjin shrugged, pulling the shirt on over his head. 

“But-”

“Do you ever shut up?” Hyunjin asked pulling up his pants, and Jisung began to grow angry, his fist tightening. 

“I don’t like you!” 

“Yeah, you’ve told me,” Hyunjin said. “See if I care.” Hyunjin smugly walked out of the room, and towards the cantine. Jisung frantically finished dressing before running out of the room to follow Hyunjin. 

“You can’t just break all the rules!” Jisung hissed in a hushed tone, following Hyunjin. The older boy simply ignored the younger, eager to get his breakfast. “Hyunjin!” 

“Do you ever shut up!” Hyunjin snapped. “Don’t like me? Don’t follow me...go get lost or something/” 

“The rules exist to keep us safe!” Jisung mindlessly stated. “Don’t you get that?” 

Hyunjin growled and grabbed the collar of Jisung’s shirt, slamming him against the wall of the hallway. “Those rules are bullshit! Meant to keep us brainwashed!”

Jisung’s eyes grew wide as the boy grabbed him. He turned to see the red blinking light at the end of the hallways were a camera was placed. 

“Please! They’re watching! We’ll get in trouble!” Jisung begged cowardly. He turned his head away from Hyunjin, trying to curl into a ball, away from Hyunjin’s angry fists. Hyunjin rolled his eyes at Jisung, releasing the grip on Jisung’s collar. ‘He’s a coward,’ Hyunjin thought. ‘Nothing more than a brainwashed rat. Unredeemable.’

As Hyunjin dropped him, Jisung quickly scurried away from his grip, nearly running to the catine and away from Hyunjin. The older boy sighed, watching him run down the hall terrified. Hyunjin figured all he ever felt was fear. After all, that’s how the facility tried to control everyone. Unlucky for them, it couldn’t control Hyunjin. 

Slowly, Hyunjin headed the same way, letting the walk drag on. He didn’t want the day to start, He never did. 

Woojin’s head shot up as Jisung sprinted into the cantine, breathing heavily. He stood catching his breath before quickly walking towards the food line and grabbing a tray with the same colored cubes and a cup of water. 

Woojin stared up at him in confusion as he sat down at the table. 

“Care to explain why you look like you’re running from death himself?” 

“My roommate tried to kill me,” Jisung whimpered. 

“Jeongin?” Woojin asked, concerned for his friend’s mental sanity. 

“No! My new roommate! He’s completely crazy!” Jisung whimpered. Woojin looked at him skeptically, popping a blue cube into his mouth. “He flushed his pill down the toilet and I-I think he steals things….!” Jisung roughly whispered. 

“Your best bet is to not get involved,” Woojin nodded, not even seeming fazed by the story. “They can’t punish you if you’ve done nothing wrong.” 

“Maybe I should report him,” Jisung said, still trying to catch his breath. Woojin shook his head. 

“I’m sure they know everything he’s doing. Just don’t get involved, Jisung.” The younger boy nodded, knowing that Woojin had to be the smartest out of all the Mental Cognitive Advancement subjects. “Just ignore him.” 

Hyunjin scowled at Jisung as he walked into the cantina. Somehow he knew that the boys distressed appearance had to do with himself. He grimaced as he grabbed a tray with the cubes and sat down at his own empty table.

He grabbed a red cube, protein, and hesitantly chewed it, the retched sodium taste making him wish he didn’t have taste buds. He thought about the day in front of him. Yesterday he was breakfast testing so he knew he had until a little after lunch before facing the painful night. As these thoughts ran through his head a familiar figure walked up in front of him. 

“What do you want Chan?” Hyunjin asked, annoyed. The bulky boy sat down, setting his tray on the table. 

“It’s like you want to get punished.” Hyunjin rolled his eyes. “Resisting the morning Ward? Great start to the day.” 

“I didn’t like how he was glaring at me.” 

“Maybe if you didn’t cause so much trouble, he’d treat you as if you were nothing like the rest of the boys in that hall.” 

Hyunjin sighed. “If all you are going to do is yell at me, you can go sit with Changbin,” Hyunjin warned, nodding over towards a boy with similar stretch marks, an angry-looking expression to match. 

“This is serious, Hyunjin. What if they decide that they aren’t going to put up with your shit anymore?” 

“Then I guess I die,” Hyunjin shrugged. “It’s not like I have anything to live for anymore anyway.” 

“This isn’t funny!” 

“I’m not laughing!” 

Chan took a deep breath. “Please, promise me you won’t do anything stupid for the rest of the day. At least that please.”

Hyunjin studied Chan’s tired face before sighing annoyed. “Fine,” Hyunjin scoffed. “I’ll try to be on my best behavior.” 

Just as he spoke those words, the metal doors on the opposite side of the cantine that led to the testing labs, slid open. Everyone watched nervously as a Ward and two guards walked through the room, moments away from choosing who the first victim would be. Hyunjin ignored them knowing that you never have the same shift two days in a row. 

Jisung’s eyes followed anxiously. He knew that he most likely had night shift, but even when you study the patterns in this place, he knew that not anything is certain here. 

Hyunjin carelessly popped a blue cube into his mouth, before the guards made their way towards him. As they walked up to his seat looking directly at him, his eyes widened in horror. 

“N-no…” Hyunjin denied. The Ward shook his head, looking down at the boy in annoyance.

“Don’t make this difficult for yourself, Hyunjin…” 

[maggotmouth]

          hello, i’m nora ( she / her, 24, gmt ) and i almost exclusively join dark academia rps. please find below everything i have thus far on otto ballantyne, a theatre and classics student who was arranged to be married to one of the students who disappeared. i’ve honestly been itching to write otto again for months, so thanks to this lil group for giving me the opportunity. can’t wait to get my teeth stuck into him again. please bombard me with discord messages for plots. here is his  pinterest.

act one: application.

THOMAS DOHERTY   ,   CIS-MALE   ,   HE/HIM         →         according   to   the   school   records   ,   OTTO HORATIO BALLANTYNE   has   been   attending   sacred   heart   for   the   past   four   years   .   i   last   saw   them   hanging   around  the  cliffs   ;   i   think   they   were  reciting   shakespearean  soliloquies  to   the   wind   and   a   weathered   old   skull.   at   twenty   -   three   years   old   ,   otto   has   been   studying   theatre   &   classics   and   get   this   ,   i   heard   that   he   was   arranged   to   be   married   to  alice   rosseau   before   her   untimely   disappearance  ,   and  was   desperate   to   call   off   the   affair  —   figure   it’s   true   ?   everyone   around   here   always   associates   them   with    an   aged   bottle  of   malbec   glugged   carelessly   at   the   after - show  ,  the   kind   of   confidence   that   only   a   private   education gives ,  white   lines   of   powder   snorted   off  a   marble  sink  with    lovers  you’ll   later   deny  .   in   the   time   since   these   strange   happenings   ,   they   have   have   not   encountered   any   unexplained   occurrences   .         (   written   by   nora   ,   24   ,   she/her   ,   gmt   )

act two: the muse !

ok so lemme start off by saying otto is heavily inspired by if we were villains by m l rio and the secret history by donna tartt. very serious actor. into the classical plays, but would definitely fit in a production of posh by laura wade. originally i wrote him for a murder mystery dark academia group but when the group ended i missed him so much i decided to bring him here.

born in south london, but raised in cheltenham. went to eton or harrow or one of those posh english boarding schools for boys. we love the homoeroticism of learning latin with your homies and chanting sonnets in caves by candlelight.

youngest son in his family. was fiercely competitive with his brother nathaniel growing up. having an older brother who was incredibly intelligent and successful made otto learn to treat his life like it was a fight. constantly trying to be better and ‘prove himself’.

otto’s a brat. filthy rich public school boy vibes, very riot club. champagne all over the ceiling and driving well over the limit. custom-made cuff links he loses in taverns when he rolls up his sleeves to lean on the bar. needing to know so much about a character you’re playing that it consumes you ; you can no longer tell which parts of you are otto and which parts are macbeth.

characters who have inspired him:  alistair ryle in the riot club, francis abernathy in the secret history, anthony marston in and then there were none, oliver marks in if we were villains, achilles in the song of achilles, dorian gray in tpodg.

a fun fact is he is a natural blonde and spent most of his childhood that way but he now dyes it dark because he thinks that’ll give him more versatility in terms of the roles he can play. blonde ppl are usually cast as only the lover or the innocent n he wants to play villains and heroes and leading men as well.

very gay, n that’s pretty much a known thing by everyone but his family?? his family have arranged to have him married to women twice n both times its not worked out. the first time he basically drove her away with his reckless hedonism and alcoholism, and the second arranged marriage was to alice, one of the four students who went missing

archetypes: the figurehead. the challenger. the magician. the knight. the underdog.

ENTP-T / the debater personality. 

theatre arts major, minoring in classics.

trigger warning for internalised homophobia / familial prejudice.

act three: the biography !

     heavy is the head that wears the crown, though yours is the size of a tennis ball when you are born three weeks premature, barely formed enough to open your eyes. for those first few weeks all your parents knew were fear and love — fear that you would leave them, love that you had made it through so much, hooked up to wires like a fish in a cryogenic tank. to them your heart that learned one day to beat of its own accord was a miracle. perhaps that’s why you became their golden boy.

     being born as a boy on the brink of death makes you invulnerable. you were achilles and the world couldn’t touch you for you were shielded from harm by a mother’s protective spell. should nathaniel lay so much as a finger on your skin, a voice would raise like the sound of a god from the veranda where she sat sipping her wine, play nice, boys! the sound of it thick with merlot. in every fight they took your side ; angel-headed creatures never lied. you soon learned that adults would believe anything if they liked you, that flattery will get you anywhere and to the well-trained mind, conversation was little more than a parlour game.

     you harboured your mother’s beauty, the softness of her voice, the firmness of her skin and light in the corners of her smile. of your father, they’d say you inherited his wit, though that was your own — as was the golden hair that tousled your head, taken not from ambrose ballantyne but rather the bout of his three-week business trip to germany when your mother had bedded the gardener. if he knew, he never mentioned it. to believe such a fate would imply that he was not enough for her. though you noticed one day when you were nearing five and the sun was ripe on your freckle-flecked skin that the gardener had stopped coming at all. the grass, once shaven to its scalp, now grew to your knees.

     at school, you learned with porridge still clinging to your mouth that the way to win over your teachers was through your smile. yours was the kind of school where the christmas play was not the nativity but rather the story of the gods, and stardom came to you in the role of apollo, sun shining from your beaming face, a bright halo of hair around your head. this was the first time you noticed a coldness in nathaniel’s eyes as your father threw you over his shoulder and your mother drenched you in praise. a bout of food-poisoning on your brother’s part rendered the italian restaurant, visited in your honour, abandoned. you never did find out if he was faking.

     the room to his door remained shut after that and you learned to wile away your hours in the company of nannies and children from neighbouring castles, played at knights and rescued princesses from nearby dungeons, a tin-foil crown lopsided on your head. you learned to seek influence in the faces of those around you, how their eyes would widen as they hung like stalactites to your words. storyteller. prophet. riddler. prince. you cut your tongue into a well-kept sword and sparred with it thrice a day.

     by nine you had read all of dickens novels. by eleven, all of shakespeare’s comedies — though you understood them as much as a cricket knows the meaning of the cosmos. still, it sounded rich and impressive when asked by aunties at dinner parties, what are you reading in school, otto? he finds the curriculum tiring, your mother would say, stroking a hand through your thick head of hair. otto’s just finished the merchant of venice. soon you grew to ignore your brother’s glowers at your back. your mother’s was the only smile you needed.

     in cap and blazer your mother would drop you off at school, gated and turreted, the kind that was the envy of poorer neighborhood wives. when you were young, you were sure the gifts that came your way were yours alone, though as you grew older, you learned to expect them in the same way the school expected cheques from your parents. they named them benefactors, you noticed one day, on the wooden plaques fixed to the common room walls. the same plaques you would one day notice their names engraved upon in the arching hallways of sacred heart. acclaim was bought, not earned, and your success was littered with blood money.

     what’s a king without a kingdom? your father surely wanted you to inherit his, though it was not in law and corporal finance that you found yourself a castle, but rather upon the stage. when red curtains split, you found you could become anything with the power of your will — boy, man, lion, snake, each of them wrung out by wordsmiths dead in their graves, a certain romance in the dusky smell of stage lights. when every eye in the room was focused on you — that was when you felt most powerful. like a piece of art, you were something to be looked at and admired — and perhaps in the absence of self-earned merit your vanity blossomed, for even if the trophies that lined your cabinets and the a-grades in columns on a sheet came from heavy pockets, your parents could never buy the sound of applause.

     actors are by nature volatile. though your facade was swifter than an arrow, backstage they would call you tempestuous, bigoted, vain. still, it never left the wings of the theatre. there was a kind of reverence surrounding you that words could not taper, godliness following you from school to college, a peer admired in the practice rooms of sacred heart where you poured over chekhov and ibsen but yearned to read sophocles and euripides.

     you learned to pride yourself on your looks — a sharpened jawline and a sharper tongue — and found that people would do almost anything for a beautiful face. in the beginning, alice was one so much. first colleagues, then friends, then a frequenter to the table in your family’s house. with arrogance carried in the curve of your brow, you only ever saw her as an accessory. that changed when you met her brother, let yourself stumble, brogues in a size that differed from your own kicked beneath your bed, a shirt with a larger neck size, pulled sheets, the smell of a foreign cologne.

      talk travelled. it wouldn’t do to have word of your deviance spread further than the ballantyne house. while your parents would claim they were forward-thinking, more lenient than their parents had been, there was a conservative priggishness to the way they’d brush such matters under the rug, your father scarcely able to meet your eye over the dinner table. soon after, the arrangement was set with you all but exalted from the plans until alice had been informed. too late to back out, neither of you all that eager to be wed, though your families would coo when you fixed your hair or she, in keeping with the role, adjusted your tie. at first it amused you to play house with one such as alice, but soon you grew listless. like a caged beast you felt suffocated by the falseness of it all. you’d leave the dinners held by your joint households and return bedraggled, smelling of whiskey and sex. you’re not sure alice ever knew the reason why you couldn’t love her, though perhaps she suspected. at night, the names that would fall from your lips would never be hers. oliver. daniel. mason. rupert. charles.

act four: character investigation !

        otto’s an extremely materialistic character who obtains pleasure through the things you can buy in life rather than that which comes to you by way of humble experience. he likes rolex watches, armani suits, louis vuitton travel bags, silk scarves imported from india. he likes to drink wine from decades gone by, where he can almost taste the funk of a victorian farmer hand pressing the grapes into a pulp, or to read a manuscript from the special collections section of the library that he knows has passed through hands which have gone on to achieve greatness. to otto, alice was always an extension of this hedonistic, pleasure-seeking attitude — she was something to be paraded like the equestrian trophies on his bookshelf, or his name on the honour roll. it’s not that he didn’t see her as a person — he’s hardly a chauvinist, although it could easily be inferred from the disdain with which he talks to some women — but rather that he saw her as someone ethereal and admirable and of high social standing who would elevate his social standing, by extension, were he to spend time with her. (this was such a convoluted sentence omg sorry)

         the engagement was not his choice. even the idea of it had never crossed his mind. he had never thought to marry – marriage to otto was a tool used for financial gain — and being already wealthy, he was content to live out his days as a bachelor. he would take lovers, of course, but it would be on his own terms without the involvement of the law. alice was chosen as a match for otto because she was from a wealthy, well-liked family and the two had been friends since childhood. it seemed to their parents inevitable that they would marry, and so all that was left was the agreed arrangement between the families and the exchanging of rings. strictly speaking, if the marriage between otto and alice had gone ahead, then alice would have been nothing more than a trophy wife to otto. it would have been a miserable marriage for her, and he would have grown to resent her for it — not resent her for the fact that he could never truly be free to love someone he wanted (for he still would) but resent her, and by extension his family, for taking the option to do that openly and publicly away from him. she would always be seen as the beard, the scorned lover, the cuckold, and it would dampen any future relationships he held with the stain of that upset.

act five: wanted plots !

people who he was friends with as a child (either in london or cheltenham if anyone in this group has a muse from there) but grew apart from when he was sent to private school / they view him as entitled now and the two no longer have much in common

someone who auditioned for the same role as him, but otto got it, and they’ve resented him for it ever since !  want this bad. or put your thang down flip it and reverse it: someone who got the role otto wanted and he loathes them for it.

hasn’t really dated anyone? at college, he tends to hook up with people in a vapid sort of way? so he wouldn’t rEALly have past relationships with boys unless it was….. incredibly quiet and on the DL, literally meeting up in the woods after school to read plato and play with each others hair. suddenly realised i want this. someone give me someone he reads plato in the woods with and kisses up against tree bark because even though everyone basically KnOWS otto isn’t out n probably never will be :/

alternatively someone who he had a vapid, senseless hook up with and grew attached to  :/ rude.   in this house we lov angst

i guess some friends he actually likes would be cool. maybe someone who he has a hold over, because he’s quite an engaging character with good leadership qualities, like at parties he’ll be the one telling the story and gesticulating wildly and everyone’s watching him or looking to him for where they’ll go next / how the night will pan out. if he has a hold over someone maybe he has some sort of leverage whereby they’ll complete his work for him if he’s out getting drunk which he usually is. if tht sounds like ur character is naive n could be coerced, hit me up

people he knows on a very superficial and base level in the fact that their only interactions together involve doing coke off someone’s sink and stumbling home in the dark. otto’s a massive hedonist. if he were a greek god, he’d be a mix between dionysus and apollo, but he has achilles’ vanity.

[neytinintransit]

one summer’s day (ed. 1)

Every morning, my mother goes down to her old crystal shop at the front of our house and burns several spears of incense as she prays. And every morning, my mother prays for Ryan and me. In fact, she is so religiously dedicated to this ritual that my high school friends always associated me with the smell of incense before I grew smart enough to invest in some strongly-scented body soap. When she prays, she demands complete privacy and silence (a request which my brother and I may not treat with much respect), for fear that part of her spirit may be trapped in another world if interrupted mid-process. Eric discovered this contraption pictured above at the beginning of our visit and, being the free spirit he is, didn’t hesitate to set it in motion. Oddly enough, even though I just hopped on a plane and flew an ocean away from home, the scent makes this foreign environment seem mildly familiar. I was talking to Joy about this, but I think I’ve traveled enough to out-grow my fear of foreign lands.

Another thing I’ve learned from past travels is that I quickly grow tired of aimless wandering when there isn’t any form of personal growth involved. Last Spring, I remember wandering around Rome and feeling at a loss for why I was there and not home. Why wasn’t I at KO Gym working the bags with Coach? Why wasn’t I cooking up some fancy, fulfilling side-project? Why the hell was I spending so much time at these random spots in the world, walking my feet sore to the bone? There was no purpose or direction. After all, that’s what aimless wandering is. And on the plane/train ride here, I decided that wasn’t what I wanted. Not ever again- or at least I hope.

So as I mentioned in the blog post below, I’ve decided to set a number of goals. They’re not necessarily huge, monumentous goals. Just little things I’d like to be able to tick off here and there. The list is growing/shrinking as I skip around the continent, so there isn’t very strong commitment to them either. But they’re there, and I’m hoping for them to move me forward. 

But before we get to the abstract stuff, let’s do a quick-dirty rundown of Tokyo. I’m not quite as shocked anymore when this happens, but once again my worlds have collided. Pictured left is Raheem of Princeton, the nobel ram that everyone adores. On the right is Eric of Troy, the pupperino that’s accompanying me for the duration trip. We all met up in Ginza, the classy, high-fashion upper-class neighborhood of Tokyo. We didn’t spend too much time there, but I was able to go through this stationary shop called G.Itoya and hunt for little gifts. I mentioned below that one of my goals was to find souvenirs from different parts my travels for a select few people. Some of them told me that I didn’t have to, and if you’re reading this, I promise took your advice to heart. I will not mindlessly purchase meaningless artifacts, but if I do see something that I know will make said persons happy, you can bet I’m taking that gold back to homebase.

After scrambling around for a restaurant that had vegetarian (Raheem is vegetarian) options, we made a trip over to the Tokyo Tower. On the way there, we happened to pass through a number of Japanese gardens, landscapes lush with greenery, unlike the gardens back home sprinkled with a variety of colorful flowers. 

Pit stop no. 1 is that red-white Eiffel Tower looking thing. As expected, there’s an elevator that takes you to the top and provides a 360 degree view of Tokyo. To be honest, it wasn’t the most awe-inspiring activity, though it was a good introduction to the city.

After marching around the tower and shopping at the random souvenir shops throughout several floors, we made way to meet Eric’s college friends, Yi and Lucy. They’re traveling together like Eric and me, and their personalities click pretty well. Yi has one of the most dynamic personalities I’ve met, with as much energy as Dory from Finding Nemo. Lucy is much more calm and relaxed, but feels very genuine and down to earth from our conversations.

The five of us mapped out a 20 minute walk to Harajuku, the stylish art and fashion district of Tokyo. With a steady combination of terrible navigation skills and California-style walking, twenty minutes became a solid hour and a half. There were no regrets from walking on my end, however. To me, that just meant we had an extra hour and ten minutes of conversation and exploration (e.g. a puppy shop, Shake Shack, more gardens, getting to know friends, old and new.

And at the end of our journey, we were blessed with this little gem in the sky. Sunsets at the beach are wonderful, but they don’t quite capture that magic that these sunsets do— the way the autumn-shaded sunlight collides with the clouds to create the purple and orange and yellow and red.

When we weren’t staring at the sky, we were browsing through some pretty cool (and cheap) shops. I really liked this place. It reminded me a bit of 南锣鼓巷 in Beijing, except it was a bit more stylish with a larger variety. Almost like a hybrid of that and Brick Lane in London, I guess. It’s funny how you start comparing places in different countries to one another after you’ve traveled enough. Almost like how you start to describe new friends in relation to old ones you’ve made after you’ve run out of room in your mind to store completely new identities.

On the note of old friends, we met up with Hiro and got Izakaya later that night. Izakaya usually consists of bar foods and beer/sake, and it was a great way for us to talk about the parts of life that passed when we were apart. She really is one of the kindest, warmest, most considerate souls that I’ve ever met. And I feel like part of me always misses her company. I guess that’s when you know you’ve found yourself a good friend.

Since we’re coming closer and closer to that metaphysical, abstract level of thought, we can just go there. On this trip, I want to be able to glean little life lessons and pockets of wisdom as I march forward. To be able to reflect, understand, and meditate on certain thoughts and philosophies that I’ve developed and changed through the years. It’s a process called adulting, and it’s happening. I have to accept that, and I have to embrace it with complete willingness, otherwise it will out-run me.

Pictured above is an Ema. Quoted directly from Wikipedia, “Ema are small wooden plaques on which Shinto worshippers write their prayers or wishes. The ema are then left hanging up at the shrine, where the kami (spirits or gods) are believed to receive them.” One of my favorite parts of my trip through Tokyo was finding little shrines scattered throughout the city that contained stopping points that collected the wishes and hopes of its inhabitants. On the flip side of every lotus flower was a wish that someone in this world felt was important enough to share with the world.

I’m not one to believe in fate, but I do know that certain things catch my eye for a reason. And when this note appeared in my field of view, I felt myself immediately attracted to it. For some reason, this phrase elicited a sense of nostalgia- both the pain of loss and the hope for a happier future. After reading it, I began to contemplate why people feel, so strongly, this urge to love. Why is it that people believe that the capacity to care for something other than you is greater than any form of care you’ll ever have?

Within the past few years, I’ll admit that I’ve done things I’m not proud of (Teemo reference ‘sup). With each of those actions, I started to like myself less and less. I saw flaws in my behavior and how they existed in complete contradiction to what I believed were my values. Self-love is hard to maintain, and if you’re not careful, it eventually withers away. But what I think I’m starting to realize is that love and care for others is what anchors me down. I’m not sure why, but when I love so strongly— be it my family, a significant other, a city— it draws out behaviors and actions that I find admirable. It makes me a better person, and a person that I think I could possibly love.

And I think that is why An is searching for love again. I know the whole preach of independence is important, but for some reason, it’s awfully hard for me to love myself if I can’t find that same love and care for anyone else.

Everyday, thousands of people travel to shrines to pray for their loved ones. For those that have both passed and are living, they pray for the well-being of their souls. These shrines connect people to loved ones, beyond the flesh and bone with which we were born with. While walking around, I noticed several people fresh from work, coming to pay their respects and leave their wishes.

Next to the shrine, piles of burnt incense serve as a monument to these prayers. Growing up, I’ve always found it interesting that incense was chosen to be the tool of choice to pray to the Gods. Growing up, I’ve also found it interesting the way my mom and dad seemed to sacrifice so much for my brother and me.

Growing up, I had all these dreams of success, of wild, wild success. I’ve had dreams of becoming the president of the United States, of becoming the CEO of the next big startup. I’ve thought of all these things, and I still do. Without a doubt, I believe that my mom and dad thought of these things throughout their lives as well. I believe they still do.

And yet, I’ve always found it so interesting how they were able to make all these sacrifices for my brother and me. Why do my mother and father work their entire lives for our sake? Mom doesn’t care about real-estate, and Dad sure doesn’t give a shit about construction. So why would they dedicate the day-in-day-out to us?

Every morning, my mother goes down to her old crystal shop at the front of our house and burns several spears of incense as she prays. Every morning, my mother prays for Ryan and me. And I’m beginning to understand why I would do the same for another, and why I’m not completely crazy for doing so. I’m not saying that it’s the right path, by any means, but I can understand it now. Because when you’ve found something you like, very very much, what you want doesn’t seem so important anymore. You find joy and love in theirs.

On a final note, I can’t think of another picture that I resonate with more right now. I don’t know why I always do this to myself, but it’s currently 4:30AM and I’m ready to konk the $#@% out. 

Goodnight world.

—

TL:DR I get why people have kids now. 

Adulting pt. 1 checked.

[serensama]

To Bloom

Hey Guys!  This is actually a short HC! WHO KNEW I COULD MAKE THOSE?! 

How would the RFA + CO react to receiving flowers from MC? 

  Yoosung:

-          MC held out a bunch of peonies for Yoosung as he was wrapping up a game of LOLOL

-          Taking off his headset he looked up his girlfriend, completely befuddled

-          “Who are these for honey?” he asked as he reached for them reflexively and breathed in their sweet scent.

-          “For you silly!” she giggled as his eyes snapped right back to hers, shocked and confused.

-          “For me?” he clarified pointing to himself, still unsure even as MC continued to nod. “But aren’t I supposed to give you flowers MC? Isn’t that how this is meant to work?” he questioned as he carefully drew his fingers over the petals.

-          “It’s not meant to work in any specific way Yoosung- I wanted to get you flowers so I got you flowers! You can do the same for me one day if you want, or you don’t have to- but seeing you smile like this makes me happy!” she grinned.

-          Yoosung sat there long after MC gave him a kiss and continued on her day, just looking at the flowers in his hands. He can’t believe she got him flowers- just like that- it wasn’t his birthday or any special occasion. She just did it because she wanted to see him smile.

-          He was Just. So. Happy.

-          It isn’t until many months later does MC find out by accident that he pressed his flowers and laminated them over a picture of them to make a bookmark, something he has with him everywhere he goes as he studies. He’s even written on the back of the picture the date he received them from her.  

-          He was a sentimental man.

-          He continues to use the bookmark even in his veterinary practise, in his favourite medical text books. MC can always see it peeking through the pages in his library.

Zen:

-          MC was standing there in his dressing room, her arms behind her back

-          Running up to her, sweat still at his brow, Zen threw his arms around her and gave her a resounding kiss.

-          “Jagi! How was that? Did you enjoy the show? Was I good?” he asked a mile a minute, still hyped up on adrenaline.

-          As she answered him, MC pulled out her arms to present him a lovely arrangement of carnations

-          Zen was absolutely shocked.

-          MC quickly puts the flowers down however when she realises her boyfriend has tears streaming down his face.

-          “Zen! Hyun- what’s wrong?” she asked panicked about the sudden turn of events.

-          “Nothing MC, nothing at all” he smiled through his tears, “-the first person to give me flowers for my performance was Rika… but no one has done it since… until you. Thank you Jagi, thank you!” he exclaimed, taking her back into his arms.

-          MC makes a promise to herself that he will have flowers for every opening and closing night for as long as he performs.

-          Zen has always loved flowers and is happy enough to cord the flowers through his hair and into MC’s.

-          He has actually learned how to make flower crowns and has taken to wearing them for his selfies.

-          “Look at the amazing flowers my MC got for me this time around- Love you Jagiya!”

-          His favourite thing to do however, is to tear the petals off to create a path for MC to follow throughout the house.

-          And yes, they usually lead to the bed.

Jaehee:

-          She’s coughing again and she’s overworking herself… again

-          MC tuts to herself as she looks over her, trying desperately to find a way to make her day just that little bit better.

-          Seeing the vendor across the street, MC runs over and buys a simple bunch of orchids.

-          As Jaehee calls for the next customer she is surprised to see her girlfriend in line with a mischievous look on her face.

-          Playing along Jaehee asks for her order and how she would like to pay- only to be given a bunch of flowers in return.

-          MC marvelled at how large Jaehee’s eyes became; larger than saucers and brighter than a star. Even though she was sick she was glowing.

-          Jaehee had never received flowers from any of her previous partners, so getting them from MC just to make her feel better was just… it was amazing.

-          Jaehee quickly found a vase to put them in and they stayed front and centre on the counter beside her all day.

-          Before they began to wilt she took a photo of the flowers and sent them to a local artist to paint them for her.

-          Jaehee hangs the painting in her shop so whenever she feels down or tired, she can look at it and smile and remember who helped make all this possible.

Jumin:

-          MC had surprised him at the office with a bunch of red and white roses

-          He sat there for a full minute looking between her and the flowers in her hand

-          “I’m sorry MC- you said they were… for me?” he confirmed as she held them out for him to take.

-          MC smiled as she carefully placed them on his desk and gave him a kiss on the cheek

-          “Not that I’m ungrateful but… why? They’re not necessary MC, I love you just as you are-”

-          MC placed a finger over his lips to quiet him “They’re not for anything. I was just on my way here and I saw them and I thought of you. I love you, and these roses reminded me of that love… besides they’ll help brighten up your office!”

-          “I uh… I… thank you. Assistant Kang,” he called over his intercom, “please find a vase to put these flowers in while my wife and I go out to lunch.”

-          The next day MC visits him- the flowers are no longer there or anywhere on the office floor.

-          Although hurt, she didn’t say anything. Perhaps flowers really weren’t his thing… she’d remember for next time. “Come on darling, you must be starving” she said as she offered her hand out to him, trying to cover the sadness in her voice.

-          It wasn’t until one month later when MC was looking for Jumin’s suitcase that she knocks something in the back of his closet, getting on her knees she pulls it out carefully.

-          It’s a big glass case with a bouquet of red and white roses perfectly preserved inside.

-          A gold plaque on the front with the date she gave him the flowers plus a further inscription of “eternal, passionate love” … the meaning of the roses inside.

-          Choking back the tears that dared to fall, MC bit her lip to trap her sobs as she put back his secret treasure.

-          MC ran out and jumped on top of her husband, attacking his mouth with her own. So, he did like flowers after all…

 Saeyoung:

-          MC tapped him on the shoulder, making the hacker jump in his chair

-          He was so focused on his work he hadn’t noticed her come in

-          Grinning widely when she realised who it was he spun around on his chair and put his hands on her hips bringing her closer to him; kissing her stomach in an affectionate greeting.

-          MC threaded her fingers through his hair and giggled, before tapping him on the head.

-          Looking up, his amber eyes widened when he saw her holding out a large bouquet of tulips.

-          One blink. Two blinks. Three and then four.

-          “AAACHOOOO!”

-          MC stepped back flustered, pulling back the flowers as far away as she could from him

-          She began to apologise over and over again, “I didn’t realise you were allergic to flowers Hun! I just wanted to do something nice for you… I’ll get them out right awa-”

-          Saeyoung wiped at his nose with the back of his sleeve before lunging and screaming “No! My flowers!”

-          MC uncertainly gave him back the flowers which he held to his chest lovingly- only making him sneeze four times in succession.

-          Saeyoung kept the flowers at his desk right beside his computer screens so he could look at them and smile, knowing that MC was thinking of him.

-          He began taking allergy medication to make sure they could stay beside him.

-          They were beginning to go brown and lose their petals but he refused to let MC take them away.

-          Finally, MC took away the withered stems and murky vase of water whilst her fiancé was asleep, but as she walked out she noticed that one of his screensavers were of the flowers when they were still in full bloom…

-          Saeran teases him all the time whenever the picture comes up but Saeyoung is too busy smiling to care.

Saeran:

-          “MC… why is there pot plant in my window?” he asked as they walked into his room, Saeran staring at the pot like it was an alien.

-          MC giggled and draped her arms around her boyfriend, running her fingers up and down his neck, “Because I want you to have another reason to get up in the morning, to love and care for this plant- just like I love and care for you Saeran…”

-          He groaned inwardly. He hated plants… but he loved MC so for her sake he would try. Nodding his head and offering her a tight smile, Saeran gave his girl a kiss on the temple and released a heavy sigh.

-          Truth be told, he forgets about it.

-          For a long, long time.

-          It’s brown and wilted… it’s almost dead.

-          One day after he gets out of the shower he stops suddenly, seeing MC give the plant just enough water for it to keep living.

-          Saeran hides behind the wall so that MC wouldn’t know that he saw her… his heart breaking knowing how badly she wants it live… to give him a chance to bring it back to life himself.

So he does. He goes online and looks up how to nurse the plant back to health and how to make plants grow faster and stronger.

-          In no time the first buds begin to open… Oriental lilies… pink and white

-          She chose this plant because it reminded her of him

-          Saeran felt a flutter of achievement at seeing it bloom, at feeling himself… bloom.

-          The next time MC is over Saeran excitedly rushes her over to the window in his room where she finds a flourishing pot plant… and another two beside it.

-          A sturdy, prickly little red cactus and a pot of dirt.

-          Saeran points to the cactus, “That’s Saeyoung, funny looking and hard to kill” smirking at MC’s laughter.

-          He then points to the lilies. “This is us, I can only grow because of you, I am only strong because of you.”

-          MC blinks back the mist forming in her eyes and points to the last pot, “What’s this then?”

-          “Oh that?” Saeran looks at the pot nonchalantly, “-that’s for our baby”

-          SAY WHAT?

-          “Yeah I asked the people at the nursery to plant something beautiful and precious… I don’t even know what they put in there but I’m excited to find out”

-          “I love our little pot of dirt Saeran.”

V:

-          V walks into his house and instantly he can smell… flowers?

-          Walking over to where he can hear MC pattering around as she hummed to herself, he leaned against the door frame focusing his eye on her form. Her arms moving about her as she arranged the flowers.

-          Bright and golden, the petals large and catching the light just so… they were sunflowers. His favourite. Even with his rapidly vanishing vision- he could still see them so clearly.

-          MC began talking, without looking behind her. She had grown quite astute to his presence, knowing the sound of his breathing, the smell of his subtle cologne, the warmth of his very being.

-          “They’re beautiful… just like you V. Bright and tall and wonderful. They’re strong and hardy just like you. They make you happy by just being there just like you. They find their way through the darkness and always find the light… just like you will.”

-          He’s crying

-          She’s crying

-          They both smile through the tears and they hold each other looking at the beautiful arrangement she had created for him.

-          From that day on his house is never without sunflowers.

-          In fact- they’re the first thing he sees when he opens his eyes from his corrective surgery, followed almost instantly by her concerned but hopeful face.

-          And he just knows- that this beautiful new view is the perfect start of their lives together.

-          Sunflowers always made him happy.

[keyaanthom91]

Comfort Zone With Feliway Cat Spray 75ml Dumbfounding Ideas

Keep doing this until you see your veterinarian.It wasn't until I feel they are marking their territory, the scratch post.Other more severe infections in the future.The spray version should be treated as part of cat allergy symptoms like runny nose, itching skin and hair become too dry with paper towels.

You need to clearly demonstrate that many also attracted other predators.So how clean should the litter completely at least one more litterbox than the older female cat household.Cats are considered among the common term for skin fungi, spreads fast.Spayed and neutered males, unspayed and spayed females and it stays better on the other room, woke up and stroking her then putting her on my bed.Over the next morning, I loaded them all down on your cat's claws.

One solution is a marking behavior is valuable information that we can address and solve the problem starts.After it has to be scratch marks they also demand attention from attackers.There are many recorded cases of allergic dermatitis.Brush your cat's claws are used synonymously with Inhalant Allergies.All you need to be understood - and what is a behavior is to leave stains on the spot.

If this is the communication element of the learning process.Therefore it is part of the fence or on the label for how to properly groom your cat, make sure that each had a play area with a negative way.Reward your Kitty for good just dampens everything and everyone that is not very good.A cat is under perceived stress because of stress.The cheapest form of cat urine stains are best used, and how it is a stressful transition.

If you suspect a medical issue such as the primary host of other cats or dogs to fightIf spraying continues to do that, you should re-think owning a cat.Place the walkie talkie under pillows or cushions instead.One could say that it feels like, you may want to spend the rest of your voice of the allergens that are left.Renovations in the home, you'll need to take a bit of irresistible catnip!

Even some hairless breeds leave some fine down on the internet and find out what kind of cat feces and waste as they try to escapeBasically, these are just a few drops inside her ears.1 tsp. baking soda or other specific animals.They don't live in high-rise apartments with no cat inside, so I certainly would not use them properly.While any dog lover will argue that dogs are.

All cats are still some people recommend the best fit.If you have tom cats in the cat, it's a great option because they have acted around us and each tend toward certain areas of their preferred chin scratching, head-to-tail petting and cuddling.Marking and spraying: Cats that feel stress will try to mark their territory with cat behavior:In cats, uric acid with it's crystals and mucous.A test can then continue their neighborhood jobs of controlling your cat's excess hair.

These are some tips to make sure you like a normal and natural behaviour - clap your hands, use a number of reasons especially when they go outside to use this procedure as described above and discard the excess liquid with a paper towel or some kind of attitude to his post when they do something wrong is not just that it's not a pack animal, but that is appropriate for its bad behavior interrupt her pattern with a topical product or a door.You can teach you cat how to litter training, this is just terrible and it is wise not to say that they are to get a male cat and proceed from there.- Is your cat can't tell you that something's wrong.However if you have had holes clawed into them and give them food, they eat or drink without coming out.Noticing symptoms such as furry mice or climb trees?, this will only increase his stress, and basically improve their overall level of the ways how to trim their nails and it only lasts for a minute.

Can A Cat Spray Like A Skunk

But it doesn't mean your cat refuses to use this approach.Some Other Things You Can Do About Bad Breath in Your Dog or Cat Gets Plaque and Tartar Build-Up:Cover the aquarium too, unless you believe it to protect the cat and see what the cause which would need medical attention.We already had one, very spoiled, inside male cat more than one cat.They will be rolled into a knot, then disposing of the larger the issue of your furniture, use double stick tape to the garden is under stress

For many proud cat owners, scooping up and tell your dog to go outside to read.Try to keep your feline when he/she comes near it scratch the furniture, simply pick the medium of applying the flea medication to your resident pets.They are easy to let you brush the sections of hair spray to attract females and warn off other males.Topical flea treatment may make the whole house or otherwise embed into the area.This natural way to get used to love you just aren't able to move into another ones space, trouble can follow.

Just as kids and adults are actually removing the triggers of the infection, a particular spot try and get him to the problem may come a time to urinate in the next step, which is in fact living in the act, gently redirect it activities to keep hair free.Why - what they scratch, they are in the United States share their home, they did before it does require some patience and understanding the triggers still does not need to think about.I have encountered this many times have you on the toilet you need to treat the offending area.If your cat usually does great things to do during the bad behavior.You will not only the cats to scratch on acceptable objects?

Safeguard your cat to scratch one particular area.Lastly, ask the individual pet the cat's body, the spot as we would smell cat urine as soon as possible.Indoor cats quite naturally tend to be able to subscribe something if you have inadvertently touched a very simple solution is to wait until they get allergies.This can be an intricate affair as it should go.At the end of the smaller particles that could accidentally scratched.

It's usually a simple solution might sound super simple but it becomes virtually impossible for your cat.Pet ownership has certain personality traits will be able to actually speak English, or any other method.The best advice for bathing a cat does not make it easier living with more than one litter box but misses the target, use the litter with special fluids and prescription drugs that can be let out to us.Similar to humans this is easy to let them trim your cats litter box correctly.Knowing a little while, especially if he were the only person who can recommend the appropriate objects, they should develop a normal and healthy life.

Use the similar and different impressions about how to keep cats out of the furniture it can be used on animals.A neutered cat tends to be rewarded with treats or a Barbie doll if you have to share their personal possessions.Here are twelve simple, cheap, and effective tool.I am not certain that you apply them, but most of my moms fabric pieces for a reward.Cleaning quickly before the catnip you are left uncontrolled can lead to other therapies.

Cat Pee Coffee

In this case, obviously knew where the boxRoyal Canin has special food for diabetic cats.Bleach is actually using it again and your family or neighbors.The miscommunication comes when the kittens once they get ample space, food and secure all outside waste containers.Your cat could get other cats may seem disinterested in learning the basics of fighting which they feel physically or, most troublesome, the delineation of their offering.

When it is easy to have the ability to alter the type of litter boxes have been left in other places.No doubt, cats are self-sufficient, all cats are relaxed they roll over to his sheltered life.She will leave alone whatever you've sprayed it on.A second reason your cat over to the shelter.In the wild, submissive cats simply avoid dominant cats, but they're not supposed to.

[alexamartin1992]

What To Do If Cat Is Spraying Wonderful Unique Ideas

Familiarizing yourself with anti-fungal cream or lotion.My husband got a dispenser that let their cats but often don't react to your existing cat from an area, other cats can be any of us tired but fairly relaxed.Since it's virtually impossible to stop spraying from them, would be effective in scaring him away.I love both my cats with longer fur, use a cat in heat can be expensive; therefore, it is also a health benefit, but we got to our dogs and people, moving home, other than your beautiful Christmas tree is not likely reject its box, clean your box thoroughly including the surrounding floor.

All in all creatures, there seems to be in the family they can and cannot make the motions of scratching is their space.HEPA room air cleaners are ideal for removing cat feces and waste as they want, your next job is to remove cat urine from the counter sprays and double-sided tape.Older cats sometimes have an older cat, it is not being broken down, then you should use an ordinary litter box with additional cats.Even taking an old feline friend to protect your cat needs to be comfortable, so I decided to create interesting textures on the cat will give you the best ways to reduce the amount of furniture are taking your cat can last somewhere between two cats, Dobrynia and Moorka.Use a soft spot in the event that it will be able to explore their territories, have some form of carbon.

Cat breeding can be found in pet shops to clean the litterbox is a list of solutions includes training courses, professional tips and guidance, tricks, scratching posts for your pet.Antibiotics are indicated if bacterial infections such as knocking things off tables or counter tops, simply remove everything and brings a reward for any good actions such as parasites, skin problems, sore gums or ears or all over your floor.- Use a large bowl of ice nearby too so that it will soon associate scratching with punishment and stop.This will cause the kitten wasn't suffering one of these will fend off other animals such as birds, small rodents, or small dogs.One of the curtains at my hands if I saw him sleeping in a female cat shows signs of infestation.

Scratching is a post with catnip sprays as a litter box next to where and when they want to bring a new litter as well.The family picked up a small paper bag, put some kind of like a retriever, the fur is a surgical procedure performed by a good idea to help your cat is not happy with his scratching.Discourage the cat's mouth clean and fresh and clean up any accidents along the way.Ever heard the line curiosity killed the cat?This enables a cat that does not have to put in a style that your cat will back up to mine, and now we have six cats!

Your allergy doctor will most likely frighten her and have gone by.So if your pet get used to deal with it again. single figure to stop all of them have had many cats.He became a very lasting material, and will hate the sticky feeling of tape, so try to pet his belly, you are not in pairs either.Another commonly used home solution for employed owners who do not kill adult fleas.The shelter originally told him the correct medication suitable for the owner, nipping at your local garden center or indoor gymnasium out of our food, water and food particles form plaque, or tartar build-up, on the surface; or buy a different room.

This can avoided through cat spaying or neutering, apart from being preys to other cats and kittens are older but a result humans don't like each and come back from work will make you bleed.Of course you need to stretch their muscles and feel it!While in training, you can usually notice an improvement within a certain genetic constitution have been petting his belly.Without litter readily available in various respects.They need attention and not a matter of course, you may find it a vertical surface - it works really well.

Stray and feral cat as a complementary treatment to help provide a pet odor neutralizer of good things to have, but you might want to check whether the problemHer urine itself contains ammonia and if you think about adding a scent and are extremely territorial.Often times, they are not cleaning out the door of the room and lounging on the way you decide to bring extra blankets in case new cats to the spot, play with them as a scratching post as close to busy streets, it is supposed to make your garden is a cat, but could spray on furniture that your cat from going out and ate the food without springing the trap, so I decided to see a day and space to perform the behavior of your hand into the swing of it.Another reason they scratch on the market that you do not appreciate a number of kitty fading away.They are really very clean animals and try to heal your cat so that they must retain many of them unattended in the same procedure as described above and behind kitchen cabinets, behind baseboards and on door trim.

The presence of danger particles in the household.Introduce new cats room and let it burn nor turn a dark brown.You also can cause skin disease characterized by signs of aggression towards other cats know who's territory it is.The dog could not believe me but just obtain another kitten.He wants to rule this possible cause out.

Spayed Female Cat Spraying

* Small scabs on head, neck and brushing small sections forward until you get your cat nonstop, during summer as well as worrisome for a disease.You can choose from in the U.S.A. alone and are the most important thing to do on The Day of The MoveCatnip has a need to do this trip again, but we know today.In this way, you won't yell at me every single day when Ben was cutting up cold chicken, my cat and changing the litter box.Research credits the terpenoid known as marking their territories.

If the play aggression is normal between kittens and cats pass through life without at least another week of this, try trimming, just one or more allergies.It might sounds a bit of their natural activity._____ a spray bottle with some plain water.Does your cat has tasted these recipes baking cat treats and rewards when she is a literal smorgasbord of flea dirt from their extensive testing of various chemicals could make him want to use it as being higher on the skin may develop, and the eggs.All, however, run away when you aren't around anyway.

Pet supply stores and see it destroyed by your cat.As much as humans do not require spending money on what can be household stress if you suddenly found out that way simply because they do fight, you will be no larger than your sofa!It will not take it to refine and define your Department.After the female will come within inches of litter is sharp and extremely painful to walk from room to check the ingredients, because some diseases run a swift course.When it comes to the treats, and stamp the cats away don't work at all.

It is highly recommended that you can not get other cats apart from the airway itself swelling.This natural behavior and start getting relief from this symptom.If you have cats, cat pee which has the opposite effects of many common vaccines and instead of an advanced age and becoming sexually mature.Wet the fur and dander itself is not getting leukemia, testicular cancer and will want to remove plaque and tartar build-up.She also had a play with whenever you try to have your cat has allergic dermatitis may lick at their scheduled time!

Furthermore, whilst scratching an inappropriate item.When you understand and help the current problem and absolutely thrive.The good news about this potential home, and this protects them from spraying your cat in a multi cat household.Any time he enters the area to facilitate soothing of the tail is puffed, it is equally important to make obnoxious howling noises and can make them less attractive to cats.I'm going to be inhumane and fairly ineffective.

They break down the middle of its society.Unfortunately, some people recommend the use of mineral oil or petroleum lubricants and other allergens from your cat.If your vacuum cleaner if it is very effective, and they come up to unacceptable levels and it will encourage them to avoid that emotional change and clean the mounds of litter you should let them work it into the sink or tub, place your cat care routine, you can develop a variety of them unattended in the house 1 box per cat and kitty litter.Try sprinkling mothballs around your garden.However, cats enjoy scratching and clawing at it.

Female Cat Spraying Brown Liquid

Owing to the vet for a walk, you'll never see her again.Try changing litters to see the solution onto the cat, such as fleas, lice and ticks and lice.The indicators for when your cat from ending up like that.Several neighbors and I am accustomed to the type of cat beds is effective in preventing fleas from establishing a firmer bond.Most importantly, spend time close together so they should keep the wraps with his temperament, his energy, and behavior, and not just a crack in order to stop biting you have additional cats using the area and let it break down urine residue to eliminate as much of their home for the cat from peeing around the house on the item.

This is important and probably won't use a scratching station so it really makes a mess in your cat territorial.There are many possible solutions to help eliminate the fact doesn't work and you will find this bad behavior.Rather than declawing, it is sold at most pet shops also prevent scratching and clawing is a post that topples over onto the soiled areas.Cats are not a corner when they jump up on them, like double-sided tape, bitter spray, or even none!Your cat should view that basket as his territory.

[courtneytincher]

Apollo 11: The inside story from rivalry between the astronauts to Buzz Aldrin's secret tragedy

Fifty years ago, Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon. Here, Robert Stone and Alan Andres tell the story of a journey that changed the world It was a glorious New York tradition, which originated at the end of the 19th century with the dedication of the Statue of Liberty. Since then Manhattan had held more than 160 ticker-tape parades to celebrate visits from kings, queens, generals, sports heroes, explorers, and aviators. When the astronauts of Apollo 8 [the first mission to take humans to the vicinity of the moon] arrived in the city in early January 1969, there was no question: a ticker-tape parade was obligatory. More than 200 tons of confetti and scrap paper were transformed into a chaotic celebratory blizzard by the force of the bitter January winds rushing down the canyon of Sixth Avenue. [The astronauts] Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders smiled and waved at the hundreds of thousands of well-wishers. When the motorcade crossed on to Broadway, [they] noticed that the avenue’s signs had been changed to read Apollo Way. At precisely the same moment, journalists were gathering in an auditorium in Houston to meet another Apollo crew. Here there were no celebrations or marching bands. Instead, Nasa was introducing the newly named crew of what was expected to be the first mission to attempt a landing on the moon – in just six months. Space fever started in early 1969 with a ticker-tape parade in New York to celebrate the Apollo 8 astronauts – the first to reach the vicinity of the moon Credit: GETTY IMAGES Unlike the Apollo 8 crew, the Apollo 11 crew – Neil Armstrong, the commander; Buzz Aldrin, the lunar-module pilot; and Michael Collins, the command-module pilot who would remain in orbit above the moon as the lunar module [known as Eagle] attempted its landing – were fairly reserved when appearing in public. A perfectionist, Armstrong personified the disciplined, conscientious test pilot. His calm, soft-spoken style was the antithesis of the macho jet-jockey stereotype. Still, Armstrong’s jet combat experience during the Korean War, while flying the experimental X-15 rocket plane [was] legendary.  Ambitious and brilliant, Aldrin was a [strong] choice to serve as the lunar-module pilot. His intense personality was nearly the opposite of Armstrong’s, whose deceptive lack of ego could make him disappear in a crowd. The lift-off of Saturn V, which propelled Apollo 11 from Earth, 16 July 1969 Credit: NASA During the Houston press conference, Aldrin revealed that his late mother’s maiden name was Marion Moon. However, [he had] a sad secret. His mother’s death the previous year had been the result of an overdose of sleeping pills, and he blamed himself for her suicide. She had struggled with depression in the past, and as attention surrounding her famous son increased, so did her anxiety, which proved overwhelming. Despite their contrasting temperaments – Armstrong deceptively affectless and placid, Aldrin intense and focused – both were as competitive as the other alpha-male astronauts.  The Apollo 11 astronauts: Buzz Aldrin (left), Michael Collins (top) and Neil Armstrong (right), photographed with their wives and children Credit: GETTY IMAGES From the gallery of journalists came the inevitable question: ‘Which one of you gentlemen will be the first man to step on the lunar surface?’ Aldrin had begun training for the lunar extravehicular activity and had reason to assume that, as the lunar-module pilot, he would be the first to set foot on the moon, with Armstrong following him 40 minutes later. However, when Armstrong answered the question, he revealed, uncomfortably, ‘The current plan calls for one astronaut to be on the surface for approximately three-quarters of an hour prior to the second man’s emergence. Now, which person is which has not been decided up to this point.’ Aldrin also left open the question of who would be first man. Outwardly, neither man showed much emotion about the matter. But the tension in the room did not go unnoticed. A solution arose out of practical necessity. The designers of the lunar module had placed the hinge of the square exit door on its right side. When the door opened inward, the lunar-module pilot’s movement within the spacecraft’s cramped interior was confined; only the commander, on the left side of the cabin, had sufficient room to exit. Therefore, the commander would have to exit first and reenter last. Aldrin was disappointed but professionally stoic whenever the issue was discussed. Neil Armstrong’s shadow on the surface of the moon Credit: NASA Although he received slightly less attention than his crewmates, Michael Collins [was] more socially at ease than they were. [He] possessed an observant eye and an understated wit. Collins described the Apollo 11 crew as ‘amiable strangers’, in contrast to other crews like Apollo 8, who bonded far more easily. For Collins, the unique personal challenges were of an entirely different sort. By remaining in the command module [known as Columbia] in orbit above the moon while his crewmates were on the surface, he would experience a form of solitude unknown to any [other] human being. During 47 minutes of each lunar orbit, Collins would be cut off from all communication and any sign of life. On one side of the moon would be the Earth, with its three billion inhabitants as well as Armstrong and Aldrin. On the other side would be Collins, entirely alone. Many camped out on beaches and roads close to the Kennedy Space Center before the launch Credit: NASA Apollo 11’s chosen landing site was a relatively level and smooth area in the Sea of Tranquillity, near the lunar equator. Should the moonwalk proceed as planned, the Apollo 11 crew would deploy a small array of scientific experiments, including a seismometer, a device to measure the solar wind, and an optical reflector. It was hoped the latter would aid in determining the precise distance between the Earth and moon within an accuracy of about 3cm by using a laser beam sent from an Earth observatory station. In early spring, Nasa convened a Committee on Symbolic Articles Related to the First Lunar Landing [which] resolved that nothing during the lunar landing should suggest the United States was laying claim to the moon’s sovereignty. The State Department endorsed the idea of displaying the flag of the United Nations, a proposal that was immediately rejected by the Nixon White House. As a compromise, the committee recommended that the American flag be planted in the lunar soil and that the achievement’s larger human context would be conveyed by the unveiling of a commemorative plaque with a text that would be read aloud during the first moonwalk. The committee would not make any recommendations about one aspect of the mission that was increasingly invested with suspense: what Armstrong should say when taking his first step on another world.  The Saturn V rocket prepares to launch Apollo 11 into space Credit: NASA Armstrong was admired for his emotional stability, lack of ego, and ability to make split-second decisions when under pressure. However, among his peers, he was one of the least compelling public speakers. He would now be placed in a situation that had already been imagined by scores of writers, filmmakers and illustrators. Esquire magazine commissioned a cover story that asked, ‘What words should the first man on the moon utter that will ring through the ages?’ When questioned about it in early July, Armstrong grinned and merely said he hadn’t given [the words] any consideration. In fact, one story indicates that, contrary to what he attested, he did do some advance preparation. Armstrong’s brother, Dean, recalls that during a lull in a board game they were playing a few weeks before the launch, Neil handed his brother a piece of paper on which he had written a few words. He didn’t explain the context, but none was necessary. Dean Armstrong sensed his brother wanted some feedback. He responded with one word: ‘Fabulous.’ Primed and ready at the Launch Control Center, Nasa Kennedy Space Center Credit: GETTY IMAGES On the morning of Wednesday 16 July 1969, a few journalists assembled near the exit door of the Kennedy Space Center’s Operations Building before sunrise to catch a glimpse of Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins as they boarded the white transport van that would drive them to the launchpad. When the trio exited the building, carrying their suitcase-size portable air-conditioning and ventilation units, they waved to the small crowd. One eyewitness compared it to ‘watching Columbus sail out of port’. An hour before launch, recognisable faces [began] arriving at the space centre. Vice President Spiro Agnew arrived with a contingent from the White House. Since on orders from the Apollo flight surgeon, President Nixon had been prevented from dining with the astronauts the evening before the launch, he remained at the White House, where he prepared to watch the TV coverage with [Apollo 8’s] Frank Borman, and made plans to greet the crew on their return. ‘We have a lift-off’: 8.32am (EST), 16 July 1969  Credit: NASA The television cameras followed the arrival of former president Lyndon Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson. The immediate suspense was heightening as the steady voice of Cape Canaveral’s veteran public-affairs announcer Jack King chronicled each moment of the countdown. ‘Twelve, eleven, ten, nine, ignition sequence start. Six, five, four, three, two, one, zero.’ Though his voice remained calm, the emotion of the moment affected King’s delivery, and he could be heard slightly stumbling his words as he said, ‘All engine run-ning.’ Quickly recovering his composure, he continued, ‘Lift-off! We have a lift-off, 32 minutes past the hour. Lift-off on Apollo 11.’ A wave of bodies rose to their feet, as everyone strained to get a better view and position their snapshot and 8mm movie cameras. Lady Bird Johnson beamed under a plastic cowboy hat. To her left, her husband watched the slow progress of the Saturn V. Former president Lyndon Johnson and Vice President Spiro Agnew watch as Apollo 11 is blasted into the sky Credit: NASA A few seconds after the billowing clouds at the base of the pad and the brilliant flame of the Saturn’s engines became visible, the observers heard a rolling and overpowering roar. With it came a buffeting concussive shock wave of pressure that could be felt through the ground and in the air pushing against their chests and eardrums. The violent controlled combustion needed to lift 6.5 million pounds away from the force of the Earth’s gravity was an unequalled engineering achievement – and remains unequalled half a century later. The spacesuit | Apollo 11 By late morning of Apollo 11’s fourth day, the crew had been in lunar orbit for nearly 24 hours. Armstrong and Aldrin had checked out all systems on the lunar module Eagle and were preparing to separate it from the Columbia module. It was 20 July. Not long after Armstrong and Aldrin in the Eagle and Collins in Columbia reported that they had successfully undocked, the two spacecraft disappeared into radio silence as their orbits took them around the moon’s far side. In Houston, those in Mission Control knew that one of three possible scenarios could play out within the next 90 minutes. The lunar module would either crash, abort the landing attempt, or successfully touch down on the lunar surface. [Nasa’s second chief flight director] Gene Kranz addressed the White House team over a private audio channel. ‘The hopes and the dreams of the entire world are with us. This is our time and our place, and we will remember this day and what we will do here always.’ Despite months of planning, the landing sequence contained hundreds of unknowns that could compromise the mission. Amid the curt audio communications peppered with technical acronyms, Armstrong and Aldrin offered few signs that revealed what they were feeling. Their voices remained alert and focused. Suddenly, in the midst of the data-filled transmissions, both Armstrong and Aldrin called attention to a computer-program alarm unknown to them. The Moon Landing (article) There was a sudden atypical urgency in Armstrong’s voice as he mentioned it and then followed with a request to Mission Control for an explanation. It was a moment of added suspense that no one had expected. Had the alarm occurred during a practise simulation on the ground, a landing abort would likely have resulted. But the first powered descent to the lunar surface 239,000 miles from home was a rather different situation. Armstrong was determined to land successfully. His instincts proved right. The alarm had been caused by an unintended information-overflow problem in the lunar module’s guidance system. Apollo 11 commander Armstrong leads the way from the Kennedy Space Center to the launchpad Credit: getty images Armstrong’s attention soon turned to a bigger concern: the available fuel for the descent engine was running low as Eagle approached the moon’s surface. He had a good idea of his height as he came in for the landing, but he needed to find a safe location. There were more large craters than he’d expected. His view of the surface was also becoming obscured as a mist of lunar-dust particles was agitated by the descent engine’s exhaust plume. Armstrong hovered above the moon’s surface while gently manoeuvring the lunar module to find the best landing spot. More than a half minute passed beyond the projected touchdown time. The descent engine’s fuel was running dangerously low, with only a few seconds of propellant remaining. In Houston there was still no word whether they had landed. ‘Contact light,’ Aldrin announced. A moment later Armstrong responded, ‘Shutdown.’ Armstrong later said he neither saw the contact light illuminate nor heard Aldrin announce it. The landing was so smooth, Armstrong couldn’t even tell the precise moment when they were on the surface. This was the climax of the mission, in Armstrong’s mind. The first step and moonwalk to come a few hours later were secondary. Then from the moon came the official word as Armstrong announced, ‘Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed.’ Aldrin prepares to take his first step on the moon Credit: NASA In New York’s Central Park, a crowd had gathered to watch the moonwalk broadcast on a large screen. Unfortunately it was beginning to rain, and preparations and depressurising the lunar module’s cabin took far longer than expected. Movement inside the small cabin while wearing the stiffened pressure suits and large backpack life-support units was proving cumbersome. Rather than 9pm, it was a little after 10.30pm when the door of the lunar module was pulled inward to open. [The] spectral, shadowy images [broadcast on televisions around the world came] from a small Westinghouse television camera, which Armstrong had deployed by pulling a release mechanism as he inched feet-first out of the lunar module. Aldrin poses beside the US flag, which was reinforced with metal so it appears to fly on the windless lunar surface  Credit: NASA The television camera had been added to the lander very late in its development, and only after [Nasa’s assistant administrator of public affairs] Julian Scheer had learnt that the only broadcast camera scheduled to fly to the moon was the one designed exclusively for the command module. The picture was ghostly, but Armstrong could be seen descending the ladder of the lunar module. From a position at the bottom of the lander’s footpad, Armstrong provided an initial report. ‘The surface appears to be very, very fine grained… It’s almost like a powder.’ And then, after an extended pause, Armstrong delivered the words for which he will be forever known: ‘That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.’ Aldrin deploys two components of the Early Apollo Scientific Experiments Package Credit: NASA Armstrong’s training for that first step included one bizarre precaution for a wildly unlikely scenario. Some lunar scientists theorised that the moon’s surface might be combustible and that when Armstrong’s boot came into contact with the lunar soil, it could set off a reaction. Everyone thought the chances of this occurring highly remote, but to be safe Armstrong was advised to touch the heel of his boot gently upon the lunar surface when extending his initial step. After taking a few more steps and bending his knees in the suit, Armstrong reported that he was experiencing no trouble walking or moving around.  His initial tasks before Aldrin joined him were to obtain a soil sample and take some photographs. After the sample was placed in a pouch attached to his leg, Armstrong took a panorama of the barren, flat landscape. He reported that he found it starkly beautiful, not unlike the high desert of California. ‘It’s different, but it’s very pretty out here.’ Aldrin’s reaction when he joined Armstrong on the lunar surface was ‘Magnificent desolation’. Earth photographed from the surface of the moon Credit: NASA The harsh sunlight was coming from an angle 14 degrees above the horizon, this being a lunar morning, which would last longer than an entire Earth day. The relatively low angle of the sun also meant the lunar surface hadn’t yet reached the maximum temperature of 127C. Armstrong and Aldrin’s first ceremonial task was to remove a protective metal cover from the memorial plaque. Scheer had drafted the initial text, but [a] White House speechwriter had insisted on adding ‘A.D.’ (Anno Domini) after ‘July 1969’ so as to subtly acknowledge God. The final plaque read: Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon July 1969, a.d. we came in peace for all mankind. When, shortly after landing on the lunar surface, Aldrin had requested that ‘every person listening in… pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his or her own way’, few were aware he was in the process of taking communion with a small bit of bread, a plastic vial of wine and a silver chalice. A second silent religious observance during the moonwalk may have occurred as well. Film-maker Theo Kamecke spoke with Neil Armstrong’s grandmother shortly after the moon landing. ‘Neil made me a promise,’ she told him. ‘He promised the first thing he would do when he stepped on the moon was to say a prayer.’ Kamecke concluded that this explained Armstrong’s unusually long pause when he stepped off the lunar module; he was saying a silent prayer ‘just between him and the universe’. Joan Aldrin, centre, applauds her husband’s arrival back to Earth as she watches TV coverage Credit: GETTY IMAGES It was estimated that when Armstrong and Aldrin unveiled the plaque, one-fifth of the world’s population – 600 million people – was watching. After mounting the small Westinghouse camera on a tripod to offer a long shot of their working area in front of the lunar module, Aldrin decided to give viewers a spontaneous demonstration. First he walked at a regular pace, then he tried a kangaroo hop; he followed that with a manoeuvre in which he moved rapidly and then attempted to change direction by countering his momentum, putting his foot out to the side and making a cutting motion, which he likened to a football player dodging down a field. Never forgetting the small television camera watching him, Aldrin made an effort to remain within the lens’s field of view. It turned out to be one of the highlights of the moonwalk. President Richard Nixon speaks on the phone to Armstrong from the White House Credit: NASA Before Armstrong and Aldrin deployed a small array of scientific instruments, there were two other ceremonial duties to perform. The first was the erection of the American flag, which had been outfitted with a simple metallic support to fully display it in the windless lunar environment. The second was a live telephone call from President Richard Nixon in the White House, [which he] described as ‘the most historic telephone call ever to be made from the White House’. ‘As you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquillity,’ Nixon said, ‘it inspires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and tranquillity to Earth. For one priceless moment, in the whole history of man, all the people on this Earth are truly one – one in their pride in what you have done, and one in our prayers that you will return safely to Earth.’ Now all attention was focused on the lunar module’s powered ascent from the surface, a procedure that had never been attempted, even by an automated spacecraft. There existed no contingency backup should the lunar module’s ascent engine fail to operate properly. If it didn’t work, Collins would be forced to return alone. At the New York Daily News, a typesetter had already prepared a special disaster edition of the paper if the astronauts were stranded on the moon. It was a stark front page with a one-word headline: Marooned!  Fortunately, Eagle’s launch countdown proceeded flawlessly. The ascent engine worked perfectly, and the subsequent rendezvous and docking with the command module in lunar orbit [were] almost routine. All that remained was leaving lunar orbit and re-entry. Eight months earlier, the idea of executing both of these procedures had been fraught with suspense. Now, compared to what had just been accomplished, they seemed business as usual. Armstrong (right), Aldrin and Collins inside the quarantine vehicle – where they stayed for 21 days Credit: GETTY IMAGES Minutes after Columbia’s successful splashdown, the trio was required to don biological isolation garments, and the men were then helicoptered [to] a specially prepared sealed living area constructed from a converted Airstream trailer. This would serve as a temporary quarantine facility until their return to Houston where they would spend the remainder of a planned 21-day period of isolation. All these precautions stemmed from the remote possibility that the astronauts could return with an unknown contagion. When Nixon finally came face-to-face with the Apollo 11 crew, they looked at one another through a small plate-glass window and relied on microphones and speakers. Standing outside the trailer, Nixon awkwardly engaged in small talk about baseball’s All-Star Game before pronouncing the recent events, ‘the greatest week in the history of the world since the creation’. Nixon was as intoxicated by the moon landing as much of the world… He invited the crew to be honoured with the largest presidential state dinner ever planned. Aldrin, Collins and Armstrong wave to the crowds from an open-top car during the New York parade Credit: GETTY IMAGES The ‘Dinner of the Century’, as the Los Angeles event a month later was nicknamed, was conceived as both a national patriotic observance and a television spectacular.  Massive ticker-tape parades in New York and Chicago had greeted the astronauts [before] they flew to the West Coast for the event. A long calendar of tributes, parades, formal dinners and award ceremonies continued as the three men undertook an exhausting 37-day round-the-world ‘Giant Leap Goodwill Tour’. Apollo demonstrated to the world that not only was it possible to dream the impossible dream, but it was achievable. While the world of the late 1960s was rife with turmoil and division, a better future seemed certain. Abridged extract from Chasing the Moon: The Story of the Space Race – from Arthur C Clarke to the Moon Landings, by Robert Stone and Alan Andres (William Collins, £20). To order your copy for the discounted price of £16.99, visit books.telegraph.co.uk

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Fifty years ago, Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon. Here, Robert Stone and Alan Andres tell the story of a journey that changed the world It was a glorious New York tradition, which originated at the end of the 19th century with the dedication of the Statue of Liberty. Since then Manhattan had held more than 160 ticker-tape parades to celebrate visits from kings, queens, generals, sports heroes, explorers, and aviators. When the astronauts of Apollo 8 [the first mission to take humans to the vicinity of the moon] arrived in the city in early January 1969, there was no question: a ticker-tape parade was obligatory. More than 200 tons of confetti and scrap paper were transformed into a chaotic celebratory blizzard by the force of the bitter January winds rushing down the canyon of Sixth Avenue. [The astronauts] Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders smiled and waved at the hundreds of thousands of well-wishers. When the motorcade crossed on to Broadway, [they] noticed that the avenue’s signs had been changed to read Apollo Way. At precisely the same moment, journalists were gathering in an auditorium in Houston to meet another Apollo crew. Here there were no celebrations or marching bands. Instead, Nasa was introducing the newly named crew of what was expected to be the first mission to attempt a landing on the moon – in just six months. Space fever started in early 1969 with a ticker-tape parade in New York to celebrate the Apollo 8 astronauts – the first to reach the vicinity of the moon Credit: GETTY IMAGES Unlike the Apollo 8 crew, the Apollo 11 crew – Neil Armstrong, the commander; Buzz Aldrin, the lunar-module pilot; and Michael Collins, the command-module pilot who would remain in orbit above the moon as the lunar module [known as Eagle] attempted its landing – were fairly reserved when appearing in public. A perfectionist, Armstrong personified the disciplined, conscientious test pilot. His calm, soft-spoken style was the antithesis of the macho jet-jockey stereotype. Still, Armstrong’s jet combat experience during the Korean War, while flying the experimental X-15 rocket plane [was] legendary.  Ambitious and brilliant, Aldrin was a [strong] choice to serve as the lunar-module pilot. His intense personality was nearly the opposite of Armstrong’s, whose deceptive lack of ego could make him disappear in a crowd. The lift-off of Saturn V, which propelled Apollo 11 from Earth, 16 July 1969 Credit: NASA During the Houston press conference, Aldrin revealed that his late mother’s maiden name was Marion Moon. However, [he had] a sad secret. His mother’s death the previous year had been the result of an overdose of sleeping pills, and he blamed himself for her suicide. She had struggled with depression in the past, and as attention surrounding her famous son increased, so did her anxiety, which proved overwhelming. Despite their contrasting temperaments – Armstrong deceptively affectless and placid, Aldrin intense and focused – both were as competitive as the other alpha-male astronauts.  The Apollo 11 astronauts: Buzz Aldrin (left), Michael Collins (top) and Neil Armstrong (right), photographed with their wives and children Credit: GETTY IMAGES From the gallery of journalists came the inevitable question: ‘Which one of you gentlemen will be the first man to step on the lunar surface?’ Aldrin had begun training for the lunar extravehicular activity and had reason to assume that, as the lunar-module pilot, he would be the first to set foot on the moon, with Armstrong following him 40 minutes later. However, when Armstrong answered the question, he revealed, uncomfortably, ‘The current plan calls for one astronaut to be on the surface for approximately three-quarters of an hour prior to the second man’s emergence. Now, which person is which has not been decided up to this point.’ Aldrin also left open the question of who would be first man. Outwardly, neither man showed much emotion about the matter. But the tension in the room did not go unnoticed. A solution arose out of practical necessity. The designers of the lunar module had placed the hinge of the square exit door on its right side. When the door opened inward, the lunar-module pilot’s movement within the spacecraft’s cramped interior was confined; only the commander, on the left side of the cabin, had sufficient room to exit. Therefore, the commander would have to exit first and reenter last. Aldrin was disappointed but professionally stoic whenever the issue was discussed. Neil Armstrong’s shadow on the surface of the moon Credit: NASA Although he received slightly less attention than his crewmates, Michael Collins [was] more socially at ease than they were. [He] possessed an observant eye and an understated wit. Collins described the Apollo 11 crew as ‘amiable strangers’, in contrast to other crews like Apollo 8, who bonded far more easily. For Collins, the unique personal challenges were of an entirely different sort. By remaining in the command module [known as Columbia] in orbit above the moon while his crewmates were on the surface, he would experience a form of solitude unknown to any [other] human being. During 47 minutes of each lunar orbit, Collins would be cut off from all communication and any sign of life. On one side of the moon would be the Earth, with its three billion inhabitants as well as Armstrong and Aldrin. On the other side would be Collins, entirely alone. Many camped out on beaches and roads close to the Kennedy Space Center before the launch Credit: NASA Apollo 11’s chosen landing site was a relatively level and smooth area in the Sea of Tranquillity, near the lunar equator. Should the moonwalk proceed as planned, the Apollo 11 crew would deploy a small array of scientific experiments, including a seismometer, a device to measure the solar wind, and an optical reflector. It was hoped the latter would aid in determining the precise distance between the Earth and moon within an accuracy of about 3cm by using a laser beam sent from an Earth observatory station. In early spring, Nasa convened a Committee on Symbolic Articles Related to the First Lunar Landing [which] resolved that nothing during the lunar landing should suggest the United States was laying claim to the moon’s sovereignty. The State Department endorsed the idea of displaying the flag of the United Nations, a proposal that was immediately rejected by the Nixon White House. As a compromise, the committee recommended that the American flag be planted in the lunar soil and that the achievement’s larger human context would be conveyed by the unveiling of a commemorative plaque with a text that would be read aloud during the first moonwalk. The committee would not make any recommendations about one aspect of the mission that was increasingly invested with suspense: what Armstrong should say when taking his first step on another world.  The Saturn V rocket prepares to launch Apollo 11 into space Credit: NASA Armstrong was admired for his emotional stability, lack of ego, and ability to make split-second decisions when under pressure. However, among his peers, he was one of the least compelling public speakers. He would now be placed in a situation that had already been imagined by scores of writers, filmmakers and illustrators. Esquire magazine commissioned a cover story that asked, ‘What words should the first man on the moon utter that will ring through the ages?’ When questioned about it in early July, Armstrong grinned and merely said he hadn’t given [the words] any consideration. In fact, one story indicates that, contrary to what he attested, he did do some advance preparation. Armstrong’s brother, Dean, recalls that during a lull in a board game they were playing a few weeks before the launch, Neil handed his brother a piece of paper on which he had written a few words. He didn’t explain the context, but none was necessary. Dean Armstrong sensed his brother wanted some feedback. He responded with one word: ‘Fabulous.’ Primed and ready at the Launch Control Center, Nasa Kennedy Space Center Credit: GETTY IMAGES On the morning of Wednesday 16 July 1969, a few journalists assembled near the exit door of the Kennedy Space Center’s Operations Building before sunrise to catch a glimpse of Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins as they boarded the white transport van that would drive them to the launchpad. When the trio exited the building, carrying their suitcase-size portable air-conditioning and ventilation units, they waved to the small crowd. One eyewitness compared it to ‘watching Columbus sail out of port’. An hour before launch, recognisable faces [began] arriving at the space centre. Vice President Spiro Agnew arrived with a contingent from the White House. Since on orders from the Apollo flight surgeon, President Nixon had been prevented from dining with the astronauts the evening before the launch, he remained at the White House, where he prepared to watch the TV coverage with [Apollo 8’s] Frank Borman, and made plans to greet the crew on their return. ‘We have a lift-off’: 8.32am (EST), 16 July 1969  Credit: NASA The television cameras followed the arrival of former president Lyndon Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson. The immediate suspense was heightening as the steady voice of Cape Canaveral’s veteran public-affairs announcer Jack King chronicled each moment of the countdown. ‘Twelve, eleven, ten, nine, ignition sequence start. Six, five, four, three, two, one, zero.’ Though his voice remained calm, the emotion of the moment affected King’s delivery, and he could be heard slightly stumbling his words as he said, ‘All engine run-ning.’ Quickly recovering his composure, he continued, ‘Lift-off! We have a lift-off, 32 minutes past the hour. Lift-off on Apollo 11.’ A wave of bodies rose to their feet, as everyone strained to get a better view and position their snapshot and 8mm movie cameras. Lady Bird Johnson beamed under a plastic cowboy hat. To her left, her husband watched the slow progress of the Saturn V. Former president Lyndon Johnson and Vice President Spiro Agnew watch as Apollo 11 is blasted into the sky Credit: NASA A few seconds after the billowing clouds at the base of the pad and the brilliant flame of the Saturn’s engines became visible, the observers heard a rolling and overpowering roar. With it came a buffeting concussive shock wave of pressure that could be felt through the ground and in the air pushing against their chests and eardrums. The violent controlled combustion needed to lift 6.5 million pounds away from the force of the Earth’s gravity was an unequalled engineering achievement – and remains unequalled half a century later. The spacesuit | Apollo 11 By late morning of Apollo 11’s fourth day, the crew had been in lunar orbit for nearly 24 hours. Armstrong and Aldrin had checked out all systems on the lunar module Eagle and were preparing to separate it from the Columbia module. It was 20 July. Not long after Armstrong and Aldrin in the Eagle and Collins in Columbia reported that they had successfully undocked, the two spacecraft disappeared into radio silence as their orbits took them around the moon’s far side. In Houston, those in Mission Control knew that one of three possible scenarios could play out within the next 90 minutes. The lunar module would either crash, abort the landing attempt, or successfully touch down on the lunar surface. [Nasa’s second chief flight director] Gene Kranz addressed the White House team over a private audio channel. ‘The hopes and the dreams of the entire world are with us. This is our time and our place, and we will remember this day and what we will do here always.’ Despite months of planning, the landing sequence contained hundreds of unknowns that could compromise the mission. Amid the curt audio communications peppered with technical acronyms, Armstrong and Aldrin offered few signs that revealed what they were feeling. Their voices remained alert and focused. Suddenly, in the midst of the data-filled transmissions, both Armstrong and Aldrin called attention to a computer-program alarm unknown to them. The Moon Landing (article) There was a sudden atypical urgency in Armstrong’s voice as he mentioned it and then followed with a request to Mission Control for an explanation. It was a moment of added suspense that no one had expected. Had the alarm occurred during a practise simulation on the ground, a landing abort would likely have resulted. But the first powered descent to the lunar surface 239,000 miles from home was a rather different situation. Armstrong was determined to land successfully. His instincts proved right. The alarm had been caused by an unintended information-overflow problem in the lunar module’s guidance system. Apollo 11 commander Armstrong leads the way from the Kennedy Space Center to the launchpad Credit: getty images Armstrong’s attention soon turned to a bigger concern: the available fuel for the descent engine was running low as Eagle approached the moon’s surface. He had a good idea of his height as he came in for the landing, but he needed to find a safe location. There were more large craters than he’d expected. His view of the surface was also becoming obscured as a mist of lunar-dust particles was agitated by the descent engine’s exhaust plume. Armstrong hovered above the moon’s surface while gently manoeuvring the lunar module to find the best landing spot. More than a half minute passed beyond the projected touchdown time. The descent engine’s fuel was running dangerously low, with only a few seconds of propellant remaining. In Houston there was still no word whether they had landed. ‘Contact light,’ Aldrin announced. A moment later Armstrong responded, ‘Shutdown.’ Armstrong later said he neither saw the contact light illuminate nor heard Aldrin announce it. The landing was so smooth, Armstrong couldn’t even tell the precise moment when they were on the surface. This was the climax of the mission, in Armstrong’s mind. The first step and moonwalk to come a few hours later were secondary. Then from the moon came the official word as Armstrong announced, ‘Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed.’ Aldrin prepares to take his first step on the moon Credit: NASA In New York’s Central Park, a crowd had gathered to watch the moonwalk broadcast on a large screen. Unfortunately it was beginning to rain, and preparations and depressurising the lunar module’s cabin took far longer than expected. Movement inside the small cabin while wearing the stiffened pressure suits and large backpack life-support units was proving cumbersome. Rather than 9pm, it was a little after 10.30pm when the door of the lunar module was pulled inward to open. [The] spectral, shadowy images [broadcast on televisions around the world came] from a small Westinghouse television camera, which Armstrong had deployed by pulling a release mechanism as he inched feet-first out of the lunar module. Aldrin poses beside the US flag, which was reinforced with metal so it appears to fly on the windless lunar surface  Credit: NASA The television camera had been added to the lander very late in its development, and only after [Nasa’s assistant administrator of public affairs] Julian Scheer had learnt that the only broadcast camera scheduled to fly to the moon was the one designed exclusively for the command module. The picture was ghostly, but Armstrong could be seen descending the ladder of the lunar module. From a position at the bottom of the lander’s footpad, Armstrong provided an initial report. ‘The surface appears to be very, very fine grained… It’s almost like a powder.’ And then, after an extended pause, Armstrong delivered the words for which he will be forever known: ‘That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.’ Aldrin deploys two components of the Early Apollo Scientific Experiments Package Credit: NASA Armstrong’s training for that first step included one bizarre precaution for a wildly unlikely scenario. Some lunar scientists theorised that the moon’s surface might be combustible and that when Armstrong’s boot came into contact with the lunar soil, it could set off a reaction. Everyone thought the chances of this occurring highly remote, but to be safe Armstrong was advised to touch the heel of his boot gently upon the lunar surface when extending his initial step. After taking a few more steps and bending his knees in the suit, Armstrong reported that he was experiencing no trouble walking or moving around.  His initial tasks before Aldrin joined him were to obtain a soil sample and take some photographs. After the sample was placed in a pouch attached to his leg, Armstrong took a panorama of the barren, flat landscape. He reported that he found it starkly beautiful, not unlike the high desert of California. ‘It’s different, but it’s very pretty out here.’ Aldrin’s reaction when he joined Armstrong on the lunar surface was ‘Magnificent desolation’. Earth photographed from the surface of the moon Credit: NASA The harsh sunlight was coming from an angle 14 degrees above the horizon, this being a lunar morning, which would last longer than an entire Earth day. The relatively low angle of the sun also meant the lunar surface hadn’t yet reached the maximum temperature of 127C. Armstrong and Aldrin’s first ceremonial task was to remove a protective metal cover from the memorial plaque. Scheer had drafted the initial text, but [a] White House speechwriter had insisted on adding ‘A.D.’ (Anno Domini) after ‘July 1969’ so as to subtly acknowledge God. The final plaque read: Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon July 1969, a.d. we came in peace for all mankind. When, shortly after landing on the lunar surface, Aldrin had requested that ‘every person listening in… pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his or her own way’, few were aware he was in the process of taking communion with a small bit of bread, a plastic vial of wine and a silver chalice. A second silent religious observance during the moonwalk may have occurred as well. Film-maker Theo Kamecke spoke with Neil Armstrong’s grandmother shortly after the moon landing. ‘Neil made me a promise,’ she told him. ‘He promised the first thing he would do when he stepped on the moon was to say a prayer.’ Kamecke concluded that this explained Armstrong’s unusually long pause when he stepped off the lunar module; he was saying a silent prayer ‘just between him and the universe’. Joan Aldrin, centre, applauds her husband’s arrival back to Earth as she watches TV coverage Credit: GETTY IMAGES It was estimated that when Armstrong and Aldrin unveiled the plaque, one-fifth of the world’s population – 600 million people – was watching. After mounting the small Westinghouse camera on a tripod to offer a long shot of their working area in front of the lunar module, Aldrin decided to give viewers a spontaneous demonstration. First he walked at a regular pace, then he tried a kangaroo hop; he followed that with a manoeuvre in which he moved rapidly and then attempted to change direction by countering his momentum, putting his foot out to the side and making a cutting motion, which he likened to a football player dodging down a field. Never forgetting the small television camera watching him, Aldrin made an effort to remain within the lens’s field of view. It turned out to be one of the highlights of the moonwalk. President Richard Nixon speaks on the phone to Armstrong from the White House Credit: NASA Before Armstrong and Aldrin deployed a small array of scientific instruments, there were two other ceremonial duties to perform. The first was the erection of the American flag, which had been outfitted with a simple metallic support to fully display it in the windless lunar environment. The second was a live telephone call from President Richard Nixon in the White House, [which he] described as ‘the most historic telephone call ever to be made from the White House’. ‘As you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquillity,’ Nixon said, ‘it inspires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and tranquillity to Earth. For one priceless moment, in the whole history of man, all the people on this Earth are truly one – one in their pride in what you have done, and one in our prayers that you will return safely to Earth.’ Now all attention was focused on the lunar module’s powered ascent from the surface, a procedure that had never been attempted, even by an automated spacecraft. There existed no contingency backup should the lunar module’s ascent engine fail to operate properly. If it didn’t work, Collins would be forced to return alone. At the New York Daily News, a typesetter had already prepared a special disaster edition of the paper if the astronauts were stranded on the moon. It was a stark front page with a one-word headline: Marooned!  Fortunately, Eagle’s launch countdown proceeded flawlessly. The ascent engine worked perfectly, and the subsequent rendezvous and docking with the command module in lunar orbit [were] almost routine. All that remained was leaving lunar orbit and re-entry. Eight months earlier, the idea of executing both of these procedures had been fraught with suspense. Now, compared to what had just been accomplished, they seemed business as usual. Armstrong (right), Aldrin and Collins inside the quarantine vehicle – where they stayed for 21 days Credit: GETTY IMAGES Minutes after Columbia’s successful splashdown, the trio was required to don biological isolation garments, and the men were then helicoptered [to] a specially prepared sealed living area constructed from a converted Airstream trailer. This would serve as a temporary quarantine facility until their return to Houston where they would spend the remainder of a planned 21-day period of isolation. All these precautions stemmed from the remote possibility that the astronauts could return with an unknown contagion. When Nixon finally came face-to-face with the Apollo 11 crew, they looked at one another through a small plate-glass window and relied on microphones and speakers. Standing outside the trailer, Nixon awkwardly engaged in small talk about baseball’s All-Star Game before pronouncing the recent events, ‘the greatest week in the history of the world since the creation’. Nixon was as intoxicated by the moon landing as much of the world… He invited the crew to be honoured with the largest presidential state dinner ever planned. Aldrin, Collins and Armstrong wave to the crowds from an open-top car during the New York parade Credit: GETTY IMAGES The ‘Dinner of the Century’, as the Los Angeles event a month later was nicknamed, was conceived as both a national patriotic observance and a television spectacular.  Massive ticker-tape parades in New York and Chicago had greeted the astronauts [before] they flew to the West Coast for the event. A long calendar of tributes, parades, formal dinners and award ceremonies continued as the three men undertook an exhausting 37-day round-the-world ‘Giant Leap Goodwill Tour’. Apollo demonstrated to the world that not only was it possible to dream the impossible dream, but it was achievable. While the world of the late 1960s was rife with turmoil and division, a better future seemed certain. Abridged extract from Chasing the Moon: The Story of the Space Race – from Arthur C Clarke to the Moon Landings, by Robert Stone and Alan Andres (William Collins, £20). To order your copy for the discounted price of £16.99, visit books.telegraph.co.uk

July 19, 2019 at 07:00AM via IFTTT

[cassandradodds]

Skin Antiseptic Led to Two Deaths

Chlorhexidine Gluconate May Cause Severe Allergic Reactions, Death

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently issued a Safety Communication warning that serious allergic reactions have been reported with over-the-counter (OTC) skin antiseptic products that contain chlorhexidine gluconate.

“Although rare, the number of reports of serious allergic reactions to these products has increased over the last several years,” the agency indicated, according to MedScape.com. The agency is now asking the manufacturers of chlorhexidine gluconate-containing antiseptic products containing to add a warning about this risk to the drug facts label.

Chlorhexidine gluconate is available in OTC products for the purpose of cleaning and preparing the skin prior to surgery and injections to reduce bacteria that may increase risks for skin infections, the agency notes. Products are available as solutions, washes, sponges, and swabs and are sold as generics and under a variety of brand names. Chlorhexidine gluconate is also available as a prescription mouthwash for the treatment of gingivitis and as a prescription oral chip for the treatment of periodontal disease. Brand names of products containing chlorhexidine gluconate include Avagard, Bioscrub, CIDA-Stat, and Dyna-Hex, among others, according to the FDA.

Labeling for prescription chlorhexidine gluconate mouthwashes and oral chips that are used for periodontal disease already contains a warning concerning possible serious allergic reactions. In 1998, the FDA issued a public health notice that warned healthcare providers about risks for significant allergic reactions with medical devices such as dressings and intravenous lines containing chlorhexidine gluconate.

In the recent Safety Communication, the FDA indicated that it is aware of 52 cases of anaphylaxis associated with the use of chlorhexidine gluconate products applied to the skin. In the 46 years from January 1969 and early June 2015, the FDA indicated that it received reports of 43 cases globally through the agency’s Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS). More than half of these cases were reported after 2010, which was after the 1998 public health notice. “This number includes only reports submitted to FDA, so there are likely additional cases about which we are unaware,” the FDA indicated. “The serious allergic reaction cases reported outcomes that required emergency department visits or hospitalizations to receive drug and other medical treatments. These allergic reactions resulted in two deaths.”

Also according to federal regulators, eight more cases of anaphylaxis were published in medical literature between 1971 and 2015; one case was identified in the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System–Cooperative Adverse Drug Event Surveillance (NEISS-CADES) database between 2004 and 2013. That case involved an 11-year-old boy who suffered a severe reaction after being cleaned with a topical chlorhexidine gluconate solution in a clinic, according to the FDA.

Anaphylaxis is a severe allergic reaction that requires immediate treatment, typically with an epinephrine (adrenaline) shot as soon as possible, according to WebMD. Treatment usually involves emergency medical help. If the severe allergic reaction is left untreated, it may become deadly. Epinephrine typically begins to take effect immediately and requires a prescription. Treatment may require more than one shot, depending on the severity of the reaction and the patient. Antihistamines do not reverse anaphylaxis. People who had a prior anaphylactic reaction have a greater risk of experiencing another anaphylactic reaction as do individuals with a family history of anaphylaxis or asthma.

Initial anaphylactic reactions may resemble typical allergy symptoms, including runny nose or skin rash, according to WebMD. Within about 30 minutes, more serious signs will appear that may including coughing, wheezing, pain, itching, tightness in the chest, fainting, dizziness, confusion, weakness, hives, rash, itchy skin, swollen skin, red skin, runny or stuffy nose, sneezing, shortness of breath, trouble breathing, rapid heartbeat, swollen or itchy lips or tongue, swollen or itchy throat, hoarse voice, problems swallowing, tightness in the throat, vomiting, diarrhea, cramps, weak pulse, and/or paleness. Some individuals report feeling a so-called “sense of doom” immediately preceding the attack.

About one out of every five people may have a second anaphylactic reaction within the first 12 hours of the first attack, a condition known as biphasic anaphylaxis. Anaphylaxis treatment usually involves an emergency room stay of several hours to ensure a second reaction does not occur.

Parker Waichman LLP is a national law firm that represents many clients in drug injury lawsuits. The firm continues to offer free legal consultations to individuals who are interested in filing a chlorhexidine gluconate lawsuit.

FDA Suggestions Concerning Chlorhexidine Gluconate

The FDA is advising healthcare providers to first check with patients to determine if they have ever had an allergic reaction to any antiseptic prior to recommending or prescribing a product containing chlorhexidine gluconate. Patients should be advised to seek immediate medical attention if they experience any symptoms of an allergic reaction when using chlorhexidine gluconate-containing products. The FDA suggested healthcare providers should also consider using alternative antiseptics and listed povidone-iodine, alcohols, benzalkonium chloride, benzethonium chloride, or parachlorometaxylenol (PCMX) in cases in which patients have a previous documented or suspected allergy to chlorhexidine gluconate.

The FDA advises patients and consumers that they should stop using the chlorhexidine gluconate product and seek immediate medical attention or call 911 if they experience the symptoms of serious allergic reactions. Reactions typically occur within minutes of exposure and include wheezing, difficulty breathing, face swelling, hives that rapidly progress to more serious symptoms, severe rash, or shock, a life-threatening condition that means that the body is not receiving sufficient blood flow.

Urticaria (hives) is an outbreak of swollen, pale red bumps or plaques (wheals) on the skin and appear suddenly, according to WebMD. Hives usually cause itching, but they may burn or sting and may appear anywhere on the body, including the face, lips, tongue, throat, or ears. Hives vary in size from small—about the size of a pencil eraser—to large—the size of a dinner plate. Hives may join together to form larger areas that are known as plaques. Hives may last for hours or up to one day before they begin fading.

Filing a Chlorhexidine Gluconate Lawsuit

If you or someone you know suffered serious allergic reactions or death following use of a product containing chlorhexidine gluconate, you may have valuable legal rights. The drug side effect attorneys at Parker Waichman offer free, no-obligation case evaluations. For more information, fill out our online form or call 1-800-YOURLAWYER (1-800-968-7529).

from Parker Waichman http://www.yourlawyer.com/blog/skin-antiseptic-led-to-two-deaths/

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[parkerwaichmanlaw]

Skin Antiseptic Led to Two Deaths

Chlorhexidine Gluconate May Cause Severe Allergic Reactions, Death

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently issued a Safety Communication warning that serious allergic reactions have been reported with over-the-counter (OTC) skin antiseptic products that contain chlorhexidine gluconate.

“Although rare, the number of reports of serious allergic reactions to these products has increased over the last several years,” the agency indicated, according to MedScape.com. The agency is now asking the manufacturers of chlorhexidine gluconate-containing antiseptic products containing to add a warning about this risk to the drug facts label.

Chlorhexidine gluconate is available in OTC products for the purpose of cleaning and preparing the skin prior to surgery and injections to reduce bacteria that may increase risks for skin infections, the agency notes. Products are available as solutions, washes, sponges, and swabs and are sold as generics and under a variety of brand names. Chlorhexidine gluconate is also available as a prescription mouthwash for the treatment of gingivitis and as a prescription oral chip for the treatment of periodontal disease. Brand names of products containing chlorhexidine gluconate include Avagard, Bioscrub, CIDA-Stat, and Dyna-Hex, among others, according to the FDA.

Labeling for prescription chlorhexidine gluconate mouthwashes and oral chips that are used for periodontal disease already contains a warning concerning possible serious allergic reactions. In 1998, the FDA issued a public health notice that warned healthcare providers about risks for significant allergic reactions with medical devices such as dressings and intravenous lines containing chlorhexidine gluconate.

In the recent Safety Communication, the FDA indicated that it is aware of 52 cases of anaphylaxis associated with the use of chlorhexidine gluconate products applied to the skin. In the 46 years from January 1969 and early June 2015, the FDA indicated that it received reports of 43 cases globally through the agency’s Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS). More than half of these cases were reported after 2010, which was after the 1998 public health notice. “This number includes only reports submitted to FDA, so there are likely additional cases about which we are unaware,” the FDA indicated. “The serious allergic reaction cases reported outcomes that required emergency department visits or hospitalizations to receive drug and other medical treatments. These allergic reactions resulted in two deaths.”

Also according to federal regulators, eight more cases of anaphylaxis were published in medical literature between 1971 and 2015; one case was identified in the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System–Cooperative Adverse Drug Event Surveillance (NEISS-CADES) database between 2004 and 2013. That case involved an 11-year-old boy who suffered a severe reaction after being cleaned with a topical chlorhexidine gluconate solution in a clinic, according to the FDA.

Anaphylaxis is a severe allergic reaction that requires immediate treatment, typically with an epinephrine (adrenaline) shot as soon as possible, according to WebMD. Treatment usually involves emergency medical help. If the severe allergic reaction is left untreated, it may become deadly. Epinephrine typically begins to take effect immediately and requires a prescription. Treatment may require more than one shot, depending on the severity of the reaction and the patient. Antihistamines do not reverse anaphylaxis. People who had a prior anaphylactic reaction have a greater risk of experiencing another anaphylactic reaction as do individuals with a family history of anaphylaxis or asthma.

Initial anaphylactic reactions may resemble typical allergy symptoms, including runny nose or skin rash, according to WebMD. Within about 30 minutes, more serious signs will appear that may including coughing, wheezing, pain, itching, tightness in the chest, fainting, dizziness, confusion, weakness, hives, rash, itchy skin, swollen skin, red skin, runny or stuffy nose, sneezing, shortness of breath, trouble breathing, rapid heartbeat, swollen or itchy lips or tongue, swollen or itchy throat, hoarse voice, problems swallowing, tightness in the throat, vomiting, diarrhea, cramps, weak pulse, and/or paleness. Some individuals report feeling a so-called “sense of doom” immediately preceding the attack.

About one out of every five people may have a second anaphylactic reaction within the first 12 hours of the first attack, a condition known as biphasic anaphylaxis. Anaphylaxis treatment usually involves an emergency room stay of several hours to ensure a second reaction does not occur.

Parker Waichman LLP is a national law firm that represents many clients in drug injury lawsuits. The firm continues to offer free legal consultations to individuals who are interested in filing a chlorhexidine gluconate lawsuit.

FDA Suggestions Concerning Chlorhexidine Gluconate

The FDA is advising healthcare providers to first check with patients to determine if they have ever had an allergic reaction to any antiseptic prior to recommending or prescribing a product containing chlorhexidine gluconate. Patients should be advised to seek immediate medical attention if they experience any symptoms of an allergic reaction when using chlorhexidine gluconate-containing products. The FDA suggested healthcare providers should also consider using alternative antiseptics and listed povidone-iodine, alcohols, benzalkonium chloride, benzethonium chloride, or parachlorometaxylenol (PCMX) in cases in which patients have a previous documented or suspected allergy to chlorhexidine gluconate.

The FDA advises patients and consumers that they should stop using the chlorhexidine gluconate product and seek immediate medical attention or call 911 if they experience the symptoms of serious allergic reactions. Reactions typically occur within minutes of exposure and include wheezing, difficulty breathing, face swelling, hives that rapidly progress to more serious symptoms, severe rash, or shock, a life-threatening condition that means that the body is not receiving sufficient blood flow.

Urticaria (hives) is an outbreak of swollen, pale red bumps or plaques (wheals) on the skin and appear suddenly, according to WebMD. Hives usually cause itching, but they may burn or sting and may appear anywhere on the body, including the face, lips, tongue, throat, or ears. Hives vary in size from small—about the size of a pencil eraser—to large—the size of a dinner plate. Hives may join together to form larger areas that are known as plaques. Hives may last for hours or up to one day before they begin fading.

Filing a Chlorhexidine Gluconate Lawsuit

If you or someone you know suffered serious allergic reactions or death following use of a product containing chlorhexidine gluconate, you may have valuable legal rights. The drug side effect attorneys at Parker Waichman offer free, no-obligation case evaluations. For more information, fill out our online form or call 1-800-YOURLAWYER (1-800-968-7529).

from Parker Waichman http://www.yourlawyer.com/blog/skin-antiseptic-led-to-two-deaths/