#can I get away with some kind of modern art exhibit that's just a tree and a bunch of geodes

[onebizarrekai]

I borrowed the 'build with only blocks from each letter of the alphabet' challenge from a youtube channel and, a couple discombobulated ideas, a season and a half rewatch of most popular girls in school and half an extremely orange build that makes me want to cry later, it occurs to me why nobody else is doing this challenge

this thing was dropped in the botw/totk dunking machine

[ellasadventuresinfandoms]

Okay, back in May @isolatedphenomenon asked me if I had an les mis fic recs and I went "oh boy do I !" and then promptly fucked off and disappeared from tumblr for like 6 months...

Anyway on the off chance people are interested, here is my vastly too long list of  my favourite les mis fanfic (that I'm almost 100% sure I'll have accidentally missed some of my favourites off of...)

The vast majority of these are main pairing Enjolras/Grantaire, so I've put those first, divided into multi-chaptered and then one-shots. Below that will be other pairings!

Multi-chaptered

• Witch Boy Series : magic AU, starting with Grantaire solving Enjolras' curse - this is just Incredible world building which gets better as it goes on - my favourite is the Babet interlude

• World Ain't Ready : you know how fandoms tend to have a fic that is just associated with it ? in my experience, for les mis this is it - and well deserved ! High school, fake dating AU with some of the most engaging writing

• BE : Enjolras is dragged back into theatre production, helping Eponine put on a production of Hamlet - really love the characterisation in this, and this is really one of those modern AUs that actually feels like real life - really good writing

• After the End : the definitive apocalypse AU in my eyes - les amis are an underground resistance to the dystopian government - really wonderful characterisation of Grantaire and the amis

• You never have to wonder; you never have to ask. : I tend to find fic by scrolling through bookmarks of a pairing, which means I often see repeats; this is a fic that if I see I just re-read cause I know I'll enjoy it - the amis sparked a failed rebellion, and now 18 months later Grantaire ends up staying at Enjolras' after returning to Paris for Marius and Cosette's wedding

• Your Heart on Your Skin : Soulmate AU with flower tattoos marking important emotions and events - wonderful concept and world building 

• Impatient to Be Free : Daughters of Bilitis AU - if that doesn't make you excited I don't know what else to say to convince you (aside from saying the author is a simply wonderful writer)

• You Dance Dreams : Okay. Not to be over dramatic, but this fic did genuinely qualitatively change my life, in that it was the first thing that got me looking up contemporary ballet and now that's like one of my favourite things and big hobby So. Also its really great writing; music/creative arts school les amis with Grantaire choreohraphing the ballet for Combeferre's opera, with a heavy emphasis on Grantaire realising he really never actually got over Enjolras

• philia : this one is an absolute classic to me, but not given nearly enough recognition - one of the more realistic college AUs ever written, and the writing of Grantaire is so good because it hits the perfect balance of sympathy and annoyance about his behaviour (that's a genuine compliment) 

• Coffee Hooligans : fucking tragedy this never got properly finished, Enjolras leads the amis as social justice vigilantes and tries to hide the criminal bits of his life from R

• Fighting the Hurricane : Pacific Rim AU that's less an AU and more just placing the les mis characters in the Pacific Rim universe. Really good and riveting read, also super interesting depiction of Grantaire

• Weaving Olden Dances : Fairy AU - Grantaire "claims" Enjolras to prevent his execution - really good writing, love Grantaires characterisation 

• Paris Burning : canon era (sort of) where cities have a physical being - Grantaire is Paris and becomes entangled in Enjolras' revolution - oh the world building is truly *chefs kiss*

• Euphoria is You For Me : Enjolras and Grantaire keep meet cuting in a wonderfully written Brooklyn - feels like a love letter to Brooklyn at times, and I really like the characterisation of Grantaire 

• so please just fall in love with me this christmas : Enjolras works for the environmental company Grantaire volunteers at, and keeps getting secret gifts at Christmas - I sound a little like a broken record but the Grantaire characterisation is very good

• You Are the Moon : Wild West esque Space AU - Grantaire has to call on the amis to help rescue Valjean and Cosette, despite Grantaire leaving the amis 6 months before. On re-reading the Enjolras characterisation feels a little rushed, but overall fantastic story telling and the Grantaire arc is a Delight 

• Pandemos : Enjolras is aphrodite, and seeks peace from all his suitors in R/Hephestus' cave

• Pining for You : Hallmark christmas romance - Grantaire returns home to work on his father's tree farm, and Enjolras is the lawyer helping prevent the farm being sold - cute as shit imo

• Once We're Kings : Fantasy AU - a country hosts a ball to marry Prince Enjolras and the rival country sends Grantaire as a fuck you - one of the best ways of doing Enjolras as a prince in a fantasy and just really nicely written

• Never Bitter and All Delicious : Fairy Godmother AU - yes really, yes its genuinely a very good read

• On One Condition : Fantasy AU - Enjolras is a bored knight who finally goes to check out the local dragon, which turns out to be Grantaire - I really like how they capture Enjolras' stubborn nature and it's such a well written soft growth of love between them

• That's How Easy Love Can Be : Les Amis work at a primary school; and its secret santa time! very fun portrayal of Enjolras

• The Lark and Her Lieutenants : re write of canon where Cosette is the leader of the revolution - just *chefs kiss*

• If You Tickle Us, Do We Not Laugh : Grantaire is Enjolras' secret android - really good at writing a relationship that's incredibly loving but just keeps being antagonistic and coming off wrong 

One Shots

• True Colours : AU where you leave colours on the people important to you - Enjolras and Grantaire falling for each other is so soft and gently written its lovely, this is genuinely one of my favourites

• Keep It Kind, Keep It Good, Keep It Right : this one is so good to me, because it builds off my pet hatred of everyone assuming Enjolras doesn't care about (or at least actively show he cares about) his friends

• blooming : very soft post-dystopian utopia that has just a really wonderful sense of hope and light to me

• and the wall leaned away (or: The Pros and Cons of Tilling) : perfectly realised characterizations of the amis, Grantaire needs a date to her final year art exhibition - deals with anxiety over protest in a way that actually hits for me

• not just one of the crowd : R helps run a leftist bakery and bike repair shop - very cute characterisation, and I think more les mis fanfic should link to anarchist essays

• Lovesickness : Enjolras is an idiot and thinks he's sick rather than having a crush - the writing of Joly and Combeferre in this is some of my favourite depictions of these two

• If there's a rocket, tie me to it : absolutely heartbreaking sci-fi AU about the amis as doomed mecha pilots

• Where I Fall is Where I Land : Enjolras is a Roman commander as Rome's power is leaving England, and then meets the pict Grantaire (+ fun soulmark stuff !)

• You Started Foreign to Me : Enjolras moves to america and R is the overnight grocery clerk who helps her learn Spanish - cute fluffy lesbians with a wonderfully written driven Enjolras

• Love Is Touching Souls : very cute soulmate AU - and one I really love for really truly considering the implications of soul marks and creating historical lore around it

• Ten Years : R is a musician, and it non-linearly charts his relationship to Enj from high school to 10 years later

• put up with me then I'll make you see : Grantaire lives above Enjolras, and its christmas - I find it to have a very fun interpretation of pining Enjolras

• A Cat Called Trash Can : this was one of the first les mis fics I ever read (yes I know it says it was published in 2020, but I think it has to be a re-upload or something?) and it does still have a special place in my heart - Grantaire rescues a cat, but Enjolras is the only one with an apartment free to look after it 

• Still I'm Begging to Be Free : inception AU where les amis have to rescue a sleeping R from his own brain

•I'm in it for You : cw: illness, cancer - R has cancer and is being a martyr about telling his friends so Enjolras drives him back from chemo

• walls come tumbling down : sky high au - a very good high school AU with the perfect level of campy superhero powers

• This brave new world's not like yesterday : Enjolras needs a job, so ends up working in a bowling alley with Grantaire and bonding

Enjolras/Grantaire/Combeferre

• In Defiance of All Geometry : les amis are a student co-op house, Enjolras and Combeferre are pining friends and Grantaire is the newbie

• Still the Same : this is very good writing and very compelling - if you can get over the (imo) plot hole of Enjolras working for the FBI. R was an art thief Enj put away and is briefly helping the FBI out, and Combeferre is Enjolras' husband

• To Kingdom Come : cw: war and PTSD from that, Enjolras and Combeferre are part of a group of refugees that have crossed into a more fantasy land, and Grantaire is a lone traveller from that land that attempts to help - that was a shit summary of this very emotional, wonderfully written fic about war and love in all forms

• Gonna need (a spark to ignite) : I always love a twist on a classic trope, and this is a very fun take on the soulmate AU - Enjolras loses feeling in his soul mark as a child, falls in love with Grantaire and then his soulmate, Combeferre, turns up

Eponine/Cosette

• Pretty Girls Don't Know the Things That I Know : simply stunning writing - perfect example of soft writing about a harsh world

• she knows her way around : Eponine and Cosette bond, ostensibly so Eponine can find out about her for Marius, and their interactions are so playful and realistic, its wonderful

• always find me floating on oceans : Cosette stows away on Eponine's pirate ship - I do always have a soft spot for eposette fics (not just cause I ship it) because they truly characterise Cosette in a really considered and interesting way

• There's No Making Love : I'm putting this under eposette even though there is some significant enjolras/grantaire content, because the Cosette characterisation is so fun and cute

• round and round again : this fic really beautifully translates Cosette's bad childhood and then isolated teenage years, and the impact that would have on her as an adult into a modern AU

• Underwater Thunderheards : this is based off the book The Scorpio Races, and is just a really nice short fic  about longing

• How To Change The World Without Taking Power : Marius has a crush on Cosette and she's tried being polite and subtle in turning him down, so just ends up fake dating Eponine instead

• blood red fruit and poison's kiss : Snow White AU - Cosette as Snow White

• The Winters Cannot Fade Her : Snow White Au 2.0 - Eponine as Snow White - this was written as a pair to the one above which is just so cute to me

• marriage à la mode : Cosette and Eponine run a bridal shop together and it's very cute !

• Temporary Hold : I personally find this a really fun and very unique take on Cosette - with exams coming up she decides she needs to get laid on the reg and so hits up Eponine to act as if they're already long term girlfriends

Combeferre/Courfeyrac

• better than you had it : fake dating but kick it up an emotional notch - Courf and Ferre pretend to still be together after breaking up for a family event

• take flight, come near : nice and cute low fantasy, where Combeferre runs a dragon sanctuary and Courf finds an injured dragon

Rare Pairs

• The Future's Owned by You and Me : cute Enjolras/Feuilly with actual radical politics and real life organising difficulties and wins

• First Dates and Other Dangers : Combeferre and Grantaire agree to go on a blind date and it's awkward until it isn't - just cute !

• after midnight : Combeferre has insomnia and meets Grantaire in various all night fast food chains

• as you are : Bahorel and Jehan getting ready together

• Almost Romantic : Jehan works at a museum, and takes Combeferre on a little tour

• Understudy : Jehan/Combeferre, with Combeferre's insecurities regarding being seen as second best to Enjolras

• Here There Be Dragons : Courf/Enj/Ferre - Courf and Enj are superheroes and Ferre is the doctor that patches them up

• To Let it Occur (Laisser Faire la Nature) : Feuilly has a stupidly long stopover in Paris and meets Enjolras

• rule of three : Courf/Enj/Ferre as spies and loving boyfriends

• Good Rhetoric : snapshots of cute cuddly courf/enj/ferre

• subluxate, dislocate, replace : found family and chronic illness with Joly/Bossuet/Musichetta

• Strike stone, strike home (like lightning) : so this fic took one minor piece of lore about Tolkien's dwarves and made a beautiful j/b/m fic from it

• Almost Inevitable : Bahorel/Feuilly friends-with-benefits

• god only knows (what I'd be without you) : Bahorel/Feuilly with a closeted Feuilly and a beautiful Feuilly and Eponine friendship

[kleptonancydrew]

Nancy Drew and Education

So apparently the Clue Crew is full of teachers? Who knew. Well, as a former homeschooled student, current teacher, and (hopefully) future homeschooling parent/teacher I have been planning on integrating the games into lessons for a long time. Below the cut I have just a few of my many ideas (some more fleshed out than others). Feel free to use, adapt, or add your own! 

SCK:

-        Braille

o   How blind/vision impaired people navigate the world

§  How we can make it more accessible for them

o   How do braille books and printers work

-        ASL

o   Memorizing the alphabet and basic signs

§  Build up fluency

o   How HOH/deaf people navigate the world

§  How we can make it more accessible for them  

o   Connections of ASL to other signed languages

§  French Sign Language versus British Sign Language

-        Dangers of gas leaks

o   What to do if you smell or hear gas

-        Inequalities between mens and womens sporting opportunities

o   See Women’s Soccer

-        What are performance enhancing drugs

o   What is the difference between #steroids and the steroids your doctor might prescribe

-        How drug running is a gateway crime

-        Why blackmailing people isn’t good

-        More reasons to never move to Florida

-        Why you shouldn’t go to an actual high school part one

 STFD:

-        Television in NYC

o   Soap Operas

o   How television sets work

o   Role of director

o   Teleprompters

o   Props

o   Agents

-        Theatre in NY

o   Broadway

§  Learn a show

o   Carnegie Hall

-        Dangers in the ways we obsess over celebrities

o   Paparazzi

o   Stalkers

o   Respecting privacy

-        NY taxi system

-        NY regional accents

-        NY as a center for immigration – salad bowl

o   Ellis Island

-        History of NYC

o   Geography of NYC

-        Typewriters

-        Towers of Hanoi

-        Encoding  

-        How to make chocolates (with or without poison)

-        Read along:

o   New York the Novel (Edward Rutherford)

o   The Power Broker

o   All of a Kind Family

 MHM:

-        San Francisco Gold Rush

-        Earthquake and Fires in San Fran

-        Golden Gate Bridge

-        Angel Island

o   Asian (Chinese) Immigration to the USA

-        Chinese Zodiac

-        Fortune telling (and why it’s not okay)

-        Bed and Breakfasts

-        San Francisco today

o   Technology boom

o   Overpriced everything

§  How this hurts established residents

§  Homelessness in San Fran

-        Bandits in the American West

-        Hauntings in American buildings

-        How to remove and install tile

-        Renovations – refurbish something

-        Antiques

o   Visit an antique shop

-        Importance of fire safety

-        How to install lighting fixtures properly

-        How to fix a dumbwaiter

o   How not to be a dumb waiter

-        Tangrams

-        What is the Victorian period

o   Significance of Queen Victoria

-        Read Along:

o   Little Brother

o   Paper Son: Lee’s Journey to America

o   Angel Island Gateway to Golden Mountain

 TRT:

-        The French Revolution

o   Marie Antoinette

o   Women and the French Revolution

o   Worldwide effects of the Revolution

o   Historians of the French Revolution

-        Writing history

o   How we can focus on different events in history, how we can be sympathetic to certain people, how we can fulfill different spaces in the historical narrative, criticism of history as a field, entering history as a field

-        Wisconsin Dairy industry

-        Alarm systems and how they work

-        Fingerprinting

-        Elevator safety

-        Ski lifts

o   Skiing

-        Vandalism

-        Taking care of libraries

-        Latitude and longitude

-        Keeping records of good events and bad events

o   Nothing you do will ever stop me from loving you

-        Some people keep different sleep schedules

-        Journalism

-        Making translations  

-        Why France has different holidays – to keep the ski lodges from getting too full

 FIN:

-        History of theatre spaces

-        Use of film at theatres

-        Magicians

o   Houdini

o   Learn a ‘magic’ trick

-        Library of Congress

-        Demolition – wrecking balls

o   What’s involved

-        Plaster casts

-        Historic register of buildings

o   Visit a local historic building

-        Price of concessions and movie tickets today

-        Nickelodeons

-        Celebrity stunts for attention from press

o   Celebrity endorsements

-        Jazz music

o   Dancing

-        Kidnapping stories

o   What to do if someone tries to grab you

-        Rubber vs. electricity

-        Art/artists of the 20s

 SSH:

-        Numbering systems (particularly ones not based on 10)

-        Cultures of South America

o   Maya

§  Cultural understandings

§  Connections to what appears at Beech Hill

o   Aztec

o   Inca

-        Myths of lesser civilizations because of European preconceptions

-        Why do countries have consulates/embassies in other countries

-        What is amnesia and other medical memory issues

-        Provenance and why its important part one

-        Roles and responsibilities within a museum

o   Visit a museum

o   How to be critical of a museum and how knowledge is presented to you

-        Modern art

o   Make your own

o   Visit a modern art museum

-        Periodic Table of Elements

-        Positive and negative molds for casting

 DOG:

-        Prohibition

o   Speakeasys

o   Amendments to constitution

o   Drinking age restrictions

§  Comparison of USA to European countries  

o   Connections to modern drug policies

-        Recognizing and photographing local birds

-        Dangers in the forest – ticks and other pests

-        Why water sources are important

o   Flint water crisis

-        Visit a state park

o   Importance of maintaining public land

-        Alcatraz

-        How to care for dogs

-        Noise pollution

o   Light pollution

 CAR:

-        History of carousels

o   Visit a carousel

-        Lathes

-        Harmonicas

-        Band organs

-        Writing messages with lemon juice and other hidden inks

-        How to iron

o   How not to iron

-        How to make a sundae

-        How amusement park rides are designed

-        Soldering

-        What is parole

o   Welcoming those who have been in prison back to society

o   Problems with the American prison system

§  How it disproportionately affects minority groups

o   What can be done in prison reform

o   Abuses in prison

o   Making mental and spiritual help and guidance more available

o   Making sanitary products available

o   Prison for profit hurts everybody except the prison owner

o   Educational opportunities for those in prison

o   More half-way help

o   Juvenile sentencing reform – more out of system help

o   Respecting humanity of prisoners

o   Ending the death penalty  

-        Depression

o   How to get help

o   How to help others

o   Dealing with loss

DDI:

-        Native peoples of the Pacific Northwest

-        Orcas and other whales

o   Whaling industry in Northwest and Northeast

o   Things whale products were used for

o   Visit natural history museum with whale exhibition

-        Visit an aquarium with a good reputation

o   Problems with places that do not take care of their sea life – particularly large sea life like whales

-        What is a chowder and how is it made

o   Try or make chowder

-        Crabs

o   Restrictions on different types of crabs – what type is local

o   Try a crab dish

-        Importance of different knots  

o   Get some rope and learn how to tie different knots

-        Know the NATO alphabet and letter flags

-        Boating knowledge

o   Go on a boating trip – know the port and starboard sides

-        Learn how to kayak

-        Try to learn how to skip rocks

-        Visit a lighthouse

o   Importance and histories of lighthouses

-        Smuggling – what is it and why does it happen

-        Shanghaiing

-        Chess

 SHA:

-        The continuous oppression and mistreatment of Native Americans

o   From Mayflower to Pocahontas to Trail of Tears to Dakota to DAPL to Reservations to food deserts to voting rights to much much more

§  How to support current Native voices and concerns

o   Why Native Americans are not a costume

o   “Possession” of Native American objects and land

§  Arrowheads and native jewelry

o   Broad overview of regional Native American groups – using their own voices

§  Special focus on local Native American groups

·       Is there a local museum/educational resource that is either Native created or known for respecting Native voices

o   Current Native Americans of note (ex: politicians, activists, artists)

o   While the previous focuses on Native Americans in the modern day USA – also discuss First Nations from Canada and Native Groups from more southern areas

-        Why temperature and pan matters when baking (show what happens in the oven when it goes wrong)

-        Magnets and how different metals react differently to magnets

-        How to take care of a horse and other farm animals

o   Visit a local farm

o   Try horse-riding

-        Dangers of rattle snakes and scorpions

-        Lassos and how to use them

-        Legends of outlaws in the American West

-        Ghost towns  

-        Flower stitches when knitting/crocheting

-        Petrified wood

-        How to make a campfire

-        Picking fruits and veggies when they are ready

-        Flower language

-        Read Along:

o   Native American folk tales  

o   Motorcycles and Sweetgrass

o   Gone Away Lake

o   Black Beauty?

 CUR:

-        Where are the moors

-        Different regional accents within the United Kingdom

-        British foods

-        Latin

o   Learn fun phrases and prayers

-        Ancestry and genealogy

o   Map your own family tree and recognize family crests

o   How adoption has historically been a binding and irrefutable concept for lineage

o   Find places your family lived

o   Leaving a history for your descendants

§  Write a story book for them

o   British Royal Family

§  Why incest is bad

-        Parrots and their intelligence

-        Secret passages in old buildings

-        Alchemy

o   Connections to modern understandings of science  

o   Historical understandings of elements

-        Astrological signs

-        Witch trials

-        Legends of lycanthropy and other monsters

-        Importance of not taking other peoples medicines

-        Runic alphabet

-        Feeding your pets a healthy diet

-        Typing practice

-        How to embrace the idea that home taught students are evil geniuses

-        Forges and melting points of different metals

-        Carnivorous plants

-        Succulents

-        Constellations in different places  

-        Read Along:

o   The Secret Garden

o   The London Eye Mystery

o   Beastly

CLK:

-        Great Depression

o   Causes and effects

o   Who was hurt

o   Who was not hurt

o   Areas of America

§  Dust bowl

o   Famous people and literature

o   Homelessness and poverty

§  Bread lines

§  Soup kitchens

§  Anti-homelessness architecture

§  Connections to mental illness and veterans

§  How we can help those who do not have homes today

-        Early Telephones

-        Shakespeare

-        History of Nancy Drew

o   Mildred Wirt Benson

o   Edward Stratemeyer  

-        Fishing – why different fish respond to different bait

-        Orphanages in the early 20th century

-        Gas prices and accessibility of cars through time

-        How to make pie

-        What is jurisdiction and what is significant about crossing state lines

-        How do banks work

o   Safety deposit boxes

-        Identify theft

-        How to use a sewing machine

o   Sew an item of clothing

-        Mini golf – why and what

-        Mirrors and their usefulness

-        Stamp collections

-         

-        Radios and call signs

o   Comparison to modern internet forms

-        Telegrams

-        Read along:

o   Shakespeare

§  Midsummer Night’s Dream

§  Others

o   Pollyanna

o   Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

o   The Grapes of Wrath

  TRN:

-        Trains

o   Steam trains

o   Visit a train museum

o   Take a train ride (if not a normal event)

o   Importance of transcontinental railway

o   Trains around the USA today

o   Trains around the world (TGV, bullet train)

-        Abraham Lincoln

-        Mark Twain

-        How to make a good burger (you leave off the PB&J)

-        Slugs

-        Periodic Table of Elements – abbreviations

-        Gemstones

-        History of Mining

o   England (Newcastle upon Tyne)

o   American West

o   Appalachia

o   Company Store

o   Health issues for miners

o   Danger of mines

o   Current issues for mining

-        Dancing the Hurley Burley

-        People who collect creepy dolls

o   History of porcelain dolls

-        Embroidery

o   How to

o   Patterns/symbols

-        General Stores in the American West

o   Sears

-        How to make taffy

-        Find a well maintained and beautiful tomb and research who is entombed

-        Focusing light through a magnifying glass can start a fire

-        Read Along:

o   Murder on the Orient Express

o   Mark Twain books

DAN:

-        All lessons in French

-        How using different ingredients and different amounts of ingredients can affect the outcome of your cookies

-        Paris métro

o   History

o   How to read/follow a métro map

o   RER

-        Montmartre and other Parisian neighbourhoods

-        History of Île de la France and Square de Vert Galant Parc and Pont Neuf

-        WWII and the French Resistance

o   Cross of Lorraine

o   Vichy France

o   Abuses of the French gov’t in this period

-        Paris and the fashion world

-        Beauty standards and the rejection of natural beauty by society

o   Dangers of weight and figure standards

o   You are beautiful as you are

-        Catacombs of Paris

-        Famous French Dishes (from this region)

o   Or Bretagne since I know and like them better

-        The French Café

-        Moulin in France

-        Tea and how hot leaf water can taste so bad but still be good for you

-        Buildings of Baron Haussmann

-        Paris History  

-        Decoders

-        Importance of vitraux historically, culturally, and religiously

-        Read Along:

o   Little Kids

§  Madeline

§  Babar

§  Petit Ours

§  Plume

o   High School

§  Hunchback of Notre Dame

§  Les Mis

§  Dale Van Kley

 CRE:

-        History of Hawai’i and her native people

o   How the USA screwed them over and continues to do so

§  Land colonizing today

o   Listen to voices from Native Peoples

-        Pearl Harbor

o   USS Arizona

-        Native myths and legends

-        Local flora and fauna

-        Surfing

-        How to make bead necklaces

-        Snorkeling

-        Entomology

o   Find some local bugs and identify and observe them

-        Horticulture

o   See if you can graft something

o   Watch a carnation placed in water with food dye

o   Regrow a fruit or veggie from the leftovers

-        Go looking for seashells – see how many complete shells you can find

-        Be aware of pesticides and the dangers they offer

o   Dangers of organic food too

-        Make something with pineapple in it

-        Fishing – different kinds of native fish

-        Volcanos

-        Hula  

  ICE:

-        Wolf sanctuaries – respecting wildlife and their place in the wild and not the domestic

o   What to do if you see a wolf in the real world

-        Fur trapping in Canada history

-        Regions and Capitols of Canada

o   Visit Canada?

-        How the Canadian government works

-        Use of French language in Canada    

o   Unique features of Canadian French  

-        Ice fishing

-        How to cook omelets, salmon, etc.

o   How to not add paprika cause like ew

-        Fossils

-        Radiation

o   Marie Curie

-        How to be a good maid

-        Snowballs/ice balls

-        Ice skating

-        Winter weather safety

-        Avalanches  

-        Saunas

-        Birthmarks

-        Fax machines

-        How to not lie about bird watching

-        Frozen water safety  

-        Modern offenses against First Nations by Canadian Government

  CRY:

-        Culture of the Arawak and Caraïbe

o   Voodoo

-        Mardi Gras in New Orleans

-        Hurricane Katrina and aftermath

-        French Influence

-        Eyes and their parts and functions

-        Teeth and their parts and functions

-        Alligators in the Southern USA and how they are dangerous pests  

-        Graveyards/cemeteries and how to be comfortable in them

o   Modern burial practices

o   Why are they above ground in Louisiana?

o   Places where they are running out of space for the dead

o   Historic violations of final resting places

-        Ventriloquism

-        Lizards and how to care for them

-        Rube Goldberg machines

-        Curio shops

-        Crystal Skulls  

 VEN:

-        International crime

-        Organized crime

-        Scopa

-        Italian basics

o   Learn an Italian aria

-        Italian food

o   Not just spaghetti

-        History of Venice

o   Current issues in Venice

-        Carrier pigeons

-        Micro-dots

-        “Observing the architecture”

-        Try to make gelato (or just get gelato, either way you get gelato)

-        Disguising yourself – put on an outfit and try to get me to not recognize you

-        Picking locks

-        Secret codes

-        Solfege

o   With hand signs

o   Learn a song in solfege

-        Carnivale

-        Learn how the sausage gets made

o   How to deal with food poisoning

-        How to secure your living space against burglars

o   Glass breaks, motion sensors, keypads, magnets, and more

-        Read Along:

o   Heist Society

o   The Prince

o   Merchant of Venice

  HAU:

-        Irish lessons (as much of this in Irish as possible)

o   Why the Irish language is important

-        Geography of Ireland

o   Provinces and counties

-        Irish names

-        Why Ireland has disliked and should dislike the UK

o   Historically

o   Famine

§  Emmigration

o   Easter Rising

o   Troubles

o   Present-Day

-        Importance of alcohol in Ireland

o   Uisce beatha

o   Guinness

§  Guinness world records

-        Irish music

o   Irish instruments

o   Learn some Rebel songs

-        Ogham runes

-        Irish foods

o   Something with lamb, who cares what

-        Don’t use friends for land development

-        Bogs

-        Chemical Reactions

-        Rockets

-        Inventions and secrecy during WWII

-        Religion in Ireland

o   Pagan traditions

o   Christianity

o   Catholic/Protestant tensions

-        Irish wedding traditions

-        How printing presses work

-        Irish castles

-        Sheep sheering/raising sheep

-        Irish legends

o   Fae

o   Leprechauns

-        Don’t drive and talk on the phone

 RAN:

-        Why blackface is problematic? (the fact that this needs to be said is problematic in and of itself)

-        Scuba diving

-        Sailing

-        Bermuda Triangle

-        Bats

-        Primates and their intelligence

o   Problems with animal research

o   Koko

o   Jane Goodall

-        Island resort culture

-        Metal detectors

-        Pirates

o   And the Caribbean

o   Their abuses

o   Different kinds

o   Modern day pirates  

-        How do walkie-talkies work

-        US mistreatment of island territories

-        Read Along:

o   Bloody Jack (Meyer)

 WAC:

-        Edgar Allan Poe

o   Stories

o   Baltimore

-        Piano

-        Victorian Dining traditions

o   How to set a place for fancy dining

o   How to fold napkins

o   Table manners

o   How to serve someone at a fancy dinner

o   How courses might work

o   How to use your silverware  

-        Why you shouldn’t go to an actual high school part two

o   Just fyi – that’s not how uniforms work

§  Have a school inspired dress code for a week

-        Bullying and why you absolutely will not be a bully

o   How to respond to bullying

o   Importance of talking to adults and counseling

-        Logic puzzles

-        Research the founding of a local school

-        Stringed Instruments

-        Plagiarism

o   Turnitin

-        Making sandwiches – like a good deli style sandwich

-        Photography scavenger hunt – make a digital (or physical) yearbook

-        Squirrels

-        Orthographic projection

-        DNA/RNA

-        Saving every major project on three different thumb drives

-        Getting along with roommates

-        States and Capitals

o   Countries and capitals of the world  

 TOT:

-        Tornados

o   Technology used to observe tornados

-        Meteorology

-        Prairie dogs

-        Life on the great plains

-        Great Plains Native Americans

-        Small towns in the Midwest honestly be like that

-        Defensive driving

-        Make a disaster kit

-        Know what to do in various natural emergency situations

o   What is the local alert protocol

o   What do local authorities recommend

-        How to maintain and fix a car

-        How to fix a broken device

-        What is tenure

-        How to budget

o   Go to the grocery store on a strict budget (however much you come in under budget is your candy budget)

-        Read Along:

o   Little House

  SAW:

-        Basic Japanese phrases

o   Learn to count

o   Writing in Japanese

-        Sudoku, nonograms, renograms

-        Japanese ghost legends

-        Japanese culture

o   Tourism

§  Ryokans

o   Space – everything small

o   Politeness/formalities

o   Hot springs/baths

o   Tatami and paper walls

-        Japanese cultural dress

o   Kimonos

o   Lolita? Fashion

-        Japanese names

o   Last name first

o   How to address others in Japan

-        Martial Arts

o   Ninjutsu

§  Traditional tools

-        Japanese tea ceremony

-        Schools in Japan

-        Teaching English as a foreign language

-        Japanese subway/train system

-        Pachinko and Japanese gaming

-        Japanese vending machines

-        Robotic animals

-        Bento

-        Japanese foods

-        Origami

-        How to fake a haunting

 CAP:

-        Basic German phrases

o   How to make a German word

o   Connections of German to English

-        German food favourites

o   Especially cakes

-        Storytelling as a cultural entity

o   How memory has worked differently in different times

-        Glass blowing

-        How castles provided for the local community

-        Bavaria in Germany

o   Cultural dress

-        Glockenspiel

-        How to make board games

-        Monster stories of central Europe

-        How to monitor security camera remotely

-        Read Along:

o   Heidi

ASH:

-        Arson

o   Watching how different accelerants burn a piece of paper

-        All politicians are at least somewhat self-serving

o   But write a letter to a local politician anyway

§  Different ways to contact elected officials, and why some don’t work

-        How to make ice cream

-        How a police investigation works

o   Problems with police departments around the world – specifically USA

o   Ways that police work unfairly targets minorities

§  If Nancy is innocent how many others are

-        How to use matches and lighters safely

-        Why you should not return to the scene of a crime – particularly a fire

-        Making sure smoke detectors work properly and the system is connected

o   We might not go to school but fire drills are still important

-        What is a mass spectrometer

-        Who to call if you’ve been arrested

-        What to do if you get pulled over

-        How the media can skew the truth and make their own narratives

-        Sound mixing

-        Be careful with what you say/post/record

o   Keep receipts and clarify when possible

 TMB:

-        What not to do at an archaeological site

-        Ancient Egyptian History

o   Pantheon, notable figures, relevant events

o   Pyramids, sphinx

o   Pharaohs

-        Modern Egypt

o   Arabic alphabet

-        History of archaeological digs in Egypt

o   Why they’ve been problematic

-        Dangers of the tombs

-        Mummys

o   How they are put together

-        Tomb raiders

-        Importance of water in the desert

-        How to piece together a broken artifact

-        How to gently brush off an artifact

-        There is no such thing as a dictionary for ancient Egyptian

-        Aliens did not build the pyramids

-        Senet

-        Desert life safety

-        How mirrors can be used to light a room

-        Read Along

o   Rick Riordan

 DED:

-        Nikola Tesla

o   All his fun stuff

o   Tesla Coils

-        3-D printing

-        Gummy fingerprints

-        Faraday Cage

-        Basic electric concepts

o   How to build a circuit board

-        Chemical safety

-        How a lab might work

-        Valuing different skills within academia

-        Ultraviolet light

-        How motorcycles work

-        Freelance photography

-        How to use academic databases

 GTH:

-        Slavery in the United States

o   Origins

o   ‘End’

o   Civil War

o   The connection to “southern culture”

o   Continued abuses of Black people in America

§  Importance of recognizing Black voices and what they are saying

§  Listening even when it’s uncomfortable

§  Checking privilege when you have it

o   Jim Crow Laws

-        Plantations

-        Gone With the Wind

o   The good and the bad

-        Civil War spies – female

-        Carbon monoxide poisoning

-        Burned out houses are not a safe space

-        Do not go digging through people’s coffins – rest in PEACE

-        Understanding that your family can be flawed

-        If you don’t want to get married, if you’re not happy in a relationship, end it

-        When a member of your family is sick you take care of them

-        Make a will, just in case your cousin kills you

-        Bachelor and bachelorette parties should feature activities that everyone is comfortable with

-        Read Along:

o   My Last Skirt: The Story of Jennie Hodgers, Union Soldier

 SPY:

-        Scotland and their identity

o   Celtic Nations

o   Independent Scotland

o   Call a Scottish person

-        Unicorns and other mythical creatures in Scotland

-        Scottish food

o   The appetizing parts

-        History of spies

-        Biowarfare

o   Code Orange

o   Other teenage stories dealing with anthrax

o   Current events and concerns

o   Historical biowarfare (smallpox blankets)

-        Ziplining

-        Archery

-        How to bug someone

-        Tartans and plaids

o   Kilts

-        Augmented Reality Glasses

-        Record players

-        How to reset a circuit breaker

-        Read Along:

o   Gallagher Girls

o   Code Orange

o   Little House (Martha)

o   Little Brother (Doctorow)

 MED:

-        Don’t meet your heroes

-        New Zealand

o   Maori culture

-        Survivor style game shows and realism

-        I’m not saying Aliens can’t exist, I’m saying they def aren’t involved here

-        Kayaking

-        Submarines and what they can do

-        Turtles

-        Earthquakes

-        Be careful with rope bridges

  LIE:

-        Provenance and why it’s important part two  

-        Greek art and how it was originally painted vibrantly

o   Abuses of Greek art through the ages

-        The British Museum and the issues with that

-        Greek pantheon

o   Legends and notable figures

o   Religious traditions  

-        Iliad and Odyssey

-        Art forgery

-        How to fire clay pots and pottery

-        Memorizing lines for a play

o   Staging for a play

o   Role of a director

-        Theatre

o   Lights

o   Curtains

o   Fly system

o   Sound

-        Greek alphabet

-        Historical importance of the Greek language and culture

o   Alexander the Great and Hellenization

-        Olympics

o   Historic and modern

-        Greece and the European Union  

-        Make something with pomegranates

-        Read Along:

o   Iliad

o   Odyssey

o   The Thief

o   Percy Jackson  

  SEA:

-        Iceland

o   Culture

§  Naming traditions

o   Language

o   Music

o   Food

-        Shipbuilding

o   Historic and modern ships

-        Ice caving

-        Northern Lights

-        Tides

-        Snowmobiling

-        Poetry

-        What is xenophobia

 MID:

-        Some games just shouldn’t be made

-        American witch trials

o   What actually went down

o   Misconceptions

-        Treating people with albinism as real people

-        Arson is bad

-        Herbal remedies and how they can interfere with modern medicine

-        Witchcraft and how not to

-        Salem MA

-        Ignorance promotes fear and hatred so we do our best to learn about others

[cappymightwrite]

GRRM, Sansa Stark & The Pre-Raphaelites

Just thought I'd compile this collection of Sansa-esque paintings (+ a little bit about TPB), since people seemed to like my recent ask answer about Florian and Jonquil, connecting the song, and Sansa, most notably to John William Waterhouse.

As a little bit of background, here's some info on what the Pre-Raphaelites were all about, taken from ...isms: Understanding Art, by Stephen Little:

The work of the Pre-Raphaelites was exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in the early 1850s, and caused controversy for abandoning Academic conventions. Pre-Raphaelite artists paid great attention to naturalistic detail. They also used vivid colour and explored medieval and literary subject matter.

[...]

The three artists [Holman Hunt, Millais, Rossetti] chose the name 'Pre-Raphaelite' because they wanted to return to what they considered to be the painterly and spiritual 'purity' of art prior to Raphael. Instead of idealising the natural form and incorporating it within an overal design, the Pre-Raphaelites preferred to concentrate on the naturalistic detail of the subject in its setting.

Notable artists in the Brotherhood, or likewise heavily associated with them, include:

Edward Burne-Jones (1833–98)

William Holman Hunt (1827–1910)*

John Everett Millais (1829–96)*

William Morris (1834–96)

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–82)*

John William Waterhouse (1849–1917)

*Founding members.

According to their entry on Tate.org, the Pre-Raphaelites were:

Inspired by the theories of John Ruskin, who urged artists to ‘go to nature’, they believed in an art of serious subjects treated with maximum realism. Their principal themes were initially religious, but they also used subjects from literature and poetry, particularly those dealing with love and death. They also explored modern social problems.

Furthermore, according to this short essay, also on the Tate:

A lot of the themes they chose to depict were quite daring for the time – including problematic subjects such as poverty, emigration, prostitution and the double standard of sexual morality in society. Their pictures require a lot of concentrated reading and are so densely encoded with signs and symbols that you have to work hard at deciphering them.

This kind of attention to detail feels arguably very similar to what GRRM is trying to do in his writing. Their interests also line up quite nicely with ASOIAF as well: "serious subjects treated with maximum realism", heavily influenced by literature and poetry.

To back up my claim that I think GRRM is a fan of the Pre-Raphaelites, here's a quote from an interview with artist Jonathan Burton, who has illustrated AGOT and ACOK for the Folio Society:

AL: One of the things that I noticed in this volume was that you used different colors to differentiate art for different characters: Tyrion, Arya and Bran all get Earth-ish tones, Jon gets stark whites / blacks, while Sansa gets a vivid greens and reds. What are you hoping to signal here?

JB: I’m glad you’ve asked! It’s a conscience decision to differentiate between worlds and for example I love the contrast between the sisters of Sansa’s ‘romantic’ view of the world and Arya’s gruesome reality. I think Sansa suits a Pre-Raphaelite romanticism, always believing she will be rescued by a handsome knight no matter how grim her circumstances. Arya in contrast is down in the dirt and drawn much more harshly. [source]

If we look at GRRM's response on his notablog it seems like he whole heartedly approves of Burton's work. Oh, and who is that in the first image below his text (1 of 3 images attached to the post, 1 of 2 illustrations)? Well, I do believe that's our girl Sansa! Certainly in this image by Burton you can see quite clearly the artistic influence taken from the Pre-Raphaelites/Waterhouse:

The delicate face, as well as the visual framing — a redhead tucked away to the left hand corner, in amongst the trees — is very similar to this painting by John William Waterhouse:

(Echo and Narcissus, 1903)

Additionally, the streaming red hair, even the exact shade of it, is also very reminscent of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Lady Lilith (a painting I'll include further down) — Rossetti was a founding member of the PRB.

So the illustrator for the Folio Society editions was inspired by the Pre-Raphaelites...but what does GRRM think of them?

Ice and Fire seems linked to a medieval time. Do you like the art of that period?

Medieval-period art is a little too crude for my tastes. I mean, these days, it looks very stylised. In terms of classic art I respond more to the later period – the Dutch masters and the Flemish masters, and the Pre-Raphaelites.

I went to a show about the Pre-Raphaelites that was going around the US in 2013 and it was amazing – all of that lush, romantic stuff, and a lot of it drawing on Romantic themes, though it wasn't painted in medieval times. You know, knights and ladies and all of that. That stuff’s gorgeous. I like that movement in general.

When we talk about artistic movements of the past, some of them are just scholars looking at people and grouping artists together and saying, 'they were doing a movement'.

But with the Pre-Raphaelites they actually were a movement, they all knew each other, they hung out together and they said, 'we are the Pre-Raphaelites'. [source]

Am I surprised by this? Absolutely not. Oh, you went to a show about the Pre-Raphaelites? Yeah, I bet you did and I bet you bloody loved it. I bet you loved all those redheads too, because as we know...George's wife is a redhead. It really is all about the redheads when it comes to that man, honestly. But I can see why he'd also be very interested in them as a movement as well, since they weren't exclusively painters, they were poets and illustrators and writers as well — e.g. the Rossettis (Dante Gabriel + his sister Christina) and William Morris. Plus, as noted previously, their artistic principles align quite well with what GRRM is interested in his own writing, at least IMO.

So, it's pretty clear that GRRM is a fan of the Pre-Raphaelites (and most definitely John William Waterhouse), and a common type of model for these paintings were...redheads. Indeed, some of the most famous ones, of the original group, were Elizabeth Siddall (an artist in her own right), as well as Euphemia "Effie" Grey. Romantic redheads...it all just screams Sansa, doesn't it? So without further ado, here's some paintings (with accompanying quotes), which I think most evoke Sansa Stark:

(John William Waterhouse, The Soul of the Rose, 1908)

To the other maidens he had given white roses, but the one he plucked for her was red. "Sweet lady," he said, "no victory is half so beautiful as you." Sansa took the flower timidly, struck dumb by his gallantry. His hair was a mass of lazy brown curls, his eyes like liquid gold. She inhaled the sweet fragrance of the rose and sat clutching it long after Ser Loras had ridden off. – AGOT, Sansa II

(Arthur Hughes, The Painted Heart, or Sigh No More, Ladies, or Juliet and her Nurse, 1867–72)

Her maids sluiced the blood off her face, scrubbed the dirt from her back, washed her hair and brushed it out until it sprang back in thick auburn curls. Sansa did not speak to them, except to give them commands; they were Lannister servants, not her own, and she did not trust them. When the time came to dress, she chose the green silk gown that she had worn to the tourney. She recalled how gallant Joff had been to her that night at the feast. Perhaps it would make him remember as well, and treat her more gently. – AGOT, Sansa VI

(John William Waterhouse, Psyche Opening the Door into Cupid's Garden, 1904)

The words were the same on the hundredth reading as they'd been on the first, when Sansa had discovered the folded sheet of parchment beneath her pillow. She did not know how it had gotten there or who had sent it. The note was unsigned, unsealed, and the hand unfamiliar. She crushed the parchment to her chest and whispered the words to herself. "Come to the godswood tonight, if you want to go home," she breathed, ever so faintly. – ACOK, Sansa II

(Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Lady Lilith, 1868)

Men would say she had my look, but she will grow into a woman far more beautiful than I ever was, you can see that. I often sent away her maid so I could brush her hair myself. She had auburn hair, lighter than mine, and so thick and soft...the red in it would catch the light of the torches and shine like copper. – ACOK, Catelyn VII

(Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Annunciation, 1849–50)

But as she crouched there, on her hands and knees, understanding came. "No, please," Sansa whimpered, "please, no." She didn't want this happening to her, not now, not here, not now, not now, not now, not now. – ACOK, Sansa IV

(John William Waterhouse, Mariana in the South, 1897)

When Gretchel fetched her Lysa's silvered looking glass, the color seemed just perfect with Alayne's mass of dark brown hair. Lord Royce will never know me, she thought. Why, I hardly know myself. – AFFC, Alayne I

(John William Waterhouse, Juliet, 1898)

"[...] My daughter is a maiden tall and fair, and her hair is chestnut. Men see what they expect to see, Alayne." – AFFC, Alayne I

(John William Waterhouse, Boreas, 1903)

While Gretchel was tending to the fire, Alayne padded barefoot across the room and slipped outside. The stone was cold beneath her feet, and the wind was blowing fiercely, as it always did up here, but the view made her forget all that for half a heartbeat. Maiden's was the easternmost of the Eyrie's seven slender towers, so she had the Vale before her, its forests and rivers and fields all hazy in the morning light. The way the sun was hitting the mountains made them look like solid gold. – AFFC, Alayne I

I could keep going but apparently there is a 10 image limit...but you get the point! Sansa is a Pre-Raphaelite girl, and I love that for her.

[antipodeanpineapplelump]

Dear Starshot, I recently saw your latest artwork for #Shisui Uchiha and the Lost Treasure of Asura and I am DYING to learn more about this AU. If you're comfortable sharing, is there anything you can disclose about it?? Is this related to the ItaShi Indiana Jones AU you mentioned before?!!?!?!?!!

Hi Birk, thank you so much for dropping by with this ask! Are you really voluntarily asking me to talk about my current obsession and fanfic baby though? Because I warn you, you may live to regret that!!!

"Shisui Uchiha and the Lost Treasure of Asura" is now the official title of my ItaShi Indiana Jones AU. I realise it’s been over a year since I first mentioned it, and it’s still a WIP! Pretty sure that says absolutely nothing good about the speed of my writing, but a lot about how busy my life outside of fandom is. Anyhow, it’s definitely one of those AUs that’s got away on me. I was planning one story initially, but now it’s kind of turned into three (plus a cracky oneshot), and this is just the first.

I’ve planned nine chapters total so far, but the bane of my life is currently number four. It’s sitting at 16,000 words and counting. Succinct writing? I’ve certainly never heard of it… So anyway, I kind of hit a wall there and decided to take a little break to come back with fresh eyes. That’s how I ended up working on the art instead. But I’d say I’m probably about halfway through the first draft (47,000-ish words).

I recently shared the opening scene and my draft cover artwork here. Ummm… what else can I tell you? Madara is the main bad guy, and he’s definitely a few sandwiches short of a picnic. Shisui is an agent of disaster and chaos. Itachi is really… not. So their initial interactions go about as well as you could expect.

All the main characters have extensive back stories. I’m pretty sure you’re already familiar with my Machiavellian worldbuilding tendencies from reading Red Dawn, so it goes without saying I have just as many notes and plans, and as much fleshed out worldbuilding for this story too. And it will take a long time for all of that to be revealed! But the overarching theme is probably found family, which is different to anything I’ve done before.

At this risk of revealing too much, or boring you to tears, I’ll finish with another sneak peek, this time from Itachi’s POV:

When Itachi wakes, there’s nothing to suggest his day is going to be anything but routine.

He gets up at dawn as per usual, eating breakfast at the dining table alone, legs tucked beneath him on a comfortable zabuton. The solitude at this hour of day is something he prefers. It’s the only time the family home is quiet anymore—lacking the cold disapproval of his father’s increasingly judgemental lectures, the anger of his younger brother’s rebellion, or the resigned acquiescence of his mother.

By now, Fugaku should have left for work, and it’s still too early for Sasuke to be awake, given how late he’s been staying out at night. Either to irritate their father, or just avoid him entirely, he’s taken to frequenting the clubs and bars in Osaka. Mostly, he comes home. Some nights, he doesn’t.

More often than not, even when he is home his door is closed, the thumping bass line of some song or another seeping out from beneath it. Likely because he knows this angers their father even more than the leather jackets and spiked punk-rock hair style he now sports.

Part of Itachi has been glad to discover his brother possesses more of a spine than he ever has. But at the same time, Sasuke’s rejection of every last one of their father’s rules has only brought more unwanted scrutiny to Itachi’s far more minor transgressions. It’s as though, having decided his younger child is a lost cause, Fugaku now wants to be absolutely certain his eldest son and heir to the Uchiha family fortune is beyond reproach. To smother him with expectations until he emerges, a diamond from beneath the pressure.

But unbeknownst to Fugaku, Itachi has one flaw he can’t change. And it means that, no matter what, he’ll always be a failure in his father’s eyes.

Sighing, he swallows a mouthful of rice and fish, washing it down with the sweetened barley tea he favours. Pulling this month’s edition of Modern Archaeology across the table, he inspects its glossy cover and promptly chokes on his drink.

The face that smiles up from the page stokes a knot of hot irritation in his gut. Furiously, he skips to the article, skim-reading the text, despite the fact he knows it will only annoy him further.

"An up-and-coming star in the field of archaeology, particularly specialising in South-American cultures, Shisui Uchiha is an increasingly well-known fixture of the San Diego research scene. Curiously for someone so entrenched in the study of history, he is famously reticent when it comes to his own. ‘I did spend my early years in Japan,’ he confirms when pressed. ‘But I haven’t been back in a long time. The United States is my home now.’ Asked about his connection to the famous Uchiha family, he merely winks enigmatically. ‘Never heard of them,’ he says, before asking if we’d like a one-on-one tour of the dig site.

Equally at home in dusty ruins as surfing the palm-lined SoCal beaches, or scaling the cliffs of his native Joshua Tree National Park, he nonetheless shines in group settings too. At the party we attend that evening, to celebrate the opening of a new Aztec exhibit at the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City, he easily charms the crowd, finishing the night with at least half a dozen new admirers. It’s not hard to see why they like him. A conversation with Shisui is exercise in passion and obscure historical knowledge. Even so, much like the dig sites he frequents, it’s hard to say just how much of what he presents to the world runs more than surface-deep.

His motto in life? ‘Fall seven times, stand up eight,’ Shisui says with a charismatic smile. Where did he learn it? Chuckling, he brushes us off. ‘The school of hard knocks.’

Love him or hate him, one thing is certain—we haven’t seen the last of Shisui Uchiha’s brand of archaeology.”

Hate him, Itachi thinks, sipping his tea viciously enough to scald his tongue and immediately regretting it. Definitely hate. Hate how he’s reckless, impulsive, irresponsible, and doesn’t seem to take a single thing seriously. Hate that it looks like he’s never had to work hard for anything a day in his life—people only too happy to hand him whatever he wants on a silver platter, charmed by a pretty smile. Hate the fact that, despite their shared family name, he’s free to do whatever he likes. Hate the way people flock to him, falling into his orbit—and by all accounts, bed—like it’s somehow inevitable. And hate, most of all, that there’s a small part of Itachi which understands why.

Because hate or love him—and it’s definitely hate—there’s no denying that Shisui Uchiha is, objectively, a very attractive man.

Coming back to his senses and realising he’s been leaning over the magazine, frowning so hard his forehead hurts, Itachi straightens, closing his eyes and massaging the knot of tension out from between his eyebrows.

“Itachi—”

The tension sinks in even deeper. He opens his eyes. “Father.”

Fugaku takes in magazine, then his son, and Itachi really hopes his cheeks aren’t as flushed as they feel. It’s stupid, but merely knowing he feels the way he does about the man on the page makes him fear being caught. As though his father might somehow divine his deepest darkest secret, just by looking. Truthfully, Itachi sometimes wonders if he might not already know, or at least suspect. But if he does, it’s clearly a truth he’s chosen not to acknowledge.

“I take it you’re prepared for our meeting this evening?” Fugaku asks, grim as ever.

Attempting a composed sip of his tea, Itachi nods. “Yes. Of course.”

Mouth a hard, unyielding line, Fugaku makes some indiscernible noise of disapproval, sweeping an appraising glance over Itachi. “Well, I suppose it’s too much to hope that anything can be done about your hair between then and now. But they’re a modern family. New money. Perhaps it won’t matter so much.”

Fingers tightening into the flesh of his thigh, Itachi has to remind himself to breathe. “I will do my best to make a good impression,” he says, inclining his head towards his father, penitence for his innumerable shortcomings—not least of all the choice to grow his hair out. It’s a small act of rebellion compared to Sasuke’s effort, but one his father seems determined to curtail as promptly as possible.

Poker face easing ever so slightly, Fugaku’s brows trend downwards, though their slant is still severe. “I know. You are my son, after all. And it is high time you were married with a family of your own. Perhaps then you will see the value in giving up these frivolous academic pursuits, and taking your rightful place at the head of the family business.”

He might as well build a box and stuff Itachi into it. Mold him to fit his own vision of the future. But Itachi has long since learnt that what he wishes he could have from life, and what he can have, are two very different things. So, just like his infrequent clandestine trips to the less desirable areas of Osaka’s nightlife, this too, he realises he will have to sacrifice. Duty before self.

“Yes Father, I’m certain you’re right,” he says, bowing once more as Fugaku leaves for work, closing the front door behind him with a click that reeks of finality.

As his footsteps crunch away on the gravel path outside, Itachi can’t help clenching his fists, until long after his knuckles turn white.

Theoretically, it’s a good match. From a family of good standing, his potential bride is quiet and well spoken—the perfect future housewife and mother. Their marriage would kill two birds with one stone, giving her father the son he never had, and Itachi—and therefore by extension Fugaku—control of their biggest competitor’s business.

All it requires is for Itachi spend the rest of his life pretending to be something he’s not.

The weight of it burns tight in his throat, threatening to break free on a rising tide of bile. He longs to cast off his gilded shackles, take a leaf from Sasuke’s book and do something completely crazy.

With a sigh, he rises from the table, collecting his dishes and depositing them circumspectly into the sink. Another day of work awaits.

[fizzingwizard]

Frantically playing catch up because I’m gone the rest of the weekend so here’s day 6 after all! Blatantly Takari. This one surprised me by how easy it was to write so it got a bit longer than the others. I’m sure there are many typos, please overlook. Also has two quotes, one in the text and one at the end, from my long-time favorite poet, Walt Whitman. BTW, I don’t really get everything that went down with Ordinemon, but I did my best to fit canon.

One month post-Bokura no Mirai, Takeru and Hikari go on a date and Hikari encounters something unexpected, which leads to a very overdue conversation with her brother.

Warning - there’s mention of the death of sick baby. It’s not huge but it matters to the story. I don’t want to shock anyone.

---

Tri week day 6 - Journeys - Death of a Comet

"How are you?" Takeru asked, watching her carefully.

Hikari only smiled and pretended not to notice. "I thought we'd known each other long enough to skip the niceties, Takeru-kun," she quipped. It was a far cry from her old playfulness, she knew, but she also knew he wasn't going to call her out for it it just yet.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Takeru rolled his eyes with an exaggerated, put-upon sigh. "I didn't realize relationship length was proportionate to amount of shits given."

"It is, at least when the last time we talked was an hour ago over text."

"Duly noted."

"Let's go?"

He nodded. He was wearing another hat she'd never seen before, a dark blue beret that looked about to tip off the side of his head with a light breeze. She wondered if he went out and bought a new hat each time before they went out together. Like how a girl shouldn't be caught in the same outfit twice. He probably did. That was Takashi Takeru, vain as fuck. But there was also something kind of adorable about it.

They'd "officially" been dating for a couple weeks, and Hikari wasn't sure yet how she felt about it. Of course, she'd agreed to it when he asked her. What else could she do? They'd been flirting and toying with each other off and on for years, in a childish way, but she couldn't pretend she didn't know full well what she was doing. She'd even sometimes daydreamed about what dating him would be like. Mostly she imagined it would be a lot of sitting in the bleachers at his basketball games.

She didn't consider Takeru the most mature of the boys in their year, but he wasn't as bad as some. Plus, they'd been through a lot together, so she knew what he was made of. And he really liked her. And she liked him. It seemed unavoidable. She'd said yes because she had no good reason for saying no.

It still felt a bit weird when he reached to hold her hand. Two weeks in, and they had yet to kiss. For the most part, it felt like nothing much had changed between them, except that Takeru no longer tried to hide his excitement when she was near. That was... flattering. And she had no qualms with taking it slow either.

They got on the Yurikamome train and stood together by a window, watching the Odaiba waterfront speed by as they traveled over the Rainbow Bridge. The sky was blue and cloudless. It was the kind of weather Tailmon loved, but Hikari had already talked to her about why she sometimes couldn't come along when she and Takeru went on an "outing." Tailmon had blinked lazily and said that was alright, and given her claws a long, purposeful lick. ”But if he ever hurts you, don't you dare hide it from me.”

Hikari promised, but thought the reverse scenario was far more likely.

Takeru had a more difficult time explaining it to Patamon, she'd heard. Supposedly, after Takeru had given his spiel about how growing up meant needing more time to oneself, Patamon had blurted out, "Are you going to kiss Hikari!? You've got to kiss her, Takeru!" loudly enough that some boys at school had overheard, and as a result everyone knew that they were an item before they'd even been out on a single date.

Such was life with Digimon.

"You know where it is, right?" Hikari asked as they got off the train.

"Yeah, I've come here with my mom for other exhibits," Takeru said, leading her out the exit and onto a busy street. "Mom's really into modern art. We've gone to see Kusama Yayoi's sculptures on Naoshima like four times. I'm pretty sure she goes whenever she breaks up with a boyfriend."

Hikari laughed. "Wait, really?"

"Well, she never introduces them to me, but I can tell when she's seeing someone. She touches up her roots more often."

The art exhibit they were going to see was some sort of interactive light show. Hikari had seen pictures online and thought it looked beautiful. Her father was of the opinion that they only ever put the best pictures on the website, and the rest of the exhibit was probably in some big, white-walled room that smelled like someone had microwaved fish for lunch. Her mom had been more enthusiastic, and added that, if the art did turn out to be a dud, it was as good an excuse as any to sneak off somewhere quiet with her Romeo and, you know, romance him.

Hikari was definitely not going to do that.

She'd timed things with care. Taichi had morning soccer practice until ten. After that he'd come home for lunch. The exhibit opened at eleven, but her concerns about there being a line fell on deaf ears, since Takeru claimed he knew this museum and it was never crowded. (Which didn't do much to mitigate her concerns about the exhibit being any good.) So the earliest she could convince him to catch the train was ten fifteen. So if she left right at ten and headed directly to the station, she ought to be able to miss her brother coming home completely.

It felt like fate was laughing in her face when she ran into him on her way out.

Her shock was mirrored on his face as they both stood in the doorway, staring at each other as if unable to understand why their biological sibling would be there, in their childhood home.

Taichi spoke first, if speech it could be called. "Uh," he said.

"Oniichan," she stammered back, "why - how - you got home fast."

"Yeah... Yamato was having band practice and he gave me a ride on the scooter," Taichi replied.

Hikari kept her mouth shut. Had Yamato orchestrated this? Was Takeru in on it? She knew it wasn't likely in either case, but her hackles were raised. "Oh," she said.

They continued to stand in the doorway. This was, Hikari reflected, the longest conversation they'd managed to keep going in almost a month.

"You... going somewhere?" Taichi asked after a while, tilting his head and looking up and down.

"Museum. With Takeru-kun."

"Oh. Well, have fun."

"Thanks."

As if suddenly realizing he was blocking the exit, Taichi stepped to the side, and Hikari barely restrained herself from running down the hall. The damage was done, though. The minute the elevator door closed, the tears started leaking down her face. Dammit. She'd been so careful.

She'd had to stop off at a nearby convenience store to hide in the restroom. She splashed her face and dabbed her eyes with her hand towel until they were less red, until the evidence of the havoc wreaked just by seeing her brother was hidden under a fresh layer of make-up. She never even wore make-up much before - after all, she was fourteen and blessed with good skin. Dating Takeru had been a convenient excuse to explain to her mom why she suddenly needed extra allowance for concealer, despite having no acne.

She wound up ten minutes late meeting Takeru and still, he could tell right away that something was wrong. She'd managed to deflect, but...

Hikari had never been any good at lying, even to herself. But she was surprised by her own cruelty, dating Takeru because she needed the distraction, an excuse to be anywhere but home. His feelings for her were genuine. She was a monster.

"Hikari-chan?" Takeru gave her a nudge that jolted her into the present. There was, indeed, no line to get in at the art show, and Takeru was trying to hand her a ticket. "Are you sure you're feeling okay?"

She nodded resolutely. "Yeah, of course."

"It's just, you're being kind of quiet."

"Well, sorry but I'm not a professional entertainer."

He didn't reply to that barb. Hikari felt even more miserable. If only Yamato's stupid motor scooter had broken down on the road...

They handed in their tickets and went through a pair of double doors, into a wide room lit by myriad streamers of blue and purple lights wafting on the air like strange, hypnotic jellyfish. No pictures were allowed, so Hikari kept her camera stowed, but she couldn't bring herself to regret it. Any pictures she tried to take while in such a stormy mood were bound to end up in the trash bin anyway.

They followed the path laid out through fiber-optic tallgrass in silence. Takeru was still gripping her hand, even though her own hung like a dead fish. The next section was a blacklight room with an even more obvious sci-fi vibe, bright cables painted brilliant colors in the impression of sea snakes creating circuitous archs on the walls and ceiling. The heat-sensor flooring lit under their feet as they walked.

Takeru leaned towards her, the blacklight setting his white T-shirt aglow. "This is like some disco-era alien planet," he joked, offering her the olive branch.

Well, she owed it to him not to let this date be a total disaster. "The room before reminded me of the tree in Avatar," she said.

"I bet the next one's gonna be something from Fifth Element."

"No way."

"Could be."

"Completely different aesthetic."

"It's gonna be that giant McDonald's sign made of stained glass. Wait and see."

It wasn't, of course. Takeru continued to insist they'd see the sign in the next room, and the next, until they reached the end of the exhibit, where he finally admitted defeat. At least room four had clearly been lifted from Finding Nemo, he said.

The final room was, in fact, an open space with white walls, but Hikari didn't notice any stomach-turning smells. A combination of 2- and 3D works of art were mounted around the room, and they took their time browsing, continuing to try to outwit each other with their increasingly outlandish, and even somewhat insulting, art critiques. It was a lovely show, Hikari thought. If she'd come to see it in a better frame of mind, she would be raving just now. But though she'd recovered her ability to match Takeru quip for quip, she still felt heavy with gloom. Geez, why did he want to date a rain cloud like her?

"Want to go for lunch?" Takeru asked as they took in the last piece of art, an abstract mosaic made of vibrant, blinking lights laid into a glass frame on a large tabletop. Hikari circled it slowly, watching lights ripple across the frame, stitching the full picture together bit by bit.

"Sure."

"There's a cafe my mom and I go to nearby. It does amazing pancakes."

"Sounds good," she said vaguely, her brow creasing in thought. She took a step back, gazing at the table from what she'd discovered was meant to be the foot, where you could see the picture in full if you craned your neck just so.

It wasn't abstract art. It was Ordinemon.

Her whole body stiffened.

"The orange marmalade pancakes are my favorite - you listening?" With a confused look, Takeru glanced from her unchanging expression to the table. His eyes went wide. "... Let's leave, Hikari-chan."

He gave her arm a tug. She didn't budge.

"Hikari-chan, there's no need to stay here. Come on."

"Why," she said. It came out in a harsh whisper, like a frozen wind. "Why would someone make art of... that."

Takeru didn't answer for a minute. "Because... they saw it," he said after a while. His grip on her arm tightened, as if expecting her to try to break away. "So they want to express what they saw."

"It's an abomination," she choked out. Humiliating tears welled up in her eyes.

Takeru seemed to hesitate. Then he stepped back, and his arms circled round her shoulders, locking her in a tight hug from behind. The warmth of his body flowed into her ice cold one, solid, real. Her mind flashed to another day, with a roiling sky black as night, when she'd come to in an unfamiliar bed with Takeru at her side and known, with a rush of deadly certainty, that she'd destroyed everything she ever cared about.

Her brother. Her beloved partner. Her friends.

By her own will.

She didn't know what she'd done. Or how. That almost made it worse, the not knowing. Her heart broke, watching her brother disappear in the earthquake. That was all. Her heart broke and she... stopped. And when she started again -

It was too late.

Tailmon had told her she didn't regret the fusion with Meicrackmon, that she'd been able to hold poor Meicoomon together, just a little longer. There was nothing for Hikari to regret, she said. Powers beyond her control. Yggrasil and Homeostasis felt they could wage their little war and pick their champions, and dispose of them when they felt like it. No sooner had she shaken off Homeostasis's hold over her that Ordinemon happened.

Hikari hated that once upon a time, she'd believed Homeostasis was a benevolent presence. That she'd willingly let her into her mind.

Now she didn't know what to believe.

Rage flared, hot as ice. Her whole world, none of it made sense anymore. She was adrift, she was unmoored, there was no safe harbor, not even in the brother who she loved like no one else. He could make a choice like that, to kill Meicoomon, to kill their friend's irreplaceable partner. The one person who deserved the most to be saved. And she'd helped, because that was what you did, on a team, at least, if you couldn't come up with a better plan yourself.

She realized she was shaking. Takeru only held her tighter, his nose buried in the crook of her neck.

"Hikari-chan," he said, and he sounded - terrified. "What if - what if it's not, though. What if it's not an abomination. What if..."

"How can you say that," she hissed frostily.

"I mean - I'm not saying it was good. I'm not saying I don't wish none of this had happened. But - I think - Ordinemon, she was created from despair, yours and Meicoomon's. She was used, and it tortured her. We freed her from that. She would have destroyed everything, even though it's not what she wanted, and she was in so much pain -"

"Stop!" Hikari yelled, pushing away from him. There was enough strength behind her need to get away and he was not expecting it, so he toppled to the floor while she raced out the exit. She kept running, hardly aware of dodging people on the sidewalk, and ran until she found herself in a small park with nothing but a two-seater swing set and metal slide. She sank into one of the swings and dropped her head in her arms. And cried.

Cried for Meiko, for Meicoomon. Cried for the future they would never have.

Cried for her brother, who had changed, and she understood why, but she still missed the way he used to be. Her guiding star.

Cried for herself, a lost comet streaking through an unfamiliar galaxy, wondering if she would vaporize shooting too close to an alien sun, or if she'd putter out slowly until she was nothing but lifeless, crumbling stone.

Her phone buzzed in her purse - Takeru, surely, trying to find her. On top of everything else, she'd ditched the boy she was stringing along, who cared about her, and who had tried so hard to let her know she wasn't alone. She didn't deserve Takeru. She would break up with him - she had to. He should be with someone stronger than her, who wasn't going to fall apart at the seams just from a silly piece of art at a museum gallery.

After a while the sobs let up enough that she could see without tears clouding her vision, and she figured she should at least let him know she was okay. She pulled out her phone and scrolled through her messages.

12:35: Takaishi Takeru: i'm so sorry. i didn't mean to upset you.

12:35: Takaishi Takeru: where did you go? someone said you ran past the 7-11 but I have no idea where you went from there

12:37: Takaishi Takeru: please tell me where you are. If you don't want me to come, I won't. I can call someone if you want.

12:38: Takaishi Takeru: I just want to know you're okay

12:40: Takaishi Takeru: hikari-chan PLEASE respond

12:45: Takaishi Takeru: I asked at the 7-11 but they said they didn't see you. am walking around aimlessly now. no idea where to look.

12:48: Takaishi Takeru: hikari-chan if you don't reply soon I'm gonna have to call Taichi-san

12:52: Takaishi Takeru: wound up back at the train station, if you want to meet me here.

12:55: Takaishi Takeru: if you don't respond in five minutes I'm calling Taichi-san, I mean it.

12:58: Takaishi Takeru: I love you, by the way. think I always have. thought you might want to know

Fresh tears pricked her eyes. Leave it to Takeru. How could he pick now to spring that on her?

She should be happy. She wanted to be happy.

13:02: Me: I'm okay. I'm sorry. Go home. I'll talk to you soon.

Her finger hovered uncertainly over the keypad. She typed:

The real abomination is me.

Then she deleted it, and pressed Send.

---

Little though she wanted to go home, Hikari didn't have an excuse for staying out past dinner. She stayed in the little park until it started to get chilly. A couple times, the occasional grandma stopped to ask if she was alright, but she smiled and waved away their concerns. Finally, when twilight fell over the park in a gossamer curtain, she stood and stretched out the kinks in her back before heading back to the station. It felt like she'd been out much longer than a few hours. She thought briefly of asking a friend if she could spend the night, but didn't like the idea of needing to pretend to be peppy and cheerful.

On the ride back, she did a search on the artist who'd made the Ordinemon mosaic. Why, she had no idea. Some self-hating side that wanted her to hurt, she guessed.

The artist's name was Matsuyama Risa, a Tokyo-based sculptor, whose partnership with Fujii Fiber-optics had given birth to the displays they'd seen today. Hikari let her eyes skim the article, categorically uninterested in the number of lights used or how they were installed. What she wanted to know appeared like magic, tacked on at the very end of the article.

Art of Nippon Now: The last room in the showcase features a magical light-up mosaic of a subject that could be disconcerting for some viewers. What led you to recreate the monster that much of Tokyo watched terrorize the sky last month?

Matsuyama: I put that piece together in a feverish rush. Most of these installations took weeks to install, but I insisted on this one, even though it was such short notice. I had to have it. I heard that many people never saw more of her than her massive wings, but I happened to have a very clear view at the time. It made a huge impression on me.

ANN: You said her?

Matsuyama: It was a she. Or, perhaps it's better to say she might not have a gender,  but she deserves better than the pronouns we use for inanimate objects, things without personality.

ANN: Are you saying this monster was a person?

Matsuyama: I don't know if you heard her cries, but they were deafening. They reminded me of how my son wailed in the night when he was first born. We didn't know why he was so colicky. Nothing we did calmed him. I was so afraid that he wasn't getting enough sleep. It turned out he was very sick and we just didn't know. The illness was hidden. We spent many nights in the ICU, holding out hope that he would be alright. I remember thinking, if he wasn't, it would destroy our marriage.

ANN: That sounds like a terrible experience.

Matsuyama: When our son died, it was terrible, but it also came as a relief. At least we knew he was no longer suffering. I was depressed for months. I couldn't make any art. Every day I expected my husband to leave me. The first day I pulled myself together enough to sketch something, he said I should sketch our son sometime.

ANN: So your husband didn't leave?

Matsuyama: No. He stayed by my side. When I cried that he deserved a woman who could make him happy, who would give him healthy babies, he told me I was the strongest woman he knew, and that I'd given him the best son in the world.

ANN: Wow - would that we all meet men like that.

Matsuyama: And women. That's why, although the creature that appeared over Tokyo was very frightening to look at, when I heard her cries all I heard was suffering. I thought, that is a real creature, who wants her pain to be understood. She represents something. Perhaps she was sent to show us the harm we do when we choose not to act to help others. She shouldn't be forgotten.

ANN: So you memorialized her in this mosaic?

Matsuyama: Yes. It was the right moment, even though I had no time. I wanted to recreate her likeness using lights. I set her into a table, because I felt that putting her on a wall would be too imposing, and viewers would only remember the fear she engendered. Lying down, it would seem as if she were in a coffin, finally laid to rest. But she's lit from within, and it's the light of life, desperately clinging on till the final moment, the same as any being with a soul.

ANN: Did you ever complete the sketch of your late son?

Matsuyama: No. I never did. But I think I will soon. I want to lay him to rest in my heart.

ANN: It's interesting that when you say 'lay to rest,' you seem to mean we should remember them.

Matsuyama: Our memories make us who we are. The past is always with us. My son, that creature, they are both part of my journey, as an artist of course, but also as a person in the world. You could say my son is the light of the world and that creature is the darkness, but I hold both light and dark in me, just by existing and being human.

ANN: You added a quote to the piece that said something of that nature.

Matsuyama: Yes, from a Walt Whitman poem, 'Song of Myself.' The quote reads: "I am not the poet of goodness only, I do not decline to be the poet of wickedness also."

ANN: Maybe Whitman never expected his poem to be used in this way.

Matsuyama: That's the nature of art. It is a journey in and of itself. It fluctuates and changes to nourish the times. I hope everyone who sees my art understands that they are on a journey as well, and everything they do creates the work of art called "the future."

ANN: Thank you for your time, Matsuyama-sensei.

---

Her brother was home, but her parents were not. The arrangement of shoes in the entryway said as much. Taichi was seated at the kitchen counter, eating a bowl of noodles and reading something. He looked up when the door opened and pushed his seat back.

"Hikari - you okay?" He peered at her, concerned. "Takeru didn't do something stupid, did he?"

So Takeru hadn't told her brother that she'd run off. Gratitude flooded through her. "No, of course not."

"Good." Taichi's hand rifled through his hair, the other planted on his hip, and he looked perplexed. "Then why do you look like you've been crying all day?"

Hikari walked inside and sank down on the couch. "Because I have been crying all day."

She could feel his hesitance as he wavered in the hall, trying to decide if he should press her for more. If that was still something he was allowed to do. She knew he would try. He wouldn't be Taichi if he didn't.

"You want to talk about it?" he asked, moving to sit on the arm of the couch, but he didn't relax, as if expecting her to tell him to leave her alone.

"No," she replied.

He nodded. "Okay." There was a pause. "You're sure Takeru didn't -"

"No, Oniichan."

"Okay, okay."

She sat there for a few minutes, staring blankly at the black TV screen. Soon Taichi slid off the arm into the seat beside her, allowing several inches of space between them. He didn't try to talk anymore. Didn't even get up to bring his bowl of noodles over, even though it was going to get cold.

Hikari tilted her head ever so slightly to peer at him. Dark circles ringed his eyes. She knew he hadn't been sleeping well. Something about his face looked more defined, less roundness to his jaw, starker cheekbones. Hadn't been eating much either, she guessed. It gave him an oddly grown up look. She would have to call him on losing weight from not taking care of himself, but that could wait for later. She was struck by how little he looked like their father. Everyone always said Hikari was the spitting image of her mom, so it seemed natural that Taichi should take after their dad, but though she searched she couldn't find many similarities. Taichi was just Taichi.

He gave a start when she leaned toward him and settled her head on his shoulder, but didn't say anything.

Hikari thought about many things.

How unbearable it was to feel helpless. How much she wanted everyone who cared about each other to be together, and for no one to suffer who didn't deserve it.  How deeply she loved her friends. How easy it was fall apart.

Maybe all that meant was her worldview had been too delicate to begin with. A painting on a porcelain vase wouldn't stand the test of time unless handled with the best of care. The real world was too chaotic, too disordered. She could wrap her dream in newspaper, cover it in packing peanuts, tape it into a box marked "Fragile," and it would still end up in shards. She would try to put it together again, but the pieces were sharp, and she kept cutting herself on them.

She still wanted it. So, so much.

"You stay that way. You can hate me if you want," her brother had told her. Trying to put everything on his own shoulders, as usual.

"I will probably never forgive you," she'd said, and wouldn't let him. "But that's why I'll fight with you."

"Oniichan," She slipped off his shoulder, buried her face in his chest. She didn't know how she could still have more tears, but they darkened her brother's shirt as her hands hugged him tight. "I'll always fight with you."

Surprised, he didn't move for a moment, but then his arms wrapped around her the same way they always had, ever since she was small. His grip was sure, but not out of naivety. Yes, he'd lost his innocence. It wasn't coming back. But what grew in his place, she realized, was his choice. And she got the feeling he'd already decided.

"That's good to know," he murmured softly, lashes brushing her cheek, and she thought they might be wet as well. "Because I'm never going to stop fighting for you."

They held each other for a long time.

---

The next day, Hikari showed up at Takeru's door with flowers and a box of chocolates. He made a funny face, looking her over.

"Flowers and chocolates? Shouldn't this be reversed?"

"Didn't know you were such a traditionalist," she joked. "But I'll eat these myself if they hurt your manly pride."

A hesitant grin spread over his face. "To hell with convention. Those are my chocolates, keep your paws off them."

It was silly, and cliche, but this was her life. She could be as silly and cliche as she wanted. She pulled his shoulders down and kissed him. It was light and quick, but he still looked flustered when they parted.

"My mom's home," he said with an unmistakable note of regret.

Hikari only nodded. "Figured. Video games and chocolates?"

The grin unfurled for real. "Yeah, that would be great."

Nothing had ended. She hadn't gotten over anything. But she felt, for the first time, that now she could accept it. It was a piece of who she was, and it would be a piece of who she became. But just who that person would be, she intended to decide for herself. Even if her path got buried under mountains of broken shards of glass, that was just a part of being Yagami Hikari.

"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes)."

[jlf23tumble]

Top 10 Niche Interests

Fixations? Obsessions? This is incredibly hard because I have wayyyy too many niche interests, so instead of stressing about it, I tried to channel the 10 things that immediately speak to me and maybe aren't so obvious from what I post here, like how much I'm obsessed with wigs, doll furniture, incredibly specific blogs, all forms of clothing with pockets, swimming pools, whimsical bus stops, over-the-top bathrooms, etc. etc Instead, I opted for some specifics that feel a little more evergreen and long tailed, like, so LIFE-long tailed that it's tough to nail down when or how they became part of the national psyche. I thank @alienfuckeronmain​ for the initial tag, and I'm tagging her AGAIN for round two because I know she has a billion additional niche things, and she'll post them, and I'll scream because it'll trigger five other things I neglected to post here, and I'll probably post my own round two, arggggh, insert aggressive sighing. Anyway, I tag ANYONE who wants to do it, just tag me so I can see! 

1. Indoor Trees

I have no idea why this concept PULLS so hard because houseplants are kind of meh to me, but you want to plant an entire-ass TREE indoors, in the place where you live? Me, too, and I'd add a conversation pit plus a combo gold/red bathroom, among other things, and, bam, we're in my imaginary dream home, which I have literally, constantly ALWAYS mentally constructed from the time I was about six or so. (If you're curious, it has multiple themed rooms, and the closest I've seen to it recently is the outstanding Dita von Teese AD feature, but Amy Sedaris’s apartment comes close, too). There are two (2) 1960s houses in Long Beach with magnificent indoor trees, but I can't find them online, so have this modern interpretation and cry with me about how I can't visit the multi-story fake tree inside Clifton's Cafeteria for a good long while:

2. Conventions of Fans of Any Kind

One thing that I don't think I'll ever lose is how much I *love* people who are fans of SOMETHING, people who have a passion and create something about it or cosplay it or simply gather to celebrate it and connect to other people through it. The Internet provides in all kinds of ways, but I'm talking specifically about IRL conventions and the way my heart pitter pats when I first walk in those doors, SWOON! And it doesn’t matter how big the convention is or how random, I've been to smaller events like CatCon and the My Little Pony convention all the way up to biggies like WonderCon and Comic Con, and I have yet to be disappointed. I might know jack shit about what I'm walking into, but I want to see the merch, hear about the panels, and check out the people who are fucking PUMPED to be there. Sadly, I think it's gonna be a lonnnnng time until these come back, but I can live vicariously through my old photos, sigh:

3. Dutch Wax Fabrics and African Fashion

I'm not the snazziest of dressers, but textiles, colors, and patterns have been an obsession that has soothed my visual soul for as long as I can literally remember. Wax fabric marries all three of those touchpoints, plus throws in a healthy dose of style, and I count myself lucky to have seen two big exhibits on the subject (this was one of them), oh, how I wish there were more! For sure, there's a fucked up underlying colonial/imperialist history here, but there's also humor and color and vibrancy, a reclamation of sorts, and multiple levels of fashion that take my breath away. I cannot do the different patterns justice at all, but the fan motif is one of my faves:

4. Hearst Castle vs. Madonna inn

These two fall into my #home tag because they're where I'm from, and they speak to me as equally sublime and ridiculous, camp and kitsch writ large and small, different (yet similar!) versions of Xanadu that two rich white men built as shrines to their own personal "taste." And the irony is that a lot of people shit on Alex Madonna for being tacky (the Madonna Inn is...uh, something else), yet praise WR Hearst for all the high-class art and architecture, most of which is fully lifted from desperate churches between and after world and yet they're both more or less the same concept (lodging for weary travelers, self-aggrandizement, questionable taste-mixing). Hearst Castle edges out slightly for me because it's bigger and has spectacular scenery and history, plus it gives me doses of LA noir thanks to the way Hearst killed a guy in a jealous Charlie Chaplin-related rage and Hedda Hopper covered it up, all kinds of old Hollywood shenanigans happened up there, etc. But I'm low-key an expert on both houses of the holy, I'm OBSESSED with both, and we can leave it at that. I mean, come on:

5. Snow Globes

I had to cull my personal collection slightly just to fit it all on the dedicated shelf in my bathroom, and I seriously need to refill all the water lines, but nothing beats a snow globe in terms of memorable souvenir, especially when you put it in a bathroom. The majesty!!! The jewel of my collection is the one from Sherwood Forest because WHY NOT celebrate a historic place and moment in the basic way?? He robbed from the rich to give to the poor, and the gift shop about 100 feet from the tree he hid in does the same! The circle of life! The irony of all the watermarks on this blessed image...protect:

6. Highly Specific Museums

Look, we can all agree that the more venerated museums in the world are a form of garbage in terms of what they represent, what they've done, and who runs them, but I'm here for the museums that collect and celebrate things that tend to get overlooked. There are too many to list that I love that are still thriving, so I'm going to say goodbye to four recently departed faves. RIP to the Pez museum, I'm so glad I saw you and purchased your stale candy souvenirs. RIP to the museum of terrible food, you were a pop up when Phoenix and I saw you, and I will forever think about the worker describing people literally vomiting during their visits. RIP to the currywurst museum in Berlin, I've had currywurst exactly once and it was not for me, but I respect the Journey you took me on, including obscure east German TV shows that helped make you so popular (??). Finally, RIP to the velvet painting museum, there's no way to mince words, the person who owned you was crazy AS FUCK and had zero clue how to run a business, but I'm so glad I saw you multiple times and purchased my own velvet treasure (not this exact one, but remarkably similar):

7. Liminal Spaces: Grocery Store Edition

Confession time for those who don't know me all that well, I'm a big time voyeur, and nothing fills my heart with joy like a walk at 7 or 8 pm, the witching hour when people haven't pulled the curtains, and I can scope out their decorations/furnishings without it being "weird." Another confession is how much I unabashedly adore grocery stores in other countries and will spend at least an hour wandering aisle by aisle, falling in love with how much everything is different yet completely the same:

8. Agatha Christie Novels:

As a child, I was a fairly compliant reader--I had to read something for school? Okay! For my mom? Sounds good! But the books that sparked the initial fire for me to read something purely for myself were second-hand (probably fourth- or fifth-hand, judging by cover art) Agatha Christie short story anthologies, which were the gateway drug to full Agatha Christie novels, then other mystery novels, and so on. But getting back to Agatha, I obviously loved all the stories, but every decade spawned incredibly good cover art (like, exceptionally good), and this particular artist's are right up near the top for me (I go back and forth on a lot of the '50s and '60s ones):

9. Scopitones

I link my obsession with scopitones both to my love of music videos in general and a shop in Austin, TX, that sold DVD compilations of them in particular, but either way, they're underappreciated and kitschy all in one! Francoise Hardy and the rest of the ye-ye's are my forever girls for this medium, but seemingly every country cranked them out, both actual set videos and "live" performances? If you don't know what they are, scopitones were machines that played music videos in French cafes in the '60s (??), so it was sort of your proto-MTV way to see your faves sing and dance. Oh, Francoise...so moderne!!

10. Cover Songs

I have so much patience and love for cover songs of any stripe, the more genre-bending and/or surprising, the better! My only minor beef is the trend in slooooooooowing down songs to make a point, but even those ones have a special place in my heart if they're effective. Live Lounge feeds my hunger the best, but my meta fave for representing this concept is Pulp's Bad Cover Version, which was already lyrically INSPIRED, a song about bad cover versions in terms of relationships, but then they did a video that was a visual "bad" cover version, with actors lip synching over an audio "bad" cover version, and all of it just worked? The cover for the single is someone in the band as a boy, making his own bad cover version of a Bowie album cover, it's meta meta meta, and I love love love, here's the video, if you're curious. In the more sublime cover category, I'm absolutely addicted to all of Orville Peck's covers, I truly hope he officially releases them sometime soon, but I wholeheartedly support any artist who does it:

[crushedbyhyperbole]

Beyond Broken - Chapter Six

Chapter Summary:  Thor's stalking reaches a new high with the help of a certain former Russian spy. He comes to realise that he's hopelessly addicted to the woman named Jess. Thor gives her a name for himself, and they strike an easy rapport. Weeks on, something suddenly changes and Thor is thrown into a dilemma: kiss the girl or do the honourable thing.

Words:  5.6k

A/N:  Here, Donald Blake is Thor's alter ego. (It's a little nod to the comics.)

Warnings:  Angst, emotional hurt & distress, crying, a really mean argument happens, sexual attraction, soft Thor, first kiss, morale dilemma, guilt, bad language... also Thor is a stalker (but he means well).  Really long chapter - sorry.

New Heights

Thor had accepted that the mystery woman had not wanted his company on her walk back through the park but he did not stay on the promenade.  At a distance he followed her, watching her traverse the foot-worn trails through the brush in the sporadic light of the lampposts.

He watched from the shadows as she met with her fiancé, as he kissed her and they embraced.  With the use of his bionic eye he watched them walk further up the street where they seemed to get into a fight.  He couldn’t make out the words but he could see she was angry, and then terribly sad.  Whatever that man had said or done to her was none of his business but it irritated him nonetheless.

When they both disappeared into an underground parking garage, he thought perhaps they lived there in the building above.   Soon after, a small red Toyota emerged onto the street and disappeared along a side street. Perhaps not then.

There were many things about the woman that he didn’t know, and those were mostly things that he had no right to know, like where she lived or worked for example.  Thor liked to know things, he preferred to be prepared.

The parking garage served the offices and businesses above, of which there was a mixture from legal to health and not surprisingly, an art studio.  It also served as a limited space public parking area.

The art studio is promising.  He thought.

 The next day he went to investigate, disguised as a rich entrepreneur.  He carried a suit very well and had seen enough of Stark’s interactions with people to know how things should be done.  So, wearing the petrol blue three-piece he had worn to the first Avengers press conference and ball, and the large silvery time piece gifted to him by Clint two Christmases ago, he availed himself of the studio’s exhibition.

The paintings were mediocre at best.  In all his years on Asgard, visiting all nine realms, and the years he’d spend here on Midgard, he had never seen anything as unsatisfying as what they produced in this era and called modern art.  The sculptures were better, in particular a twisting metal contraption that spun, creating undulating waves using the motion of each segment.  It looked like a jellyfish propelling itself through the deep ocean.  The kinetic sculpture was powered by a motor inside the gallery but the intent for the piece was for it to be wind powered.

It was beautiful, mesmerising even.

“Good morning, sir.” The smartly dressed assistant approached him.  “Can I show you our video catalogue of kinetic sculptures?”

“What’s the artist like?” He asked aloofly, suddenly disinterested in the motion of the sculpture.

“I don’t quite follow.”

“For me it’s more about the artists journey than the final piece.  The kind of person they are, the things they’ve overcome, their process.  Can you show me some biographicals on your artists instead?  I have a specific need to find a connection.”  Thor could feel himself oozing with charismatic over-confidence and pompousness.

“Certainly, sir.”

The young man scurried away but did not return.  Instead an older lady in a designer pants suit, with a commanding presence approached.

“I understand you wanted to meet the artist.”  She smiled smugly.

“You painted all of these works?”  He spread his arms and gestured largely.

“Save a few.”  She nodded, eyeing him like a snack.

“And the sculptures?”

“Some.”  She drank him in from head to toe.  “I mainly work in clay, like this one.”  She stroked her hand lovingly down a large sculpture shaped like a lady’s forearm, the base was like the roots of a tree and a single leaf sprouted from one of the splayed fingers.  “It’s the tree of life.”  She smiled with pride.

The piece was titled Yggdrasil.

You have no idea what Yggdrasil really is.  He thought.

“Poetic.”  He said, nodding with false appreciation.  “What about the metal-work?”

“My partner.  He works large-scale for public display.”  She flicked her hand dismissively.  “These are the smallest of his works.”

“And it’s just the two of you?”  Thor was starting to despair.

“Yes, we’re a business here, not just a labour of love, Mr…?”

“Blake.”  He supplied languidly.

“Mr Blake?”  She mused over the name.  “British aristocracy?”

“Something like that.” He coughed nervously.  “How could you tell?”

“You have a rarefied air about you.  If I did portraits I’d offer you my services.”  She winked, predatory.

“I’m after something in particular, a connection.  Not a portrait.”

“And what is the budget, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“The price is irrelevant, for the right piece.”  He took another look around, trying not to notice her greedy smirk.  “None of your assistants paint?”

“No, neither of them.” She scowled.

“Are you sure?  I had heard there might be a budding artist in hiding up here.”  He winked at her cheekily.

“You’ve met Alasdair, and She’ree has no skill with a brush.  She is wicked with record keeping but isn’t artistic in any way.”

“Sherry?  The brunette?”

“She’ree.  The redhead.”   She was growing impatient.  “It’s obvious that nothing here has caught your eye, Mr Townsend.”

“Yes,” he blinked disappointingly, “it appears this has been nothing but a wild goose chase.  I apologise for wasting your time, madam.”

 What in Odin’s name was he doing?  Stalking a woman he’d seen out walking her dog?  Visiting places in the hopes of seeing her or finding out more about her?

On his way down in the elevator he noticed an older woman staring intensely at him, unashamed.  He looked away but she did not.  Looking at the floor, the walls, the ceiling, the doors, his shoes, his fingernails, everywhere but her, he endured the ride to the ground floor in uncomfortable self-conscious silence.  A nervous smile and a quick exit later he was striding out of the communal lobby and onto the street.

“There you are!”  A familiar voice stopped his heart.  He panicked.  Stopped dead outside the doorway and stepped immediately left, hiding behind the pillar.  He mentally blessed the girth and steadfastness of the stone feature.

“Did you see that guy?!”

“What guy?”

“The guy who just got off the elevator.”

“What guy?”

“The hunk in the swanky blue suit.”

“I didn’t see a guy.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Come on, we’ll miss all the good tables.”

She was coming. Heading his way.  She’d see him and the game would be up.  She’d be upset, creeped out, disgusted even. She’d tell him to stay away from her and he’d do what she asked, of course he would, but it’d hurt.  Ever since he’d met her he’d felt different, less angry, less loathsome.  She’d calmed his inner storm without him fully realising, until now, the extent of the effect she was having on him.

“I swear if I was twenty years younger I’d be getting arrested for rape.”  The older woman laughed.  “He was beautiful, Jess, absolutely stunning.  My Charlie would be getting a divorce if someone like that walked into my life.  Hell, I’d probably never walk right ever again.”

“Jesus woman, I can practically hear you squelching as you walk.  Do you need a napkin?”

Both laughing heartily, the two women exited, and as they did so, Thor shuffled himself around the column, slotting himself between the stone and the full-length glass of the lobby frontage.  The girl at the desk frowned at him.

He smiled nervously and moved away.  The two women turned the corner and he was suddenly safe.  And now he had a name.  Jess.  Why hadn’t he looked closer at the woman in the elevator?  He could remember next to nothing about her except that her hair was short and light, that her eyes were brown and made him uncomfortable, and that she wore dark coloured formal attire.  There were no clues at all.

He racked his brain for information.  He hadn’t even seen his mystery woman, only heard her voice.  There was a chance that he had been mistaken, and it hadn’t even been her.

You know in your heart it was her.  He pepped himself up.  Now remember more!

 It was useless.  The more he plundered the memory the fainter it became until he could barely hear his mystery woman’s voice in his head.

This is wrong.  He berated himself.  She’s taken.  You should just let her go.  There’s nothing for you but heartache and a knee to the groin.  If you’re lucky, just heartache.

He couldn’t argue with the facts but it didn’t change the other fact that he’d become different since he’d met her.  The small amount of interaction he’d had with her had lifted him out of the gutter and back on his feet.  Imagine what getting to know her better could achieve.  He was attracted to her, certainly, but sex wasn’t the ultimate goal.  He decided he’d be happy just to have her in his life.  A friend, someone he could share things with, good and bad.

So stop the creeping.

“Ok, fine!”  He huffed aloud.

  That evening, after he watched Jess meet her fiancé at Neptune’s coffee shop, watched him kiss her and hand the dog off to her before dashing away, Thor realised that he had no willpower, couldn’t be trusted and also he decieved himself all too often. Telling himself he’d stop stalking her had been a bare-faced lie.  Well, almost. Instead, he was stalking the fiancé.

Thor tailed him six blocks to a small hotel by the lighthouse, right near where Thor lived. He knew that the man made it back to meet Jess by ten pm, so what could the fiancé of a beautiful woman like her possibly be doing going to a hotel several nights a week?

Thor disliked the man before, but now he was disgusted.

 Jogging back along the promenade he made it to marker twelve later than usual.  Jess was already there, sitting in his seat.

“Stealing my seat now?”

“You snooze, you lose.” Her smile was mischievous.  “I thought for a moment you’d found a better spot.”

“This is definitely the best spot.”

“You sure you’re not holding out on me?”

“Certainly not.”

“Alright.”  She looked at him with suspicion.  “You keep your secrets.”  She gave him a tiny wink.

Talking to her that evening he could only think of the betrayal that was happening at that very moment in a hotel room a little over a mile away.  Where did she think her fiancé went while she was here walking their dog?

 When she left their communal spot to meet back up with her fiancé again Thor followed.  The man looked crumpled, dishevelled, flustered. How could she not notice that?  It wasn’t Thors place to judge.  Maybe she was so in love that she didn’t see, aand discover her fiancé’s treachery would break her heart.

 The next day Thor used the communicator.

“Romanoff,” he rumbled, “It’s Thor.  Yes, yes, I know you know who I am.  Listen, I need a favour.”

He asked the former spy to get him some information on who had been staying at the hotel by the lighthouse the previous night.

“It’s a personal project.” He said vaguely when she questioned him. “I need to find someone.”

“Any thoughts on when you’re coming back?  Steve is worried about you.”

“Tell him I’m fine. Tell him I said hello.”

“I’ll email you what I find.”

“Great, Thank you.”

 Romanoff was thorough and efficient.  There were only four rooms booked at the hotel that night.  One a couple from Canada.  One a lady who had been staying there since Monday and was due to leave on Sunday – promising.  One a conference suite rented by the hour – also promising.  And one an elderly gentleman there for one night.

There were additional notes and photographs attached.  Romanoff had pulled driver’s licences, addresses and a flurry of other information from the SHIELD and law enforcement databases.  The elderly gentleman apparently lived in Florida but visited New London once a year on the anniversary of his wife’s death.  Not him then.  The woman was staying in the hotel for a week while her house was repaired, after all the recent rainfall, her basement had been flooded and needed significant repair. Ooops.  That just left the conference suite.

It had been rented on an ongoing basis by a Mr Charles S. Duffy.  Charles was an investment banker living right here in New London.  Age 58. Married, with one child [DECEASED].  Vehicle:  Silver Ford Explorer.  The plate number was right there too.

Thor sent a reply requesting more info on Duffy’s activities at the hotel, and received CCTV footage of the man entering the hotel and various cameras tracking his movements into the Seaview Suite - as the name on the door said.  A short while after, a tall man looking very much like Jess’s fiancé entered the suite also.  Both men emerge from the suite within minutes of each other shortly before ten pm.

His communicator played a snippet of a tune with tension and drums.  He’d received a message.

[N.R]  Are you P.I. Thor now?

[T.O.]  It’s personal.  What is P.I?

[N.R]  Forget it.

[T.O]  Please don’t tell Stark.

 In the early evening he went to the gym.  They were used to seeing him there now and happy to let him go about his business without interrupting him to find out if he knew how to use each of the machines. There was always the occasional patron who looked on, impressed, to see how much he was bench pressing.   He pushed himself hard, realising he’d missed this aspect of his life.

 It was warmer today than previous days.  The progression into late spring /early summer was apparent now that his month-long brooding session was drawing to a close.  Soon there would be more people staying out later in the evenings due to the nicer weather and the lighter nights.  He decided he might as well enjoy the beach while he could.

Tucking his shoes into his gym bag he crossed the railings and dropped the few feet down onto the sand. It was cold and damp between his toes, not at all as pleasant as he had hoped.  Using his bag as a seat he sat a few metres up from the dark line that marked the most recent tide line and picked out pebbles to throw at the water. If he timed it just right he could throw the pebbles right at the leading edge of the water as it shifted and began to recede.

 The yap of a small dog startled him.  He’d know that bark anywhere but he refused to turn around, that would be… desperate. Soon the clunk of heels along the promenade drew to a stop nearby.  He continued to throw his stones, unable to prevent the small smirk that forced its way onto his lips.

It felt like he sat there for hours waiting for her to notice him, he’d exhausted all pebbles in the reachable vicinity and would be forced to move very soon.  Just when he was about to admit defeat, her voice carried down to him.

“You tired of sharing your spot with me now?”  She said playfully, leaning on her forearms on the railings, as was her preferred position.

Acting as if he hadn’t noticed her approach he turned, looking surprised.

“Oh, hello!”  He waved and stood.  “Not at all.  I’m a very gracious landlord.”  Approaching the raised wooden walkway he came face-to-face with her ankles.  Looking upward, the line of her nylon-sheathed legs disappeared at the knee under that wonderfully shaped skirt she seemed to prefer. “You may squat here at my marker as often as you like.”  He smiled, squinting a little against the light behind her.  “I mean, you said you were a squatter, I didn’t mean that you should squat.  Unless you’d prefer to come down here.  I mean I can help you, if you’d like?”

Oh shut your infernal mouth for once!  His face burned.

“I’m fine thanks.” She laughed, lowering her head until her smirk was smothered by the backs of her hands.  “I’m not exactly dressed for climbing fences.”

“I’ll come up then.” He slung his bag across his back and pulled himself up and over the railings.  Dusting the sand from his feet he put his shoes back on, regarding her furtively while his head was lowered.

“You come here every day?” She asked.

“In one way or another, yes.”

“Oooh, mysterious.” She poked fun.  “I don’t even know what that means.”

“Well,” he rumbled, swallowing dryly, “I come here to use the gym, or run sometimes.  I do live quite close, just over there in fact.” He pointed to the waterfront apartment building a mile up the shoreline.  “Mostly I come here to be at peace.”

You give me peace.  He thought.

Something in her face changed, softened even, if it could possibly get any more appealing.  There was a sadness in her eyes.  He couldn’t look away.

“You lost someone?” She broke eye contact first, staring down at her hands.

“hmm?”  He was baffled for a split second.  “Oh you mean The Infinity War?  D-Day?  Yes, I lost a great many people that day.”  Did his voice just break then?  “But before that even… I’ve seen some terrible things.”

He was aware that he shouldn’t be going down this road, not with her.  He’d hoped to remain anonymous, to leave Thor -The Avenger behind and become Thor - the man instead.  Or possibly even not Thor at all, just a man.

“Were you in the army?”

“Close enough.”  He nodded.  If he wasn’t careful he would give too much away.  “I prefer not to speak of it.”

“I get it.”  She reassured.  “We’re all hurting, it’s just that some of us hide it better than others. A lot of people died.  It’s harder to find people who didn’t lose someone.”

“Life is the only thing that can be stolen and never given back.”  He muttered.  “And time.”

“Profound.”  She praised.

“I have my moments. There’s a lot going on with me, you know.”  He tried to lighten the mood.  “Part-time public-space landlord, rain chaser, and philosopher.  To mention just a few.”

His humour was verging on cringeworthy.  How had he taken it from harrowing inner turmoil to shameless flirtation in one sentence.

“I’m sure you have many talents.”

Had she just flirted back or was that sarcasm?

“I’m Jessica, by the way.” She proffered her hand.

He took it gently, raising it and bowing as if to press it against his forehead in a gesture of utmost respect.

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”  Charm oozing from him in waves.  “My name is…”

What should I tell her?  Hello, I’m Thor, God of Thunder!  Out of the question.

He spoke slowly, giving himself a chance to think of a name.  He’d never given it any thought before, if he wasn’t Thor then who was he? The woman in the art studio had thought him British aristocracy, so what was a good British name?  A British King perhaps.  Henry.  Richard. George.  William.  Yes, that one!

Her face dropped, slack jawed and horrified she watched his mouth start forming the name.  Seeing the shock bloom across her face was enough to make him reconsider the whole false name thing.

“W-i-l-l-you excuse me.” He turned and fake sneezed into his hands.

“Bless you.”

“My apologies.  My name is Donald, my friends call me Don.”

Your friends call you Point Break but you’re not telling her that.  He thought.

“Don?”

“I’d offer to shake your hand but, well…”  He grimaced, making a show of wiping his hands on the legs of his jeans.

“Yeah, I’m good.”  She chuckled.  “Good to know you, Don.”

“Lady Jessica.”  He swept himself into a flourishing bow drawing a good-humoured eye roll from her.  “The pleasure is mine.”

“My friend’s call me Jess.”

“If I’m permitted?”

“I don’t mind.  Knock yourself out.”

“Very well, Jess.”

 He might have looked bashful for a moment as she looked him up and down.  He’d gotten more than he had hoped for so why was his chest aching and his gut telling him to escape?  She was beautiful, he really couldn’t think that enough.  Her steely-blue eyes were large and expressive, delicately arching brows and rich dark hair framing her perfect face.  The sweep of long lashes had him holding his breath when she blinked long and slow, a slight blush on her cheeks as they spoke.

“Have I got something on my face again?”  Her brows knitted subtly.

Jerking out of his daze, he searched her visage for anything out of place.

“No, you look perfect, as always.”  He’d totally missed that he’d been staring at her the whole time.

She frowned more deeply, tucking a few carefree strands of hair back behind her ear.

“I should go, it’s already after ten.”  She looked away with a look he could only describe as shame.  “Daisy has been so patient with me.”

Thor wanted to say something.  Apologise. Make light of his inability to read a situation.  Tell her how much he enjoyed her company.  Anything to take the shame from her expression.  Ask her to stay - not that it would help.  Instead he went with:

“She’s a good dog.”

 After they parted, Thor mentally kicked himself.  He always had an uncanny knack of making things awkward.  More often than not it was endearing and usually made him quite likeable, especially to women.  But then again they mostly only wanted into his trousers, more so when they discovered he was a god.  Jess was different, she was guarded.  He felt that he hadn’t overstepped any boundaries but this was Midgard and his ways were foreign here.  He would have to be more careful with his compliments so as not to make her uncomfortable.

 The next day she returned. And the next.  Thor found himself falling in with her routines.  Before long they’d been talking five nights a week for several weeks.  Thor started walking with her while she walked the dog, always keeping a proper distance and never making her feel awkward.  He brought a ball for Daisy Duke which became something they did, he kept it in his gym bag always.  He told Jess it was becoming part of his daily workout so he and Daisy would run and chase each other in the grass while Jess watched on, laughing.

Jess started bringing an extra coffee with her for him.  He’d tried the tiramisu hot chocolate, and while he enjoyed the taste he couldn’t excuse the excessive calories but he didn’t tell her that.

“I like my coffee how I like my men.”  He said flatly.  “Long and black, and bitter on the tongue.”

“Lewd!”  She’d laughed long, feigning disgust, tears running down her cheeks.  “That’s something my mind will never unsee.  Thanks for that.”

That had been one of Thor’s favourite days with her.  The day she laughed so hard she cried.  He’d seen tears in her eyes before, shamefully brushed away, emotions denied. Now they made her eyes sparkle like star-steel.  Wet cheeks or not she was stunning.  Her hand momentarily rested on his bicep and he found her almost too close for comfort. He’d been laughing too, but now he was looking at the play of happiness on her lips and sparkle in her eyes. She’d done the same, eyes flicking down to his mouth as her laughter subsided.  His skin prickled with anticipation and it was like he was frozen in place, seeing her within reach but unable to make the moment real.

Something broke in her and she snorted loudly, falling into a second round of laughter.  It took the awkwardness out of the moment.  Perhaps she hadn’t felt it like he had.  He hoped she hadn’t noticed him hungrily drinking in the sight of her, hanging on her every gesture like a breath exhaled on a still and frozen night, where one slight caress could send him spiralling.

 No matter how he felt, Thor was the perfect gentleman.  Always respectful, always chivalrous, always considerate.  He’d been brought up that way.  He never intruded on Jess’s time with her fiancé, remaining out of the way during drop offs and pick ups but making sure she was safe.  In the beginning the fiancé had walked with her in the park before leaving to ‘meet up with friends’ – those were Jess’s words. But now he left her at Neptune’s in order to dash off for a few hours with his lover.  Thor had done enough digging to see what the man was up to but he didn’t understand how could Jess not see?  She was astute and incredibly smart; she reminded him of Jane a little in that respect.

Sometimes people can’t see what they don’t want to see.  He told himself many times.

Her fiancé was having an affair with another man.  Thor didn’t want to be the one to break the news to her but the longer it went on the harder it was for him to stay silent.  The risk that she would blame Thor for telling her and never speak to him again, however, kept him quiet.  He was torn.

 Spring turned to summer and they still met each other in the park.  Thor had been content with simply sharing her time on the nights she was there. Jess hadn’t offered anything else, nor asked.

Conversation was easy and they talked about a great many things, though never anything too personal. He discovered that she worked at a dental surgery nearby (she had pointed up the street where Neptune’s was on the corner), which then triggered a memory of the day he’d gone to the gallery, and the woman in the elevator.  There had been an astringent smell he had barely even noticed but with the new information his memory returned, richer, and now with aroma-vision. Thor had chuckled out of the blue, drawing questions from her.

“I know that building.” He’d replied.  “I visited an art dealer there once, very disappointing show but the woman there offered to capture my likeness.”

“I bet she did.” Jess’s tone was full of inuendo, but Thor’s look of innocence made her laugh all the harder.

 Thor told her he worked in ‘security solutions’ which she accepted.  It hadn’t been far from the truth, in a scaled down, simplistic way. They shared anecdotes, although Thor held back;  there was much of his life and antics that were well documented in the media here on Midgard, and although Jess didn’t seem to pay any attention to that, there was bound to be something that would make his real identity known to her.

She really seemed to enjoy his company and he watched as she blossomed from the closed off, pained and self-diminished creature into a radiant, vibrant and exuberant woman, full of life.  It was basking in this glory that Thor finally saw that life could be good, even after all of his failings and defeat in The Infinity War.  Good could come out of evil, and that he deserved happiness as much as everyone else, in whatever capacity it presented itself.

  Things changed dramatically one Saturday night.  Jess arrived at Neptune’s as usual, straight from work.  Thor watched from a shaded part of the park as she met with her fiancé. Thor would wait for her until she crossed over and pick up her trail, meeting her a little way down the footpath. Her fiancé had stopped getting her the usual hot chocolate with tiramisu a while back so she and Thor took it in turns to buy drinks for each other.  Today it was Thor’s turn and he had 2 cups in hand ready waiting.

There seemed to be an issue, however.  They were arguing, arms wildly gesticulating, voices raised.  The fiancé was pointing at the park aggressively, his face growing more red.  Jess was crying.  She took the dog leash from him looking up at the sky in supplication.  Suddenly she slapped him across the face and scooped up the dog, striding away from him, heedless of oncoming traffic.  The fiancé left without a backward glance.

Thor’s heart almost stopped as she stepped out onto the road.  He scanned up and down but she was clear.  Her pace quickened, feet skipping as she partly jogged through the park’s gateway from the street.  He didn’t want her to know he’d seen so he moved to intercept her at the joining of their two paths.

“Hey, you.”  He said in the calmest tone he could muster, falling into step beside her.  “Good day?” He prompted, hoping she’d open up.

She didn’t even look at him.

“Jess?”

Her face was streaked with tears, and she stared ahead only as if it was the only way to hold her composure.  A few more strides on he decided to take action.  Getting out in front of her, he transferred both cups to one big hand, base stacked on lid, and stopped her with a hand laid gently on her shoulder.

“Hey, hey,” he soothed, “what’s the matter?”

That was all it took for the floodgates to open and she was crying again, shoulders shaking, gasping for breath as she let go of her composure.

Thor put the drinks down beside his feet and stepped forward to pull her into a hug.  It was such a natural gesture, he didn’t even think about the space he promised himself he’d always give her, nor the physical contact he knew he shouldn’t engage in.  She needed him in that moment, and she didn’t shy away.

Jess leant into him, allowing him to wrap her in his arms, and pressed her face into his chest.  She sobbed and sniffled, breathing hot and humid through his t-shirt onto his skin.  They stood like that for a while, with him rubbing her back in the most platonic way he could, and her soaking his chest with her tears.

Daisy started pulling on the leash and it seemed to draw Jess back to the here and now.  She stepped back as Thor’s arms fell away. They felt all wrong with the warmth of her gone and he wasn’t sure what to say, or do.  Without more information about why she was so upset, he could very well say the wrong thing and make everything so much worse.

“Is there anything I can do?”  He spoke softly.

The park had few enough people in it that they were relatively alone, and the quality of the light made it feel like they were secluded in a twilight realm.  He longed to hold her again but to do so would not be proper.

“No.”  She exhaled a heavy, shuddering breath, and wiped her cheeks with the palms of her hands.

When she looked up at him a second later she looked so vulnerable.  His heart ached to see her this way.

Her eyes flicked down to his soaked t-shirt and back up to his face.  Her eyes went wide and gasped a little.

Thor panicked.  She was about to say something about him touching her.

“I’m sorry, I…”  He gestured with his arms.

“I’m not.”

She didn’t miss a beat. Stepping forward quickly, she stood on her tip-toes and pressed her lips to his, freezing him on the spot.

Her lips were soft and a little puffy from crying but they felt divine.  She released the seal of her lips but kept gentle contact, trailing her mouth across his, slowly drawing him into a response, parting his lips with hers until things suddenly clicked.

His response was immediate and thorough.  Catching her waist with one hand and sliding the other into her hair, he cradled her, deepening the kiss.  He delved into her, tasting the salt of her tears and the sweetness of her mouth.  It was everything he’d imagined it would be and he was swept away by the wave of passion that crested and flooded his senses.

Her hands were on his face, in his hair and she was sighing through her nose as their tongues touched and circled in the join between them.  One more little moan from her and he swore to himself that he’d lay her down right there and see what other noises he could coax from her beautiful lips.

This isn’t right.  He thought, mentally kicking himself as he so often did when he thought improper thoughts around her.

 Thor was the first to pull back, breathless and startled.  He felt like he had as a boy getting caught stealing sweet treats from the kitchens.  This thing between them now wasn’t his to have, it was a dream and was destined to remain as such.

“I can’t allow you to do this.”  He beseeched, steadying her with hands on her upper arms, thumbs gently stroking against her blouse.  “Your fiancé might be an unfaithful weasel but you’re better than that.  I could not forgive myself for making an adulterer of you.”

Her furious frown was complete and undeniable.  There was confusion there also, and tears.  Plump beads collecting on her lower lids, making her eyes turn glassy.

Turning on her heel, she fled, tugging the poor dog with her.

“Jessica, wait!”  Thor felt like he’d been punched in the gut by Hulk, breathing was difficult and he ached.

He knew he should not follow, she wanted space or why run?  She’d already cleared the park and it took every ounce of willpower to keep his feet firmly planted where they were because every nerve in his body told him to go to her and his muscles twitched to obey. The fading feeling of her lips on his pulled at something in his chest, making him feel hollow.  What in Odin’s name had he done?

[ill-skillsgard]

Patterns in the Ivy, Part 5 - Bill Skarsgård

Title: Patterns in the Ivy

Description: A continuation of Smoke & Money. Ghosts from the not-so-distant past come back to threaten her. She must choose between a lavish life of servitude or have everything she ever loved stripped away.

Warning: 18+ smut/swearing/mentions of drugs/kink & fetish themes

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12

I stared up into the waters to see golden fish swimming overhead. Creatures with ribbons for fins swam in and out of the orange and pink coral. We walked through a hall of blue and sparkling reflection cast over our faces like a living dream. The sky was the ocean and we stood among it, pointing at all of the angelfish and technicolor anemone. Bill held her hand almost the entire time. I wasn't sure what to be more fascinated by, the enormous aquarium or Ivany and her father. It was more like a dream than any of the breathtaking underwater worlds we wandered through. I was more transfixed on them than I was the sharks darting about. They were in heaven together. Bill lifted Ivany so she could see the floor of the aquariums where the crabs were and to see the interesting facts about all of the fish that were framed on the handrails. I watched as they went from picture to picture— Bill reading each blurb out loud so that she could listen and look for the fish that matched the description. He would congratulate her any time she pointed out the creature in question with an amused smile. Ivany gasped and laughed and shouted, "Mommy look at that one! That one looks so weird." There was an exhibit the kids could go to where they were allowed to see reptiles and amphibians up close so Bill and I hung back while Ivany had her fun getting grossed out by snakes, toads, and newts. "Thank you," Bill said to me and it felt like the first time we had spoken all day. He had been so enraptured with Ivany that his attention was only on her and truthfully, I didn't mind it. "For what?" I said laughingly. Bill pulled me closer to him and let his hand swerve down my spine and over my ass. I was wearing an airy grey dress that ruched at the hips and did a good job of framing my curves. Bill made a point to whisper his admiration about the way the dress looked on my body before we left on our trip. It left me feeling bubbly all day when he squeezed me and bit his lip, giving me that threateningly sexual look that meant he was planning on having his way with me as soon as we had time alone. "Thank you for creating her for me." He nodded towards where our daughter was learning about tree frogs. "Thank yourself," I said to him. "She looks like you, after all. She's more like you every day." "I want to get her name changed as soon as possible," Bill stated, avoiding my eyes in a moment that was rather unlike him. "She needs my last name." Bill was typically assertive and had no qualms with making demands but he had an air of nervousness about him when he said that. I stared up at him until he finally looked back at me. "Of course. We'll get it done." "When should we tell her?" He asked. "Give it a little while longer. You two still hardly know each other. It won't take long before she falls in love with you." "I already love her," he whispered to me. I stared at him and he stared at me, holding me with one arm as we casually stood by in waiting. I thought at that moment, I had never wanted Bill so badly. I thought I could cry right there but I didn't. He was as bright as the Sun to me and without him, I would wilt. Those commanding eyes of green could read me, melt me and make me do things I never thought I would want to do and when they looked at our daughter, I was in love. After the aquarium, Bill took us out to eat at a restaurant at the top of an enormous skyscraper. It was a swanky five-star eatery that had a lot of menu items to appease patrons with sophisticated appetites but nothing for a four-year-old that only wanted fries. I convinced Ivany to get the pumpkin ravioli with crème fraîche after Bill had ordered us two glasses of wine and a raspberry hibiscus juice. "Are you sure they don't have fries in this place? Can't they make them? Why do they have no fries?" Ivany nagged us. "Ivany, I think you should just be grateful to have food to eat." I admonished gently. When the server came back to pour our wine and take our orders I went first and asked for the wild mushroom risotto with okra and toasted walnuts. Bill looked at Ivany who still had a look of disappointment on her face. I almost laughed as I watched him caved for her charm for the first time ever. "Can we get some French fries?" Bill asked. "Um, sir. We don't have French fries here." The server explained. "I realize that but if you could just have the kitchen staff make them, that would be greatly appreciated." I watched in horror as the server fumbled with what to say to Bill. "Sir, we are only able to prepare the items on the menu with certain minor alterations to suit allergies." "Look... I don't care what it costs," Bill said through clenched teeth. "Grab any kind of potato, cut it into pieces and fry them. Any five-star chef can handle that, I'm sure." "Certainly sir, I will do my best." "And I'll have the Ahi tuna. Thank you." He concluded, adjusting the neck of his tie like it was becoming too tight. I watched the server walk away as fast as he could without appearing too desperate to get out of the sniper line that was Bill's glower. I blinked at him in disbelief. "Bill, I hardly think that was necessary," I told him. He rubbed his long hands together smoothly and looked at Ivany who was beaming with excitement. "My princess wants fries. My princess gets fries." I watched her little cheeks glow. I could only imagine what was going through her head as she witnessed the first time her Father used his power to get what he wanted and thought, she doesn't even know the half of it. "Ivy, did you enjoy your time at the aquarium?" I asked her. "Yes, it was so fun. Especially the ugly fish. I liked them because I don't think anyone else does." Bill smiled and looked between us. He was seated in front of us at the table so his eyes wandered back and forth, observing, brightening, squinting when he was in thought. "Ivy?" Bill asked, cocking his head slightly to one side. "It's a nickname," I explained. "That's lovely," he grinned at Ivany. "My sweet Ivy." Our daughter couldn't hide a shy smile. I could tell she was taken with Bill and everything he did and said was working wonders for her favour. It was almost frightening to see how quickly it took for her to start regarding Bill in a fatherly way. Almost as quick as it was for me to fall under his spell again. Alas, there we sat, a picture of a perfect little family, however many flaws there were on the inside. On the outside I imagined we came off as a charming couple with a beautiful daughter with money to burn so we spent our time burning it in restaurants where salads cost thirty dollars each. On the inside, it wasn't quite so. I couldn't help but remember that Bill was holding me hostage with his wallet, the threat of a custody battle and his cock. It hadn't been a week since I had called my boss to tell him I wasn't coming back to work but it felt like ages ago when we sat around the table surrounded by sculptures of foxes and hens, modern art and low-hanging blown glass chandeliers, talking about all the fun we had on our excursion to the aquarium. I had never felt so natural in such an unnatural setting. We were all getting along consummately, Ivany with her sage eyes stuck to Bill, ears piqued for anything he had to say and me with his leg rubbing against mine beneath the table. When our food arrived I held my breath. Bill looked over it all and then settled his eyes on Ivany's plate. The server cleared his throat, "crispy baked heirloom potato wedges with avocado oil and fresh rosemary, for the young lady." "Thank you," I said to the server in place of Bill's silence. Ivany seemed happy with what was in front of her and that was satisfying enough for him. We ate and talked and by the time we were done I had forgotten about the taste of the food because I was enjoying just listening to their voices. There was so much to look at in the restaurant but all of our attentions were on each other. Towards the end of our dinner, Bill excused himself to make a phone call and when he got back to the table he asked if we were ready to leave. "Where are we going now?" Ivany asked Bill as we descended in a glass elevator all the way down to the main floor of the building. "We're going to stay the night in a hotel and you get to have your very own room." He told her. I raised my eyebrows at him in a way only he could interpret. I was completely unaware of all of the plans that he had made and was just following along. Bill had insisted he take us out for a day so I assumed he already had everything set in place. Once his car pulled up, a gun-metal black Cadillac CTS- a car that was rather sporty compared to anything else I had seen him in, he opened the door and allowed us to get in before he did. We reached the hotel but not before Ivany passed out on the drive there. I unbuckled her from her booster seat and carried her in my arms while Bill had our bags taken up. "Istvan Günther," He said at the front desk. I wondered if Bill owned the hotel we were staying in. I had spent some time trying to figure out exactly what it was that Bill did but I couldn't put my finger on it. All I knew was that he had an endless bank account, armed bodyguards and a lot of rich friends. In the week I had spent with him he had only received a couple of phone calls and whenever he did, he left briefly to take them. We hadn't spent enough time together for me to begin putting the pieces in place. We got to the top floor Penthouse and were let inside by an attendant. Flashbacks took me and all I could remember was the first time I walked into Bill's suite at the Mira on the West Coast. Only this time, the room wasn't staunch white with cascading walls of windows and a grand piano. It was redwood and black marble hampered room with huge leather couches surrounding an island fireplace, hand-painted carinate vases bursting with white roses on every table, exploding star chandeliers and windows that you could close with remote control. It wasn't as big or as bright as the Penthouse on the West Coast, but it was charming and not without its comforts. Bill showed us to the room that was meant for Ivany and came in with us. She had been nodding in and out of sleep so I laid her on the bed and went through her bag to find her pajamas. He looked over her sleeping form and smiled before stooping down to kiss her forehead but instead of standing back up he leaned over to me as well and whispered in my ear while his hand snaked down the front of my blouse to squeeze my breast gently. "I'll see you in the master bedroom, yes?" I looked up at with the most innocence I could possibly convey and whispered back, "yes, Daddy." He pulled some air through his teeth, apparently satisfied with my reply. I changed Ivany out of her dress and into her pajamas, pulled back the plushy duvet and laid her on the bed. She looked so tiny among the ocean of blankets, in the middle of a Queen-sized bed with six or seven pillows to use. I kissed her cheek and left the room. Bill had already made his way to the master bedroom and if I were being honest, I felt nervousness as I approached the closed door. With my hand on the crystal knob, I turned it and opened the door to see Bill waiting for me on the edge of the bed. He was smoking a cigarette, maybe his first of the day and his shirt was off. He sat with his legs widely apart, elbows on his knees so his lanky arms hung down in between, the cigarette giving off smoke in his right hand. "Lock the door," he said and I obeyed with a minuscule amount of hesitation. After I did so I watched him drag on his cigarette until it was half gone, then he stood up to put it out in a Merlot crystal cigar ashtray. When he turned back to me he had this look about him that was borderline displeased. It made me tense up until he sat back down on the edge of the bed and smirked at me. "Take off your clothes." I started by unbuttoning my blouse slowly, watching him watch me as I popped each button with enthusiasm. Then I let it fall to the floor and made with unzipping the back of my skirt so it too could fall down my legs into a ring around me. When I was left wearing nothing but my bra and panties, Bill licked his rosebud lips and leaned back on his elbows. "And the bra. Keep those panties on." He said. I felt the cold air begin to prickle my skin after I unhooked my bra all the while he watched intently, eyes sizzling when I exposed myself to him. He had this wordless way of making me feel sexy with but a look and a swipe of his tongue over his bottom lip. He was so handsome and the way his legs just shot out and his arms dangled between them made me long to be under his touch. Even without saying much of anything I knew that I wanted to please him as best as I could. I was a call girl again. I was twenty-one again and I was going to do almost anything this man wanted because he had money and power. It helped him out immensely that he also fit the definition of Swedish Beauty. I didn't allude to it but when those peculiar eyes of his set on me I fucking melted on the inside so hotly I could feel my skin crawl and I thought I might do anything for this man... "My beautiful girl..." He said to me. Standing like a statue, I felt the first rush of blood arise to tint my cheeks, perk my nipples and train my attention on him, his body and his movements. I hung onto his every word. I was a sex toy again. When I looked down at my own naked breasts for a moment I stood back up proudly. Not only did I want the man in front of me more than I had ever wanted anything in my life, but the part that stirred me the most was also that he wanted me back ten times worse. In a way, it felt like I had a power over him that he would not admit to. There was some kind of energy that I wielded that drew this man from one side of the country to the other in the search for it. Some part of me was making him feel exactly how I was feeling for him and it was driving me wild. "Mother of my perfect child." He murmured. My chest rose and fell hard in anticipation of his praises. Simple words, yes, but to me, it was more than just endearment when it came from him. Every second he drank me in legitimized me. "Soon to be my Queen." I was a fucking Goddess again. People paid money to see me on my pedestal, flesh gleaming, blood pumping and getting ready to elicit expertly crafted personalized orgasms. This was fun for me. This was what I got off on. Maybe this was who I would always. "But when we're alone... You're my little cock-slave. Isn't that right?" Mirroring the way he stared, doe-eyed and lustful, I bit my lip and said, "yes, sir." "You would do anything to make me cum, wouldn't you? "Yes, Daddy. Anything." The awakening of a low growl echoed from his throat but he didn't move from his position seated at the edge of the bed. "Get on your knees," He commanded me. I lowered myself slowly to the carpet and sat back on my calves, awaiting my next command. From the lower angle, he looked more daunting and the shift in power was potent. He liked to have all the control. He was good at it. Power was all he knew and it suited him finely. "Now crawl to me," The carpet was soft and freshly steam-cleaned, I could almost feel the residue on my hands as I crawled towards him. He had on these ankle-high leather boots that had a dull shine to them. I approached them and when I could go no further I looked up at him. His tongue left a glistening trail of saliva over his lips. He was salivating already. My proximity to his designer boots made him straighten in the spine. "Open your mouth," He whispered. I extended my jaw and watched him begin to gather all the liquid in his mouth into a pool. Leaning over, he puckered his lips and let a stream of hot drool fall onto my tongue, then he grasped the roots of my hair and moved my head around in a circle so he could see it all sloshing around at the top of my throat. He purred with delight and then lowered my head, encouraging me to let it all drip down my chin onto my chest. He gathered me up closer to the bed and with his fingers around my throat, he instructed me to open my mouth again so he could spit into it only this time it wasn't a long, warm tip of drool, it was a harsh, foamy, cigarette-laced spit that landed more on my face than in my mouth and sprayed over my eyelids. When I looked at him his mouth was hanging open like he was having trouble breathing. He nodded down at his shoes, "spit on them." I mimicked the way he had just administered his saliva to me only I lowered myself to spit on the toe of his boot. When I did so he growled again, pleased and enthusiastic about my submission. "Such a good girl. Come here. Come sit on my lap." He said, pulling me up by my shoulders so I could sit on him. He stroked his thumbs over my nipples, kneading my breasts and staring at me with an intensity that made my skin prickle. He busied his hands with massaging me, sliding down my hips, tugging at the hem of my panties and then moving me to bend over his other knee so he could fondle at the fabric covering me. "Look at these little panties," he said more to himself than to me. I moaned softly when his hand trailed the length of my spine, curving over my cheeks and down the backs of my thighs then back up so he could wedge the material up, exposing the silhouette of my already wet opening. "You haven't been a bad girl at all, but fuck do I still want to spank your ass." He told me. "Oh, Daddy, please don't hurt me. I've been so good for you." "I know, baby, but... You wear these sexy little see-through panties and it makes Daddy hope you're not using them to please other men." "I wore them for you, Daddy. Only you." "You promise?" He asked, thumb running gently up and down my clothed slit. "Yes, Daddy. I promise." "Good girl," He whispered. I sighed when he applied more pressure to my opening, trailing down to tickle my clit through the sheer material. I rose in the air so he had better access to my most sensitive spots but he only touched me as he saw fit, regardless if I was slowly beginning to grind against his thigh or not. "You like it when I rub your pussy, don't you little girl?" "Mhm," I said, voice heightening as he continued stroking me through my panties. He adjusted my position so that I was straddling his thigh and he raked his nails down my back, stopping at the edge of my panties again so he could gather them up and pull on them so I felt it straining taut against my pussy. He used his other hands to grope my ass, squeezing one cheek and then the other, making it bounce and jiggle in his grip. "I want that pussy so wet. I want you to soak right through those little panties. Can you do that for me?" His breath was hot on my ear. He continued his stroking and fondling, giving me little smacks that made my curves wiggle and he purred in my ear as I swiveled my hips on his leg. "Yes baby, grind that pussy on my leg. That's good." It was easy to get turned on with Bill whispering filth into my ear, pulling at my only piece of clothing and spreading me apart while I leaned against him with my spine curved away from my ribcage. When I started to whimper for more of his touch he instructed me to stand up so he could examine the stain I had left on the leg of his light grey fleck weave trousers. When he saw it his eyes rolled with arousal and he pulled at me so I could kneel in front of him again. When I was eye-level with his crotch I noticed he was already hard. "Fuck baby, look at how hard you've made me." He said, voice low and sinister yet I delighted to hear him say it. I let my hands trail up his legs as he worked on undoing his belt and the front of his pants but before he exposed himself to me he leaned over, hand on the back of my neck and asked, "do you want Daddy's cock in your mouth?" I nodded at him and helped him pull his pants and underwear down to his ankles. Upon seeing him fully erect I couldn't help but moan as I licked a hot trail up the underside of his length, pausing at the tip to lap up the drop of pre-cum that threatened to trickle down. "Oh fuck, that's a nice girl." He leaned back on his elbows and let me take the initiative so I circled one hand around his shaft and sunk my mouth down as far as I could go while simultaneously pulling gently on him from the hilt. As I caught a rhythm he groaned and let his head fall back between his shoulder blades so all I could see were his ribs shifting beneath the skin of his torso, the smooth splay of his chest and his beautiful pale throat. The last time I had given someone a full-on blowjob had been before I met Bill for the first time but it all came back to me as soon as I started on him. The muscle memory was still there after nearly five years. Bill was practically laying down on his back when he began forcing himself further down my throat than what was immediately comfortable. When he sat up he grabbed the back of my hair and pushed my head down as he bucked his hips up, choking me off for just a moment. "Fuck baby, you suck a good cock," He growled after pulling my head back up.

 "You sure you haven't been practicing on anyone else?"

"I promise, Daddy. I'm yours." "Mhm, that's right. Mine." He loosened his grip on my strands and instead combed his fingers through them, pushing the hair out of my face so he had a full view of my lips wrapped around his throbbing shaft. It must have been getting too intense for him because he pulled out and tilted my chin up, thumb wedging my mouth open. "Spit on it." His coercion was firm. "Spit on my cock." I placed my puckered lips at the tip of his cock and pushed out all of the transparent wetness I had so it slid down in all directions, effectively coating him.  With one long hand, he held it in place so that my hands were free and I didn't have to chase after it when his length fell up against his stomach. Then he snapped his hips up, forcing himself back into my mouth. "Again. Spit on that fucking cock like you hate it." That time I gave a more dramatic flare when I spit on him, always keeping my eyes on his, letting him watch the dribble come down my tongue and chin. He agonized over the sight of me slobbering on him, raising his eyebrows like he was witnessing something sad or truly pitiful. That expression I had gotten to see a lot of the first night we ever had true, proper sex. He could go from one minute looking like a puppy to the next growling and spitting into my mouth like a snarling wolf. He got lost in the sensation and melted, his lips so flushed and pouty and then suddenly snapped out of it. Bill started thrusting his hips up frantically, slamming his cock down my throat until I started gagging and when I couldn’t take it anymore he pulled my head back and watched me gasp for air. "Oh, my dirty little fuck doll. Get up on the bed. On your hands and knees, this instant." He kicked off his boots and the pants from around his ankles while watching as I crawled up on the bed, looking back to see just what kind of look he had on his face. His eyes darkened, his teeth gnawing his lip harshly. I felt the mattress dip as he climbed onto it behind me and grabbed my panties, ripping them from my body like they were made of tissue paper. "I need that wet little cunt right fucking now," he snarled. Bill and I fucked for hours into the night. That's all I could describe it as. Hot, exhausting, raw fucking that lasted until he decided he was finished. My mascara was running in clumpy trails down my face from how hard he pounded into my throat, my ass flaming red from his spankings, throbbing with welts, my nipples felt almost just as sore from the way he had sucked them and pinched them. He fucked me so hard for so long that it felt like my pussy would never be the same. By the end of it, he coated the inside of my mouth with an enormous amount of cum that I swallowed obediently. It wasn't all harsh, violent fucking either. Bill had made absolutely certain that I came at least half a dozen times. He would be above me, thrusting into me ruthlessly and then suddenly he would pull out and back up so he could glide his tongue up and down my slit and he would whisper, "my pussy. My fucking sweet little pussy. Come for Daddy." I lost track of the hour by the time he had finished in my mouth. When I laid on the bed, sprawled out and utterly spent, I turned my head to see it was nearly 3 in the morning on the clock. I breathed in deeply through my nose and savoured the smell of our bodies, our fluids, and our beautiful little afterglow. Bill looked at me from where he was lying parallel on the bed and gave me one of the most pleasant smiles I had ever seen on his face. He grabbed my hand and beckoned me to sit up with him. "Come," was all he said as he pulled me up, leading me across the clean plush carpet to the bathroom. I stood there naked in the bathroom while he started the shower. My reflection in the mirror showed me how sloppy I looked compared to earlier in the day when I had gotten ready and did my makeup nicely so I would look good for Bill. I was red all over including the whites of my eyes. No doubt I had popped some blood vessels while trying to deep throat my overly enthusiastic lover. Bill got into the shower and let the water run over his face and down his body before looking at me curiously from inside the glass box. "Come here," he said. I entered the shower and shut the door behind me before joining him underneath the spray. He wrapped his arms around me and when I rose my head to look up at him he pressed his lips to mine and I sighed, relaxing in his embrace as he bestowed kiss after loving kiss upon my face. Slowly his hands wandered down my hips and made their way to my groin. When he grazed me with two fingers I gasped from the sensitivity and pulled my hips back. "What's wrong pretty girl? Can't handle another orgasm?" "No," I whimpered. "Oh, but Daddy thinks you can. Come on, let me make you come one more time." He rubbed at me again and the feeling of it was this painful reminiscence of all the orgasms he had exacted from me but it was not without its secret undertone of pleasure. With such an acute susceptibility to his charm and the way he looked down at me while he drew circles around my clit again, I knew that there was no resisting. Not with those green eyes sicked on me. I whimpered and begged for him to stop but it seemed to only encourage him. The more I pulled away the harder he would rub me and the more I would wince and try to sift through the hypersensitivity to dredge up the right amount of enjoyment. When Bill noticed I was having a hard time he slowed his fingers down, coiled an arm around my neck and brought his mouth to my ear. "Come on baby, I know you can do it. Come for me one more time. Come on my fingers one more time and I promise you can rest." Sharp stinging mixed with mind-numbing titillation forced me to the brink of tears. "I can't," I cried. "Yes, you can. Just relax," He whispered. "Daddy needs you to come one more time." With his entire hand flat against my pussy, he somehow managed to make it feel better and with his salacious words and his little purrs of indulgence I was able to will myself to crest the peak of another core-rattling orgasm. "Yes, yes. You're right there baby, yes. Fucking come on Daddy's fingers. Come all over my fucking hand. Are you going to come for me?" I nodded simply because I had no words as he continued his assault on me, rubbing me back and forth until I finally broke and clung to him, crying out into the crook of his neck. He let out a groan when my knees buckled and as soon as he was satisfied he took his hand away and lifted me up so I could wrap my legs around him, my throbbing clit pressing against his skin. Luckily the warm water from the shower decreased the amount of friction and I could finally breathe easily with Bill rocking me in his arms like I was a child who had just fallen and hurt herself. "I loved that," He whispered to me, mouth on my cheek and hands on my ass. "That was fucking amazing." Amidst my exhaustion, Bill washed me, taking extra care not to touch me too hard where it hurt and stroked his hands through my hair to rinse the soap away. Even though it was nearing the morning, he still had this unfathomable alertness whereas I felt completely used up. Once we were done in the shower he wrapped me in one of the big soft Egyptian cotton towels and wiped off the rest of the black residue from around my eyes gently. It hardly ever occurred to me that our daughter was asleep in the next room and we had to wake up when she did which meant we had about five hours to rest if we were lucky. Something told me that Bill would be just fine but I knew that I was going to be sleepy all day. Nevertheless, once I laid down beneath the blankets of our hotel bed with him pressed up against me I sighed, immediately relaxing into the cloud of a mattress beneath my aching body. "Goodnight, my Queen," He said softly, kissing my still wet hair. I said nothing but turned my head to give those inviting lips one more kiss before I closed my eyes and sank into sweet, dark, lavish serenity.

[dreamofcentipedes]

Red Lotus Blooms: 7 - Blood and Water

Summary: A monster is forged in flame. As light burns out, red leaves unfurl. Under the new lights of Tokyo, Tatara's feral existence is disturbed by the appearance of a girl calling herself a god.

Characters: Tatara, Eto, Noro

Rating: Teen Words: 5, 749 Link to AO3

Link to Table of Contents

The Japanese air suited Tatara well. An unfamiliar air to an unfamiliar place, hostile and unwelcoming, where he was unknown and undesired. A bad place to live, a good place to die.

That was Tatara’s life here – an extended death. A quest for death, inspired by death, suffused with death, seen through the eyes of the dead man walking, who had no home to return to and nothing left to defend. He was the agent now rather than the victim. He had encountered the reaper and left with the scythe.

This was the tale the devastated bodies of countless Tokyo ghouls testified. A year and a half had passed since the refugee conned his way aboard an aeroplane and came to the Japanese metropolis, where the futuristic sheen of neon lights and towering concrete was juxtaposed against remnant wooden shrines and their ghosts of gods and nature. It was a modernity forever in the shadow of the ancient, a living past well suited for his zombie-like existence. In those eighteen months he had set about cannibalising every ghoul he could get his hands on. He did not know the rules of territory, and they did not matter to him. The big fish ate the little, and Tatara had yet to encounter any fish bigger.

Nor did the birds pose any threat. Excessive eating habits like those Tatara was exhibiting typically attract the attention of the local doves, but the years he spent in Chi She Lian had taught him the art of stealth. He made sure to leave nothing left of his prey – if he was interrupted, the intruding element would join his meal. When a ghoul syndicate of the size of Lian had floated past the CCG like ships in the night for years, masking the presence of one ghoul using their techniques was child’s play. He still did not understand how the Chinese CCG ever managed to find Yan. They could not find him, though – no-one knew Tatara Huo was in Japan.

His days were spent sleeping in alleyways and his nights prowling the dark. He had none of the comforts he was used to in his old home, but comfort, or home, was not what he was looking for. This was atonement. He would master his kakuja and kill Kousuke Houji. That was all.

It was the kind of lifestyle that made little in the way of allies and much in the way of enemies. It was on one night in a brisk winter, within which even the ascetic Tatara could not abide sleeping outside, that he came across a dilapidated hideout and discovered it was occupied. This was not much of a deterrent as he slaughtered every ghoul inside. They were stronger than he was used to, but it was hardly an even match. After sleeping there for two nights, he heard a knock on his door in the morning.

His white cloak, now stained with dirt and blood and sewer water, dragged along the ground as he moved to the shattered window and peered out with tired eyes. The ancient house was detached in an old industrial area that was mostly abandoned but had become a common haunt for ghouls. He knew what kind of visitors they would be.

A short girl who looked around his age stood out front in a burgundy robe and a green-haired bob cut with some kind of accessory. She was flanked by a tall and sinister figure wearing a similar robe and sporting a black ponytail that stuck straight out of the top of his head. Most notable, however, was his mask. It was pale, with the emblem of a toothy mouth and no discernible eye holes. Tatara felt as though he should be careful of this one. Shortly, he lumbered down the stairs and swung open the door.

“What?” He asked charmlessly. Japanese had been one of the languages Chi She Lian had taught him. The Huo family had been big figures in the Chinese business world, so knowing the language of their closest trading partner, together with English, was necessary to retain their influence in the sphere of human politics.

He could see now that the accessory on the girl’s head was a red lotus flower, not unlike the kind that had floated among the fish in the old pond at Yangshuo. It soured his already grim mood to see a stranger so casually appropriate his memories. He could also pick up their scent at this range. The masked man smelled as ghoulish as he looked, but the girl had a curious scent he could not quite place. Her big eyes beamed with a salesman-like enthusiasm.

“Hello sir, we’re here to talk to you about Our Lord and Saviour -”

Tatara swung the door shut. He made to leave, but he saw the door open again. The girl had caught it just in time.

“Ah…you’re definitely going to hell for that one.” He heard her grumble cheerily.

“I’ll send you to hell if you don’t leave now.” Tatara threatened, looming over the dwarfish woman with a glower. He had always been tall for his age, but he had come to equal Yan’s stature in the past year. Her silent companion matched him for height, however, dampening the threat.

“Mmm, I doubt that.” She retorted with a wink.

Tatara’s patience ran out and his kagune raced out. As soon as his eyes reddened, so did one of hers – just one - and she instantly blocked the blow with a bizarre-looking kagune of her own. It stretched out from her upper back and was swollen and bloated with an array of tiny arms and fully-fingered hands growing out of it. The masked man did not seem to react at all beyond leisurely moving back a few steps to give the girl some room.

After Tatara glared at her some more and she responded with a smug grin of her own, he swung his kagune back to his side and she lowered hers.

“So you are a ghoul. Or some kind of mongrel.”

“How rude, a lady has feelings!”

Tatara narrowed his eyes.

“Okay, okay, Mr Grinch.” The girl complained, and lightly rapped her knuckles against the man standing next to her. “Couldn’t you tell from my buddy here? He sticks out a bit. Kind of like you, with your chin-mask and your period dress.”

“I knew about him.” Tatara snapped. “It’s you who I was unsure of. You stink.”

The girl clutched her imaginary pearls again in affected wide-mouthed shock. She had a major talent for getting on his nerves.

“And I made an effort to look nice and everything. Here, do you like it?”

She tugged on the flower perched on her head. There was no denying that the girl was pretty, but her personality quickly poisoned any appeal she might have. Not that Tatara had any interest in such frivolous matters in the first place.

“Why are you here?” He growled. “To fight? You want the building?”

“Well, that’s one way this could go down.” She mused with a knowing smirk. “We want the building back. You’re squatting in my territory.”

Her territory? So the masked man wasn’t the leader? It was this runt? Tatara could not help but scoff. Well, he was here to eat ghouls anyway. He was hardly going to complain if they presented themselves at his doorstep. No matter how strong they might be, Tokyo had no ghoul organisation anything like Chi She Lian. He was a big fish in a small pond.

“You’re not getting it back.” Tatara asserted menacingly as he poised his kagune above his head in striking position.

“Oh, you can keep it, I just want it back.”

…What on earth was this woman saying?

“This is the other way of going about things.” She touched her nose in confirmation of secret knowledge.

“And what’s that?” Tatara asked warily.

“We talk about our Lord and Saviour.”

Tatara swung the door shut.

“Wait, seriously!”

She caught it again.

“I’m serious. I think we could all do with a bit of God in our lives. Without a God to look up to, we’re lost, confused. We might as well just be stumbling around in the dark.”

The girl was sounding frustratingly earnest now. He preferred it when she was mocking him, instead of saying such ridiculous things to him in all seriousness. He was torn between killing her and just walking away.

“After all, if there’s no God…hmm. What was it Shakespeare said? ‘Humanity must perforce prey on itself like monsters of the deep’.”

Tatara froze. How much did she know…?

“You’ve been eating a lot of ghouls, haven’t you? Those hits, the reason it’s so dangerous for ghouls to go out at night now – it’s you, isn’t it?”

“And what if it is?” His returning whisper was sharp as a dagger.

“Well, some of those people are my people. You’ve been making things veeery difficult for me. But, if I can avoid fighting someone as scary as you, that would be swell. Especially if that rumour is true.”

The rumour that cannibalisation makes ghouls stronger, he assumed. Tatara knew this to be a fact, but it was not common knowledge.

“It is. So go home, and stay out of my way.”

“But here’s the thing,” The girl yammered on, “I think this can all be settled peaceably. I can’t let a ghoul like you keep making trouble for my baby organisation. However, a great threat could also make a great asset.”

Tatara watched her expectantly. She stretched out her hand.

“Be happy, Hannibal Lecter. I’m offering you a job.”

He met her with stony silence.

“You’d get to keep the pad, of course, as company accommodation. Besides, aren’t you tired of living like a wild animal? Aogiri Tree can give you roots. Stability. Purpose.” She looked up at him with a wicked and unstable smile that made her suddenly seem much more dangerous than she had initially appeared.  “Let me be your God.”

The cold wind whistled down the early morning alleyway. Their cloaks fluttered in the breeze.

“I have a God.” Tatara answered icily. The severed head of Kousuke Houji. “Do you want to fight here?”

The girl looked down in disappointment, and then heaved out a sigh with a shrug of her shoulders. “Ah, I really thought you would agree. What a pain. Well, no, we’ll probably kill you in your sleep or something. Until then, think about my offer! The name’s Eto, this guy’s Noro. Don’t call us – we’ll call you.”

She turned and began walking away with the tall man following behind her. Tatara was hardly going to let a threat like that slide by. He shot his kagune silently through the air towards the girl’s back.

In an instant, an eldritch, carmine kagune with a maw of enormous jagged teeth burst out of from the lower back of her companion. It smashed back Tatara’s bikaku and slipped right back into his body. Neither of them missed a step.

What a strange pair, Tatara thought. He did not mean it fondly.

He knew he would have to be all the more on his guard henceforth. But perhaps, if he grew strong enough to defeat that silent spectre, he would be strong enough to defeat Houji, too.

--

It was not long before the Aogiri assaults began.

It started with minor assassins that Tatara made short work of. He was no heavy sleeper, alert from his feral lifestyle and plagued as he was by nightmares of burning buildings. He knew he could be free of his unwanted guests if he just left the old shack. The nights had not gotten any warmer, but if necessary he could always get hold of a place occupied by less persistent ghouls. However, he had no intention of giving that brat the satisfaction of victory, and besides, he was grateful for the free meals and prey he could play with like the catfish in that pond he was feeling nostalgic for. He had kept a collection of heads now that he had somewhere to hide them, mostly just to keep count.

The more time passed, the more assailants came. Clearly this Eto did not like that her drones were not coming back. As the waves kept coming, Tatara began to notice some disturbing features. One set of heads he collected had their mouths completely stitched up. Others, their eyes, groping about entirely by smell. If she was hoping to win the battle of psychological warfare, she had picked the wrong target. Horror was his habitat now, and burnt bodies all looked the same.

He could feel his power growing with every discoloured limb he forced down his throat. On the rare occasions he needed to activate his kakuja, he noticed it had grown taller, wider, stronger. His firepower was now hot enough to rage in blue. It was not enough to simply become like Yan: he must surpass him if he ever hoped to defeat his killer. So he welcomed the nightmare more than ever when it came to his doorstep in full force.

A light snow was falling that night, but the heavy snow from the night before had already swamped the ground in velvety frost. Trudging through the snowfield, the small army knew they could not approach quietly, so they compensated by making themselves horrifically visible. Monstrous masks replaced their faces and their kagune stretched out on full ghastly display. They yelled war chants and beat their chests and stamped their feet with ferocious intensity until they came to a halt outside Tatara’s self-made abode.

He examined them from the window. Something like a hundred ghouls were amassed beyond his walls. Not bad for a fledgling organisation, though he had certainly never heard of Aogiri Tree before. He noted with caution the presence of the masked man, Noro, among them. His kagune was freakish, like nothing Tatara had seen before. Perhaps it would be wisest to take him out first.

As for Eto, he could not see a green head of hair among them. Leaving it to the grunts. How insulting. Or so he thought, when he heard a familiar voice pierce the dark.

“Tatara? Tatara Huo?”

He backed away from his vantage point in shock before hurriedly pressing himself up against the aperture. He could see a small figure wrapped head to toe in bandages, wearing a short burgundy cloak with a colourful neckerchief and a hood with protrusions like rabbit ears. What a grotesque appearance. Was this Eto in full ghoul flare? More importantly, Tatara thought, grinding his teeth, how does she know my name?

“I see you, Tatara, come on down!”

Tatara placed his hands on the windowsill and looked down disdainfully.

“Come in, I insist. I’ll make it nice and warm for you.”

“Somehow that doesn’t sound too inviting.” Eto objected from below. “It still doesn’t have to be this way, Tatara. You can make up for all my people you’ve killed. Join us, and we’ll give you a blank slate.”

“There are no blank slates.” Tatara shot back cynically.

Eto giggled. “No, maybe not. We’re never really free from our pasts, are we? Not until the wrongs are righted.”

A brief silence fell upon them amid the tension and snowfall.

“You know,” Tatara told Eto through hostile eyes, “I’m getting tired of your indirectness.”

“I’m telling you that I can take you to Kousuke Houji.”

A longer silence passed as Tatara gripped the rotten wooden windowsill like a liferaft. He could feel his heartbeat in his ears as blood pulsated through his brain. Houji. She can take me to Houji.

“I told a friend of mine about you, and apparently he knows you. He knew about China and Chi She Lian. He knew about the Huo family and their extermination, and the operation’s shining star: First Class Kousuke Houji. Ah, or that should be Special Class now. He did so well they bumped him up two ranks when he got back home.”

He’s here. In Japan. In Tokyo? If Eto could take him to him, then he could not be too far away. Tatara’s head was flooded with a rush of memories like acid. Fei’s stupid nicknames for him. The pride on Yan’s face when Tatara told him about his first kill. A burning building, an interloping whale, and, out of the corner of his eye, the cold professional face of Death. A solemn admission and an agonised howl.

“I also heard a story about a half-kakuja escaping their grasp. Apparently, they never found the middle child either.” Her bandages crinkled in an impish grin. “So how about it, Tatara Huo? Join us, and he’s yours.”

“No.” Tatara responded immediately.

“…No?” Came Eto’s confused reaction.

“No.” Tatara asserted in a firm voice coloured by the anger surging through him. “Here’s what we’re going to do instead. You’re going to tell me where he is or I’m going to kill every last one of you.”

Eto stood silently as snowflakes settled on her cloak.

“You’re alone against a hundred of my best ghouls. Do you really think you’re in the position to make an ultimatum like that?” Her face, expressionless behind her bandages, rose. A single red kakugan gleamed in the black hollows of her eyes. “Do you know who I am?”

“No. And by the time I’m done with you, no-one will.”

Tatara reached into a storage space and threw something out onto the snow. The ghouls instinctively leapt back, but when they saw it was not explosive they inched closer and turned it over. The head of a would-be assassin graced the midwinter floor elegantly, the blood long too black and congealed to stain.

As soon as they looked back up at him, Tatara left the windowside and retreated inside to prepare. No more negotiation. This would be no Xuhangli, he affirmed to himself: Eto would follow the Longxia into the graveyard of over-reachers.

--

It was a matter of seconds before the first wave of Aogiri ghouls had broken down the door. It was a matter of seconds before their bloody carcasses decorated the desolated apartment.

They had instantly began running up the stairs, knowing that Tatara would not have had the time to descend, only to find strange burning balls tumbling down the stairway. On impact, the long red cloaks of the ghouls were set alight, and they immediately turned around to quench the flames in the moistness of the snow. A turned back made an easy target for Tatara’s kagune, snaking down from the top of the stairs to zip in and out of head after head like a fine scalpel, sparing no time stuck in the flesh but seizing prey after prey after prey.

All the while, in his hands Tatara began to hurl the flaming balls directly at the backs of his victims, knocking them to the ground and catching them in between the fire on their back and the fire on the floor: as the balls from before were still rolling about, spreading fire in their wake. To burn alive caught between two walls of flame while looking at the stitched eyes of your fallen comrade staring up at you sightlessly, the flames melting their face and yours alike…

How’s that for psychological warfare?

The warriors in the first wave who survived the initial onslaught left screaming in a mad panic, deserting into the darkness and ruining the Aogiri formation as other ghouls broke off to stop them. There was a brief pause before Eto sent in a second pack of wolves, but it was a hesitant, demoralised bunch. As they inched into the kitchen just through the entrance, their heads swung round at a flaming object sent hurtling towards the old gas cooker.

Those heads were jerked back at lethal angles in the force of the explosion that resounded throughout the ground floor. It was left blackened and smoking without a single survivor from that second wave. Tatara had sprinted back up the stairs just in time to avoid the blast himself and rolled to the floor to avoid being spotted through the window. Peeking up outside, he could see more desertions ensuing. Suddenly, a kagune smashed down right in front of his face.

He leapt back as a ghoul pulled itself up onto the window frame. Eto must have sent out two waves at once, he realised with irritation, one for the door and one for the windows. Before the ghoul could break its kagune free from the house’s brick exterior, Tatara rammed it outside again with his own kagune. He realised that now, however, Eto would have an accurate read on his location.

Several other ghouls quickly followed, clambering up the windows into multiple different rooms. As soon as Tatara knocked one off he would find another entering through a different window, and while he managed to keep the windows in his immediate range clear, he could not defend windows in separate rooms at the same time: which meant that an increasingly large numbers of ghouls did manage to get into the house, posing a much larger threat and taking much longer to kill. And the longer it took to kill those ghouls, the less time he could spend defending the windows, until he found himself becoming overwhelmed.

The space was too small. It had worked to his advantage before, but this time he needed open space. Charging towards an invading enemy, he kicked her out of the window and jumped.

Cracking out his kagune, he anchored himself to the wall of the house and scampered vertically towards the roof. As he ran he noticed that the assembly of the main force below was completely gone, while clamberers were everywhere. He even had to kick a few off just to make it to the roof. Eto had clearly recognised which strategy was superior. Somewhere, she must be among them.

He climbed up on top of the roof in little time and saw that, for now, thankfully, it was clear. It was flat and tiled, making it ideal as a non-flammable battleground – it would be no good if the roof collapsed beneath him. As clamberers made their way up to him, he activated his kakuja.

It had reached colossal proportions. A scaled silver beast, nigh identical to Yan’s. The old anger coursed through him now, savage, relentless. With a sweep of its gigantic arm, the clamberers fell right back down into the snow; the cushioned fall meant nothing when their bones were shattered instantaneously.

The titan peered over the ledge. The scalers were struck with terror, one so badly he fell off immediately. The others joined him when their lives were scorched out of them by the firestorm erupting from Tatara’s throat. He kept the blast going like a red waterfall, moving along one side of the building, then another, roasting every climber who dared advance. They plummeted to the ground like ashen comets. Tatara had lost track of how many scores of people he had killed now, but he knew there was only one side of the building left.

Before he could turn around, he was knocked severely off balance by an intrusive wormish kagune. His flames puttered out as he skidded along the rooftop, but managed to remain upright. The kagune bit into the tiles and, propelled by its forward motion, a man burst into the sky like a rocket, before landing on the rooftop with perfect form. The eyeless mask stared at him. It was a confrontation Tatara had been waiting for. He was ready to incinerate him on sight, before something emerged from his back. Relinquishing her clutch on Noro’s robe, Eto hopped down to join them.

“If you were going to destroy the house, you might as well have just left.” She complained.

Her words were just meaningless noise to Tatara in his kakuja’s mental state. It lived to kill, not to talk. With a roar like a hurricane, Tatara barrelled forward.

Noro’s kagune with its rows of shark teeth bit at Tatara’s legs, but his armour sustained the blow. Hauling his great weight into the air over the ankle-biter, he slammed his chest into the empty space where Noro and Eto were standing just a second before. They had split in opposite directions, Eto perched on a corner of the roof, enjoying the show, while Noro stood directly behind Tatara, his kagune already poising, rising, striking.

Just in time, Tatara managed to block the great serpent with his appendage. The tension between the two forces continued for some time before Tatara flung off the kagune to the side, but it wasn’t long before it was circling back around towards him. He unleashed a jet of flame that sent the kagune rearing back to its owner with its blind head singed and seeming to scream. Tatara continued to defend himself with the blaze of protective blue fire as he pummelled his pillars into the rooftop to right himself. When he was standing and blew the fire out, Noro was gone.

Immediately the kagune smashed into his back, and Tatara thrust his appendage forward to prevent his weight from being used against him again. The kagune was fast, hitting his back like a machine gun, first here, then there, constantly moving and leaving nothing unscathed. Tatara could feel his armour weakening and his pain rising, but while he was under assault from behind, he could not turn to face his foe, rendering his firepower useless. Each hit made his anger burn more furiously. Eventually, Noro’s teeth cracked through the armour and sunk into the kakuja’s exposed flesh.

It was the opening Tatara needed. Now that Noro’s kagune was firmly attached to him, he hauled his bulk around with all his strength, and dragged Noro with him. As the kagune’s teeth clung onto Tatara’s flesh, Noro was flung upwards into the sky and twisted around by Tatara’s circling movements. The stress of the motion made the kagune finally give way and broke off with a chunk of kakuja flesh, and Noro went flying off the side of the building and plunged into the snow beneath.

Tatara lumbered towards the edge, stinging from the sheet of missing skin. Through the spiderlike eyes beneath his helmet he could see that Noro had landed on a bricky outcrop in the snow from which a small leafless tree stood up limply. Or rather, his head had. Blood stained the bricks as his cranium was twisted at an unnatural angle. This battle was over. He made to turn to Eto and crush her next.

But before he could, he saw a strange spasm out of the corner of his eye, and turned back to the body. There was no way he could be alive. And yet, with sudden recoil like an elastic band, the head spun rapidly back into place. The vacancy of its white plaster face stared up at him, expectantly.

What kind of monster was this?

The body begun bleeding, but not blood. His body was bubbling with a boiling red tar that oozed and squelched around him in a mad cthonic dance. As the crimson mass grew and grew, more and more mouths grew out of it, littering the tendrils racing at Tatara with tongues and teeth. Tatara swung out his appendages to defend himself, but the teeth of the chattering, moaning wall of crimson midnight bit into them and tugged, throwing Tatara off his balance and towards the snow, toward the nightmare abominable.

A rocket of flame lit up the bloodlike darkness and set the creature curving backwards as its many mouths shrieked and gnashed their teeth in hatred of the light. The snow melted beneath Tatara’s feet as he stomped forward and vomited fire, pouring out of his helmet in an incessant stream of incendiary viscosity. The alien entity loathed the heat, and its tentacles surrounded Tatara and assaulted his back relentlessly as its main body desperately retreated further from the flames with each step Tatara took.

The force of the assaults were far worse with Noro in kakuja form, and his many arms flooded into the hole his kagune made earlier, ramming and tearing at the exposed skin of Tatara’s kakuja. Yet Tatara persisted, even while his legs stumbled and his body grew weary, and his earholes ached with the cacophony of screeching sound and pain multiplied in him like a virus. The vaccine of hatred soothed whatever torments hell could unleash upon him. This thing was getting in his way, just like the Whale had back at Xuhangli. Standing between him and Houji. Between vengeance. Between salvation.

He would not forgive that.

As chunks of Tatara’s armour were torn off and shattered on the ground, as blood poured from his wounds and his legs gave way, Tatara dragged himself across the floor, inching closer and closer to the noctal horror until he could grab it by its fleshy, slimy surface and hold it still so its central, largest, mouth, tongue lashing out like mad dog, could face the judgement of fire.

It screamed at a pitch that rent the human ears before disappearing into the supersonic as the moisture was drained, sucked, stolen from the once-slobbering tongue. The flames burned right through the protective wall of teeth, exposing the creature’s innards to the full agony of the scorching of the flames that warped the tongue and shrivelled it to a cinder. Its tendrils writhed around uselessly as its mind was subsumed by torture. Before the judgement could conclude and Tatara rule death on the hellspawn, another interfering voice cut through the silent noise.

“Stop it, Tatara. That’s enough. You win.”

The flames guttered out and the aberration lay dazed, its many visionless heads paused mid-motion, jaws wide or clenched or thrown back. Tatara tore himself out of his ruined kakuja and dropped into the snow, battered, bruised and bloody, but far from broken.

Eto was standing in front of the house not far from them, her small form smaller in defeat. To make sure, Tatara blasted his hulkish kagune towards her. She had no time to react and was quickly caught with a yelp inside its stranglehold, crushing and squeezing her like a boa constrictor. Tatara walked closer as he hoisted her into the air.

“You’re going to take me to Kousuke Houji. Understand?” He informed her in a voice colder than the night now warmed by the inferno.

She eked out a response like “Yes” as she battered at the kagune with her small arms, struggling to breathe.

“I will have full control over you and your organisation until such a time that he lies dead at my feet. Do you understand?”

She hacked out an affirmation like a wheezing cough. He had not been opposed to working with Aogiri, but merely working for them. The last scion of Chi She Lian was not going to follow a petty gang leader around like a lapdog. They might make for convenient puppets, however, so long as he pulled the strings.

Tatara relaxed his grip for a moment so he could get a clear answer out of her for his next question. She gulped down air like an oasis in the desert.

“Where is he?”

Eto was still focused on her heavy breathing. He made his point in a sudden constriction, and she screeched out an answer at the night sky as her back was jolted up again.

“Cochlea! He’s in Cochlea!”

Cochlea, huh…Tatara had heard via eavesdropped conversations from ghouls and doves alike about the maximum security ghoul prison in the 23rd Ward. What, had he become a glorified guard dog? It was about the worst, most difficult to access place he could be. But with Aogiri at Tatara’s disposal, assuming he had not already killed all the ghouls they had enlisted, it might just be possible to squeeze open a breach and find his way inside. Making his way out again was not important. All that mattered was that Houji dies.

He cast his gaze over the smoking husk of the Noro kakuja. Its owner was just now tearing himself free, come back to his senses, with his cloak tattered and singed and looking much worse for wear. If he could defeat a monster like that, win a battle of a hundred to one, and bring the head of a sizeable ghoul organisation to heel within the same half-hour, then he was ready to face Houji. He could feel it in his heated blood. After a year and a half of this bestial existence, he could finally fulfil the promise he made to those ghosts so dear to him.

He pulled the barely breathing mummy closer to him so his glare singed her bandaged face.

“You’re going to break into Cochlea for me. No objections.”

Before her solitary red eye could make any response, he released her from the hold of his kagune the hard way. She was flung into the snow and rolled along its dunes, until she finally came to a halt and shakily began to lift herself up. Noro strode over to help her with a quickened pace.

A second, ethereal sunset fell in the sky as the night was illuminated by the glow of the red and blue flames coating the house which had led to all this chaos. Just as the roof caved in, ten or so survivor ghouls crawled hurriedly out of the ruin to freeze before the triumphant Tatara. They dropped to their knees when they read the situation, as did the eight ghouls who had left earlier to unsuccessfully round up deserters.

The remainder of the ghouls that had come there that night lay out in a litany of charred corpses. Together with the remains of the great black kakuja, they stood out in sharp contrast against the septic whiteness of the snow. They had made quite the spectacle here, and a great deal of noise too. It would be good to leave before the doves caught wind of it.

As the reluctant ghouls led Tatara to the Aogiri base under the menace of his kagune, he looked back on the scene with a pride like elation. Here was one burning building that burned for him. Nothing was taken from him in these flames - only from his enemies.

Cochlea would be next. He was so close now. So close.

[raystart]

From Berlin with Love

Feel free to take your time, but make sure you stamp your ticket or beware the ticket collector’s unsympathetic wrath, representing just one side of the many sided Berlin. Berlin has a special, peculiar, and particular history, and although it’s described by countless guides as the design city of today, it’s always been a design conscious city. In the early 20th Century, it was the first place in Europe to slice ornaments from building facades in a committed embrace of streamlined modernism.

Much has changed across the city’s façade since, but underground on the U-bahn you can clearly observe the blended traces of Berlin’s design history: some stations are Art Nouveau and German Jugenstil in style, others Bauhaus, 70s futurism, or contemporary, pastel-colored minimalism. It’s been nearly 30 years since the fall of the wall and above ground any signs are mostly gone, but the Cold War era’s clash of opposites remains on the U-Bahn: austere Soviet designs adorn former Eastern stations, and elaborate floral motifs carved in stone are preserved in the former Western ones. The only period not present along the platforms is the Nazi era, when stations were used for bomb shelters. Then again, as you pass through the morose platform of Mohrenstraße, you might feel a little chill learning that the red marble encasing the platform is recycled from Hitler’s former Reich Chancellor Building.

Finding your way—way finding—in this design conscious city, with its design conscious subway, is no simple task, but the U-bahn’s network system, organized by the renowned German typographer Erik Spiekermann and his agency MetaDesgin since 1992, attempts to ease your way and get you to where you want to go. It’s a riot of colors, and a brew of squares, circles and pictograms: This noisy system inherits the chaos of 19 different S-Bahn and U-bahn lines. Berlin is not so much a city formed around a central core but a constellation of separate planets each with its own peculiar forms of life, abstractly linked together by the network of subway tracks.

Because it’s Spiekermann that first guides us through Berlin’s underground, our first stop will be Bhf Bülowstrasse, to take a stroll up Potsdamer Strasse to Spiekermann’s p98a gallery and letterpress workshop. The street was once the locus for the edgy ambiguities of 1920s Weimar cabaret culture and Marlene Dietrich androgyny; today, it houses galleries, non-descript office blocks, and one euro bargain stores, as well as a conspicuously slick Acne shop, and the workplaces of local design studios like the modern, sophisticated HelloMe and the riotous, ramshackle illustration duo 44Flavours. World’s apart in style, but neighbors here in Berlin, which loves to mix things up.

Spiekermann’s p98a is the area’s most popular destination for visiting designers, and plenty of agencies book master-classes in letterpress with this master designer. Glimpse through the window, and you might spy Spiekermann himself high fiving and punching the air with his fist: his old school “no-bullshit” attitude makes him the champion of many, and an irritation—the dad rock of design—to others.

A short walk away from this letterpress haven—or at U-Bahn station Nollendorfplatz—is the great Bauhaus Archive, perched above the canal like an impassive white wave rising from the water. Erected in the 70s, the museum’s architecture draws is loosely inspired by an archive conceived by Bauhaus founder and architect Walter Gropius in the 1960s. Inside, a study in patience and precision, hushed art historians and design researchers sit bent over books, and the permanent collection displays iconic relics from Germany’s early modern years: great weaves by textile artist Anni Albers, paintings by Paul Klee, steel armchairs by Marcel Breuer, and other objects of design from the 20s and 30s produced by the famed and influential Bauhaus school.

The Bauhaus Archive. Image by BBB3viz.

Close by, on the other side of the sprawling Tiergarten Park with its dense cluster of pine trees, sits Berlin’s Hansaviertel. If German’s cool modernism emerged from the Bauhaus in the 20s, then this neighborhood was one of modernism’s climaxes: the housing development was built after World War II in a derelict area, constructed as part of the International Building Exhibition of 1957. Along the leafy, quiet streets are batteries of tower blocks, ribbon buildings, two modernist churches, and a glass library, designed by the period’s most significant architects.

After a morning at Spiekermann’s p98a, it makes sense to visit the Hansalviertel not only to see this plastic clad “city of tomorrow” but to seek out the Buchstabenmusum (called the “Alphabet Museum” in English) situated quietly under the tracks of the over-ground station Bellevue. The first museum in the world to preserve and display letters from public spaces and provide information about their origin and construction, the Alphabet Museum was founded 11 years ago by graphic designer Barbara Dechant, who began collecting after she first rescued from a dumpster a car radio sign reading “A U T O R A D I O”. Hundreds of letters destined for scrap heaps have been salvaged and preserved in a dusty storage unit; there’s neon, metal, and wooden characters in a variety of styles and colors— amidst the letters and dirt, you can construct a story of Berlin and sense a few ghosts.

Back on the U-Bahn, following the many symbols devised by Spiekermann, head to the station Kottbusser Tor, in the Kreuzberg district, for lunch. This bucolic, graffitied neighborhood teems with bars, co-working hubs, dentists, falafel shops, gambling houses, fruit markets, ice cream shacks, as well as concept stores like the stylish fashion destination VooStore, and the chaotic zine shop Motto books, but walking along the area’s wide pavements, you can easily ignore how packed together everything is. There is a kind of discreet harmony to it all, as though it was always meant to be this way; Berlin as energy, and disguise.

The Kottbusser Tor transit stop and the market hall. Photos by Ina Niehoff.

From here, head towards Markethalle Neun, a market place or “culinary epicentre” situated under a large, broken roof and crammed with international food vendors advertising their fair on home-made posters and handsomely scribed blackboards. Today’s signs framing another Berlin: Cheese platters & Olives. Veggie Wurst. Craft beer. Kimchi Burgers. Ginger Lemonade. Freshly Baked Ciabatta.

This is a lunch spot for co-workers busying themselves behind the glass windows of storefronts, or trickling out from former factory buildings that have been converted into spacious offices. Spot a group of women who whimsically but provocatively call themselves “Parallel Universe” sat together in the market hall drinking ginger lemonade on a wooden picnic bench: this group of six female illustrators have gathered to swap advice on art directors—who pays on time, who is best to work with—and to collaborate on illustrations for an upcoming Antifa march. Since 2012, Cynthia Kittler, Kiikka Laakso, Kati Szilágyi, Laura Breiling, Ji Hyun Yu, and Barbara Ott have banded together to form this important all-female collective, using their social media platforms to promote and highlight one another’s output. Better together, stronger side by side. Another Berlin in motion, up-to-date, but part of its historic momentum.

Nearby, after sipping organic lemonade and planning with Parallel Universe, the Museum of Things. A small curiosity tucked above an art bookstore on Orienenstrasse, this collection of glass cabinets features simple, everyday but also marvelous things from the past and near present: every blue Nivea jar since the company first began, biscuit tins, plastic at the back of the museum as if it were no big deal at all—an original Frankfurter Kitchen, a milestone in domestic architecture that’s considered the forerunner of the modern fitted kitchen. All of this finds its home in Berlin, where the elsewhere, the other, the uncanny and the new, whether practical or impractical, always belongs.

The Museum of Things will inspire you make your own things, and luckily, there’s a place close by to help you. Towering above a roundabout near the U-Bahn station Moritzplatz sits the great Modular—the ultimate art supply store, artistically stacked with pens, markers, pexiglass, plywood, stationary, pompoms, and anything else that you’ll ever need to make any thing you’ve ever wanted to make, even objects from your dreams. The German designer and illustrator Sarah Illenberger is in Modular today, intently collecting bright colored supplies that she’ll use for her next still-life cover commission for ZEITmagazin. She and her intern pick up yellow paint and blue and pink cardboard, before heading outside to the community garden on the other side of the road, where they cut great leafs from bushes. Illenberger will paint these with geometric patterns and then photograph them against the bright card later today. Yes, signs of another Berlin.

Wherever you’re staying in Berlin—the boutique design hotel 25hours Bikini Berlin near Tierpark, a colorful and energetic hostel near Schlesische Tor U-bahn, or a relatively cheap Airbnb in the Neukölln district with tall windows, wooden floors and a sunny balcony—on your walks to and from the U-Bahn, you’ll notice the posters. Berlin is a city where posters really mean something to a neighbourhood: where people stop in the street to carefully write down the information on prints as if they were hung on a community billboard. Posters communicate what’s happening around the corner, maybe a new club night, an exhibition, or a vegan burger pop-up event. Posters wrap around street lamps layered over all old ones, becoming dense, ghostly rolls that echo event’s and fashion’s long lost—in winter, these rolls get heavy and wet, sliding down towards the pavement like pulp, only to get propped up again by kids on bicycles in the summer, who use glue trays slung over their shoulders and large brooms to slap up each month’s new run of prints. In 1855, the city began erecting rounded advertising columns on the street corners to house the continuous flux of new poster designs. If the U-bahn is Berlin’s design history, then these advertising columns—although built long ago—are home to the design of today. New Berlin constantly appears through its posters.

The Berlin poster is naturally an especially beloved medium for the city’s designers— it’s not simply a mundane advert that people indifferently stroll past but a vital activating communication tool necessary for navigating nightlife, the gallery scene, and local events. It’s why Berlin clubs, generating the city’s dancing heartbeat, invest so much in their creation: the fabled Berghain, which legend claims is the world’s best techno club with its weekly congregation of black clad regulars wearing BDSM studded collars and Adidas caps, plays careful attention to the design of its monthly fliers and listings. Each month’s new posters feature a dark and atmospheric slice of original artwork, articulating and amplifying the club’s mythical night-life pull. A call to action for the great Berlin night, where the city begins and ends.

Visiting Mitte, the central borough in Berlin. Photo by Ina Niehoff.

The walk back to the U-bahn, to start again after one of those nights, you’ll pass an advertising column featuring a particularly neat, eye-catching placard—the poised influence of Swiss design is unmistakable, and its gorgeous serif typography is paired with an elusive background image, hinting at yet another Berlin yet to come. It’s the work of graphic design studio NODE, based in Berlin and Oslo, Norway, an intellectual and meticulous studio whose considered and theoretical output is a hallmark of Berlin’s contemporary art world. On this modern poster, large letters read “HKW,” standing for the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, a conference hall and exhibition space that hosts art, culture, and design events. Depending on what month it is, perhaps the yearly Typo Berlin conference is taking place, or Transmediale, a cerebral technology and art festival. Berlin, where conferences never end.

HKW was constructed as part of the International Building Exhibition of 1957 project and resembles a bright orange oyster rising form the ground. An event titled Miss Read is typical of events held there; a busy art book and self-publishing fair that draws in book lovers from around the country. German publishers and independent magazine makers sit behind their make-shift stalls, showcasing intricately bound tomes, sleek poetry chapbooks, colorful manifestos, risograph comics, monographs with knitted covers, experimental type specimens, and endless other papery surprises. Berlin is made of paper as much as memory, metal, and concrete.

The magazines available at this crowded, popular event are similar to those you can purchase in a store in the Mitte district of the city, close to the Weinmeister U-bahn station, called Do You Read Me?! It’s niche assortment of magazines sit on minimal black shelving. There are magazines here for every mood and every taste: one for redheads, another for dog lovers, another for female soccer players, another that tells the history of a different street each issue, and also more enigmatic, challenging, consistently well-designed choices. Mitte is a tidy district, a place of cafes that serve impressive slabs of classic avocado toast and that’s home to ambitious start ups which dot the streets under the shadow of the TV tower’s vigilant orb. If there is a center to proudly centerless Berlin, then perhaps it’s Mitte, which literally means “center” and is, at least in the prosaic geographical sense, in the middle of the city. The tall office of Freunde von Freunden perches snuggly in one of the area’s clean streets; the ultimate go-to blog for motivated lifestyle dreamers, Freunde von Freunden records the energetic lives of Berlin’s creative scene with breezy, sophisticated photography. Berlin: always aware of itself, without giving too much away.

A swan chillaxing in Berlin. Photo by Ina Niehoff.

It’s while traversing the neat, methodical streets of Mitte (passing by the KW Institute of Contemporary Art, a four-story gallery with beautifully designed exhibition catalogues, and Viktor Leske, an avant-garde hair dressing salon where few leave without an undercut) that you stumble across the neat, methodical studio of international star illustrator Christoph Niemann. He works with his spectacles perched on his nose in his white and silver office behind a storefront’s glass window—a literal spectacle for passers-by; children press their faces up to the glass to watch him sketch. It’s so immaculately clean in his studio, a kind of comment on Berlin’s dirt, and he’s penning away on Post-It notes bought at Modular, devising a plan for his next New Yorker cover. From Berlin with love; design for the rest of the world.

After standing and watching, enthralled by process, by the materializing of yet more Berlin, you might then spot another poster, another message, and be directed somewhere else, somewhere new, the Berlin still being made, still being invented. Or you might dive back down into the U-bhan, taking refuge in the depths of history. Moving on, without rushing, because Berlin time takes its time, to another brunch, to a beer on the canal, to something crazy underground or enterprising on the streets—moving slowly, not quickly, surrounded by designs and designers, form and content, interpreting the language and style of Berlin, a city always becoming itself, where something new always seems to be starting.

[nikitachatfieldstudio]

EXPLORING MATERIALS

MOVING DIVIDER / CURTAIN

Beginning with the main features within the building - curved walls. I’ve been thinking how I can transform a space with transparent walls, to divide but not separate its surroundings. Do I keep them stationed as one hanging sheer curtain that opens and closes, or do I create a cardboard wall the moves in all sorts of directions. This feature is the biggest feature I want to focus on, and the material and textures I choose is going to be well thought out. 

Ive explored into artist with similar ideas, starting with Mimi Jung, on her ‘Sight Unseen’. She creates furniture and objects starting from powder coated steel frame, and using ethereal mohair weavings. This creates such a beautiful contrast in material, and the colors she uses seem to contrast its surroundings too. The soft weaves create comfort, and its shapes create movement.

I found that ethereal mohair is more insulation than wool, although it’s not a necessity in a library, but they have more sheen which makes fabric made from them more attractive. It also wears better than sheep's wool.

This image shows how delicate the fabric is, and it’s buildable, so some areas can be more dense than others. However, because this material is from Angora goats, its quite expensive, and most times the goats are slaughtered for this fibre.

I also looked into paper materials - the construction of a wall that can expand or shrinks. This example is made from artist STEPHANIE FORSYTHE, found on MOLO, a company who makes extremely clever furniture, room dividers, and lights. This sustainable design explores shape, texture, and flexibility within the space, which is an extremely interesting way to divide a space up. However, linking this into the library space wouldn't work for my design needs, and those needs are transparency. This space needs a complete open floor plan to avoid any curious or misleading circumstances in hidden spaces. I could explore this idea with transparent paper but I feel it isn't durable enough for the space. Having to consider children, accessibility, and 10 years of use.

https://www.architonic.com/en/microsite/molo/3101289 

Fabrics

My first idea was to use sheer fabrics for these spaces. Perhaps a linen curtain as some can be netted slightly stiff, but still flowy. But just like the Mohair, its still delicate and may not be durable enough for the space I'm using it in. Of course there is organza, which is light and silky, or even a tule. However, with any kind of fabric I feel it doesn't push the design enough.

Last week I would have gone with a fabric and said job done, today I push myself to go further, and ask myself, how am I applying my design sense into this library, how can I utilize materials in a way that can be durable, lasting, clever, and give me the sense of art. This feature is the main concept so far for this library, so why not make it a piece of art - an art installation.

Some other materials I have thought about are:

Wood

I thought about constructing some areas that wood could divide the space with, thinking about texture, color, and depth. But this would have meant they would most likely be stationed on the ground, disregarding the idea of moving objects and fluidity in the space.

So I though perhaps creating a design that was similar to a beaded curtain could also work. This wood could be parts of recycled material from the local building sights, or fallen sticks from trees. The idea of exploring organic shapes and textures, as well as colours and type of timbers could be a fun and creative way to bring in some local context, even as well as Maori history through the spiritual stories of trees. 

This idea actually reminds me of Hella Jongerius work of the United Nations North Delegates’ Lounge, New York in 2013. And other designers Rem Koolhaas, Irma Boom, Gabriel Lester and Louise Schouwenberg.

This work made with knotted yarn and porcelain beads, creates an extremely fascinating feature for the space, although its not diving the space, it changes the view of the space through its light and shadows. Its large existence also makes it to be a big master piece installation, and truly transforms the room.

Another Artist that comes to mind is Petra Blaisse, who has been awarded for her exhibition and art installation within architecture. So much of her work is beautiful and well designed, but there is one called Maison à Bordeaux. She creates this home space entirely with curtains. She explores a range of material and colour, to make up the atmosphere of each room and space, creating a interesting, yet soft approach to architecture. Her work reminds me of my ‘Moving walls Experience’ project, where I explored the contrast of harsh structure, and soft walls.

Metal

An in between of durability and fluidity. A material that can be weaved, welded, recycled, and made sheer. I feel this material could be a great start to where I'm wanting to go. The exploration of metal being designed and made to divide a space, and a beautiful way to create movement in space.

This is something I've already made my mind up on, I think metal can be viewed in many ways through its colour and shape, and I feel its the best material I could use to make divided spaces for the individual quiet area. I would like to explore this material and use it within my design. It’s durability being the biggest reason, it is strong, hard to break, it isn't a fabric that will wear away or get stained. I could be creative through its design on the metal, perhaps a Maori symbol on it. It is sheer enough to see through, but dense enough to feel like a different space.

Ive also thought about what design this metal can be, I could make a custom made metal curtain, or perhaps use recycled material for this, and up-cycle it.

I did some appalling sick sketches to see what pattern could work to create a moving sheet of metal, then did some rough patten making on illustrator.

Glass

Semi reflective film - colored film

Other materials I have thought about but know now I will not use are:

Paper - Too light, too fragile for a curtain

Netting - Another durable material but not the look I am wanting in the space

Light - Light won't be a good enough diver of space, and this can interfere with reading placements 

Plants - Lovely feature and colour but again not durable for kids and can be ruined

COLOR PALETTE

For the colors within the space, I wanted to keep it fairly neutral and modern, but bring in some soft colors to make it playful, and create a calming, motivated atmosphere.

Textures -

BOOKSHELVES 

For the bookshelves, I want to make custom bookshelves that are still movable like the current ones. My first idea was to fit them into the walls so they were fixed, however, I thought it would be better to design some that can be moved if need be - that way I'm also preserving the building and not making any more permanent changes to the interior. The current bookshelves at the moment are metal, and characterless. To intertwine my stye for the library, I would like to make the bookshelves timber. This timber will be recycled timbers from construction sights in Grey Lynn, as well as from timber companies that have remains of timber planks. This will make the design of the library quite rustic looking, however, the recycled planks will be refurbished to maintain a cleaner, possibly 1920′s style. 

Using recycled timber planks supports my idea of creating a Kaupapa within the library, from the Grey Lynn area itself. Bringing together parts of the area, and timbers located from homes also creates a space that the public can appretiate, and it symbolizes coming together as a community, bringing together the Maori priciples.

The bookshelves measure at 1525mmH by 

FLOORING

Material - Quality, function, sound

For the flooring within the library area, I want to keep a durable carpet that works within the space. This is because of the sound elements within the building. Carpet will stop any echo, loud steps, or any movement within the quiet space. Sound is most important within a library, and it needs to maintain its quiet space for the public to use.

I have thought about colour and quality of the material I want. Because of the color palette I am wanting within the space, which is neutrals, greens, and wooden elements, I don't want to go with an intense pattern design. I find in many libraries, the carpets can be quite tacky with the colors and pattern. Because I want to create a space thats more balanced, ever so slightly modern, I want other elements within the space, like my metal curtain and glass room, to have more focus. So I want to use a textured, durable, and neutral carpet.

I did think about placing a soundproofing underlay and then using a vinyl type material or timber, however I believe using carpet makes the space that ever more comfortable, as it is such a small space. It needs to reflect a comfortable, quiet atmosphere, and because of my layout it supports the intentions of the space.

Using this type of pattern and texture also brings together my design elements of movement, with circular or moving patterns.

The Hall Space

Within the hall space, I am keeping the Rimu flooring, however, I am wanting to lift the polish and refinish them, that way the beautiful Rimu can stay, but look more refreshed and cleaner. I also think the color of the orangy Rimu currently isn't quite the color I want in the space, so lifting and sanding the floors, and staining it a different color will help portray the atmosphere I'm wanting to create.

FURNITURE

Material - touch, sound, durability

For the furniture within the library space, I’ve brought in seats that are rounded, to continue the movement I'm creating within the space. The reason for this is because I don't want to have blocky, harsh furniture, which can make for more of a formal atmosphere. Using rounded, curved furniture will help create the space to be more fluid and softer.

LIGHTING

I was unable to attend most classes from week 8-11, however I did recognize a detail for lighting, and I wanted to do a quick analysis of mood lighting/ custom hanging light fixtures within the space. On top of this of course is windows, and flat ceiling lights

Because my space is all about comfort, and custom areas for the public, lighting is extremely important to create ambience and mood. Just like how color in a space can determine a feeling to a person, lighting can have that same effect. When visiting the library I found the lighting was a perfect amount for reading and working, yet relaxing. Because of the large arched windows in the space, these smaller lighting fixtures would be plenty enough to further create a comfortable, yet modern and professional atmosphere.

[warholiana]

Lovely review of my Warhol bio in the Los Angeles Times, including the following:

"Warhol lived one of the great lives of the 20th century, and he now has a biography worthy of that life. For ‘Warhol,’ Blake Gopnik interviewed hundreds of eyewitnesses and scrutinized every paper trail, down to the artist’s ticket stub for ‘Cats.’ Even at 976 pages, the book rarely leaves you wanting less. It turns out this life, so often discussed in grandiose or mythic terms, is quite intricate, even beautiful, in extreme close-up.”

https://www.latimes.com/…/review-blake-gopnik-andy-warhol-b…

Here’s the review in full:

Review: Was Andy Warhol a saint or scourge, genius or dolt? A new biography befits a great life

By STEPHEN METCALF

APRIL 22, 2020 | 7 AM

 Andy Warhol, circa 1960, had a problem. Thanks to his success as a commercial artist, he had built up an extravagant lifestyle. He owned an angel-blue Upper East Side townhouse and the tastes to match, but he was no longer winning the big contracts.

Imagine a semi-closeted gay man in New York City logging hours for The Man during the day while working quietly, steadily, at night, trying to create the next vanguard of American painting. You’re actually imagining Jasper Johns or Robert Rauschenberg. Warhol wanted to be that person, desperately, but

in his off hours he’d been making negligible drawings.

Art, circa 1960, also had a problem. How do you move painting away from abstraction while also moving it forward? Pop artists — Johns, Lichtenstein, Rosenquist — solved this problem by becoming landscape painters. The American landscape, however, was no longer made up of trees and cows lowing plangently at dusk. It was Dick Tracy, roadside billboards and packaged goods.

With his Campbell’s Soup can paintings, exhibited in Los Angeles in 1962, Warhol was not pioneering anything new. He was merely upping the ante. More than Johns or Lichtenstein, Warhol concealed his own expressive capacity, burying it so deep that any evidence of the sensibility of the artist all but disappeared. You can look at a soup can and wonder at how familiarity, intimacy, warmth, even feelings of love might attach to an inert object, just as you can look at a painting of Marilyn, Liz or Elvis and wonder at how cold, inert, even alien the human form had become. One can say all kinds of things about the work but its power lies, finally, in its horrible silence. And what lies behind that?

Was this man a scourge, capitalism’s most joyous co-conspirator? A satyr, a saint, a sage? Was he a conniving strategist? Or a dim bulb?

Warhol lived one of the great lives of the 20th century, and he now has a biography worthy of that life. For “Warhol,” Blake Gopnik interviewed hundreds of eyewitnesses and scrutinized every paper trail, down to the artist’s ticket stub for “Cats.” Even at 976 pages, the book rarely leaves you wanting less. It turns out this life, so often discussed in grandiose or mythic terms, is quite intricate, even beautiful, in extreme close-up.

There is Julia Warhola, Andy’s mother, crafting peach tins into the shape of flowers and selling them door to door; actor Dennis Hopper, among the first to “get” Warhol, jumping up and down upon seeing his first soup can; Andy himself, older, mellowed, in a Santa beard, ringing the bell for the Salvation Army. (He lasted 45 minutes.) In this textured portrait of an artist of annihilating smoothness, Gopnik has finely rendered many of Warhol’s milieus. Perhaps most endearing is the intricate social geography of gay New York in the 1940s and ’50s.

The Warhol of this period has been romanticized as the quintessential urban loner. In fact, Gopnik makes clear, he was a gregarious, well-liked man, surrounded by a fairly ordinary roster of friends and lovers. He was excluded, however, from the art world, which must have cut him deeply. Warhol graduated from the Carnegie Institute expecting to be a fine as well as a commercial artist, but even after he’d abandoned his homoerotic drawings, the major New York gallerists continued to shun him. Leo Castelli found Warhol the person too weird for his tastes, and worried his comic strip imagery was too close to Lichtenstein, whom he already represented.

So Warhol did the unthinkable. He debuted the soup cans in L.A. The show earned his first round of press coverage. Castelli did eventually sign Warhol, but almost none of his best work showed under the dealer’s auspices. The biggest revelation in “Warhol” is how minor a role the art establishment played in forming his reputation. As late as the early ’80s, Warhol could still bemoan how his prices lagged those of Johns and Rauschenberg, and how MOMA had acquired only one of his paintings. (“The little Marilyn. I hate that.”) So — how did he do it?

The quick and very Warholian answer is that he used the power of celebrity. A slower, more careful one is that Warhol shrewdly pitted the Scene against the Institution. And by 1962, modern art was an Institution. In America this meant MOMA, the Jewish Museum, the Met, Castelli. The Scene, meanwhile, was the Factory. The Factory was not just a space where Warhol made art and freeloaders cavorted. It became one of the super-symbolic youthquake It Places of the 1960s.

The Factory was a porous, chaotic arena for scene-making, drawing in exhibitionists, druggies, socialites, rock stars, movie stars, Ivy Leaguers and, most critically, journalists. By the mid-’60s, Time magazine, et al., were hypnotized by this beguiling apostle of desublimation, the Pan figure holding the keys to a secret kingdom called “the underground.”

As his art was being turned into a succès de scandale by the gullible press, Warhol began cultivating a public image, one that had little to do with the manner and style of “Raggedy Andy,” the whimsical oddball he’d been since his student days. This new Warhol was leather-clad and hard and, in his way, as horribly silent as the canvases. When he wasn’t merely blank, he was a master of the evasive put-on, the non-answer, the deadpan stammer. (Or simple lie.) He was withdrawing from his manner exactly what was missing in his paintings: affect.

Affect lies in the cadence of our speech, the arrangement of our features, the quality of our laughter. The absence in Warhol is startling; it’s what gives everything he did and touched its radical aura. With his new personal style, Warhol was breaking down any distinction between affect and affectation. The sphinx act drove onlookers wild, until they asked of Warhol the same question they’d asked of the Factory: What is going on inside there?

Warhol exiled people when they bored him; he weaponized his lack of affect as beautifully and efficiently in his relations as he had in his art. He became a genius at making the elect feel caught up in a daring enterprise while provoking in others the special torment he himself knew so well — the feeling of being left out.

Warhol was attached to spaces whose fascination lay in their powers of exclusion: the back room of Max’s Kansas City; Studio 54; the Limelight. Maybe it’s just blunt-force human nature, that the more something excludes you, the more you want in. This is Groucho Marx, inverted and intensified, and the formula applies not only to the Factory but to its buttoned-up sequel. When Warhol pivoted, on a dime, away from the madness, and moved his headquarters to Union Square, he dropped the Factory name and instituted a dress code but nonetheless kept a spatial arrangement designed to highlight degrees of insiderism.

The target wasn’t the press anymore but high-paying clients for his new line of business, society portraiture. Warhol was not the first serious artist to care about money, but he was the first to make a shameless love of it central to his vocation. By rendering up his underground cred to the principles of entrepreneurship, he was not only prophesying the future; he was modeling behavior. The new “studio” was a small, nimble, eat-what-you-kill workplace, organized around the highly branded talents of a single visionary individual.

Was the change so shocking? The single consistent thing about Warhol, from 1960 until the day he died, was his utter refusal to conceive of human beings in the usual way — which is to say as interior, subjective, reflective, self-fashioning, suffering and ethical creatures. This refusal often felt like a lark but, from the evidence gathered by Gopnik, his shallowness lay deeper than that; it went all the way down. Into the era of the yuppie, the fundamental Warholian project was kept intact: to maximize creative autonomy while minimizing human subjectivity, until the former can be said to describe anything you do and the latter all but disappears.

 In “Portrait of Andy Warhol,” a painting by Julian Schnabel, Warhol stands against a black-velvet void, naked and exposed but for a pink girdle, which is pulled excruciatingly tight. He looks like an El Greco saint, with hints of a Francis Bacon messiah. The girdle was a medical necessity, thanks to Valerie Solanas’ botched assassination attempt in 1968. In spite of what you made of yourself, I see you as you are, the canvas seems to say, by way of reconnecting Warhol to a tradition of expressivity and suffering — to art history, as it existed before Warhol did his level best to obliterate it.

Warhol won that one, didn’t he? Gopnik promotes a Great Man theory of the case: Warhol was an epochal genius who deserves his place on the “top peak of Parnassus, beside Michelangelo and Rembrandt.” In effect, Gopnik has written two books. The first is an exhaustively researched and definitive account of the life. The second is a series of apologies and excuses for a tax cheat, voyeur-sadist, bad son, skinflint, publicity hound, social climber, shopaholic. Some small-bore skepticism along the way might have helped make the canonical judgment more credible.

We inherit Warhol, circa 2020, not just as an artist but as a climate of feeling — a climate that can easily be confused with reality itself. Paradigms never shift back, precisely, but they do shift again, and fickly. As we come to see Warholism as part of a second Gilded Age, one the pandemic may finally kill off, his reputation will change, and in unexpected ways. Maybe, in the most Warholian gesture of all, the work contains within it the seeds of its own destruction. Rendering Warholism unfashionable, by its own logic, is the same thing as killing it. At that point the artist, once an unrivaled colossus, would fade into an absolute silence, which was, after all, his real medium all along.

Metcalf is the cohost of Slate’s “Culture Gabfest” podcast and is writing a book about the 1980s.

[materializingthedisembodied]

Lessons From 1982

Text by Passport To Dreams Old And New: 

“In our memories, EPCOT Center often seems to be a greater accomplishment than maybe it was. As I hope I've demonstrated here by going through every aspect of it's message content piece by piece, in terms of actively looking towards the future, the park presented ideas which ranged from fantastical (Horizons) to retrograde (Universe of Energy) to incoherent (Travelport?). Despite this, in my opinion EPCOT Center was the highest, furthest, most effective summit the entire category of themed design has ever scaled since the opening of Disneyland. Despite its questionable corporates messaging and nonsensical product plugging, EPCOT Center was no less scattershot than it is today, yet something for those first twelve years held the center together in a way it does not now. And here at last we will try to pinpoint it. I. Embrace Warmth and Human Scale EPCOT Center was massive and monumental. The size of the walk around World Showcase is still enough to make adults cry. The architectural statements of each Future World pavilion were huge and impressive, but never leaned towards brutalism - instead falling into the Henchman abstraction that I like to call "theme architecture". Yet these gigantic blocks were dropped with symmetrical precision into a landscape which perhaps more than anything suggested a bucolic college campus - with ponds, fountains, rolling lawns and spreading trees.

But inside each pavilion, everything suddenly became warm and intimate. CommuniCore offered its visitors handmade art objects like the Population Counter and Fountain of Information, simply there to be enjoyed. Natural daylight, terraced seating areas, varnished wood and wall carpet offered a pleasing sense of tranquility. Subdued lighting and peaceful music complemented the uncluttered, enticing atmosphere. Everything about EPCOT Center's gathering spaces - The Land interior, Communicore, the Fountain of Nations, the Imagination lobby, the World Showcase courtyards - contrasted textures, tactile pleasures, and colors to create environments which invited you to linger. Through the 90s, the scale of these interiors, once criss crossed with walls, plants and natural dividers, ballooned until most of EPCOT today resembles a cross between an industrial trade show and a Wal-Mart Super Center. Tarps, canopies, and unrelated nonsense clutter the sightlines of those monumental pavilions. Carts, pop-up stands, and pin carts dot every walkway. Of all of the parks, Epcot's aesthetics respond the least well to these sorts of theme park mainstays, and they really should be elimiated. You need to give people a reason to get inside and sit down, to get away from the crowded tarmac. EPCOT Center's walkways may have been stark and simple, but once you actually got into each pavilion, you could spend an hour or more in air-conditioned comfort without ever stepping outside. To me this comes down to respecting your audience as well as having respect for the human scale. Disney needs to accept what tens of thousands of locals and fans already know: Epcot is the ultimate hang out park. Each pavilion should be honeycombed with small exhibits, fun diversions, little places to relax and maybe get a drink, in a classy, clean atmosphere. If you give people places they like to be, you'll be surprised what they'll reward you with. II. Maintain the Ecosystem of Aesthetics This is a big one, and it's a place where Future World needs to entirely start from scratch. As these articles have pointed out, EPCOT was a hive of competing ideas, companies, and ideologies, yet it seemed to speak with a single voice. That single voice is so strong that today is still reverberates in the public mind, twenty years long gone. How many still know it as EPCOT Center, and how many still associate it with some kind of learning experience? That's power. That's power than usually only public figures usually attain, never mind a dorky theme park peddling corporate messages and sentimental songs in equal measure. And one reason the voice of EPCOT Center still speaks through time to us is because its message was scrupulously, carefully aesthetically organized and unified. This is something that got stripped out of EPCOT piece by piece in such a way that it was gone without anybody really noticing it was leaving yet. The demise of Horizons and Journey Into Imagination was only the final piece that fell into place, but just as important to reducing the overall impression of a unified whole was touches like replacing the original wooden railings and carpeted walls in The Land with metal railings and painted walls. Yes, the current look of The Land is, on a micro scale, more modern, but it's less human on a macro scale. The paving of Communicore Central and the removal of all of Hench's softening trees, bushes and ponds is another. Bit by bit, piece by piece, Epcot of today is a far bleaker, harsher place than it was even 15 years ago. All of this is a result of different design agendas within the company. EPCOT Center was unified in 1985 because it was all built at the same time. The Epcot of today is the result of hundreds of different design teams with different project leaders, budgets, expectations and goals. While an organic environment like Magic Kingdom or Animal Kingdom presents areas where one design tough or another is unambiguously out of place or not, there's no generally agreed upon single system barometer for what EPCOT should look like. It's really easy to, say, replace one railing in one place and bump that single pavilion out of line with the rest. This is how you end up with signs that look like they come from the cover of Dreamcast games or random wavy descending walls, a sure sign of a lost and bored designer.

Disney needs to write this barometer, then. Every sign in Future World must have specific size, color, and font approved choices. Every pavilion must have a dedicated color palette, approved patterns, approved typefaces, and so on. This is why the Future World pavilion icons worked so well as an organizing principle: pictures require no language translation, and sleek icons are even better. There should be no need for flashing LED billboards to help guests find their way to attractions if there's a streamlined, iconographic wayfinding system.

Writing such a manual will inevitably limit the creative freedom of the individual designers creating facilities for Future World, but I cannot see how this would in any way be worse than the garish mishmash we ended up with. The way forward on Future World can be as simple as a start with a strict design standards document, and spread through the rest of the park. III. Don't Let Them Off the Hook Disney is really good at talking down to their audience, and their audience really loves it. There will always be a contingent of Disney fans who love toothless pablum like Wishes, but in Future World and EPCOT in general are going to ever coalesce into what it is in the minds of the public, Disney really needs to commit to taking Epcot, and the Epcot audience, seriously. Taking an audience seriously does not per se mean being humorless or dry. The 1982 version of Spaceship Earth was exactly that, which is why it was reworked to more closely resemble Horizons only a few short years after it opened. Horizons was, despite its eye popping visuals and reassuring message, astonishingly hokey, H.G. Wells by way of Father Knows Best. World of Motion was very funny, Kitchen Kabaret was weird. These attractions offered hopeful apology for their sloganeering, a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. Symbiosis, The American Adventure, Spaceship Earth '94 and to a lesser extent The Living Seas all put it to their audience to be ready to make the world a better place - they didn't let them off the hook. And despite all of that, EPCOT Center did have a profound effect on a generation of a certain age. Yes, it was kids who dreamed of piloting the Enterprise instead of kids who fantasized about having tea with Belle, but isn't that still an accomplishment? Even the lightweight Journey Into Imagination packed an ideological punch. For this five year old child, who didn't much care for science and technology trappings, I walked away floored by that attraction's insistence that I could and should use my creativity to "start making new things". Returning to my ranch house in Connecticut, I scrawled out the lyrics to the Sherman Brothers' Imagination song in black crayon on a piece of construction paper and stared at it for days. That attraction instilled in me at age five the awareness that only I was responsible for getting the ideas in my head out into the real world, and on that wave of inspiration I began drawing volumes. The blog you read now is a direct result of that experience. I may be a castle park kind of person, but Journey Into Imagination changed my life for the better.

Thing is, I am in no way alone. You can't swing a cat in the Disney online community without hitting somebody of a certain age who will readily and loudly tell you that EPCOT Center rewired something inside them. This more than anything is the proof in the pudding that Michael Eisner was dead wrong, that EPCOT Center was relevant, and did matter. These two articles have been intentionally limited in their scope - I haven't attempted to re-concieve what Future World should be for 2020 audiences from scratch, for example, but then again that never was the point. The point was to become clearer and reach conclusions on what Future World was really saying, and how it said them. And the conclusion I've reached is that EPCOT Center came pre-packed with a sort of aesthetic toolkit, and it's a toolkit that nobody has used since the 80s. But those tools still work. They can still make muddled messages sing and send the next generation home with the sort of elevating experience I had. Kids need to see a place that doesn't just tell, but show them that science and technology make our lives better - they needed it in the 80s, and they need it today. It's never going to be perfect, but the next generation deserves a demonstration of mankind's better nature. "If you can dream it, you can do it" may not have been said by Walt Disney, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth saying.“ (x)

[rschloesser]

Blog 20 - Jan 22

My favorite structure was La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. While climbing the unfinished structure wasn’t as impressive as other structures I climbed on the trip (i.e. Florence Duomo, Pont du Gard, Milan Duomo, etc.) I still enjoyed other parts of the basilica. I loved Gaudi’s style; his designs remind me of nature and his use of vivid colors is beautiful to me. The columns that support the structure look like tall tree trunks and the doors on the facade are covered in vines and leaves, as well as the facade providing images of the mountains and the sea. The emphasis on nature and connecting that to god is a nice change in design, especially for churches. The mosaics in the basilica, especially during golden hour, painted the inside of the structure with gorgeous colors. I think the stained glass windows in the basilica were the most outstanding ones I had seen on the trip, outdoing any other windows we had seen from the many churches I had visited on the trip.

My favorite country was Spain, but this answer may be a little biased. I liked Spain because I (sorta) understood the language and I had a very good understanding of their modern history and the impact the 20th century had on modern Spain. While I did have an understanding of Italy and France’s history, from romans to revolutions, Spain’s modern identity is a direct reaction to a Fascist regime from less than 100 years ago and we can see that they are recovering from that first hand with their pride for Picasso’s Guernica. I also just liked every city we visited in Spain, and Italy and France didn’t have that track record with me.

My favorite city was either Madrid or Seville, and I liked them for different reasons. I liked Madrid because there was an emphasis on environmentally-conscious urban planning, and the people there felt like Spaniards (rather than Barcelona where the identity was very Catalonian,) which made it easier for me to understand their Spanish accent.  I also liked Madrid because it felt very western compared to other cities we had visited, due to it’s wide streets and public transportation (a stark contrast to Rome, Siena, Marseille, etc.) As for Seville, I liked it for it’s more laid-back atmosphere compared to big cities like Madrid, Barcelona, Paris, and Milan. Seville was beautiful because of its many architectural aesthetics, from gothic (the Gothic Cathedral) to islamic influences (Real Alcazar). I also thought the orange trees in the squares and lining the rivers were charming, and the ceramic tilings (and the history of it in the city) were beautiful characteristics that are tied to the identity of the southern city.

Goal 1 - My Spanish started coming back to me when we got to Barcelona, and by the time we left Seville I felt pretty comfortable building sentences in my head. Something I noticed is that while my vocabulary was coming back, my grammar and conjugations were difficult to get right. I’m not surprised though, it has been seven years since I consistently practiced my Spanish. I did notice that when I tried to speak Spanish in Barcelona, many locals wouldn’t really give me a chance to try and would prefer to speak with me in English, which made it difficult to me to want to try speaking Spanish. But, by the time we got to Madrid and Seville, people were more patient with me when I tried to speak Spanish. I think the most useful aspect of knowing Spanish while I was in Spain, was the fact that I could read menus in Spanish, but that often meant I ended up translating an entire tapas menu for Thomas (and tapas menus are long.)

Goal 2 - Trying local food in Italy was relatively easy for me because I love pasta. Some of the best kinds of pasta I’ve ever had were in Rome and Milan. I think that’s because the noodles are hand made and don’t have as many preservatives as the noodles we have in the United States. I thought it was cool that there are different styles of bread depending on the region we were in Europe (i.e., Siena style bread didn’t have any salt and bread in France was more doughy.) I was also fascinated to learn that most olives come from Seville and southern Spain, not Italy and that olives (and olive oil) are essentially the backbone of Seville’s economy. That being said, I never understood why those regions have the types of food that they do (with the exception of Seville), so that part of my goal wasn’t accomplished.

Goal 3 - I didn’t have the time to write any formal essays, but during our transit periods (i.e. bus rides, trains, and planes) I did manage to write some notes or thoughts that came to mind while traveling. Maybe those notes will turn into an essay later, who knows? So this goal was half-accomplished.

Goal 4 - I got to see some pretty fantastic artworks in my time in Europe. I was overjoyed to be able to visit the Sofia Reina Museum and see Guernica in person. After learning about the Spanish Civil War in high school and seeing pictures of Guernica in textbooks, I was excited to have the opportunity to see it in Madrid. I also was happy to see works by Donatello in Florence, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as seeing Picasso’s or Dali’s paintings in Madrid or Matisse’s artwork in Vence (classical art, while beautiful, isn’t my favorite art). I did also manage to see some fantastic modern art at the Maeght Foundation and the CaixaForum, and I ended up enjoying the Maeght’s exhibition featuring Ra’anan Levy’s oil paintings and charcoal studies, more than the exhibition in the CaixaForum. Even after the trip had ended, I got the opportunity to visit the Louve, and I probably wouldn’t have seen any of the artworks (i.e. Mona Lisa, the Last Supper, Liberty Leading the People, the Coronation of Napoleon, Venus de Milo, etc.) if I didn’t go on the Great Structures trip. So I’d say that I accomplished my goal.

Goal 5 - I managed to get ramen twice on the trip, once in Rome and once in Barcelona. It was really good! My biggest regret is that I didn’t manage to get ramen in Paris, but that’s ok. What I took away from the experience is that unlike Japan and the US, ramen shops in Europe like to cook with chicken instead of pork. That's a pretty big difference considering that that most popular type of ramen is tonkatsu, which is a pork broth soup. It was easier to find a good miso (soybean broth) or shoyu (soy broth) ramen than tonkatsu ramen because there were more chicken options than pork in the shops that I visited.

[artificialqueens]

A Different Kind of Art (Sashea) [Part ⅔] - May

Being the digital art curator at a gallery is never easy, especially when inspiration is nonexistent, no one takes your art seriously and you start to get attached to the talent you’ve sourced.

A/N: Here’s part two where the drama starts to thicken ;) Thanks to Scoobert for betaing, and I hope you guys enjoy this part.

Sasha’s phone meeting with Shea Coulee had gone well, Shea seemed up for the idea, but hadn’t been able to talk at that moment. As Aja had predicted the dancer was performing in the spring festival, and had been just about to go onstage. Sasha had offered to call back, but Shea had told her to come down the festival, which Sasha had been only too keen for - any excuse to watch Shea perform, she thought.

To Sasha’s great relief, the wind had died down, but a chill still remained in the air, despite the bright sun hovering overhead. Grateful for her long coat, which she pulled close around her, she consulted her phone, which told her the park where the festival was located was a short walk away from the gallery. Deciding the exercise she’d get from the walk was better than taking the subway, she set off in the direction of the park.

Before she knew it she was there, making her way though marquees and stalls that sold jams and fruits and all kinds of arts and crafts. Trying to figure her way out of the market section of the festival didn’t take too long, the noise coming from the other end of the park was inescapable, and though the sun was momentarily hidden behind the festival seemed a bright place. Shea had mentioned her troupe was going to be performing, and Sasha figured they were nearing the end of their act, so she leaned against a nearby tree to watch the performance unfold.

There were a couple of watchers scattered around, most giving the dancers onstage a passing glance before returning to their conversations, bubbling to see the rest of the festival. Sasha felt a pang of sympathy for the dancers, she knew what it was like to have her work skimmed over, or skipped because more important things were ahead. Although those who were watching were enraptured, and rightfully so. The performance was different to those that she’d spent the morning watching. Even through she was out of a darkened, flashing club and with another group of performers, Shea was still the star, but there was an element about it that seemed a little more subdued. The nightclub performances were raw and sensual, but the way the dancers moved held a timeless grace to them.

For the first time in a long time, Sasha’s fingers itched to grab her stylus and start drawing, so she made do with a napkin stolen from a food truck and a biro she’d found in her pocket. As Shea swayed onstage, Sasha’s pen told the story of her dance through the curving lines, and the subtle shading at the corners of the piece. As the music swelled to an end, Sasha looked at the napkin critically. It might not be the best, but it was more than she’d had to work with over the past few weeks. Stowing the napkin and the biro back in her coat pocket, she made her way over to the side of the stage where Shea had told her to meet, the girl in question undoing her high ponytail and shaking her hair out down her back. Sasha took a deep breath in to calm her nerves.

Shea noticed her before Sasha had time to say anything, a questioning look on her face as she walked over, confident, yet still open and friendly. “You must be Sasha,” she asked, “or else it’s not really what you do to loiter around backstage after a performance when you weren’t even in the show.” Sasha laughed weakly. “Yes, yes I am Sasha,” she said, her voice a lot more even than she felt. Normally Sasha was a pro at these kind of meetings, contacting the local artists but for some reason with Shea’s cool, calm face with one eyebrow slightly perched in front of her, she felt frazzled. “We spoke on the phone earlier, I wanted to ask you if you’d be interested in performing at the gallery for the digital art department’s exhibition,” she started. “We want to showcase local talent and show that digital art and even modern art can have many forms and-” Shea cut her off. “Want to go get coffee while we talk?”

The two of them wandered through the park, through the booths and the stalls, hands clutched around large paper cups holding steaming caffeinated drinks. Shea had kept shivering, and despite her protests that she was absolutely fine and didn’t need anything, Sasha had shed her long coat and given it to the taller girl, even though now it was her who was wincing at the bite of the wind through her turtleneck. They’d ended up walking to a corner of the park that was secluded, an oddity at a time like this. There wasn’t a lot in that corner, the earth was dry and dusty rather than springy, and the single bench was covered in obscene carvings and old wads of gum. Objectively, Sasha could see why this little area was bordered by a large white marquee, so no one would see this ugly side to the city.

Nonetheless, the two of them sat on the bench, their initial conversation of the gallery and the exhibition had run its course before Sasha had even been able to pick up her latte, Shea was excited, and would definitely be there. The conversation had moved on now, to something different, not between two potential work colleagues, but between two potential friends.

Everything had been going brilliantly, the two warmed from laughing despite the cold. Sasha felt giddy, finally someone else was there to talk to her about the world with a similar eye to her. An hour passed, and then another half, and the two were close together now, for warmth, Sasha reasoned, that was the only reason why. There needs to be a storm, Sasha thought, something that can break this weather and get everything back to normal.

The conversation had lulled a little bit, and Sasha knew at some point she’d have to stand up and leave, go back to the gallery and her office, and start firing off emails, scrambling together an exhibition for the coming month. She was drawing up a to-do list in her head, people needed to be emailed, people needed to be paid, spaces needed to be cleaned. And hell, she had to actually draw something. The list was coming together in her mind, and as her schedule began to lay itself, she turned to Shea.

“So you’ll be able to make rehearsals right? There’ll be a couple a week, and I guess you’ll need to choreograph something, I’m not really a dancer, so I wouldn’t know,” she trailed off, Shea looking at her with a slightly quizzical expression. “A couple a week? Like more than one?” “Well, yeah, it’s a reputable gallery, and just because we’re a small department doesn’t mean we don’t want to have a kickass exhibition,” Sasha responded. “I’m not going to have the time, I’m sorry,” the taller girl responded, “I made the commitment to the festival-” “I mean, we’re still a pretty big department, and in one of the best galleries in Brooklyn,” Sasha bit back, stung a little that Shea would think herself above such an exhibition, assume that only one rehearsal would be adequate for the department. “Sash, it’s not that I don’t want to do it,” responded Shea, setting her mouth defiantly, the nickname she’d spontaneously chosen making Sasha melt a little inside. “I’m just so busy with the performance, and I made a prior commitment to the troop, it wouldn’t be fair.”

Despite Shea’s apologetic smile Sasha felt a brief flash of annoyance behind her eyelids - odd, since Sasha usually considered herself a calm and chilled person. “Well yeah I guess,” retorted Sasha, wincing at how whiny her voice sounded, “but this would mean so much to me, and the gallery.” Shea narrowed her eyes, apparently taking offence to Sasha’s tone. “And no offence Sasha, but you are literally no one to me, we literally just met. And yes, you seem like a pretty cool person, and I’d love to support your gallery, I’m not going to blow off my friends and people I committed to long before you.” Sasha was speechless, the annoyance in Shea’s voice resonating hard somewhere deep inside her, sparking an anger she herself didn’t even know she held “Fine,” shot back Sasha. “I’ll find someone else. New York’s pretty big - you’re not special because you can dance.”

Shea rolled her eyes, and Sasha chose that moment to push herself up from the bench, hoping her shaky movements weren’t betrayed by a tremble of a limb. “I guess I’d better go then,” she continued, fighting the quaver that threatened to poach its way into her words. Sasha hated fighting people, especially people she liked. But for some reason she couldn’t help but feel disappointed at the lean girl remaining seated, regal features set and motionless like a porcelain doll.

She stormed off, the turn of her heel kicking up a little patch of dust that had previously been packed into the earth. She wound her way through the marquees and stark white tents, willing herself not to do something like cry, or run back and throw herself down and apologise. She was strong, but she could feel Shea’s eyes burrowing into her back as she left the park. She picked up her pace.

Sasha’s storming off slowed down considerably about a block away from the park, due to the panic, lingering anger and shame she was feeling and also somewhat due the fact she hadn’t done any exercise since she’d graduated high school. Her thoughts clouded around in her head, too many questions all being asked, and for once, her logical mind wasn’t able to pull any reason for anything that had just happened, everything was blurring too fast, too together, unable to yank any cohesion from the tight knit tangle in her chest and her brain.

She wasn’t exactly sure why she had been affected the way she was. She wanted Shea to accept her, and Sasha couldn’t help but feel as though Shea didn’t take her seriously, just another person who thought modern art didn’t belong in a gallery - until she realised Shea concern’s had been perfectly reasonable, and Sasha had charged in like a bull in a china shop, accusing Shea of not caring and unjustly taking her own anger out on the girl. The angry ball of tension that her body had become dissolved into a well of shame, no matter what she did to try to distract herself, the reminder of what she’d said and how she’d overreacted popped out at her like camera flashes on a red carpet.

Thankfully something did float to the surface that didn’t shout Shea Coulee in neon bright screams - she needed to email the board of executives to tell them about their current project. Her gratefulness at having a distraction from the dancer waned almost immediately however, as the hundred other little tasks she’d been planning started bobbing to the surface of her mind, like the scummy flotsam of a polluted harbour. Knowing she’d never remember everything that was coming to her mind, she patted her hip absentmindedly, searching for the biro that she knew was in her pocket before realising Shea still had her coat.

+++

When Sasha arrived back at the gallery, once again taking the groaning elevator and passing the leaky and creaking water pipes ornamenting the basement corridors, Aja was on the phone, debating something in a muted tone. Sasha could tell it was something important the girl was discussing, by the fact she was bolt upright in her chair, and was twirling the cord of the phone around her finger with an increased urgency. Sasha dumped her bag on a table and took a seat next to it, normally she hated Aja’s dismissal of conventional furniture, but Sasha was stressed enough to break her own rules and follow the younger girl’s habits.

A thump echoed through the office, as Aja’s hand connected with the desk, causing Peppermint to pop her head out of the room she’d been occupying and come out to perch on the table next to Sasha and start scrolling through the emails on her phone. “How’d it go with Shea-” she started, and thankfully was cut off by Aja’s voice raising, and a the beginning of a fiery string of insults from the desk in the corner. “No way, you do not get to say that you bloody good for nothing-” Peppermint plucked the phone out of Aja’s hand, cutting off the rant and preventing the receiver from hearing the main part of what Aja had to say. “I’m very sorry,” said Peppermint, a congenial professionalism to her voice, her mouth tightening as muffled monologue was emitted from the receiver. “Yes, yes, I am aware. Well thank you,” she finished, handing the phone back to Aja. “Yeah thanks for nothing,” Aja spat into the phone.

She slammed down the phone with an angry vehemence. “That,” she said sourly, “was Valentina,” speaking the name with a kind of disgust she usually reserved for country music and furries. Peppermint smiled sympathetically, and Sasha followed - she knew how dealing with the newest member “They’re forcing us to either change our launch date or scrap it altogether,” Aja fumed. Sasha felt as though the bottom of her had been opened up and her insides were falling out. Vaguely, she could hear Peppermint asking why, and she remembered the calendar of events she’d been emailed ages ago that had mentioned the arrival of a soft sculpture exhibition by leading artist Serena Cha Cha that would have its own opening, that had been highlighted as Very Important. Valentina had been in charge of organising the event, and while Sasha had nothing against her, the younger employee had a tendency to have everything done exactly the way she wanted, no matter what she had to do, or who she had to twist around her finger.

Aja was just finishing up a rant when Sasha returned from her dissociative fog “Apparently our event will be too loud, and they’ll be disturbed all the way up in the fucking main gallery,” Aja fumed, before beginning to say exactly what she thought of Valentina. “A week before the event? That’s deliberate sabotage!” continued Aja, and Peppermint put a hand on Aja’s shoulder in an attempt to calm the younger girl down. “I’m sure it’s not sabotage,” she said, although her mouth was set in a thin line. “I’m sure it was just a coincidence, the launch isn’t completely over, we’ll just have to rethink what we’re doing.” Peppermint nodded. “Well, at least we have Shea Coulee performing, that’ll draw people no matter the date we put on the flyer.” Sasha’s blood ran cold, and she realised that she had completely, royally fucked up. “About that,” she began, already envisioning the disappointed reactions the others would display when she told them what had happened at the park. “I may have blown that chance.”