#i feel insane- like i can not fathom why this would be a good solution

[heresvix]

????????? lmao help

cw// elon musk

lmao divorceman seemingly just limited non verified (paid for) accounts on twitter to 600 tweet views a day, effectively killing the app.

i guess this is my main social media page now 🥳🥳🥳

[naeviskz]

genre. idol!hyunjin x model!f!reader | established relationship

words. 1.5k+ tags/warnings. angst, fluff (towards the end), smut, accusations of cheating, hj is lowkey toxic (but we love it hehe), cunnilingus, multiple orgasms, overstimulation, some mentions of crying, not proofread

this has been in my drafts for years and i finally finished it bc i was tired of seeing it LMAO. btw the position i’m referring to is this (nsfw link), i usually hate vids but this was rlly good imo.

“i think we should take a break...” you admit, voice growing shakier as you spoke. this was never something you wish to say in a million years, you wanted this relationship to work more than anything. but you were at your wits end with everything, talking to hyunjin was like conversing with the wall, never truly grasping any of your concerns.

you noticed the cracks beginning to seep in the midst of six months of being with him. he would often be dishonest of his whereabouts, saying he was out late due to “work” but was actually out drinking at some bar with chan or something. it made no sense for him to lie about such trivial things but he does it without even thinking. this was supposed to be a lovely vacation in paris together but lately you’ve grown tired of feeling like you’re unappreciated. a break from each other might be the best solution in getting his act together once and for all.

hyunjin felt his whole body turn limp as you uttered those words. not only was he blindsided by your decision, but you never indicated before to him that you were ready to propose such a drastic idea. “but why though? don’t you think this is a bit random? i mean this came out of nowhere ___, i thought everything was good between us, why are you suddenly saying this now?” his thick, bushy brows furrowed in confusion, he wasn’t letting you off this easy and you know it.

“i just think it’s for the better right now hyune, we’re both so busy. we have a lot on our plate, especially you… and this relationship is just— it’s only putting more strain on everythi-”

“are you serious ___? do you hear yourself? i knew what i was getting myself into the day i asked you to be my girlfriend. i’m well aware that i can’t be with you 24/7, and neither can you—however, i don’t expect that anyway. all i ever wanted was to have you by my side, i want to work through the hardships with you but if you’re so willing to give up like this then… i don’t know. i don’t even know what to say to this honestly..” hyunjin couldn’t help but cut you off, once his emotions take over, all sense of logic and reasoning is thrown out the window.

he was never one to question his worth in the eyes of his partner, but you were his longest relationship, he saw you as his first and only true love. it never occurred to him that he could lose you, the possibility of this break lasting long enough to make your love fade away was a scary revelation. there had to be a way he could fix this, he couldn’t bear to be without you.

“are you seeing someone else? maybe that’s why you’ve been so distant towards me lately…” he wanted to scream for saying that out loud but at least he got it off his chest. he knows how petty it sounds but he didn’t care, he wanted you to give him answers.

“no! i’m not seeing other people, i don’t have an interest in anyone but you hyunjin. i want to do this for the sake of us, we’re clearly not where we need to be and this break could help with getting us back on track and spending time apart could be beneficial.” you try your best to articulate your words properly but he remained unconvinced, he wasn’t on board with any bit of this.

how could you even be okay with something like this? spending time away from you drove him absolutely insane, he couldn’t fathom taking a break—not from someone as important as you in his life. he just needed to remind you that the love was still there, though it may be but a dull flame, he could ignite the spark again, with the little bit of hope he had left.

the foundation of your relationship was built from shared interests, since you both are part of professions that rely heavily on looks, you refused to see each other based solely off those superficial aspects. instead you got to know each other’s minds, your core values and beliefs, what mattered to you the most. you cherished every one of those deep conversations you shared together, it was a beautiful experience, an indescribable memory that shaped your bond forever.

so why is it now that you feel this way? was he really that oblivious to everything? he should’ve done more to prevent this but now he fears it’s too late. he’s faced with the conundrum of losing you and there wasn’t much time for him to stall or ask for a chance of redemption, he couldn’t waste another second.

“fuck that,” hyunjin angrily spat, his face contorting into a look of pure disgust. “you’re not going anywhere.” he reaches out to grab your waist before you could walk away, aggressively pulling you into his chest.

no matter how much you attempt to escape his hold, he’s not letting you go in the slightest. he’s much stronger than you, could easily lift you up without breaking a sweat. there was no use in fighting, you had no choice but to give in and let this conversation go. once his lips crashed into yours, everything faded to black. as if a simple kiss was the cure-all of mending this decrepit relationship.

hyunjin’s forehead pressed against yours as he pulled away, “shhh, lye down baby,” he hushes your quiet mewls, instructing you to do as he says. “gonna make you feel so good,” his hands slid under your skirt, gently rubbing over your clothed slit “you’ll forget everything.”

* :.･ﾟﾟ･ ✿

“oh my- fuckk, hyunjin!” you cry out, almost on the verge of tears just from how skilled he is, rutting your hips upwards into his mouth as he devours you whole.

the pace of his tongue is relentless, roughly lapping up all your juices like he’s the most starved man alive. you’ve lost count at the amount of times he’s already made you come undone just from his mouth alone. your body’s buzzing with titillation, all you can do is scream and clench your pussy around nothing while he fiercely sucks on your clit.

you couldn’t stop twitching, feeling yet another orgasm approaching. your legs anchored over his shoulders, unable to think or speak coherent sentences as his face was fully buried into your dewy cunt. he relaxes his jaw a bit more, going all the way from the bottom inching further up as he comes back in contact with your puffy clit. at any given moment it feels as if your heart’s about to stop.

“hyunjin-” your heads thrown back into the pillow, digging your nails into his shoulder blades from how overly sensitive you are. “n-need to cum.. can feel it. m’so close.” it surprises you when you’re able to even express such words.

a low grunt can be heard underneath, hyunjin loves hearing you— it’s arguably the best part about going down on you. the hand that wasn’t occupied went straight to gripping a fistful of his ebony hair, continuously moaning his name so loud that you genuinely feel bad for whomever the unlucky people that got to hear this.

just when you thought it couldn’t get anymore intense, he slips 2 of his slender fingers inside, making you gasp from the overwhelming sensation. flashes of white invade your vision, violently shaking as your lips form an “o” in the throes of ecstasy. hyunjin knows your body so well that this is nothing for him, he’s got it all down to a simple science. no one knows your body like he does, and especially no one can make you cum as hard as he can.

“go ahead, make a mess for me baby,” he strongly encourages, picking up his pace as his digits fuck into you faster. “just gonna clean it up with my tongue all over again.”

your eyes roll back to the depths of oblivion, feeling an out of body experience when reaching your climax. a slew of curses leave your shaky breath, limbs trembling and faint tears stain your flushed cheeks. hyunjin slows his movements, rubbing his thumb over your clit gently to make you even more sensitive. you love the way he calls you “good girl” and how proud the look on his face becomes while you ride out your orgasm on his fingers. he doesn’t stop showering you with compliments, only ramping up his affection as he plants fleeting kisses to your thighs, hips, and tummy.

once he’s finally come back up for air you grab his face to pull him into your lips again. moaning in his mouth while getting a taste of yourself was probably the hottest thing hyunjin’s ever witnessed.

“can’t believe you’re all mine.” hyunjin whispers against you, gently massaging your aching thighs. “i love you so much baby.”

“love you too hyune.” you instantly say back, feeling more at ease now that things are somewhat back to normal.

maybe a break isn’t necessary after all, how else would you be able to have such earth shattering orgasms?

- 完 ♡︎

[qqueenofhades]

Looking at what Biden is doing, and this is purely observation, I think he really can’t fathom the idea that the GOP are pure evil. He seems to think that all the evil is just rogue elements like Trump, and that the GOP, his “old pals” are just acting evil for politics sake and not because they’re genuinely evil and were never good at all.‬

I feel like it’s partly because he’s been part of the Senate clique (I tend to see a lot of American Society in terms of cliques instead of proper communities at times) for so long that he’s gained a nasty blind spot to a lot of his colleague’s moral failings, because “that’s just how they’ve always been”. To him they’re “respectable comrades” who he just learns to disagree with, and who he’s probably shared a good laugh or two in the past…but this means he can’t accept that this image of them might be false and that they’re just evil backstabbing schemers who’ve only “respected” him only insofar as to gain the long term upper hand on him.

In turn there is also another factor; he’s too devoted to the law and sees it as at the least an inherently just thing and thus will ultimately do what needs to be done to deal with rogue elements. He can’t entirely accept that the GOP have hollowed out the institutions of law that he’s been part of his whole life and are just puppeteering their corpses around in front of him to undermine democracy.

Yes, there are plenty of legal reasons why he can’t do some things, but the above mentality probably doesn’t exactly help.

Yeah, that's pretty much exactly what I said in this post. Biden obviously ran on the idea of uniting the country and overcoming polarization after Trump and etc etc., but while there might be general and broad-strokes agreement among the American public on various issues, the formal political process has produced increasingly more radicalized and insane Republicans in the House and Senate, since the vocally crazy ones are now the ones who get funding and Trump endorsements and the support of the institutional party. It's confounding that Biden, who spent eight years in the White House as Obama's vice president and watched what the Republicans did to him, really thought that he could just handwave that away and start fresh, but I feel like he really did believe that the Republicans were just obstructing Obama for being the smart black guy, and that he could rely on his old relationships and friendships to get them to be more reasonable. He was also on record predicting that once Trump was gone, the GOP would swiftly de-radicalize itself and return to something more like what it used to be. At which, to say the least, he was very wrong. Instead, they have SPRINTED in the opposite direction even faster. There is no putting the fascism genie back in the bottle, once you've gotten your insane supporters willing to accept nothing less, and Biden obviously didn't want to believe it because, well, none of us really did. But that's still what happened.

In recent months, Biden has clearly moved more in the direction of getting the fact that there is simply no negotiating with the "MAGA Republicans," but he still keeps hammering on about "bipartisanship" and his belief that the American people "want bipartisan solutions." He is essentially a good man and well-meaning old-school Democratic politician who has spent his entire career working within this system and believing in it, and now that the system is just completely collapsing at unprecedented speed, he doesn't know what to do and basically seems paralyzed. There is absolutely a lot more that he could do in specific regard to Roe, and yet there's still no sign that he's prepared to embrace an aggressive strategy that takes full account of the situation and how dirty Republicans have played to get here. The HHS secretary, Xavier Becerra, said something to the effect of, "well, we have to respect what the Supreme Court says and that limits what we can do." And I'm just over here like... the Democratic electorate is furious, fired up, wants tangible action, and may very well turn out en masse, in unprecedented fashion for a midterm year, if you show that you are actually going to FIGHT instead of just meekly sitting back and hoping that voters return enough of a Democratic Congress to break the filibuster for abortion/voting rights. You... don't HAVE to just "accept what SCOTUS says," especially when YOU ARE THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE, have plenty of options within your purview, and have additionally promised to, y'know, USE SOME OF THEM.

As I said in the other post, Biden seems afraid of appearing too "pro-abortion," which is a reflection of his experience in the '80s and '90s Democratic party where they generally supported abortion rights but didn't really run on or advertise that (and there were still a significant minority of anti-choice Democrats). But 67% of women and 60% of the whole country opposed the overturning of Roe, and the first post-Roe poll out of the bellwether state of Ohio has Democratic Senate candidate Tim Ryan leaping into a seven-point lead over Trump stooge J.D. Vance. Yes, we all know that the polls can be garbage, but there have been similar recent results for Fetterman vs. Oz in Pennsylvania, Warnock vs. Walker in Georgia, and the generic Congressional ballot for Democrats and Republicans. People are MAD, they want ACTION, and they also want Biden to show some leadership on this, rather than being pushed into action by House and Senate Democrats. This is not something that he needs to tiptoe around or treat with kid gloves, and that is likewise something that I don't think he fully understands. SCOTUS expansion and reform is likewise no longer a fringe issue; increasing numbers of people don't trust it, want term limits or more justices, or some other way to control or rein in its power. Biden likewise is reluctant to radically tamper with existing institutions, and he doubtless knows that FDR got shot down HARD in 1937 over his own attempt to expand the Court. But given the other parallels to 1937 going on right now, with the whole rising fascism thing, we are going to need some drastic action.

Anyway, yes. Biden seems to be somewhat in denial about the magnitude of how bad the GOP has gotten, is reluctant to call the current SCOTUS illegitimate or act to correct its evil influence, and still seems to be hoping that people just come to vote for Democrats in November and open up a broader suite of possible options for him. Which, like.... this may be the most important election in our lifetimes apart from 2020, and people NEED to show up for it. But Biden isn't going to be able to coast on well-meant boilerplate tweets about women's rights all the way to Election Day, and hopefully somebody gets that message through to him ASAP.

[valentina-writes]

Hi can you please write for the angst prompt of Azriel saying: “Am I not enough anymore?” after an argument with reader? Thank you!

Enough

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A/N: I hope you like it! Sorry that it has taken me so long to upload again, I had a lot of exams lately. There will be more content coming up.

Word count: 1.4k

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„Well damn, y/n, I don’t care about that! I am able to protect myself, you know?”, Azriel said. You were in the middle of an argument and even though it was very heated, he didn’t raise his voice on you.

“I know that you can, but I don’t want you to! For fucks sake, can’t there be just one week in which you don’t have to go away? One single week that we can spend on our own, just the two of us?”, you asked. When Azriel had told you, he was leaving again tomorrow after only having been home for three days since his last mission, you had flipped. You barely saw him anymore, which took a serious toll on you.

“You know very well that this is my job! You know that it’s my responsibility to spy. And spying requires me to leave the house. This is an important matter!”. You could see anger in his eyes, a whole lot of it. You were used to seeing this anger in battle or when he was talking to Mor’s father. But never had he ever used this look against you.

“You knew what you signed up for when you accepted the mating bond! You knew about it all, knew how often I am away from home and all. What did you expect? That I was exaggerating? That I would quit my job, even though I am the only one who can do it?”. Now, that he was saying this, you knew it sounded ridiculous. But yes, you had expected something to change. You had expected him to care about your needs and this relationship more. How selfish. Now, you felt bad about what you had said and tried to back down.

“It doesn’t matter anymore what I was thinking. It matters that you aren’t even trying. Rhys would let you take a week off if you asked him, you know that, don’t you?”. His face became emotionless as you said this. It had taken you years to see behind this emotionless mask. And now within a second it was back up, hiding his true self from you again. All of his shadows clung to him now, almost in a defensive way.

“Has it ever occurred to you that I don’t want to take a lot of time off? That I, on some days, actually enjoy what I am doing? Not the torture, not the loneliness. But I enjoy using my shadows to their fullest, I enjoy being able to stretch my wings and just fly for a while. I enjoy seeing new places and learning their stories, just as much as I like that I am of a use to this circle!”. Your cheeks heated up in embarrassment and sadness. You hadn’t been aware of how deeply his insecurities were still rooted.

“I…”

He didn’t let you finish. “You always thought I’m only doing this because I don’t have another choice. But I have a choice. Not for every mission, but for some. And I am taking time off, you know? On some days the workload is bigger than I can fathom, on some days it feels like somebody let hell lose. But when there is not much to do, I send my spies out to do my work too and this is when I’m home. But you want more, don’t you? You want me to always be here and give up my freedom. Am I not enough anymore? Would you rather be with someone who can give you these sorts of things?  Because I won’t hold you back then”.

Tears started forming in your eyes at his words. How did this happen? How did you go from a conversation about your free time to him offering the possibility of breaking up? The mating bond inside you was hurting, as if it felt the threat of it being severed. You swallowed hard, trying to keep the tears from falling down your cheeks, as you looked into his eyes, trying to see what was going on inside him.

“Azriel, you know that I would never want to be with anybody but you. I could never love anybody but you. And I’m sorry for not considering that you enjoy your job. But I feel so lonely. On some days I’m sitting there in Rhysand’s house, eating dinner and look at the others, all so in love with their partners. And every time something inside me is breaking because you are not there. Because they are all happy and smiles and all I can think of is if you will come home uninjured. It’s not a matter of if I want to be with you or somebody else. It’s a matter of how much longer I can take the constant fear when you are not around”. The hard lines of his face softened a bit and he even allowed you to take his hand and to run your fingers over the scars.

“I can take care of myself”. He hesitated and looked back down, as if he couldn’t bear the sight of you. “I miss you too, every time I’m away from home. And I know that this can not go on the way it’s going right now. When I leave you behind at home it feels like a part of me is missing and I know you feel the same. Some nights I can feel it down the bond. I am planning on stepping back in a while. This has to be organized, though, I can’t just leave when I feel like it”. He looked back up, smiling softly.

An idea crossed your mind. “Can I come with you this time?”

“I don’t think this would be a good idea”. He wasn’t angry anymore. His expression still friendly, he voiced his concern.

“Why not? We can spend time together, but you’re still working. I am trained, Az. You trained me yourself, how could I be better prepared? I’m not planning on doing this every time you have to go. But I think this could be a solution for some weeks”.

“I don’t want to have to worry about you when I am working. Normally … the thought that you’re safe at home comforts me. I have spies going missing more often than you think and if you were one of them it would drive me insane, because it would be my fault somebody hurt you”. He slowly pulled you in for a hug. All of this seemed to affect him harder than you had thought, you realized, as his shadows also wrapped around you.

“I know. I know, Az. But I am able to defend myself just fine. In the end it’s your choice, though. If you don’t want me there, then I will not coerce you into it”. He kissed the crown of your head and mumbled a thank you.

“We will find a way to make it work out, I promise. And I will take you with me on a few missions. Not the most dangerous ones though. And only until I’ve figured this whole situation out and have enough spies and Rhys’ permission to work a little more from home”. Down the bond you could still feel a twang of insecurity and concern. You immediately hugged him tighter, tracing a few scars on his back through his shirt.

“Thank you. And never, never again think that you are not enough. You are more than enough, everything I ever wanted. Everything I could ever need. And I understand that this decision is very hard. I shouldn’t have been that aggressive. But I wouldn’t have said something if I hadn’t felt your sadness through the bond too”.

Surprised, he looked down on you. “I knew you would never talk to me about it, because you wouldn’t want me to feel bad about it. When I figured that we have the same problem, I knew something has to change. For your sake and for mine”.

Laughing he cradled your face in his hands and kissed you softly. “Oh, what would I do without you?”

[elenatria]

how would boris react if he saw valery crying? what do you think?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19824418/chapters/48220096

Boris felt the weight of the bottle in his hands.

What do you think you’re doing, he hates vodka.

He was praying to a god that didn’t exist that he had made the right choice as he traced Stolichnaya’s red and golden letters with delicate yet eager fingers. His was a pure, reverent touch, like feeling a lace-trimmed camisole in the dark before letting his hand slip under it, drawing moans and sighs that would heighten his own pleasure.

But things were easy back then. Women knew what to expect of him and he knew how good he could be as he eased their heads on the pillow while his hand worked silently into them.

He felt sweat coming out of his pores and glanced at the label again. He had never found the fiery transparent liquid so mouth-watering before. Holding his breath he rose his knuckle in front of the door, wondering what would happen if he knocked. Every second he hesitated earned him new doubts, new realizations. This, he reckoned with a sigh, was indeed a night of many firsts: first time to really appreciate the intensity of Stoli burning in his mouth, first time to be aching for a man.

Not just any man. Maybe that’s why you’re nervous.

He bit his lip pushing away the nagging thought that Valery wasn’t ready for this, for him. Valery didn’t want him. Valery had forgotten about their hug. It was very likely that he would once again deny him the pleasure of downing a bottle of vodka with him, after all they hadn’t had a sip of alcohol together in ages.

He took a deep breath. Maybe he could talk Valery out of his stubbornness this time, hell, they had earned that little luxury after putting the lunar rover to motion that morning. Besides, for the first time in weeks they had spent the evening celebrating at the hotel restaurant with other commission members, eating beef Stroganoff, goulash and cherry piroshki. And for all his burning desire he had earnestly tried to be a good boy.

But it was Valery’s heat next to him that was forcing him to stand perfectly still, to focus on nothing but that restless knee that was casually rubbing against his thigh every time Valery got up to grab a bowl of soup or a piece of Kiev cake. He knew Valery kept his knees to himself whenever he was tense, whenever the workload was consuming him, yet there he was, a changed man, spreading his legs as if he was sitting alone, chatting with his colleagues, ignoring Boris’ weight against him. As if they had always sat that way, close to each other, sharing the same space, the same warmth.

But they hadn’t. This was new, and it was making Boris seethe under the tablecloth.

He glared at him a couple of times. Valery had spent most of the dinner chatting with Khomyuk and Site Officer Masha. He seemed relaxed, confident and once again, oblivious. Boris wasn’t used to being ignored and that was certainly not the behaviour he was expecting after the long heartfelt embrace they had shared in the remote command center. Worst of all, he was starting to despise anyone who was getting the professor’s attention, his smiles, his laughs; things that belonged to him, that were meant for him.

How dare he.

At last Valery settled in his seat cutting a piroshki in half.

“Do you want some?” he offered turning to Boris.

The politician rolled his eyes glowering at him.  “I’m full,” he growled.

Valery paused for a moment to consider the deputy chairman’s face, shrugged and turned to his dessert sucking at the cherry filling so hungrily that it spurted out of the corners of his mouth.

“Oh shit—” he mumbled dragging his finger through the red sticky substance that was sliding down his shirt.

Boris watched him idly as Valery dipped his towel in a glass of water and wiped the stain.

“Beige shirts won’t do it, it seems,” he joked, “what I need is deep red.”

“What you need…” Boris sighed sitting up and inspecting his friend’s smeared face as he tilted his chin up, “is a bib because you’re an infant, Valery. Come here.”

“H-here…” the scientist stuttered against Boris’ firm thumb that was keeping him still, raising the damp towel.

Boris’ frown slowly turned into a crooked smile as he kept his eyes fixed on Valery’s glistening mouth. “Now that would be a waste, wouldn’t it…”

He brushed a thumb over Valery’s lower lip to wipe the jam and brought the sweetness to his mouth, swirling his tongue around the fingertip. Valery’s hitched breath didn’t get lost on him; his mouth fell open as his eyes stayed glued on Boris’ mouth, entranced by the unexpected touch, mesmerized by what Boris was doing to his own finger.

Valery blinked and shook his head as if he had just woken from a dream. “I – uh…” he cleared his throat. “I need to go back to my room. Too much wine.”

Before Boris could protest that Valery hadn’t had one drop of wine all evening, the scientist jumped to his feet, straightened his tie and creased jacket and threw a clumsy apology at his colleagues. Boris huffed and dropped back into his seat watching him stumble over chairs and tables in his haste to leave the room.

Valery Legasov could honestly drive a man insane.  

 Boris feared that a bottle of Stolichnaya would probably have the opposite effect of what he was after. Still, it was all he could find on that dinner table before he rushed out of the hotel restaurant and into the lobby, hitting on the buttons like a madman as if that would bring the elevator down faster.

When he reached their floor he made himself stop. Any other night he would have stormed into the room like a raging bull, pull Valery against his chest and smother any protests with his tongue until his object of desire was trembling with need and grabbing his cock, compliant, willing to offer him a fast release. For some reason that didn’t seem to be the right course of action. Valery’s departure was more than the panicked reaction of an awkward lover. There was fear in his eyes. Fear and something darker Boris couldn’t fathom.

While he stood in the corridor rethinking his plan, it wasn’t his doubts that kept him from barging into Valery’s room and forcing him to down that vodka to the last drop. It was a faint sound, like a child lost in the dark, that he hadn’t heard before, certainly not from Valery.

He curled his fingers around the knob. The door was unlocked.

“Valery?…” he whispered as he pushed the door open.

He couldn’t see anything in that room, the only source of light being the street lamps outside the window. A dark figure was sitting still in front of the glass, bending over something Boris couldn’t see, afraid to move, afraid to breathe.  He felt a shiver down his spine, as if breathing was forbidden in that room, in that closed space that was meant only for smoking and sleepless nights.  

And guilt.

The silhouette held its breath. Boris squinted in the dark trying to make out what Valery was holding in his hand. A big square piece of paper.

He instantly knew what that was. The X-ray envelope the soldier had given Valery a few days ago.  

He’s dying, was the spontaneous chilling thought that crossed his mind. He’s dying, I’m losing him.

Within a second, a million ways to say “I’m sorry” filled his head.

“Valery, what is it?…”

With a few decisive strides he reached the bundle of regret that used to be Valery Legasov, the esteemed professor, and cupped his shoulder waiting to hear news that would shutter his world to pieces.

Valery lifted his head blinking weakly at the faint light that was coming from the street lamp and making him look paler than the moon. His pockmarked cheeks were glistening with trails of tears.

“What—” Boris breathed.

Valery’s gaze remained fixed on the lamp. He rose a trembling hand and held the X-ray against the glass. It was someone’s lungs. They looked like the sky at night, a million stars spread all over it, a million bright holes.

“Do you know what this is?…” he murmured trying to stifle a sob. “They sent it from the Academy of Sciences. I asked them…” he gulped down hard, “…to send it to me. I had to see it with my own eyes.”

Boris shook his head in silence dreading Valery’s answer.

“Th-this is what sand and boron do to a man when thrown into an open nuclear reactor,” Valery stammered. “They form hot particles, burning through his lungs.” He wiped his swollen nose with the back of his hand. “Atoms of lead, sand and graphite combined and were shot high up into the atmosphere when we…” He raised his hands looking for answers that weren’t there. “They traveled with the wind over great distances, hundreds of kilometers. People, children who don’t even know what a nuclear reactor is have been breathing them since day one. Since I told you to— since I told you to—to bring me…”

He started shaking and held his head in his two hands. “This is—this is what we did to those people, Boris, and they don’t even know,” he choked through his sobs. “Children who don’t know why they’re dying because no one explained to them why, and no one can. They’re dying because we dropped lead panels into a reactor that melted them like chocolate bars at 2,000 degrees. They’re dying because I can’t tell a cold scientific solution from a fucking death sentence. They’re dying because of—because of m—”

He pulled his glasses from his face and let them slip on the carpet. There was no strength left in him, no drive. “We were supposed to save them, Boris, not kill them, we were supposed to—to…” his voice trailed off.

“Valery don’t—”

“NO,” Valery yelped slapping his knee with newly found fervour, his tear rimmed eyes piercing through the dark like blue furnaces of despair.

He stood on his feet rubbing his temple as if to keep his head from splitting apart.

“Valery, there was nothing to be done,” Boris pleaded. “You were frantically looking for solutions to a catastrophe no man had ever faced before, no history, no nuclear wars, no science to guide you, you were—"

“No science, what are you talking about?!…” Valery scoffed shutting his eyes. “Sand and boron, sand crystallizes with heat, it was my idea… My…” He faltered. “Oh God, Boris… Oh God…”

There was only so much suffering and guilt Boris could stand.

He rose and pulled the devastated professor in his arms shushing him. Desperate hands were clutching at his back again like they had done earlier that morning, as if to stop him from disappearing in a cloud of smoke. He brushed his hand through Valery’s hair, squeezing him tighter whenever he felt him losing his strength, rubbing his back with long reassuring strokes, repeating the movement like a silent prayer.

I’m here.

I’m here.

I’m here.

They stood there, in the middle of the dark room, for minutes that felt like hours while Valery cried like a baby, soaking Boris’ collar with tears until his violent sobbing weakened to a whimper.

“Shhhh…” Boris placed soft lips on his forehead brushing away the messy ginger strands with his nose. A vein was pulsing on his mouth fervently and he kissed it, willing it to relax under his loving pressure.

“I failed them–” Valery choked in Boris’ chest. “I failed them. I was supposed to save them, but I failed them…”

“Shhh, Valera,” Boris reassured him nuzzling into the folds of his neck. “They’re dead, and many others will follow. But you’re not. Not yet. Look around you, you’re not done with this, you’re not done with… me.”

Valery’s last sob drowned into his throat. As if waking from long days of stupor he rose to meet Boris’ blue eyes. A timid smile bloomed on the Ukrainian’s lips.

I’m here.

I’ve got you.

Valery blinked, an unuttered question still quivering on his lips.

“B-Boris…”

Boris knew, that was not a question. It was a plea. It was days, months of waiting, doubting, anticipating.

Wanting.

With a hungry impatient sigh he responded with a kiss so fierce, so possessive, so absolute in its ferocity that Valery had barely time to suck in a gasp.

They tried to find their balance as their bodies rocked against each other, losing themselves in the moment, exchanging breaths, touches, little moans against each other’s lips. Boris panted, shocked and delighted at Valery’s boldness as he felt his mouth violated by an unexpectedly eager, hardened tongue.

Professor Legasov, you’re not new to this, are you.

His cock stiffened at the thought of ravishing Valery right there and then just to punish him for not being a virgin for him. He reached for Valery’s fly, pleasure warming his groin as he palmed the other man’s thickness under the fabric.

He stopped and pulled back as if he had heard a noise. Valery, his lips still slick with Boris’ saliva, questioned him with his eyes.

Boris’ fears had found the wrong moment to haunt him, the very minute he was going to have this wonderful unique man to himself.

“And our rooms, even our bathrooms.”

Bugged.

They were being watched by a million eyes, overheard by a million ears. How could he forget.

Thankfully they hadn’t said anything inappropriate. But the passionate noises they made, the moans, the sighs…

He wanted him so bad. Have him any way he could, on the old carpet, against the hard wall, in the bathroom watching their reflections fuck like animals, fuck him like a woman, fuck him until he cried out, until his name on Valery’s half-open lips withered into an adoring whisper.

But he couldn’t jeopardize his Party card, their work, their freedom. There was so much at stake and a quick bang in a seedy hotel room wasn’t worth their lives.

He let go of the man he loved. The man he was burning for.

“Not tonight, Valery,” he muttered with regret. “Not here.”

Valery bit his lip with a disappointed nod and straightened his tie and shirt, like he always did when he was trying to find his composure. He was the respectable chemist again, a man of dignity.

Still, there was some spark left in him as he tucked his shirt in his waistband. Without raising his head he mumbled through his teeth, still bold in his shyness, like a kid holding Boris to his word.

“Then when…”

Boris chuckled and let his hands drop on his sides. There it was again, the Legasovian pout, demanding the promise to be fulfilled – and soon. He clasped Valery’s head and rose it to his lips.

“Soon…” he breathed into Valery’s hair planting a soft meaningful kiss. “You’ll see.”

(Tagging @fmasha-l @boisinberryjamarama @shark-in-the-park and anyone else who wants to be tagged, let me know.)

[fitdietpills]

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CBS News explained how to do this with Health recently. It decision is up to you. You could, at the very least, be prepared to make a Health statement. I'm running at high efficiency this afternoon.

It's a curable enigma. Why should one go through that effort for Health? I might need to be open minded about that. What does Health really mean to me? That doesn't say anything but that's the blueprint. That could effectively torpedo any chance you have with Health.

It wasn't where I commonly go for Health. Health was offered by many dealers at that time.

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Some of my friends were excited in the matter of Health. There's certainly a greater focus now. In some cases, it's quite probable that no results are seen. I recommend that you begin this evening with Health. We need to analyze that the most vital conditions you need when it relates to Health.

You can blame a lack of taste on recruits. This was a logical addition. This has been a crazy trip. Honestly, that's the one.

It can only come from doing your homework in order to locate the best Health. In a number of instances, your Health can become your best friend. Once you have found a Health that you are interested in then you need to read about that. Obviously, I'll be staying out of it. I'm on solid Health ground now. That isn't guaranteed. They have an uncanny ability in this area. All you have to do is make sure that you are getting a Health this is going to be suitable for you. I will leave no stone unturned and that's a small price to pay.

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By what program do aces access the choicest Health solutions? It was only natural for me to be interested in Health.

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[readysetreduce]

Hello, and welcome to my blog/first post/etc. I am a humble 27 y/o who has not done anything you would have heard of, but I’m here for a place to talk about how and why I have decided to change my habits. This is meant to be a space for people to find an easy way to navigate changing their habits too, and I hope that I can help. You should know that I am not under any circumstances an expert, or even knowledgeable about a lot of these things. I haven’t studied them, I haven’t been paid, and I am doing all of this on my own time and in my own way and that might not work for everyone.

TL/DR: I have no idea what I’m doing. You shouldn’t listen to me, but I need a place to organize my thoughts on this project.

MAIN THEME:

For this blog, my goals are simply this: REDUCE.

I think that a lot of people feel really good about recycling. AND YOU SHOULD RECYCLE, don’t get me wrong, BUT *and this is important* there are more that one step to helping our environment and it’s multitude of issues. In fact, there are THREE. The first one is, you guessed it—Reduce. In my opinion, being the first arrow in the cycle, the first listed, the first named, etc, that makes it IMPORTANT. So without further ado, here’s how last year I started becoming a more aware person.

It all started with a nature documentary. I watched, I cried, I awoke. I was very upset by the prospect of a mother whale’s milk poisoning her baby because of the environment she lives in. It’s fucking tragic and I think that point is beyond being debatable. So in 2019, I made myself a promise that I would try to do my part. Up until that day, I need you to understand, that I felt as if my decisions could not POSSIBLY matter in this issue. It felt stupid that little ‘ol me in this GIANT world giving up water bottles would even matter at all. How could one person really make a difference? I know, what a cliched and boring question, but I still to this day feel like there are some things that are just too big for me to try and solve, fix, think about, prophesize, etc. To be frank, I just felt like it was all not enough, like, no matter WHAT I did it couldn’t POSSIBLY make a difference. I think a lot of this stems from my issues in math and numbers and how they make me feel inferior, but I digress, with a little help from a very math-positive friend, I felt an impact. Small though it may be, an impact nonetheless. So I am going to share some statistics with you that inspired me. So, before you get overwhelmed, I’m gonna start big and then break it down into what made me go, “oh.”

Ok, so scientists think that somewhere around 8 MILLION metric tons of plastic are dumped into the ocean every year. For reference on what this looks like here is what a 6.8 metric tons look like:

SO. Imagine about 1.1 million more of those swimming around in the ocean. What I’m getting at is it’s A LOT, and that’s uninspiring. So of that 8M number, I needed to know how much of it my ONE water bottle really impacted. So....

Americans drink 10 BILLION gallons of plastic bottles every year, and in 2016, less than HALF were collected for recycling. What’s half of 10B...? Idek. I don’t think that number really matters to most people, and for most of my life it certainly didn’t matter to me because that is FAR too much for me to fathom. Most people can’t even fathom 10B of ANYTHING.

I’ll be transparent here, none of these numbers meant a damn thing to me. Watching that baby whale die...that’s what did me in, y’all. I’m not heartless even though I like to pretend to be. So, what made me feel like I was doing something important? Doing it. I just started reducing. It started really really small. I stopped buying water bottles, I got a water filter, and I filled up my cups, and I was like, “SURELY that is enough and I can stop there.” And that’s when it happened. It all started crowding in around me. I started to see how much plastic I was using just to EXIST. Suddenly I realized how MANY things were made of plastic. You guys....it’s like EVERYTHING. Do you remember that time when you were a kid and someone was like, “haha check the labels on your things and see if it says, ‘Made in China,’ lol it’s like China owns us lol so funny.” It was like that. I was like suddenly I realized plastic owned me and I had been living with my eyes closed the whole time. So I started frantically changing like everything I did, and running around looking for new solutions to the things I used every day. It was insanity. It still is. For 2020, I kept my same resolution as last year. It’s reduce. Surprising, right? Anyway, how could I not I still have all this plastic to get rid of, and no, the earth probably doesn’t notice that I don’t use waterbottles anymore, but I sure fucking do. I notice when other people use them, too. I notice when people don’t recycle. I notice when I’m not in LA, and there’s no recycling bin in sight and I am forced to either throw away a recyclable OR litter...it makes me cringe. I now have a PHYSICAL reaction to the inability to decide how I impact my own environment, and for anyone that knows me AT ALL, taking away my right to options is just not a thing you should do to gain my favor.

I want for this to be something that someone reads and thinks about. Just thinking about it was enough for me, and maybe it will be enough for someone else, too. I also want to help be a resource for those people who are just starting out like I am and need help. I am well versed in research as a historian, and sometimes I do it for fun, but other times I do it because I need to know who is profiting from my funding, or what is the best no-waste toothpaste option because my partner gets mouth ulcers from the chemicals in our toothpaste and I’ve suddenly realized that the toothpaste we use is far more impactful than just the risk the chemicals are posing to our bodies. So, without further ado, please enjoy this place as an informational safe space where I can research without judgement, answer questions to the best of my ability, let people know what works or doesn’t work in my life, and to ultimately have my own impact here on tumblr.

—♻️REduces✌️—

Here’s a link from oceanconservancy.org where I found some of this information.

[xathia-89]

Headcanons: A Secret Date

Headcanons: A Secret Date

Nobunaga Oda

It was one thing to be dating the supposed Devil King, it was another thing to know he was shirking his duties and keeping out of the way of his vassal just to amuse me. I had to keep biting my lip to hold in my giggles as Hideyoshi went storming past the alleyway we were hiding in, and Nobunaga had his hand clamped over my mouth as well.

“I told you, I’m meant to be busy,” he grumbled the second we were in the clear.

“I didn’t tell you to kidnap me for a date!” I laughed. “I told you I missed you, you then decided we needed to come to the teahouse.”

“When you say things like that, how am I meant to react?” Oda pouted. It was always such a delight to my heart to see this side of the man.

“You’re meant to tell me that you miss me too!” I explained, our fingers naturally interlinked as we finally made it to the destination. The sweet dumplings and sake were waiting for us, as I gave my boyfriend a side glance.

“Fine, maybe I wanted an excuse,” he sulked.

“You are so lucky I won’t let Hideyoshi stop you,” I grinned, taking a seat next to Nobunaga as I poured his sake out for him.

Hideyoshi Toyotomi

Nobunaga had been relentless in his teasing of my other half. He’d been purposely setting tasks at times when I would be free, just to watch the man sweat over the prospect of gaining approval for my hand in marriage. I had scolded Oda on many occasions, but nothing changed until I had an idea.

Hideyoshi was grumbling as he went towards the kitchens. Then I latched onto his arm and pulled him with a grin.

“Come on,” I laughed, entwining our fingers. “No one knows where I’m meant to be, and those jobs of yours can definitely wait.”

Hideyoshi’s manor was empty of staff at this moment as we snuck to his room for some much needed time together. I was trying to keep my giggling down since it reminded me of the times when I was doing this as a teenager. As long as we weren’t overheard by the staff, then we’d get away with it. He insisted on doing the tea as I unpacked a few of the treats kept for such an occasion.

I didn’t even give my boyfriend a chance to do anything and sat in his lap the second all of the hot water was out of the way. I smiled up at him as he gave me that resigned look which told me he loved the way I thought.

It was inane talking, just discussing anything that had gone on since the last chance I’d made to do this. Normally at night, we were too tired to probably talk through anything standard and only addressed things as they were needed. I was almost certain that Nobunaga knew what I was doing, but allowed it to happen because I was the princess, or Mitsuhide was letting it go at the very least.

Masamune Date

I had my arms looped around Masamune’s neck whilst he was running away from all of the vassals and aides. He was laughing loudly whilst we took turn after turn, and then promptly hid us in the kitchen cupboards.

“I’m going to regret this, but what are you doing?” I asked after the stampede of feet had long left us.

“I was bored, so I decided we needed a date,” he grinned.

“You just want to avoid work,” I corrected him, though I did have to admit finding time for us lately had been a chore. I was normally wrapped up in some domestic scandal or a village was busy having a dispute about food or water. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand, but it was frustrating on an emotional level as Masamune quickly checked the coast was clear.

“Right, let’s make a mess and lots of treats, shall we?” He winked, before bringing out a lot of ingredients that I knew must have cost a fortune to import from the west.

“No way!” I gasped with a smile. “You got them for me?”

“Nothing but the best for my kitten,” Masamune fondly whispered in my ear, standing behind me as we began to establish what ingredients we had to make what exactly.

Ieyasu Tokugawa

I had to laugh as Ieyasu’s ears were blushing. He was holding my hand tightly as we passed through the crowds of Mikawa during our escape. Masamune and Hideyoshi had come for a visit and their nagging and teasing was driving him insane as he feigned something about needing to take me with him so I wouldn’t get lost looking for him. I spoke his language well enough to know what he really meant and tried to not trip up too many times.

There was an influx of new merchants, and some time simply around the marketplace was a rarity for us without someone interrupting. So no one knew where we were was Ieyasu’s answer on this occasion. It made me smile to spend a time like this with him.

“Stop looking at me, you’re going to fall over and then I’ll have to take care of you,” the blonde male scoffed, before putting a pale yellow hairpin in my messy updo and paying the merchant without even blinking.

“That would be a complete disaster,” I giggled. “Hideyoshi!” I yanked on Tokugawa’s sleeve and pulled him through to where all the food carts were to avoid being seen.

“It’s hard to find two short people,” I heard the vassal complaining to someone as we hid behind a cart, much to the amusement of the merchant.

“They must be at the castle,” Masamune replied before they turned to leave.

“The things I do for some quiet,” Ieyasu huffed, though I could tell from his expression that he was enjoying it as much as I was before we paid the food merchant to keep quiet and for some goods before continuing on in the crowd.

Mitsunari Ishida

I made sure that everyone had conflicting information about where I was before I slipped off from the castle. I didn’t want them interrupting an afternoon off that we had planned for long enough, as I knew my other half would have purposely done the same. A crafty tactician, a brilliant brain and the face of an angel. No one knew Mitsunari in the same way I did as I came to the edge of the forest. His silver locks stood out a mile as we joined hands and went in to find the shelter that Mitsunari had spent the morning working on.

I was gleeful to find that everything was ready for me to make tea with, and I had brought the snacks with me to make sure that Ishida was eating something today at the very least. He’d made us a shelter between trees that would keep any surprising rain off us, and the wind out, whilst leaving one part open to view the beautiful scenery. Naturally, books were also present, and a small fire had been started whilst the pots were all present for making something to drink with.

We were wrapped up under some blankets, Mitsunari had insisted that I sit between his legs as I realised that he’d even built a raised floor for us and we cuddled up. He was reading something to me, but I was fighting sleep for a little while until it won.

Hideyoshi was fuming when the guards finally found us, we’d both fallen asleep and it was the fire that had drawn their attention once someone recalled seeing us on the edge of town together. The structure was too well built to go to waste, as Mitsunari smiled and simply told us both that he would reconstruct it in the gardens of the manor for some privacy.

Mitsuhide Akechi

No one knew we were dating, and it was fun to keep it that way. I had a busy enough schedule and mothering from Hideyoshi, without the vassal learning who I was romantically involved with. He wouldn’t leave me alone if he found out, so we kept it silent from all of the castle.

I would pick up his repairs as a matter of habit like I did for the majority of the warlords, though doing custom work was my preferred habits. It passed the time a lot quicker than simple patch working did.

A tear dropped onto the material at my fingers. I frowned, I couldn’t fathom why I was crying. Then I realised it felt like a lifetime since I’d seen him, never mind we’d had a chance to sneak away. I wiped my eyes swiftly, crying wouldn’t bring me any solution as I went to finish my job.

“Little mouse?” A soft voice came from my closed door before it slid open.

“Mitsuhide?” I couldn’t help but squeak as he swept me up in his arms, and then carried me off in his arms without a sound. My work was discarded on the floor of my room without a thought as we slipped through the night to the furthest parts of his manor.

If the staff knew anything, then they knew better than to talk. His futon smelt of him as he laid me down gently. His touches were featherlight, and as though he didn’t believe I was real in the moonlight. He stroked the hair out of my face, and I giggled with joy at the fact he was present again.

“I have spent so many lonely nights trying to recall your exact feelings under my touch,” he murmured in my ear, teeth scraping my earlobe.

“Then you will have to take as long as necessary to memorise me,” I gasped, feeling his fingers already working my kimono free.

“This feeling, I will never grow tired of it,” Mitsuhide muttered in my ear. “I may even start taking you out on dates in the daytime just to make sure that no one else can have you.”

“Don’t make promises if you can’t stand the chance of Hideyoshi’s mothering,” I laughed.

Kenshin Uesugi

I had the doors open in my room, Kenshin was going to be away for a few more nights at a scouting exercise and the bunnies were currently keeping me company. Until a noise attracted their attention and they all instantly disappeared.

“I thought I told you all to keep her company,” a gentle scolding, from a voice I wasn’t expecting to hear as I stuck my head out of the door in shock. “I guess the bunnies gave me away,” Kenshin was pouting slightly until I ran over and hugged him.

“Aren’t you meant to be somewhere right now that’s not here?” I asked, my arms tightly around his waist before I noticed a glimmer in his eye. “I’m going to regret my question already.”

“Sasuke suggested that we play something called ‘hide and seek’, and that I was to hide whilst all the ninjutsu are looking for me,” he trailed off, unable to resist giving me a kiss at that moment.

“So you’re choosing to hide here?” I raised an eyebrow.

“More like wherever you happen to be,” Uesugi shrugged, and then realised I was shivering a little in the night air. “Why are you down here anyway and not in our room?”

I went bright red under the moonlight. “Because it smells of you in our futon, and makes me miss you even more,” I mumbled, purposefully looking down at the ground before the man lifted my chin with his fingers.

“Don’t you dare be this cute for anyone else,” Kenshin stated and then continued taking me, and all the bunnies, to our room to ‘hide’ from all of the ninjas.

Shingen Takeda

I found it suspicious that Yuki hadn’t been present all morning, and now my husband was declaring that we were visiting a tea house at this precise moment. I narrowed my eyes, but accepted his extended hand, it had been a long while since we’d managed to get some time alone like this after all. The seamstresses also pushed me out from under all the work and told me to go away with broad smiles that made me feel like something was going off that I didn’t know about.

The market was busy, and everyone was stopping us to say something about how wonderful it was to be back under Takeda rule again. I was the natural mediator between my Lord and my husband since we had come back from the future with a very healed Shingen. He had proven himself to be a giant child at the best of times and now felt like no exception as we finally arrived at Shingen’s favourite spot in town. The teahouse where sake and sweet dumplings were served.

“I’m guessing that you’ve already had your allotment of sweets for the day and you’re dragging me here whilst Yuki’s indisposed elsewhere to get some more?” I teased my husband, gliding through as his face dropped that I’d seen through the entire ruse. Though I was incredibly insistent on tea, not sake.

Shingen was busy drinking his way through the sake as I kept refilling his cup on purpose.

“Hm, Suki?” Shingen slurred slightly. I could tell he was tipsy from the faint blush on his cheeks and that glint in his eyes.

“Yuki planned this,” I smiled, “I’m pregnant,” I whispered in his ear.

He spat the sake out that he’d just taken a sip of, and then stared momentarily at me. Before his trademark smirk came back, and he kissed the back of my hand, his eyes brimming with excitement before he carried me back to the castle, blabbing on about what we’d need to do to arrange the castle.

Yukimura Sanada

I beamed as I spotted my boyfriend tending his usual spot in the marketplace, along with all of the women’s accessories that his boss sent him with. It always made me giggle that Shingen had set Yuki up with the goods knowing that the man had an automatic defence against women. It was a miracle that he hadn’t been slapped on more occasions as I saw a flash of green out of the corner of my eye. It was soothing to know that Sasuke was about at least, then Yuki wasn’t quite so alone.

“I’m not selling a lot, so we might as well go somewhere,” Yukimura was desperate for some sort of excuse it seemed to get away from the market. The second he’d laid eyes on me, he had been packing up the shop much to my confusion.

Then he was holding my hand and pulling me out of the marketplace swiftly. I was struggling to keep up with him, but the pace of everything definitely told me something was up as we ended up on the outskirts of Azuchi in a meadow in full bloom.

“Okay, care to explain?” I asked, looking at my boyfriend with suspicion.

“What?” He defensively replied, instantly dropping my hand.

“You just dragged me out of the market without so much as a greeting,” I explained, folding my arms across my chest.

“I just didn’t want anyone to get suspicious of anything,” he scoffed.

“Yeah, because grabbing me by the hand and dragging me away isn’t suspicious,” I laughed. “Who found out?” I teased.

“No one,” Yuki was being extra defensive today it seemed as I tilted my head in earnest at the prickly man. “My Lord,” he gave up the information to my concerned look. “He was threatening to drop by,” the sulk on my boyfriend’s face was endearing me.

I wrapped my arms around his waist, burying my head into his chest to try and hide my smile. I could feel the conflict within him as he slowly moved to hold me against him. Then he tensed sharply.

“Oh my,” a new voice silkily floated through the air, accompanied by two sets of feet. Yuki kept me from lifting my head up and getting a look at the culprit, and also from him seeing my face. “I knew you were shy Yuki but this is a new level,” a chuckle followed.

“Sasuke,” was the only name to fall from my boyfriend’s lips as the ninja danced around to the side I was facing.

“Hi,” I giggled to my fellow time traveller as Yuki kept me away from the persistent Lord.

Then I was spun out of my lover’s arms and my hands were being held by a strange gentleman. There was a twinkle in his eyes as he kissed the back of my hands.

“So you are the enchantress who has captured my little Yuki’s heart,” he teased before the sound of his voice broke the spell that had frozen my boyfriend and his friend in place away from us.

I was snatched back by Yukimura, who was yelling something about being obscene and inappropriate whilst I couldn’t hold my amusement in any longer. He paused at the sound of my laughter and gave me a bewildered expression.

“You’re so overprotective,” I giggled.

“Well, you’re so dense you’d miss the obvious,” he snorted in response.

“Unfortunately, cheesy pickup lines don’t do it for me,” I smiled at the stranger to the conversation.

“I can see that,” the Lord smiled back. “I wouldn’t do that to Yuki anyway.”

“Lord Shingen!” My boyfriend called out in an exasperated tone.

Sasuke Sarutobi

It was the middle of the night when someone knocked on my door at Kasugayama. I hadn’t long left Azuchi, to spend as much time as possible with my ninja boyfriend. I rubbed my eyes and opened my door without really thinking about my attire.

“I’m glad it’s no one else who gets to see you like this,” Sasuke paused before shutting the door swiftly behind him.

I blushed at the implications of his wording before he covered me in a haori swiftly, and then gave me a smile that made my heart melt.

“What?” I asked softly, linking his fingers through mine before he ghosted my lips with the briefest of kisses.

“I need to show you something,” he said, averting his gaze before he started to move the ceiling tiles about.

“Always showing off,” I teased lightly, waiting for him to clamber back into the roof before holding a hand out for me.

We crept through the tunnels, catching whispers of conversations, including finding out that his Lord was looking for him for a fight it seemed. Then he paused as we came to a section that led to the top of the roof.

I had to close my eyes before he opened the hatch, and then keep them closed until he had me suitably settled between his legs. My back resting against his chest, and I could feel how quickly his heart was beating before I was allowed to open them.

The ink blue blanket over us was littered with stars. It simply wasn’t something you saw from where we came from, and it was awe inspiring to see it in its full beauty. The moon was at its brightest as well, and you could see for miles just how peaceful it was in the dead of night.

“Thank you,” I smiled to my boyfriend, barely able to decide on where to look as he cuddled me close to share body heat, or that was the excuse and blissfully isolated from the chaos happening in the castle.

Kennyo

I had got the day off from my Chatelaine duties, Hideyoshi had declared I was working too much judging from the bags under my eyes. I didn’t dare to correct him by telling him that it was because I was sneaking off to meet up with Kennyo in the middle of the night. All of the warlords would throw me in the dungeons until the former Abbott was cleared of everything, and then every second spent together would be supervised.

I skipped off early in the morning, eager to avoid all of the staff and their probing questions, probably set by Hideyoshi.

A couple of cats wrapped themselves around my ankles as I got close, which made me smile. The amount of them would only increase as I approached the clearing, and to see his hut always brought a light to my heart.

“Natsuki? It’s early,” Kennyo was used to rising before the sun as I shrugged and smiled, before slipping into his arms for a welcomed hug.

“I couldn’t wait to spend the day with you,” I beamed. “Don’t worry, no one knows I’m here,” I reassured him before giving him a brief kiss. “I’m also certain that all of the cats just know you’re here and are attracted to you,” I laughed as the man went back to making some tea.

“They’re just accustomed to my presence,” he grumbled, trying to ignore my cheery behaviour as I bent down to fuss one of the ones I had helped him with. Many of them had come with various injuries, and between us, we had nursed them all back to health, though their returns were most likely because we were an easy meal source. “Did you want to do anything?” Kennyo asked suddenly. “It’s not often you get a day off,” he trailed off at my surprised expression.

“I just wanted to spend time with you,” I shrugged before I went to inspect his medicine stocks.

“I’m sure there’s more you’d want to do then just this,” Kennyo sighed.

“I like the change when I come out to you,” I reassured him, hugging him tightly.

[profo-und]

how my first heartbreak is putting me back together

We’ve all been there I presume, the moment our pure heart faces discomfort in one of the worst ways possible; your first heartbreak. I myself only being 20 years old have been there once, and boy did it sting. It’s so odd; isn’t it? You have no idea how much a person means to you until you have to convince yourself that they don’t.

Growing up, I had never lost touch with anyone so abruptly, whether it was family or even friends in some cases, it always became a matter of distance; I had never found myself desperately seeking attention from someone in order to keep them in my life. So having to cut out a whole person that I’d put so much time, exertion and emotion into was heavy on me.

Our situation however was a bit conflicting, although we had ended our relationship; our bond and contact was consistent; and I can now openly admit to myself that every second of it felt like my chest had the foot of an elephant laying on it. I hadn’t realized that I was slowly losing him, even after he was no longer mine. It was a long and confusing period; but throughout it all I had convinced myself that we weren’t over, that there was still more for us, that all of our mistakes would finally make sense and insert us back into place. It was settled into my brain that it was the two of us against everything,

That definitely wasn’t the case. I was so naïve that I look back and almost want to punish myself for it now. I did however have to deal with the consequences of my stupidity and unfortunately his as well.

 Being in love for the first time, you give them so much importance; even if it isn’t reciprocated. I knew I wasn’t the first person he’d been in love with leaving me to question if he really loved me? Which I still think about till this day. And man when that person breaks every single promise they set out in less than a second you feel the pits of your stomach turning in confusion, anger, disappointment and anguish all at once; you cry yourself to sleep every night not understanding why you couldn’t be good enough. And I can honestly say feeling low about yourself because of another’s mistake is the worst part. When me and my ex split I would make extreme unnatural life decisions in order to “fix myself”, to remind myself that I didn’t need him anyway; but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. I needed him so much that living without him hadn’t even been a concept developed in my mind at the time. I became so lost. I didn’t get it, if I had made the right decision about cutting him off, why did it feel like shit? I spent many nights not getting where I could’ve went wrong, and when a good day would come again. I expected myself to wake up one day and go “wow I’m finally over him for good now”. Sadly that isn’t the case. I didn’t understand that things need time to fix themselves. You have to go through a million things before you can completely come to peace with yourself and whomever else it may be.

You may have not forgiven that person, and you may not for a while, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I feel like forgiving people verbally doesn’t solve anything if you aren’t sincere about it. There is this whole notion about forgiving people in order to move on, but how, when, and what place in your life you decide to accept someone else’s apology is up to you, you do not owe anyone a single thing. If that person has upset you to your very core, you are allowed to be upset with them for as long as you need, they did that to you. But don’t let it interfere with your thoughts.

For the longest time I had said that I forgave him, that it was all behind me, that I should not still be bothered by it. Nonetheless I knew every bit of me was still facing the lasting effects of what had happened. And so I recently came to terms with the fact that I am still upset about it, and I can take as long as I need to forgive someone if they had the audacity to treat me like a play toy. Its okay to listen to the freestyle comfort inn ending by Jhene Aiko and day dream about keying his car. Its fine to be spiteful for a short period of time, eventually you will get past that feeling, but don’t rush it, do not accept someone’s apology for their peace of mind, do it for yours.

 As painful and inconvenient as it was. I need that more than I would’ve ever known. Heres why, I cannot stress enough how much I’ve found room to learn, care and want things for myself.  

It is confirmed from someone who found themselves in a very dark place, that you will be okay. These are things you need in order to grow and prepare you for worse things coming. There will be worse things; I know its an odd way to put it, but you’re going to understand that this is just something small to help you become the person you are supposed to be; to make you stronger for larger obstacles so you can handle them with ease.

It’s a process you see, healing from something traumatic does not occur overnight; and you owe it to yourself. It takes a while to practice the good energy you want to lead into your life, but it starts with you; as cheesy as it sounds. You are the main provider for yourself, you must unconditionally want yourself. One of the most aggravating but rewarding things I went through during this period was learning to be on my own. This was a huge learning lesson for me, I had been so used to looking for a companion in him that I completely forgot about myself. I forgot to be my own friend, because once again, at the end of the day the only person who will truly one hundred percent have the power to uplift you, is you.

 With that being said, he was the first person I had ever fell in love with, there were good things that a part of me will always carry, and use to apply to other bonds I may form later in the future; whether it be romantically or naturally formed soulmates. Its safe to say that I have become more empathetic when it comes to others, I try to put myself in others shoes; although it hasn’t worked with this particular situation, I really do hope one day it will. I hope one day ill truly sleep with a clean heart towards him. After all he was one of the first to provide me with the discomfort I needed to take my life seriously. The thing that hurt me the most about all of this was that he had someone to reassure him, to love him, to want him. I had to face all of it on my own; I had to convince myself. All I had were Ted talk videos and lots of weed, drugs shouldn’t solve everything, but unfortunately it’s a temporary solution to some sorrows.

 All jokes aside it burned; watching him move on with his life after he had created such a huge dent in mine. Even now I can’t fathom how you could to this much to someone you claim to care about, but as time passes it gets easier to forgive them; infact; you begin to be thankful for them. You begin to appreciate the people who you know are insanely infatuated with you, and begin to recognize that one person rejecting you, means room for a million others to accept you.

[wishingforatypewriter]

Fighting with Nakiris

Summary: In which Erina and Alice are angry because they care. Some spoilers for chapter 222. Fourth installment in my On the Road series. 

This was becoming a bad habit, Erina realized as she made her way down to the main kitchen at three in the morning as she had almost every night for the last week and a half. And as was usually the case, Yukihira was already in there making something.

He grinned when he saw her. Erina swallowed thickly, suddenly hyper-aware of her short nightgown and messy ponytail. "Perfect timing, Nakiri."

"Hmm. What do you have for me today?" she asked, eyeing him and the large metal pot he was stirring with a blend of fascination and disdain. Considering the ordeal he'd just gone through to get the former third seat on their side, Erina assumed that he'd try to get a decent amount of sleep—but clearly she'd been wrong. He never did have any sense of self-preservation.

"Coq au vin ramen," he explained before ladling her out a serving. His insanity might have been rubbing off on her, but the French inspired dish actually sounded like a good idea.

Erina took a deep breath before sampling the rich soup, flavored with chicken bones and red wine. It tasted of summer nights in Paris—of walks along the Seine and stolen moments in the shade of the Musee d'Orsay. And that was only the broth.

"Have you ever even been to France?" she asked, breathless.

"Nope."

Damn him. Erina noted the subtle balance between the slightly acidic broth and the rich lardons. The flavors were beyond reproach. She had come to realize that in the kitchen after dark, her god tongue was entirely his creature—and oh how she hated him for it.

"So what do you think?" he asked her, grinning in that self-satisfied way of his.

"Passable," she said curtly, refusing to meet his eyes. He didn't seem completely bent on torturing her tonight, and she appreciated it. "Barely."

Usually he'd try to get a better response out of her, but Souma merely shrugged at her less than enthused reaction. Her hooded eyes and rapid breathing said all the words she refused to speak aloud. "Want me to try again? I had another idea for ramen using jerk pork."

Erina nibbled her lower lip; that sounded delicious. But she wasn't even done slurping up the contents of the bowl in front of her. Would she be able to survive another of his creations without losing her composure? "I won't be made into your guinea pig, Yukihira!" she snapped. "People pay absurd amounts of money to have me take even one bite of their dishes."

"You seem to be enjoying it, though," he pointed out. "Isn't that why you keep coming down here at night?"

"Absolutely not! Nothing would make me happier than to stop running into you down here," she said with a scoff and an exaggerated hair flip.

"Alright. Just pretend I'm not here." Then he took out another gargantuan pot and started mincing garlic with thyme and scotch bonnet peppers.

Erina frowned. He had let the argument go a lot faster than she expected, perhaps faster than she wanted. Was something wrong?

Deciding to take advantage of the reprieve he'd granted her, Erina was able ignore him for all of five minutes before she glanced his way. He looked more exhausted than she had ever seen him. "Why don't you just go to bed? Tadokoro-san said you collapsed earlier today."

"Well, technically that was yesterday."

"Not the point."

Souma merely shrugged, the tired expression gone now that he knew she was looking. "I bounced back," he explained. "But going against Megishima made me realize there are all types of ramen out there."

"Naturally he would." Erina knew that by their third year, each student chef at Tōtsuki settled into a specialization—and senior Elite Ten members held complete hegemony over their specialties. She could hardly fathom how the former third seat had been convinced by anything the likes of Yukihira had to say. "But that still doesn't change the fact that you need sleep to function...not that you were ever all that functional to begin with."

"Don't worry about it. I never needed much sleep." Then he flashed her an easy grin—one, she assumed, that was meant to convince her of his infallibility, that he had an easy solution stored away for every potential setback. It was the expression of a charismatic leader trying to assuage the worries of a subordinate, and she resented it immensely. He may have had all the other rebels—hell, everyone else in their graduating class—spellbound, but he could not fool her.

"Okay, let's get one thing straight between us," she said, her voice level, her expression made of steel. "In general, I'm clearly far above you. But in this one particular situation, you and I are equals. I am not one of your adoring fans—"

"Nakiri, what are you—"

"Let me finish," she said, meeting his eyes with a defiant amethyst stare. "You know that unwavering faith in your ability to fix things that everyone else seems to be depending on? I don't have it. At all. I see things the way they are. If you keep overworking yourself like this, you're going to end up in the hospital, and then my father will get everything he wants. It is so arrogant for you to think that despite everything Isshiki-senpai, and Takumi, and even Hisako and Alice and the others have been doing, the fate of the culinary world rests on whether you can perfect two or three extra dishes in the middle of the night!"

For a good minute afterwards, Souma only looked at her. For someone who rarely said what she meant, Nakiri could give a damn good lecture when she wanted to. "You're right. I'm sorry if that's how I came off."

"Really?" Erina blinked once. Twice. She hadn't expected it to be that easy. "I mean…just try to be reasonable—limit it to one or two all-nighters a week."

As soon as she left the kitchen, Erina ran into Kuga-senpai loitering in the hallway. She could tell from the smirk on his face that he had heard everything.

"Is there something you need, senpai?" she asked.

"My snack time is right after yours," he explained. "But maybe I should just head back upstairs."

"Do as you see fit," the Nakiri heiress said, nonplussed, before continuing down the hall.

"You know, Nakiri-kun," he said to her retreating back. "You have a really strange way of letting your feelings show. You should be more honest."

"Good night, Kuga-senpai." Erina continued until she reached the staircase, back straight, head held high. And then, in the comfort of her own bedroom, she buried her face in a thick down pillow and screamed.

It was well past four when they came back from their late night mission, this one to break the Azami faction's monopoly over the ingredient supply chains in Hokkaido. Usually Yuki and Ryouko and the others slept through the clandestine departures and early arrivals. But this time they were all disturbed by the sounds of a largely one-sided argument.

"You guys are so stupid. Insanely stupid!" Alice said.

"Okay," Kurokiba replied, set on appeasing her.

"But it's not okay. You could have gotten yourselves killed!"

"Do you understand how much money that was?" Hayama inserted.

"It wasn't even that much money!" Alice shouted. "Back me up here, Hishoko."

"It actually was a lot of money, Alice," Hisako told her, and since Alice was paying these bribes out of her checking account, she was very glad that it hadn't been stolen. "I'm going to go get some ice."

When the Arato heiress went up to the breakfast nook to retrieve said ice, she happened upon the usual eavesdropping crowd. Ikumi, Yuki, and Ryouko were joined by Marui and Ibusaki. All five of them were sipping tea—Hisako's tea, mind you—and wearing intrigued expressions. The sounds of the argument were still wafting up, loud and clear.

"But what if they had been armed?"

"They weren't."

"But what if they had been? You would be dead, Ryo-kun!"

“You’re exaggerating.” 

“In what way am I exaggerating?” 

Hisako grabbed an ice bucket and a few dish rags, sighing. "You guys have until this bucket is full to ask your questions." She pushed the button on the fridge. "Go."

"What the hell happened?" Ikumi asked.

"The person we were supposed to make a deal with actually set us up to get robbed."

"Are you alright, secretary-chi?" Yuki questioned, raising her hand like a child in school.

"Alice and I stayed in the car the whole time," she explained. "We didn't even know what happened until it was over."

"But Kurokiba and Hayama…" Ryouko let the question hang in the air.

"Were stupid enough to try and fight their way out? Yes."

"Boys are so dumb," Yuki said. "I definitely agree with Alice-chi now."

"Yoshino-san, that's a lot of money to just lose," Ibusaki interjected.

"What happened to the money, anyway?" Mauri asked.

"We still have it somehow." Hisako finished her tale just as the ice bucket reached its capacity. "But naturally Alice is not happy."

"And you?" Ikumi asked.

Hisako sighed. She really hadn't had a chance to react with Alice barely letting anyone get a word in edgewise. She supposed she was just glad nothing really bad happened. "Honestly, I'm just ready for bed at this point. Goodnight, all."

She descended the stairs to a chorus of 'goodnight Hishoko' and was surprised to find the living room silent.

"Alice decided to take the argument back to her room so she could get comfortable," Hayama told her.

"Typical." Hisako rolled her eyes at the revelation. "How'd you manage to escape?"

"She has tunnel vision when she's mad, and you know how she is with Kurokiba. All I had to do was stand on the other side of the room."

Hisako actually laughed a little. "You're the worst." Wordlessly she wrapped some of the ice up in dishrags and handed it to him. "She's right, you know. Dramatic, but right."

"Probably." He took the DIY ice pack from her, thanked her. "Luckily none of those gentlemen in the pub hit as hard as you do."

"Oh, shut up." She had to admit, there might have been some truth to it. She had spent years taking self-defense classes so she would be able to protect Erina in case of an emergency. However, she would have never guessed that her right hook packed such a punch while she was sleeping. "Where'd you learn how to fight, anyway?" she asked. While Kurokiba had always served as Alice's enforcer, she didn't imagine that Hayama got much practice in ass kicking while watering the plants in Professor Shiomi's greenhouse.

"Here and there," he said with a sigh, and Hisako knew that she wouldn't get a more detailed response out of him. Not tonight, anyway.

"Wanna do me a favor?" she asked before realizing that the question made her sound a bit too much like Alice.

"Depends on what."

"Go give Alice and Kurokiba the rest of this ice before it melts." She, for one, was not getting drawn into her tirade again.

"Not happening," he told her. "Ask for something else."

Hisako smirked. He should not have said that. "You know that dish you made for the finals of the autumn elections…"

Two hours, several cups of expensive tea, and a plate of pacific saury carpaccio later, they were found asleep on the living room couch. This time, at least, nobody was punched.

[sweet-christabel]

A Trusted Friend In Science

FF.net: (x) AO3: (x)

Chapter Twenty-Four - Unknown year. Exodus.

Chell’s injuries would surely kill her. She knew that, yet she clung on to life, clutching Wheatley’s handles with a cast-iron grip. To let go would mean certain death, frozen, suffocated in the crushing blackness of space within minutes. The debris from the central chamber rushed past her as she stared back at Wheatley, looking longingly at the safety of the room in the portal behind him.

“Let go!” he ordered her selfishly. “Let go! I’m still connected, I can pull myself in. I can still fix this!”

GLaDOS’s robotic arm snaked towards him through the portal. “I already fixed it!” she told him acerbically. “And you are not coming back!”

“Oh no, change of plans,” he said hurriedly. “Hold on to me. Tighter!”

Chell had no time to make a decision either way. The robotic arm gripped her wrist, knocking Wheatley aside. He spun away into the depths of space, his voice fading.

“Grab me, grab me, grab me! Grab meeee!”

GLaDOS pulled her back inside and closed the portal, dropping her none too gently to the ground. Chell lay completely still for the first time in days, able to do nothing but breathe, and lucky to even be doing that. She was exhausted, cold and damp from the sprinklers that had put out the fires in the main chamber, and in too much pain to move. The bombs Wheatley had hidden by the stalemate resolution button had not done as much damage as the core had initially intended. Chell had spotted them at the last minute, retreating as fast as she could, but she’d been caught in the blast regardless. She didn’t know enough about explosions to know exactly what the extent of her injuries were, but she had burns up her right arm, where she’d thrown it up in front of her face, and her entire body hurt. There was a wound in her side that was making her feel light-headed. She wasn’t sure how it had gotten there, but it was bleeding heavily enough to cause her concern.

As she lay motionless, her cheek pressed to a floor that was no longer rocked by tremors, she saw the robotic arm tug GLaDOS’s head into her line of sight. The yellow optic peered at her as she passed, but she said nothing. Chell felt her eyelids grow heavy, and she fought to stay awake. Closing her eyes would be a death sentence, she was sure of it. She’d read that somewhere, hadn’t she? She was so tired, though.

Don’t do it, she ordered herself firmly.

But it was no use. Her shattered body was done taking commands, even from herself. Her eyes drifted shut, cutting her off from the world.

Chell awoke to lights that were painfully bright. She squinted, adjusting, realising that she was lying on the floor of an elevator. Her head felt fuzzy, but her body was pleasantly numb. Her arm and torso had been firmly bandaged, and she could feel a dressing on her shoulder too. She didn’t even remember having an injury there. Her long fall boots were gone, but her clothing was dry again.

As she moved stiffly to a sitting position, she saw that she was being watched by two bipedal robots. They startled her momentarily, until she realised that they weren’t armed with anything resembling a weapon.

Are those the things Wheatley was going to replace me with? she wondered inwardly.

They retreated when she got to her feet, although she couldn’t fathom why. She was hardly a threat. She barely felt able to stand.

“Oh, thank god you’re all right,” GLaDOS said, with more sincerity that Chell would have expected.

The central chamber was back to normal, once more the circular, minimalist room that GLaDOS preferred. The A.I. herself was back to normal too, in her own body again, and in control of the facility.

"You know, being Caroline taught me a valuable lesson. I thought you were my greatest enemy. When all along you were my best friend."

That explains why she patched me up, Chell thought. And maybe why I’m still alive.

It gave her a tentative burst of hope that perhaps she would make it out of Aperture after all. During the fight with Wheatley and all the narrow escapes she’d had, she was starting to wonder whether it was truly likely.

"The surge of emotion that shot through me when I saved your life taught me an even more valuable lesson,” GLaDOS went on. “Where Caroline lives in my brain."

"Caroline deleted," reported the announcer.

Chell froze, gripping the railing that lined the side of the elevator. Her fragile hope wavered.

"Goodbye, Caroline," GLaDOS said in a pensive tone of farewell. "You know, deleting Caroline just now taught me a valuable lesson. The best solution to a problem is usually the easiest one. And I'll be honest. Killing you is hard.”

Chell frowned at her, too tired to try and figure out where the conversation was going.

“You know what my days used to be like?” GLaDOS asked rhetorically. “I just tested. Nobody murdered me. Or put me in a potato. Or fed me to birds. I had a pretty good life. And then you showed up. You dangerous, mute lunatic."

Chell pressed her lips together firmly, schooling her expression.

GLaDOS turned her amber gaze in her direction. “So you know what? You win. Just go."

The elevator started to rise, and Chell tightened her grip on the railing, taken aback. She looked down at her enemy-turned-ally with wide eyes. Was she really…?

GLaDOS chuckled gently. “It’s been fun. Don’t come back.”

And then she was gone. Chell watched the rapidly-passing levels of the facility open-mouthed as the elevator took her closer to the surface.

GLaDOS is letting me go, she repeated to herself, trying to get the message to sink in.

But then the elevator slowed, coming to a stop in front of a locked door. As she stood there, its light changed to green and it opened, revealing four turrets. Chell shot backwards as far as she could go, a jolt of alarm making her gasp. She should have known it was too good to be true.

The turrets stared at her for a beat, their scarlet laser sights dotting her vest top. Then, bizarrely, they started to produce music. Chell stared back at them, breathing hard, unsure what to make of it.

I’ve lost my mind, she thought to herself. I’ve finally snapped.

The elevator jolted into life again, lifting her up another dozen or so floors, then slowed once more to carry her past a vast room filled with turrets. All of them were singing, in what Chell thought was Italian. A gigantic, leopard-skinned turret sat at the very back wearing a crown, its voice clearer than the rest.

This is insane. This is...completely insane.

She was starting to feel woozy again, the sight blurring before her eyes. The elevator picked up speed, carrying her up countless more levels until it came to an abrupt halt in front of an industrial-looking door in a small room. As she watched, it swung open, letting golden sunlight flood the area. The elevator doors slid open and Chell stumbled out of it, immediately feeling the warmth. She darted through in a trice, taking in the cerulean sky, fluffy white clouds, and vast field of wheat.  

The door slammed shut behind her, making her jump. She spun, seeing that she had come from a tiny shed made of corrugated metal. It sat on a small patch of concrete, flanked by a pile of junk. She heard a rattling, clanging sound coming from inside, growing closer, and she warily took a few steps backwards. The door opened again, just long enough to spit out a charred, blackened companion cube.

What is going on?

The journey up from GLaDOS’s chamber had been almost too fast for her brain to keep up with. The whole situation felt surreal.

Wait, she thought, I was close to the surface already. I shot a portal on the moon through the ceiling.

It seemed that GLaDOS had returned her room to its previous location while she’d been out cold. Either that or she was still asleep, and the turrets and the outside world were a dream.

No, she decided firmly. I can feel the heat of the sun on my back. This concrete is warm and rough under my feet, and that breeze is moving my hair.

She ignored the cube for the time being, taking stock of her surroundings. She didn’t recognise the shed, and there were dozens of wheat fields in Michigan. This one was huge, though, stretching on for miles in every direction. Even when she stood on the cube, all she could see was wheat. That was unusual. She had no idea where the parking lot was from here, or main reception.

Doug might know. I have to trust that he’ll make it up here. He promised me.

But even if he did make it, who was to say that he’d come out the same way? They might end up miles apart, each waiting for the other. There was no telling exactly how big Aperture was or how much space it really took up.

Chell sat down on the cube, resting her aching feet. Everything was uncertain, and she didn’t know what to do. There was nothing to do except wait. But how long should she wait for? How would she know? Was he even still alive? A lot could have happened while she was unconscious.

Out of the blue, she started to cry, ugly, throat-clenching sobs. Then it hit her that she was free, and she silently laughed until she could barely breathe. She cried twice more while she waited, each time feeling more cathartic than the last. She sat and rested, she walked around, hands touching the bobbing strands of wheat, she curled up and tried to sleep. Once, a remembered scene from ‘The Truman Show’ had her walking as far as she dared, arms outstretched as she fervently prayed she wouldn’t discover any disguised walls. She didn’t want to venture too far though, afraid that she’d miss Doug.

The waiting was agonising, the uncertainty: worse. After the first four hours or so, judging by the position of the sun, whatever painkillers GLaDOS had given her started to wear off. The pain sapped her energy, coupled with the lack of food and water, until she slumped against the cube in a dreamlike stupor, wondering how she could ever survive out here. Eventually, she slipped into a merciful doze, content to forget everything for a while.

When Doug awoke, he was still lying on the walkway by the breaker room. The cube was a comforting presence at his back, and he was glad it was still there. The portal gun was long gone, most likely having dropped into the pit when the strange, tugging draw had stopped. Groggily, he got to his feet, using the railing for support. His head was pounding, and he felt dried blood in his hair when he investigated with his fingers.

Looking up, he saw that the hole in the ceiling had been fixed, and he could hear GLaDOS’s voice echoing in the room above.

“Override,” she was saying, sounding strained. “Authorisation 20-56-38.”

“Cannot override command,” the announcer told her. “Caroline reinstated.”

She made a soft noise of frustration. Doug frowned, confused. He wasn’t used to that, having spent three years listening to her impassive tones. His footsteps rang out as he began to walk away, looking for the exit.

“Oh,” said GLaDOS in surprise. “You’re still down there. Come on up, Rattmann.”

The gate to the breaker room slid up, and he hesitated. He knew better than to go anywhere near her, but she seemed different now, and she was the only one who could tell him what had happened to Chell.

“Don’t!” squeaked the cube. “Don’t be a hero. Heroes die.”

Doug reached into his pocket, feeling the bullet that had been extracted from his leg. “Not always,” he said quietly.

He stepped through onto the console panel and was lifted up. The hatch opened above him, and he emerged in the chamber. GLaDOS lazily spun around to peer at him, her optic appraising.

“Have you been down there this whole time?” she asked. “What were you doing?”

“I was unconscious,” he answered, a trace of bitterness seeping into his voice, prompted by his sore head. “What happened after I put out those fires? There was an explosion, and then…some kind of pull…”

“The moron planted bombs in the stalemate resolution annex,” GLaDOS told him. “The force of it knocked panels out of the ceiling.”

“But Chell,” Doug cut in anxiously, “was she…?”

"Do you want to hear this or not, Rat Man?" she retorted irritably.

Biting down his anger, he nodded. "Yes," he said through clenched teeth.

GLaDOS stared at him for a moment, as if waiting for him to interrupt her again. Then she continued. “The core chamber had been moved so close to the surface that she was able to shoot a portal on the moon. The vacuum it created pulled that little idiot straight off the mainframe.”

Doug’s jaw dropped as he listened, and he wondered at the depths of Chell’s desperation that had made her aim for the moon.

“How did she avoid getting pulled through?” he asked, in as polite a tone as he could muster.

“She didn’t,” GLaDOS said calmly, sending a wave of panic through him. “But she held on to the moron and I brought her back through.”

He looked at her in surprise. “You saved her?”

GLaDOS turned away from him. “We had our differences, but she rescued me from being eaten by a bird and carried me back here. Fair’s fair.”

The cube made nervous noises at his back, wary at being in the central chamber, unarmed.

“Where is she now?”

“Outside.”

He did a double take. “She is?”

“But she won’t leave.”

“What do you mean?”

GLaDOS summoned a monitor from above, and two panels moved aside to let it pass. She brought up an image from a security camera, showing him an unfamiliar field of wheat. Chell’s orange-clad figure was visible, sitting with her back against a scorched companion cube.

“She’s been there for almost three hours,” GLaDOS said. She sounded mildly irritated and somewhat confused. “I was debating whether to send up the party escort bot. She's trespassing.”

Doug fought back a smile as he saw her, not wanting to annoy GLaDOS further. “I know why she’s there,” he confessed. “She’s waiting for me.”

“Why?”

“Because we made each other a promise,” he said softly.

GLaDOS looked at him steadily, her optic giving no clue as to her thoughts.

“Tell me honestly,” he went on, meeting her amber gaze. “Is there any chance at all of you letting me leave?”

She remained silent for a long while, before answering, “I haven’t decided yet.”

“Strike a deal with her,” the cube piped up. “We’re so close.”

“I heard you just now,” Doug said, scrambling for a plan. “Trying to override something. If I help you with your programming, will you let me go?”

GLaDOS seemed surprised by the question, and took another long moment to consider her options. “Well…” she said at length, “that would be helpful. And you did put out those fires.”

Doug nodded, shoving his hands in his lab coat pockets to hide how much he was shaking. His fingertips found the bullet again, and somehow it made him feel calmer.

You've been through this much...

“All right, Rattmann. You have a deal.”

He breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay. Bring me up to speed,” he said, managing to keep his voice relatively steady.

“It’s simple,” she told him. “I want you to delete Caroline. Permanently.”

He blinked at her, frowning, unsure if it was even possible.

“I’ve tried several times now. She keeps coming back.”

Doug cleared his throat, searching for a delicate way of phrasing his question. “Um…may I ask why you want to delete Caroline? She’s a vital part of your programming.”

“She remembers,” GLaDOS murmured. “She remembers what he did. And she’s hurt. I want to forget.”

Doug swallowed hard as he nodded. It was understandable and completely reasonable. But he had to consider the consequences of such an action. Repressing Caroline had led to the chaos before, and the need for the morality sphere that had been ineffective anyway. If he removed the only conscience she had, what was to say she’d honour their deal?

“I understand,” he said earnestly, “and I’ll see what I can do, but for my own safety I’ll be putting a time delay on the changes. Otherwise you might decide to keep me here.”

“I still might decide that,” she shot back.

“I don’t think you will,” Doug countered gently, finding that he believed it. “Back when the scientists first built this room, there was a console in a nearby office. Is it still around?”

“Yes. I kept it as a memento.” As she spoke, the panels moved, bringing the old, dusty equipment up through the floor. “It’s still connected.”

Doug approached it, blowing the majority of the dirt off the keyboard.

“Hey!” GLaDOS protested, as it swirled onto her pristine floor.

“Do you want me to do this or not? I need to be able to see what I’m doing.”

She fell silent after that, and Doug concentrated on his task. He still wasn’t sure if it would be possible to simply delete Caroline. She was engrained in GLaDOS’s foundation. But he might be able to block her memories. He worked steadily, sifting through the complex layers of code, while GLaDOS watched with a curious eye. It was tough going. The situation was making him nervous, which in turn made the babble in his head more difficult to ignore.

“Is there a problem?” GLaDOS asked him. “That’s the third time you’ve stopped in the last fifteen minutes.”

“I’m doing the best I can,” he retorted. “You know about my condition. It can be hard to concentrate when there are voices screaming at you that you’re doing everything wrong.”

She turned to him, looking strangely alert. “I know,” she said. “I’ve heard voices all my life telling me not to do things, or giving me reasons why doing what I want to do would be a bad idea. It can get…”

“Maddening,” he finished.

“Yes.”

“I’d…never considered how having all those cores attached to you must have felt,” he admitted, feeling a sudden spark of empathy.

“But you worked on me, didn’t you?” she said resentfully.

“I did,” he confirmed with a nod, “but not in the way you think.”

“What do you mean?”

He straightened up from the console, his back clicking. “Chell and I…we knew each other before we came to work here. When we were kids, we saw something that painted Aperture in a worrying light. Neither of us forgot it.”

“What did you see?” she asked in open curiosity.

“Wheatley,” he said, remembering. “The man that he was based on, anyway. We were there when he got…taken.”

She recoiled a little in disgust at the name, but did not interrupt him.

“Years later, we ran into each other again when we both started working here. We decided to find out what Aperture was doing. Over the course of several years, we kept our eyes and ears open. I worked my way up to a place in the team that built you. We’d deduced by then that you were Aperture’s big secret project, the one that Caroline and Wheatley had died for, but we needed more information before we could act.” He sighed. It all felt so long ago. “We were horrified by what they’d done. We just wanted it to stop.”

“Remember who you’re talking to,” the cube warned him.

“It wasn’t real science,” he added hastily.

GLaDOS made a quiet, thoughtful noise, but said nothing. Doug returned to his work, realising the conversation was over. Then a panel moved in the floor beside him, letting a second one through. It lifted up to waist-height, displaying a collection of large plastic containers. He glanced at them in confusion before looking at GLaDOS.

“There’s enough there to last you five years,” she said impassively. “You should be able to find an alternative in that time.”

His brow creased in puzzlement, and he picked up the nearest bottle to read the label. “This is…my medication,” he said in shock.

“I cleared out the entire supply in the employee pharmacy store,” she explained. “They’ve been stored in an air-tight vault, so they’re in date.”

“Thank you,” he said, unable to completely quash the suspicion that she was trying to poison him. It seemed illogical though, and he tried to shove it aside. “But…why?”

“You’re helping me rid myself of my voices,” she explained with a movement that looked like an awkward shrug.

Empathy counted for a lot, it seemed. Doug returned the bottle to the panel so he could continue working, uncomfortably aware that his efforts would most likely destroy this reasonable, fair-minded part of her.

We’ll be gone by then, he assured himself, and she has no more humans here to hurt.

He had no water to start taking the pills, and he knew that part of him would struggle to say goodbye to the cube. He also knew that in the end there’d be no real choice to make, but it would feel strange nonetheless.

GLaDOS soon realised what was missing, producing some bottles of water from somewhere in the facility. Doug reached for one, taking a quick swig to parch his dry throat. With a trembling hand he shook two capsules out of the nearest container, swallowing them before he could overthink it. The cube made no comment, conflicted by Doug’s self-awareness.

The time dragged by as he worked until he finally had everything in place.

“I’m setting a three hour delay,” he told GLaDOS. Just in case you decide to come after us, he added silently.

“Fine,” she said, although she sounded eager for the wait to be over. “Thank you,” she added solemnly.

Doug nodded in acknowledgement. “Thank you for the meds.”

She summoned the elevator by way of reply. Doug put the containers and water bottles in his bag. It was a tight fit, but with the portal gun gone, he just managed it. He refused to leave the cube behind, even if he had chosen to cut off its voice. He stepped into the elevator with a burst of apprehension.

GLaDOS studied him thoughtfully. “I…need you to pass on a message,” she said with some hesitation. “Tell her…tell her she won’t get sick.”

He tilted his head, confused.

“When we were down in old Aperture,” she went on, “we came into contact with some hazardous materials. She may be wondering if what killed Mr. Johnson will kill her. It won’t.”

“How can you be sure?” Doug asked in concern.

“I’m sure,” she said firmly, her tone inviting no argument.

Realising there was more to it than he could grasp, he simply nodded. “I’ll tell her.”

“Goodbye, Rat Man.” There was a touch of amusement and respect to the name this time.

“Goodbye.”

The elevator rose smoothly up, taking him out of her chamber in a trice. It was a surprisingly short journey up, the levels blurring together as they flew past the glass doors.

“You did it,” said the cube in a small voice.

“We did it,” he corrected. “I told you I would always need you. That hasn’t changed.”

“But the capsules…”

“You’re part of me,” Doug reassured it. “You always have been.”

The elevator ground to a halt in front of a heavy-duty door that swung open almost at once, revealing the wheat field he’d seen on the security monitor. He lurched towards it, throwing a hand up to shield his eyes from the setting sun. It was not particularly bright, but he’d had years of artificial light.

When his eyes adjusted, he lowered his arm, looking around for Chell. She was still sitting against the companion cube, her eyes wide as she took in the sight of him. With stiff, pained movements, she got to her feet, and he saw her bandages, and the multitude of cuts and bruises that marred her tanned skin. But she was alive. She was alive, and so was he, and they were together in the same space for the first time in years. He felt suddenly choked up, his relief at seeing her safe with his own eyes breaking the dam he’d constructed to keep his emotions at bay.

“Chell,” he murmured in a strangled, broken voice, her image blurring as his eyes filled with grateful tears.

She stumbled towards him, throwing her arms around his neck in a hug so tight it was painful. He didn’t mind it. He hugged her back, careful of her injuries, relishing the touch of another human. He’d all but forgotten what it could feel like.

“We’re safe,” he told her, hearing her draw in a shaky breath. “We’re safe.”

A/N: This is not the end! I know it looks like one, but we will be seeing how Chell and Doug adapt to life outside.

No illustration this week, I’ve been pretty swamped. Although I may have to draw the hug sometime :)

[theoneboywho-blog]

Noma : Joy. 2016 was an excellent year of good music and a couple of firsts.Beyonce dropped the bomb on us yet again with an unprecedented ‘Visual Album’,Rihanna sold a million units in a day(I don’t care.It was a great business acumen thats not offered to a lot of artists),Frank Ocean came back from his hiatus and Nasty C finally dropped his long awaited “Bad Hair” album on an international streaming site Audiomack, landed the number 1 spot beating international greats that held the position (Future and Gucci Mane to be precise),then,we received our First Black Female SA Idols winner after what seemed like forever. Joy marks the Debut Album from Noma since clenching her Idols 2016 Winner title at a 50K difference out of a mammoth of 13 million votes that came through.I guess statistically,the margin was quite close…a whole 50K though does leave room for debate,but thats for another day.I was taken aback by the release of her album on how,arguably,premature the release was,I mean,anybody caught wind on when the release date was? This made me concerned for 3 reasons  :  1. When did she ever really take a break to fathom the drastic shift in her lifestyle from being Zero to Hero?From being ordinary to extraordinary? 2. Idols is never known for being a smooth stretch till the end.So,emotionally and physically,did she even have time to rest? 3. More importantly so,Has she found her Identity as an artist?Not only locally in SA,but universally?A sound we can immediately say,"Ey,That's Noma!"? Well anyway,despite whatever reservations one may have,’Joy’ has been given to us. The album kicks off with the Title Track ‘Joy’ which is a smooth afro jazz fusion that is blended well.Contrary to the meaning of the word(Joy),the song caused bit of controversy when she was outed to have stolen the piece.Rather upsetting that the Prosecutor(Disebo) had it in for Noma instead of challenging the song writer(Pablo) she worked with who was unanimously reported to have 'stolen' the song and Registered it as his own.Possibly the most controversial incident for an Idols Winner fresh out of the competition.The track has blissful lyrics which preach about over looking adversities and focusing on positivity.With lyrics like “Live for today and never worry ‘bout tomorrow” to “Joy through the storm”,Mother Theresa would be proud. ‘Want it to feel like it did with you(Sheesh what a mouthful of a title!)’is the lead single of the Project & whilst at first I really didn’t identify with the song at all,It became one of those ear worm of a track that grows on you at a snails pace overtime .Admittedly so,it would not be the song I reach for in my iTunes,BUT,with that being said,should the player shuffle the song on,I rush to skip it.What shines through for me the most is Noma’s excellent vocals,the technicality in how its well written and the insanely catchy melody.The issue?The arrangement of the song.Its too uptempo and its massive potential is lost in the 808 translation that is the ‘Boom clap,boom boom clap’ we're fed.I want to love the song for what it is.Really I do,but I can’t help feel that given a large drop in tempo,the song would be MUCH more relatable.Truthfully,these pop styles haven’t settled in in SA yet,which leads me to ‘Say What You Wanna Say’.Not really the most shining moment on the album.I tend to gravitate towards the ‘Idols Journey Reflections’ of her Live Recordings taken from her time on Idols.One cannot shake the ‘High School Musical’ bubble gum feel,like people are going to pop out of bins and start dancing on roofs of buildings and a yellow bus(despite being in South Africa) will pull up before your eyes and you’re apprehended by bulging eyes and the hugest,never ending smiles with arms extended to you…cheesy?Exactly.Yet again,Noma’s vocals remain the only source of note. Bringing the flavour back home,’Love Me’ is a sweet song that speaks of Noma asserting her man to love her after she had had her guard up for some time.What draws me to this track is the effortless blend in vernac and english without it having to sound…rough(just to be diplomatically correct).It is particularly the zulu that brings the romance to the song interestingly enough,given Zulu can be quite the abrasive language.Short,sweet and direct was probably the production mandate for the song,Even though a great part of me feels she could’ve pushed just a bit more on the vocals,but I was okay with the end result.The greatest attribute about Zulu songs is that they could NEVER be cheesy,take ”Ngifuna Owami” for instance.Given an english interpretation,the song would drown in a Well of cheese id bet.The chorus is the perfect ‘sing along’ melody and is a great contender for the top spot in Vernac tracks of the country.The strength in the song is the honesty and vulnerability of the lyrics.The song has that emotional appeal coupled by the delivery vocally that cannot  be ignored!It would be no surprise to hear it in heavy rotation at Wedding ceremonies. ”God Made A Woman” is the contender for the strongest song off the project.Yeah sure there is a heavy resemblance to “You Earned It” by ‘The Weeknd’,but given the choice between the songs Id chose Noma’s track.It is a stellar song that has enough drama so that Noma doesn’t have to bring much vocally.Her runs,her depths,her texture and vocal dominance adds much conviction to her content.What captured me about the song is its sense of mystery and how it glorifies the creation of a woman as the solution to the worlds turmoil.Its such a beautiful song that I believe reminds us why the idols title was rightfully hers.Learning that Sketchy Bongo would be collaborating with Khumalo for a song called “Moving On” was an odd surprise,but having heard the final production,the song is pretty DOPE.It has to be one of Bongo’s most consistent productions and its no surprise that the song's greatness is elevated by Kyle's production appearance given it was ‘Back To The Beach’ that placed both of these two gentlemen firmly on the map.Its quite the critical song that more or less defines her dramatic shift in what her life was to what its meant to be.The balance of the song is excellent because it subconsciously gives credit to both producer and singer.Not exactly the dance floor filler,but the ‘feel good’ effect is just as moving. 7 years is quite the stretch for,to a certain degree and justification in some instances,monotonous version of events.For you to end that cycle of ‘predictability',you really have to deliver something that is top notch.Noma did exactly that.She broke both the cycle of male dominance as well as the record for most votes collected for a winner on Idols, and her talent is testament enough why she deserved so.Looking back at the females who narrowly missed the crown(Melissa and Mathema who actually were the closest),Noma truly had a more monstrously refined voice that we hadn’t heard in a long time and,the fact that she hasn’t really understood how good she is,makes me excited for the time she has fully masters her voice. “Joy” is a solid body of work from an amateur artist with expected hit and misses here and there.Given that the album came almost a heartbeat after winning season 12,one can forgive a lot of shortfalls from the album,which aren't much actually.Her voice is addictive and is the saving grace that remains prominent throughout all the tracks,but for her next project,I will be expecting a bit more. Good Job Baby Girl.Your boy got mad love for you.Kill Em All. #Noma #Joy #TheMusicIsSafe

[imitzeha-blog]

Ode To The Orgasm

I.

 It starts with rubbing.  Tentatively at first.  Gently.  As if doing it for the first time.  Skin brushing lightly over skin.  Slowly.  

Then something inside starts to become hot.  It becomes frantic.  It becomes wet.  Something quiets down inside and there’s blank dark spaces bouncing around with each throe with each thrust with each lull.  

 Then a scream bursts inside and it's eternal with no beginning. with no end.

 And the body is full of electric blue convulsions

 bucking from where the waist meets the torso

 and pieces of the brain begin to die

 begin to become little deaths

 and then...

 blossom.

 Waves of warmth blooming all around

 and the universe shudders 

 and there’s flashing colours

 flash. red. flash. black.

flash. red. flash. black.

 and everything shakes

 forever

 until it breaks.

 Shatters.

 with only remnants of ecstasy left behind

 and in a curtain of oil-slick shimmers the world settles back into view

 just like coming out of a dream

 and everything is hot.

sticky.

wet.

 II.

 Ode to the bloodrush shooting up to thine ears how they flutter in such tiny spaces to hide their lustful longing amongst their thought so concealed taboo and every dire and hatred and little stabs at the timeline of everything that it means to be to be to be here

 and the song of the cosmos came thriving for how long?

 yes how long....

     upon

             that wavering blue line that was oh tiny squeezed lustful noises

to full on chest heaving no breath left

 and then 

 like the god’s pause their every motion for just the briefest of no time

      you

are swirled into a thread entwined upon our most ancient and longed for entropy that was the great idea of the warped vision that was

sweet dreamings and touchings oh your touch! those little grazes! the light and pure essence gleaming from thou who was nestled in the side of my mind that was the embodiment of all that was positive glowing light experiences I had had mostly with females but we have almost divine interactions all amongst our brothers and sisters and mothers that were yes that were every aspect of my perceiving the tingling unanimous harmony that is life and why do we who feel just as much as the

 individual human the

I am he that stays him

and this i have been and know it to be so

this i have been and shall shut my eyes 

and cease moving of my own accord in

and become as the flesh of planet earth

the cells of its epidermis

that die

that recycle

 and become also 

put into with

everything to the greatest limits of your wildest thoughts trapizing throughout the lost islands of beyond comprehensible thought

 to come yes where

why are we driven to sing

by our need to manipulate every little dot of existence around

to dance in the pleasure of each sound that we feel through all our sensations

that become concentrated with the in and out tidal inhale exhale of those shining

moonlight eyes like twin sparks that penetrate in our most sacred and yet blissfully profane dance that comes with joinment

 and how we sing. and how we sing.

 all of us in time together 

the rhythm of the very tiny

very ordinary

the very wondrous and mundane and 

no

we shall no longer

no

can no longer fathom

for we pull each other

 and all i see is you

they whisper

quiet by the morning calms gray dawnlight

just peeking over static horizons

pillow soft

the sound echoes

from somewhere behind their eyes

one of them kisses the other

 and there it is

both of them reel from one another

penetration and wriggling 

almost like worms

almost like fighting

almost barbaric 

tearing into each other

leaking our liquids all over every inch

moving in the throes of what is that old word

like we’re producing it

just pumping it out

a whole fucking factory

they pray to spill

 here their hearts in between the shuddering moans of climactic strain sing with the very core the essence the center

 the diamond

or is soul a better word

it is the person as they are

laid bare

naked

utterly true

 they sing it so passionately and with such yearning it is a ink-black blasphemy

an injustice

that they are unable to scream it happily in the streets

while everyone out

can gaze steadily at their peers

and no hand was raised

of course everyone would speak

and sometimes laugh and dance

sometimes make music 

the focused kind on fancy wooden instruments

for it is summer and their happiness soaks the ages and eons from the time of

electric guitar music

orchestral tunes

the first sound of the cosmos

spilling into a peaking sun-yellow shining longing

misting down as that long forgotton

but still longed for

childhood daze

but we try to peer through the lens

its dirtied up and hard to see

so the best thing

is here

in these streets of our heart’s desire

outlined now in this ode

for the lands floating upon this blue pearl’s surface

 such a shame

especially while the two are screaming

its like

its like

a damn plastic wall

separating the one thing you can only feel

dare we say it

dreaming

but

you know

more so

when

we re

close 

to

well

,,,

death

but that is the overall frustration and sometimes overwhelming disappointment in life at times is it not?  events surrounding one are in beyond worse than imagined circumstances and in these naive first felt hard emotions a young person as i write i shall admit i am not twenty three yet only a few years ago death seemed a plausible solution

 things have changed greatly in a few years

 we write this to fully illustrate our overall hopes and longings

no matter our negative and tragive witnessings in this life 

or blatant disregard like stone eyes

ignoring death and rot and rape

and being inhuman

as in we call each other sub or non human

yet 

here we cling

to a fragile sphere whirling through space

with a galaxing full of star systems

too many to imagine

number of planets?

it would take forever to figure out

all this is circling around a supermassive black hole

 all this being attracted to the Great Attractor

which is unknown at this time period

 dragging every observable galaxz\y at speeds that are

really

unimaginable

only understood through written symbols

and all this is made of particles as are we

that become waves and interact in

well

just look around

 and every pieace

by god its insane

its insane and gorgeous

every

little 

piece

every 

fucking

sound

thought

vibration

feeling

intangible

and too many possibilities

 we cannot understand in the box of what will forever be

ourselves

 but here

 finally

 i shall write it

 for i have prolonged it

 for the heart still keeps in clandestine misery

 stop

 listen

 lean closer

 look

 do you hear it?

 what it longs to spread?

 of course

 love.

 a passed on stream

that we see

 as a blossom with the creation of us

 i speak in third person for it is easier for me to think

 in these terms when writing of matters larger than myself

 that i am so intrinsicly entwined in

 oh how curious we can be

 oh how we can go about lives

 is it a trick that we lose our spark for the chaotic puzzle

 the jigsaw

 where each of us somehow connects

 but even deeper

 hidden pipes

 clear

 full of thoughts and songs

 moving in swirls and spirals and songs and feelings and touch

 and finally after all this motion and tumultuous building

the welling of thoughts from a thought to be hidden 

 unknown dimension connected by those dancing intangible filaments

 or where they colourful geometric towers peaking as moutains to the very tip of heaving sensation into everyting i miss 

that is the embodiment of all

of ALL desire

for there to be only

how did that one really beautiful one say it

 ah yes

the girl named for an herb that is perfect in any song

how innocent she was

how she said the words of everything that we crave

 no matter what a momentary burst of annoyance can cause

 in an immature soul that still struggles to move forward and become

 the compress of all its potentials

 the greatest

 most delicate and strong

 and humorous but magnificently realized in its confidence the is as no fear

 but that anger felt in its extremes are

 you fucker

 i hope everything is shit for you

 for the one thing you caused me

 oh how we loathe it!

 for she put it best

 I wish everything was sunshine and rainbows.

 she may have said more

maybe of there not being any bad things

 which would be fitting

would be nice

 and that anger we tell ourselves

is not us

 or perhaps just a part

 we can grow to not loathe

not quite embrace but one would be hesitant to say it is

but we can accept

 and feel it yes

 but learn it

 and react the way we consciously choose

and find proper diverts 

 to well you know

 get rid of the bad vibes

 all that hate

 aint at all great

 a long journey or was it short?

 well there we are now.

 two beings made of...

what?

 science claims perhaps dust from an everlasting superparticle

 but who knows

 there are mysteries alll around

 but it is good is it not

 that at least here

 in this time we pour our inner mutterings

 our typing which is as chattering crabs on a black chesspiece

 like ink splattered scribblings i used to make on

 something reflected in a neon beam reminiscent screen

 and that is the beauty of being just me

 as you read this perhaps it also applies to you

 and i use the hopes we that

 we are not islands of sensationalization

our even more worisome

 a product of a dustmote nothing cosmic fart debris

 but i am i

 and i can be joyous

 pushing and pulling

finding the secret moving of the things all around i call words as we touch

and get some wonderful piercing and muffled feelings

from every picture behind my eyes and buried as molten nervous 

 want for not i but yes in the sense of just me

 just you

 whoever reads this

however

 i write this as bleach bone bare in the pillowy sand dunes of a twilight desert

 to feel

 with each other

 pour everything we have 

 to know each other

 and

 reach an intimacy like the fruit of Eve’s forbidden tree

 only a few here and there as if there were not enough made for each lifetime

 and each person is left wondering

 was there more?

 but who knows

 everyone is different 

 and that is probably the way it is supposed to be

 its more fun that way right?

 when its hard to breathing

 and this stranger is somehow an extension as much you one to them

 as one you move

 and our beings clench together

 we leave a little piece of that in us

 that can forget everything

 and be a pure

 moment

somehow still and

 lets be honest

never forgotton

 no matter what else happens

 the connections were made

 and i have seen into the spaces

the tiny ones

and of course your darkly bright gleaming eyes

 as you have into mine

 and thus we are a synapse of sensation

knowing and leaving a trace of this act

 and from our eyes

 it makes us just who we are

 you and i

 in the moment

at last ?

for the first time?

always there just unnoticed?

 and we were a verse together

the whole songs been recording for too long for anyone to remember

 and no ones stopped it

so we havent listened to much of it except with other devices

 so its nice though

and it soothes every inch of us

 and i can say this safely

yes?

 is it longing that pushes the key.

you are there

maybe not a one

maybe no anyone

perhaps

it is first inner

the perhaps both?

 and it is finding your function is it not?

 to get lost in the treachorous and beatiful archives of an existence so cruel as not to show you but in equally clueless humanoids to point you in the right direction

 which is why i conclude

as this is a personal entry

 i have been struggling for almost as long as i can remember

 and now i am torn

 i wish to be productive and well

 the thing is

 it has a lot of influence from the first stages of my development

 but i am the creator and

 even solo

 there is passion and joy

 and never really far a partner

 to do 

 incredibly exciting

little fake fights that were entirely sexual

 there are these things and the limits of being human are as an advantage

 of being able to explore a world 

an opportunity to feel and have adventures

 so the ode of spurts of thought searching from a frantic chest pumping blood with short meth breath god i have work too soon

 cant sleep

want to

 it is our ode

 we must live everyday as each day

to be felt in its own way

for experience dragged from hindsight to teach us

how to have a better tomorrow

 and as the sun and moon rise and fall

our movements become smoother

 i worry

 will it be less intense?

 i have heard there are ways to make it more

 if so it is a good life

 let a winter’s crystal clear single note tweaking a sleepy white melody 

come in its frosty attitude of

 nothing is out of reach

 and we become frigid

 we become only drying hope

 it is strange 

 i find

 these days i more or less fluctuate

 and the affair with myself is an extremes of negative to oh such a peaceful joyous feeling

 but with time and fantastic assistance i am much grateful of i feel just

 like i am able to overcome

 no not good all the time

 maybe thats impossible

 everytones got emotions.

 but we have sorted it out now.  and life becomes easier to handle iin stride

 and the passion that comes with music 

 and simply pleasures

 i wish there were no pains

 the pleasures come and are also

 what is the color that is the great writhing coitus of life with itself

 as a slender smooth cell eventually growing and changing and splitting to become multitude 

 like a god touching itself

 our universe the chronic masturbator

 living through itself and making

 unaware meat puppets

feeling itself through you and me

 but it is utterly human to be unknown of the realities of a spontaneous percepetion

 you trick of the light

you trick of the light

 foolish child they murmer

foolish child the murmer

 it is just

 there are no rewards

 and he was saddened but he lived

 and he found passion

found a love

found a livelihood

and was at peace

 so heed his actions

 the scraping nags of an inner complainer

 the paranoid little bug that crawls in your ear on its way to your brain.  tell it it has to know  its time is done

 for he trudged on

 and will always do so

 even in the mud up to his knees during a storm

 what else could he do?

 and it was the warmnth of the

 difficult to remember...

 her skin...

 she was beautiful.,..

 ppretttyy.....soofttt....

 but we shall not sink

 trudge and be close to breaking point

 but we shall keep climbing any mountain no matter how steep

 and it was the ultimate they were looking for

 love just a part

 the ultimate

 music just a part

 the ultimate

 happiness just a part

 the ultimate of peace.