#i still do not understand why they are DIFFERENT plastic but this chart definitely would have come in handy

[bxtchforstyles]

The greatest headache ever

Harry Styles x Meredith Cooper

(part of the hey doctor series)

When Harry starts getting headaches bad enough to where he has to go to the emergency room, Meredith is there to help. This is the story of how they met.

Warning: mentions of hospitals, slight mentions of needles, just medical things.

Word count: 2.1k

gif not mine.

Whenever Meredith worked overtime at the hospital, those always seemed to be the same days that Harry didn’t have to go to the studio, or the days that Harry had something planned for the two of them.

Meredith was the definition of a workaholic, making it very difficult for her to often go home on time after her shift. Harry tried to get her to take more breaks as the years of dating her went on, but she never let up.

He would say, “baby, I’m only looking out for your health.”

To which she would respond with, “actually, I’m looking out for my patients health.”

She was at the hospital doing rounds, or maybe at the office seeing patients. She was always working.

So, maybe it was unbearable for Harry to never get to see his girlfriend, but when he really thinks about it, her working overtime at the hospital was the reason he met her.

FLASHBACK:

Grueling headaches were an often occurrence for Harry, so it never really occurred that he would end up in the emergency room from utter exhaustion.

“Good evening, Mr…” She looks down to find out what Harry’s name is on his chart, “Styles, correct?”

He nods, furrowing his eyebrows and wincing as another sharp pain echoed through his head.

“Okay, well I’m doctor Cooper. It says here that you’ve been having ongoing headaches for a while, so what made you want to come in?”

“Um…” He trailed off, scratching the back of his head, “I was at the studio, and I had been standing for a while and I sorta fainted.”

“Hm,” Meredith looked down, expecting any other injuries, “so, I’m guessing you cut your wrist on the way down?” There was a white bandage with blood showing through it wrapped tightly around his wrist.

“Yup.” He laughed as she began to unwrap the bandage, “Not to sound rude or anything, but you look a little young to be a doctor.”

“Unless you are suggesting that I am incapable because of my age, which I don’t think you are, then I take you saying I look young as a compliment.”

“Of course I meant it as a compliment.” Harry shakes his head with a small chuckle, making Meredith smile.

“Ouch.” She winced along with Harry once the bandage was all the way off of his wrist before she set it on the medical tray next to her. “Yeah, you’re definitely going to need stitches.”

Harry’s jaw dropped, “Are you being serious?”

“Do you really think I would joke about something like that? C’mon, I’m not that cruel.”

She was being honest, and Harry liked that about her. She wasn’t trying too hard to fit the entire doctor role that most of the arrogant doctors did.

She patted his shoulder as she stood up from the rolling stood she was sitting in, “I’m going to go grab a suture kit, I’ll be right back to fix you up.”

“I see you’re taking a liking to one of your patients over there.” Meredith jumped as she stood in the supply closet, turning to find Maggie, one of her friends (and colleagues) behind her.

“What?” She asked as she reached for the suture kit she had been looking for.

“Ya know,” Maggie snatched the kit for Mer’s grasp, “nurses are perfectly capable of a couple stitches, that’s their job after all.”

She rolled her eyes, grabbing the plastic container with all the tools necessary inside of it back, “I had some free time, he’s a pretty interesting guy, actually.”

“Guy? That’s it?” Meredith sees her friend's jaw drop, “Do you not know who that man is?”

Her eyebrows furrowed in response, “What do you mean? He’s a patient...”

“You’re about to suture the wrist of like the most famous popstar ever, Meredith!”

She whipped her head back around, “What? Who? Wait, what’s his name?’

Another one of the girls who works with the two of them walked up to where they were standing in the hall, appearing to have been eavesdropping. “Does she seriously not know who Harry fucking Styles is?”

The name definitely rang a bell, and Meredith had definitely heard it before, but she just could remember exactly where.

“What is he? A singer?” She looked towards Maggie, making her groan.

“Mer! You literally listen to his music!” Maggie smacked her friend in the back of the head, making her hiss from the sudden contact, “You know that one song that you were obsessed with over the summer, golden?”

Meredith nodded before her jaw dropped, “Oh my gosh! He wrote that song?”

Maggie copied her previous motion, nodding before turning her friend back towards where Harry sat, pushing her forwards. “Go get ‘em tiger!”

When Meredith walked back up to Harry, she stumbled a bit before setting all her supplies on the small, metal table that sat next to his bed. “Sorry that took so long, you are apparently the talk of the town all over the hospital.”

“Ah,” Harry only tucked his lips into his mouth, “really thought I was off the hook when you pretended to not know who I was, ya really had me sold.”

“Um…” the girl trailed off awkwardly, “I didn’t know who you were.”

"Oh, Im sorry, I shouldn't have assumed that you knew who I was.” He spoke, the shock in his voice was still quite apparent though. "I guess after a while of being recognized everywhere I go, I learned to act as if everyone knows who I am, and have the worst intentions. It's the best way for me to assure that my integrity is saved.”

Meredith nods, "I know I'm not famous or anything, but I somehow understand that.”

Harry's wrist was still obviously hurting, she could tell by the way he flinched every time she came close to touching.

"Okay, you may feel a small pinch when I insert the numbing agent, but after that, the stitches should be smooth sailing.” Meredith grabs his wrist, just above his injury, she had the syringe filled with lidocaine in her other hand, "ready?”

Harry nodded before she quickly inserted the syringe, beginning to numb the area. For a moment, it looked as if all of the color had completely drained from his face, his eyes falling closed.

"You doing alright?” Meredith light-heartedly asked, trying to ease the tension as she finished numbing Harry's wrist.

He looked quite dazed, as if he was in a trance, "I think I'm alright.” He sighed, leaning back in the chair, still having that void look in his eye.

Meredith stood up again, "Why don't I go get you a cool washcloth to put on your forehead while we wait for the numbing to fully kick in, you look a bit pale."

Harry smiled, "That would be great, thank you.”

When Meredith returned from the sink outside the procedure room, Harry was still slumped back in the large chair, his forehead glistening with sweat.

"Here ya go.” She smiled, placing the washcloth soaked with cold water on his forehead. He was surprised by the cool temperature at first, but he sighed in relief moments later.

"Okay, so I'm going to get started on the stitches now, if you're all settled.”

"Yeah, I'm okay, go ahead.” He held his injured wrist out to her.

It only took around thirty minutes for Meredith to finish the stitches, and once she was done she was already suggesting other treatments for Harry's headaches in question.

"I honestly think that you are getting these headaches from just pure exhaustion, the symptoms you are describing sound much like the type of migraines I had in med school, and with such a high stress level job, it would make sense why you wouldn't be getting enough sleep, correct?”

Harry bows his head, "It is true that I could probably use a little more sleep.”

Meredith begins to jot something down on the chart, "and some more water, since you also seem to be showing signs of moderate dehydration.”

"Whatever you say, doc.”

It was beginning to get harder and harder for Meredith to keep her level of professionalism, because all she could think to herself was is this super hot, famous, heartthrob flirting with me right now?

It was safe to say that she was beginning to understand why so many girls, including her own colleagues, found this man so enticing.

"Okay!" She quickly broke herself out of her daydream, "I think that's all I can really tell you, sleep more and drink some more water. But, if you start doing those things and you are still getting headaches, please don't hesitate to come back.”

"And as for the stitches?” He questioned, making her furrow her eyebrows.

¨What do you mean?” She countered immediately feeling stupid when he responded.

"I mean, won't I have to come back to get them removed?"

"Oh! Yes, I would say fourteen days." Meredith was mentally face palming at this point as her embarrassment took over.

She wasn’t even a huge fan of his, hell, she didn’t even know who he was a hour ago, so the reason she was stuttering like a blubbering idiot was beyond her.

“Can I just come back here?”

“Yup, I’ll be here.” She says with a bigger smile than she intended as she handed Harry the medical forms for him to fill out.

“Thank you so much.” He said gratefully as she said her goodbyes before walking out of the room and into the hall, where Maggie, and many other nurses stood, seemingly waiting.

An array of questions began to be shouted from many different people, some including:

‘How was he?’

‘Did you get his number?’

‘Is he coming back?’

Meredith was appalled by the amount of shouting going on, when everyone was well aware that the man they were desperate to know about, was only behind the very thin, wooden door.

“Are you guys fucking insane? Patient confidentiality!” She defended, adjusting her white coat before beginning to make her way back towards the nurses station at the end of the hall.

******

Meredith wasn’t expecting to ever see Harry again after he came in to get his stitches removed, which was a long, drawn out process because of Harry’s attempt to stall the doctor.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to see him again either, she would have been perfectly happy to. He was charming, and didn’t seem too arrogant, which was something she completely adored about him.

But it wasn’t until about three weeks after he had gotten his stitches removed that she felt someone approaching her on the cereal island that she stood in Whole Foods.

“Meredith?” She turned around, being met with a surprised look at Harry. “Sorry, can I call you that?”

She laughed at that, “I mean I wasn’t expecting you to call me doctor when I’m not even your doctor anymore. Can I call you Harry?” She countered his question.

He let out a sigh of relief, remembering how down to earth Meredith really was for being someone with such a high profession. “Well, I’m not your patient anymore, now am I?”

She looked back at the shelves, picking up her choses box of cereal, throwing it into the basket that was hanging around her wrist.

“I guess you do know who I am, don’t you?”

“I do now.” She responded, not really knowing what else to say.

Harry on the other hand, was debating whether or not it would be inappropriate to attempt to make a move on his doctor. Was she even technically his doctor anymore? He didn’t know.

He was always very straight forwards through, which was something he prided himself in. “Would it be weird if I were to ask you out on a date?”

Meredith liked the game that they were continuing to play, the one where he would ask her a question, and she would counter back with almost the exact same one. “Would it be weird if I were to say yes?”

“I guess that answers both of our questions.”

It was safe to say both of them left the grocery store blushing and smiling like idiots.

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

we are our family, even if we don’t want to be.

Titans 3.07

a bit over halfway through the season, and we still don’t have all of our main characters on the board! i love this show.

as always, typing this up as i watch. live reaction, baby! *shadowboxes*

SPOILERS AHEAD

1. i don’t think i’ve mentioned this before, but i kinda miss the old ‘dc universe’ intro. it was cool! the whole idea of it was wild and waaaaay over-ambitious, but also very very on-brand because of it.

2. this is... the third time we’ve seen dick sleeping this season? that’s a record! checking another thing off my s3 wishlist...

2.5. i guess i rag on titans all the time for its wafer-thin plotting and bad pacing, but i have to admit that this season has been a step-up from the last one in this regard. titans has very reactive rather than proactive protagonists, and a lot of the last season seemed to be: x happened, the team reacted badly, then y happened, they reacted badly, etc. this time around, it’s not a huge leap up by any means, but at least they’re doing something about it. 

i do appreciate the focus on character arcs over everything else. and when i say everything else, i mean it: arcs that started two seasons ago with no big cathartic moments, intermittent payoff and multiple relapses. big bads have ranged from interdimensional demons to superpowered assassins to whatever in the world scarecrow is, but trigon’s big weapon against the titans was to... use their worst fears against them. slade’s was to... use their fears to break them up. crane’s is to... use red hood to use their fears to break them up. even the threat of gotham’s citizens being in danger doesn’t feel real: gotham is mythologised into an entity of its own, infecting our heroes like a parasite. like. this is not to say that most other superhero media aren’t big character arcs intertwined with the main plot, but titans doesn’t even make pretend that it’s anything but.

anyway. that’s my entry #2345 to ‘give a grand unifying theory for titans’. thanks. i’ll be back with more.

3. “anger is just fear in a little black dress.” god I HATE HIM

(what’s he doing with barbara’s likeness? oh... oh god. a terrible thought just occurred to me. what if they introduce hush at the very last minute for plastic surgery shenanigans? would you put it past this show?)

3.5. jason, nooooooooo

3.75. i mean, they’re making it very clear here that scarecrow is the one in control--the one who’s always been in control--and is manipulating jason and literally poisoning him, but i hope it doesn’t end up erasing nuance or jason’s autonomy. if jason’s to reckon with the issues that brought him here, then the lines of responsibility will need to be set somewhere. 

(this applies to dick as well but more on that later, i guess.)

4. just--the phrase “40% loss of income” is so funny to me. like, gotham is full of these larger-than-life characters who are idiosyncratic beyond belief, colourful and dramatic and creating chaos just for the sake of chaos, and then there’s the regular criminals and their henchmen who just want to make a quick buck sitting down with pie charts and graphs, griping about the joker reducing their returns or debating high risk investments in, i don’t know, two-face’s next scheme.

“yyyyeeeeeaaah, my financial advisor is telling me that going all-in with a guy who literally makes decisions on the flip of a coin is probably not the greatest idea.”

4.5. god i hate smug!smarmy!scarecrow so much

4.85. as big plans to “control” gotham go, it’s pretty bog-standard. clearly scarecrow has some bigger plan in mind but it really feels like we’ve got no clear insight into him and he’s this generic creepy mystery-man who knows more than he lets on and springs a twist/cliffhanger every now and then. i liked the scenes with him and dick in 3.04 where it seemed like he was genuinely on the backfoot and things weren’t going as he predicted. for all of his faults, dick is at least familiar with scarecrow’s bullshit and knows not to give what he wants.

5. i mean... i see where dick is coming from with the “he’s not jason anymore; he’s red hood” because his immediate glaring concern is scarecrow’s drug and the damage it could potentially cause gotham? i do not doubt that it’s something batman drilled into him, too, but when you’re expected to take point on a situation where the lives of an entire city weigh down on your shoulders, it’s better to simplify things and prioritise. i’m not saying it’s great or healthy! gar is absolutely right to consider this facet of the situation. it’s just dick can’t.

6. hmmmmmmm. HMMMMMMMMMMM. 

i don’t know that i’m super fond of this iteration of oracle???? it looks like a cross between cerebro from x-men and jarvis from iron man. it’s giving me second-hand embarrassment. somebody help me.

(at least they remembered dick’s middle name is actually “john”. i like to think bruce printed D in that contract because for a while he genuinely thought richard “dick” grayson was his full name. duck duck goose, dick dick grayson, i don’t know alfred, the kid was in a circus, maybe they thought it was funny. or maybe it was a test in anger control, who knows.)

6.5 “maybe you two would like some time alone?” even AI can’t help hitting on dick grayson in this universe.

“oh mr grayson, if i only had another eye to see you better...”

6.8. on one hand, it’s a bit disconcerting that the title of ‘oracle’ has gone from barbara herself to this gigantic machine; from my impression of the comics-verse, barbara had an extensive computing and surveillance system, true, but she was very clearly the brains behind the operation. on the other hand, i’m kind of glad that the ethical boundaries that this kind of surveillance violates is a sticking point for barbara. (tho let’s be real, the nsa would kill to have this in their arsenal).

6.9. also it’s now obvious that scarecrow’s big plan is to take control of oracle itself. it’s why he had lady vic take that picture of her eyes, or why he’s meddling around with it on his computer.

6.95. if only i could ‘command sleep’ anybody overstepping their boundaries re: personal information...

7. “you can just sit back and watch as the titans destroy themselves.” i mean... he’s not wrong

8. “dick’s parents were killed by a criminal mob; he won’t work with them.” it’s wonderful that you have this insight into dick, kory, i just wish we could’ve watched some of these conversations actually happen on-screen.

8.5. i’m glad that kom’s being treated with such nuance and understanding, though it’s obvious that she definitely has a Plan of her own. (and did i entirely imagine her ability to mimic other people flawlessly at the end of s2? or is that going to come into play at some point?) i think her story has the potential to be genuinely poignant, and in a universe where being Different, either because of mental health or physical differences or whatever else, leads a straight line to Evil, it’s important to acknowledge and then emphasise that the mere fact of your existence as a Different Person doesn’t predispose you to evil. maybe your act of destroying a system that has destroyed you and not scrambling to “fit in” is only evil as defined by that system. 

8.8. “you’re trespassing, i should call the authorities, i feel unsafe.” now this is a villain lady who’s definitely aware of her privilege.

8.85. kom smirking knowingly at her sister is everything.

“oooh that’s the kory i remember”

9. conner and dick working together woo!

9.25. god i hate a villain who’s always just a step ahead, no matter what. so crane anticipated dick using oracle to track his personal communications and set him up? how did he know when exactly dick would get to do this? how long did he have that poor man tied up in that van?

(the “save me, grayson” is a nice touch, tho. send dick spiralling even further! because if there’s one thing dick will do, it’s take responsibility for every goddamn thing that goes wrong.)

9.5. ahem. i’m going to need a million gifs of conner yeeting dick across that yard, fandom, thankyouverymuch.

(i understand conner is invulnerable to explosions, but how do his clothes survive??)

9.8. oooh crane is already in oracle! i’m just sitting here laughing helplessly because they’re overpowering this goddamned guy so much. he can build a lab in arkham’s basement! he has access to lazarus puddles! he has minions working across gotham, including a fully functional chemical laboratory staffed by chemists who only answer to him! he has the crime families of gotham quailing in his very presence! he has assassins at his beck and call! he’s enough of a manipulative bastard to have red hood under his thumb! and now he has enough of a tech know-how to not only be aware of oracle, but know how to hack into it! i’m sick of exclamation marks! i’ll shut up now!

9.95. dick leaving behind that smouldering grave for a person he failed to save without taking a second to process how he feels about it and running towards his next plan to corner scarecrow: a microcosm of where his head’s at right now.

10. really hammering in the themes of this season, aren’t we. 

10.25. the interesting thing is the titans repeatedly call themselves a family this season (none more so than dick) and while that found family has helped encapsulate and put away their traumatic experiences with their ‘original’ families, it’s meant that they’ve not really dealt with those issues. and dick and gar and jason come from ‘found families’ of their own: they are twice removed, traumatised two times over. they still cling to this identity however, and because of it they’re losing each other. a family isn’t static. it’s an ever-evolving dynamic and you have to put in work constantly to keep it healthy.

10.5. anyway, that’s entry #2346. i’m here aaaalll night.

11. lookit gar the detective! half-transforming and using his powers to deduce things! what a hero! i’ve said this for a long time, but gar is the bedrock of this team, and an unsung one at that.

11.25. i’m confused about him calling this room jason’s though. it seems to me that this is dick’s room that jason later used, and one that dick’s using now. so the unmade bed isn’t really jason’s fault; dick was woken by barbara that morning, and in his hurry, he left without making his bed.

(it still confounds me that bruce didn’t find jason another bedroom in that gigantic mansion of his. you really didn’t give this kid a chance, did you?)

12. oh well. so much for the oracle.

13. ... sorry, wait. you didn’t think i wasn’t going to address the bit with dick right now, did you?

12.5. i honestly don’t think it’s very complicated: dick’s been reeling from one traumatic thing to the next, and just when it seemed like at the beginning of the season, he felt happy and secure with his team and his place in the world, bruce ups and leaves gotham to him, specifically naming him a successor and calling him a ‘better batman’. he’s lost garth and jericho and donna and jason and now hank and dawn. he’s not even sure where rachel is or what she’s doing. after being told that batman was a psychopath for moulding him into a weapon, he’s also been told that his failure to be a ‘better batman’ lead to further disaster. of course he’s going to get batman-goggles. of course he’s going to be a prick. 

12.8. i don’t know what to say. i feel his frustration acutely. i don’t think he should’ve said what he said to barbara (can people stop pushing her around this season????) but that pressure to step in where your parent fails? to clean up their messes and try to think like them? to fall into habits drilled into you when you developed them as coping mechanisms growing up? I FEEL THAT. 

every step he’s taking he’s putting 110% of himself in it and scarecrow’s still playing mindgames with all of them: i absolutely feel his desperation to take control of that game and turn it on scarecrow, no matter what it takes.

and he did apologise almost immediately, and finally--finally--actually works with barbara. 

12.9. again, not excusing him! but i get it. and i think that’s a sign of great character writing.

“did you know i just reminded emmram of all of her daddy issues? what the fuck????”

12.95. i love that dick&barbara, kory&kom, and gar are all approaching solving this mystery from different angles, each as valid as the other. also, conner is there as... emergency bomb defuser man?

13. it’s like all fancy rich people in fancy rich houses do is pour fancy rich alcohol into fancy rich glasses on pristine, untouched tabletops. i wonder what it’s like to live like that.

13.25. I KNEW IT! poor michael. it was nice knowing you.

13.5. man, kory is contending with a lot of issues that she’s successfully bottled up and compartmentalised until now. the cold reality that a child can seek out their parents as refuge and they can view the child as a piece to be moved in a greater game (never out of cruelty, though, never, and somehow that makes it worse), that truth of blackfire’s treatment on tamaran because she’s different, and her own culpability in what happened. she exchanged one family for another, after all, and left that family to die and her sister to suffer. like dick, like gar, kory���s being forced to reckon with what the titans are meant to be, the larger implications of creating their found family in their own space.

14. it’s probably because it’s one in the morning and i’ve had two glasses of wine but i did not follow that bit of exposition at all and victor freeze??? what? 

anyway. look at them solving things! together! go team!

“you made a deal with the mob?” oh the sense of betrayal on his face! fuck off, dick, your issues aren’t kory’s. 

15. conner is really sweet and a bit of an awestruck crush on kom is to be expected. especially after that power rangers-esque transformation (i say this as a former huge power rangers fangirl. i’ve seen every series until 2007 including the original japanese versions and written fanfic for all of them. so i love a cool costume transformation, is what i’m saying.)

also?

FUCK YEAH

16. i love the gotham crime families just chillin’ around eating ice cream. I LOVE THEM

16.5. that was a fun fight sequence, if marred slightly by that bit of awkward flirting between conner and kom. i wonder if she’s really planning to use him in a larger scheme to get kory back to tamaran, or maybe something else. 

16.75. so i’m assuming that scarecrow has jason either so paralysed by fear that he can barely move, or jason’s withdrawing from the drug that he’s been sucking in every few minutes. 

17. it’s nice to see them chill after a successful mission! and it can be awkward, but conner’s crush on kom and him striving to impress her is also, well, uh... cute.

17.5. i guess the dick/barbara scene was inevitable, especially given the... unresolved nature of their relationship in the flashbacks? and they’ve been through a rollercoaster together this episode, discovering and then destroying an incredible tool within a matter of hours, re-discovering just how well they work together as a team. dick’s swimming in the nostalgia. i don’t expect it to last as a long-term relationship, but i totally get why this is happening now. and hey, they’re cute!

i have a weeeirrrrd feeling that kory is going to leave to tamaran at the end of the season and that dick and kory will rekindle--or rather realise--their relationship just before that. it’s going to be devastating and beautiful and painful and i will be writing essays about it which would be me just wailing into the screen.

18. gar found molly!!!!!!! MOLLY’S BACK! \o/ gar is the BEST

19. that was a fun episode! i love this silly show, even if it does destroy me sometimes <3

[kneamet]

Delusion (5/5)

Trigger Warning: alcohol, obsession

Summary: she was the only girl in his band whose singing he loved so much. She was the person he truly respected. Andy Miles was someone Hank Williams had an unrelenting obsession with.

Chapter five: Lovesick Blues

POV Hank

He was glad to breathe a sigh of relief in his free chest, feeling as if he were the freest man in the world. Hank was finally able to remove this unpleasant burden that weighed on him in the bonds of an unloved marriage. A marriage that literally drowned him down.

He was glad that he was able to go through everything in court through the proceedings and slander in his direction, written and claimed from Audrey. As if she knew anything about him and understood him at all. And now, Hank, being completely free, can do whatever he wants and can show the love of the girl he loves.

The guy smiled, closing his eyes for a couple of seconds and stopping moving. The beloved girl who will soon become his wife. She would be someone he would cherish and protect beyond measure. Andy will be everything to him, after he finally gets the recognition from the public.

"Why are you frozen, Hank?" There was a sneer from his right, and he turned his head in the direction of the intended speech, realizing that he could have listened to that voice for years without interrupting. He wouldn't care what she said. The main thing is the sound.

Williams was sure that once he and Andy were finally a couple, exchanging light formalities and vows to keep, he would definitely have her humming to him and reading aloud, just enjoying herself.

It was a joy to Hank to hear her voice, soft but slightly hoarse and tired, after a lot of rehearsals, from which he was very tired, but always enjoyed it. He was always so soothing. So gentle and, you might even say, caring, unlike Audrey, a voice that always made him mad.

He knew that he had invited her to the studio just so that she wouldn't yell and make him lose his temper, or else he might have flared up like a match and wouldn't have stopped in his anger, which would have continued to eat at him from the inside out.

Audrey's voice was really terrible. Unpleasant, eating into the brain and piercing it into a million small particles.

Blinking a couple of times, Hank turned his attention to his beloved, who was sitting a foot away from him, looking at him with a puzzled look, slightly raising an eyebrow, which caused small, barely noticeable wrinkles to form on the bridge of her nose. It was very cute.

"It's fine," he says, grabbing the ketchup and quickly unscrewing the white cap. His gaze reluctantly shifts to Don, who just grins. "Here's what, I'm not buying," the guy finally says, pressing down on the middle of the plastic bottle with his fingers.

"A ketchup burger?" Helms asks, adjusting the gold-plated watch on his left hand and nodding at his friend's food.

"Ha, ha, yeah," Hank smiles, tossing the top of the bun on top of the rest and thinking that he probably wouldn't be able to eat the burger without the extra extra. It was sad that no one shared his taste in this kind of food. Although in his opinion, it was deliciously delicious.

"Sammy," he calls out to the guy who was sitting at the opposite table, carefully reading the list of songs listed in the ratings. "Well, have you finished reading?"

"No, I didn't start from the end," he doesn't miss the opportunity to mock, grinning slightly, to which Hank just smiles and continues the banter, in which they measure their sense of humor and ability to tease the other person.

"So they still teach you to read at school," Williams doesn't even look at him, watching out of the corner of his eye as Andy tries to choose where to start eating. The smile on the guy's face does not come off, but only becomes more noticeable.

There's nothing to be heard from the side, and Hank just raises an eyebrow. Just gave up? This is not like him and their usual conversations.

"Funny, Hank," Sammy nods and turns to face his friend, still clutching the small magazine that is important to the musician's fate. "You're not much older than me."

"I was older than you when I was born," Hank says, taking a sip of the scalding coffee, setting the cup down next to him. His attention is completely focused on saying something ironic to Pruett.

However, instead of continuing, the latter gets up from his chair and pushes it back to the table, going over to the others and tossing the publication with the open page, on which the latter has found something that will really attract the attention of the group.

"Look at this," Hank dusts off the small crumbs on his palm and picks up the magazine he's offered. "Take a look," everyone looks at Williams.

The guy's eyes widen. He can't believe it. I don't want to believe it. It seems that this is just a hoax. A lie that will be revealed later. No, it's not possible.

His palms trembled and began to sweat. His mouth fell open. My breath was knocked out, and my heart began to give a loud rhythm, interrupting any sounds and actions from the environment.

First place in popular. First place in sales. His song. His.

He covers his mouth with his hand, trying to hide his smile and the naive look that doubts what he sees. It's too much for him. It's not real and he's sure of it, handing the magazine to Andy, who accepts it happily and with some suspicion.

Hank finally got what he wanted. He was finally able to get at least something that he had worked so hard for for so long. His dream to get into the charts came true.

It remains to implement another one...

"Hank, this... God, congratulations, " Andy says, putting his left arm around him and hitting him on the shoulder with his right, trying to show support. Hank only sends a grateful smile to his beloved, but his gaze is still detached from what is happening.

"I'll tell you what," interrupting his thoughts and disbelief, he leans closer to the table, in the middle of which Miles has placed the magazine. Everyone moves towards him, starting to listen carefully. "And it's not all bullshit. If, after that, I don't get to the Opry," he points a finger at the publication and turns his head towards the girl, starting to laugh. "I'll give up the music," there's laughter, at which Hank slams his hand on the table and rocks back in his chair. "Honestly. Let them then look for me then for me and beg me to sing for them. And they'll have to beg me."

And he wasn't lying. Lying wasn't his style, especially when it came to something he'd devoted his entire adult life to. He can really give up music, even though he will have to listen to his mother's loud talk about how she spent a lot of time driving him around the states in his youth and showing his talent. He'll quit the music. The truth will leave if he does not achieve what he wants, but with him will be his beloved wife, whom he has been trying to get for so long.

***

It's raining. The gray ground seems to droop, and small puddles form on the old black asphalt. Countless splashes of raindrops can be heard in the muddy puddles. Steady noise. The impact of raindrops on the window pane causes unpleasant thoughts.

Andy exhales cigarette smoke, enjoying the weather. Its cloudy mood and the state of nature. She dusts off a bittersweet cheap cigarette and the weightless ash falls on her starched white shirt, which she rarely changes.

Taking another long drag, wanting to enjoy the bright aftertaste. Hank knows this feeling, and he often does it, even though he knows how disgusting it is sometimes. However, this taste of cheap tobacco was always poetic, which he certainly liked. But the guy himself preferred more expensive cigarettes and at some points did not quite understand how Miles even smokes them. The throat after them hurts, and they do not last long, because after the taste disappears altogether, forcing people to think about buying more expensive.

Williams was sure that as soon as he and the girl finally lived together, he would forbid her to buy cheap tobacco.

"You know, Andy..." Pausing for a moment and taking a deep drag on his own cigarette, he waited for her to look at him. "I just realized that inspiration is literally chasing me," he heard a small grin from the side, to which he only smiled, shaking his head and lowering it down, pursing his lips. A small habit that he couldn't get rid of and that showed up in moments of doubt or embarrassment.

"Has the muse finally visited?" Miles joked, and the tobacco smoke filled the small space around them again.

He liked to be near the girl he loved, to whom, if he could, he would dedicate all the odes and songs of the world. He liked to stand with her under the awning of the cafe, smoking the cheap cigarettes he smoked just for her, and watch the restless rain, wishing it would never end and they would enjoy each other's company.

"Yes..." sighed Hank, biting his lower lip with his front teeth and lowering his hand to brush off the ash.

The Muse he was talking about was literally everything to him, and he didn't know why Andy didn't take the hint. He was torn between telling his beloved what he had wanted for so long and remaining silent until the right time came. I didn't want to ruin the established idyll between them, but I didn't want to be silent either. Doubts tormented him for quite a long time and he simply could not properly settle his obsessive thoughts.

***

Hank wandered through the little-known streets, trying to calm down and come to his senses. In his relationship with Audrey, he was always disturbed by quarrels, which he literally hated. They were terrible and very annoying, literally infuriating. What difference does it make if she sings well or poorly? They would have achieved nothing anyway, knowing her not-so-simple nature, expressing defiance and defiance.

His head was down, and his hands were in his pockets, pulling down the trousers that were held at the old belt. His thoughts were currently occupied only with obsessions.

The light wind didn't bother him. Her hair was already disheveled, so there was nothing wrong with it becoming even more messy.

"...I got a feeling called the blues, oh Lord... " a young female voice was heard nearby. Hank raised his head, trying to catch the pleasant and melodious sound coming from. This aroused a genuine interest in him.

He liked that unusual voice. It clearly belonged to a woman, although no, most likely a girl, and a very young one at that. He sounded a little hoarse and tired. As if the person doing this was just trying to calm down and avoid boredom.

"...Since my baby said goodbye.. " came again, and Hank tried to find out where it was coming from. He had never heard a better voice in his life than this girl's.

Williams quickened his pace, straining his ears. It wasn't that far away, so it was safe to say that he wasn't far from the unknown with the amazing voice.

Hank's eyes widened and his lips parted slightly. He looked at her with awe and admiration. She was beautiful. But no, not even that, because she was so damn beautiful.

He had never seen anyone more beautiful than her. Even Audrey, his beloved wife, was terrible compared to this songbird. God, she was beautiful.

He knew that at this moment, in this second of his life, he didn't give a damn about anyone around him. He doesn't care about the problems, the world in general. All that matters is that he has seen the most beautiful stranger.

Her melodious voice caressed his ears. He closed his eyes for a couple of seconds and took a few sharp breaths, saying flattering words to the girl who was sitting on the bench right in front of him.

"Do you want to join my group?"

***

June 11, 1949

Grand Ole Opry, Nashville

He hadn't felt this kind of excitement in a very long time. This jitters that literally enveloped him from head to toe. A sense of fear, uncertainty, and nervousness filled his mind, making it difficult to think rationally.

His hands were sweating, and he began to shake in a slight tremor. He pressed his lips together, trying to calm the rapid beating of his heart.

The only thing that gave him hope and comfort was the belief in what their celebration with Andy would be like today. He thought for a long time and finally realized in his life that the most important step in his life was to marry the girl he loved, which aroused in him the most beautiful and wonderful feelings on earth, expressing love and care. He would protect her.

He took a few sharp breaths, giving his heart time to calm down and stop pounding in his head. On his chest, on the suit, was sewn a small pocket, which at the moment was the most intimate and most sensual thing in the world. Ring. A ring that men give when they get engaged.

The guy exhaled sharply, turning to face his beloved, who was looking at him with an encouraging and encouraging look, as if calling for him to calm down and begin to cope with his difficult feelings. Squeezing his shoulder tightly, as if to show support, Andy smiled at him, and he just nodded at her.

"Hank, Andy!" A gruff voice is suddenly heard calling out to Williams. It doesn't take him long to realize that it's Fred. Smiling a tight smile, showing that he is supposedly not afraid of anything, the guy shifts the guitar case to the other hand and shakes the producer's offered hand. "How are you?"

"Not bad," Andy replies with a shrug, to which Hank is surprised, not understanding why she remains calm and not overwhelmed by excitement. Rose just chuckles at the comment.

"Don't worry, they may kill you, but they won't eat you," the man tries to defuse the tension by straightening his dark tie.

"It's comforting," Hank smiles, looking toward the stage. The stage on which he will perform. The stage on which his whole future uncertain fate will be decided.

"I'm very proud of you, Hank. I'm saying this as your friend, " Fred looks at his friend again, trying to express his support. Hank just looks at Miles, who is looking around the backstage area with a certain calmness and intensity. However, there is also a small, barely noticeable difference in her gaze... was it contempt?

"You can handle it, Hank," Andy looks around at the ceiling and turns his attention back to his dear friend with a slight grin. Williams pursed his lip again, feeling his palms begin to shake again with a slight tremor. She supports him. He exhaled. How nice to hear the support and dear words from a loved one.

"Thank you."

Everything that was happening was a blur to him. His brain still could not accept the information that he was worthy of and finally in his life got what he so ardently and long desired. He will finally get the recognition that he was striving for and then he will have one desire, or more correctly, it will be called a goal that he will need to achieve.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a guest of honor today and this is his first appearance on the Grand Ole Opry show," were the words of the announcer introducing Hank, and he knew that a lump had settled in his throat. He was afraid to sing. It was scary to get censured by people. It was scary to hear their arguments and opinions that he was a bad singer. "Let's welcome the guy who performed Lovesick Blues-Mr. Hank Williams!" He was not impressed by the joyful intonation of his voice and at the moment when he went on stage with a guitar that his mother gave him for his birthday, he was only interested in seeing Andy.

It was important for him to see her and understand that there was no need to worry. That she would be happy to support him and reassure him. That she would just be there to warm and protect his thoughts.

The applause was unexpected.

Williams was aware of the fact that the greeting of a new member of the show was always accompanied by applause, but it was still very pleasant and made him fall into confusion and let his head think that he was worth something.

The instant light blinded him. His lips trembled, and his knees buckled. Williams ' gaze darted to Andy, who only nodded at him, giving him a hopeful look at his moment of doubt in front of an audience that expected a great performance from him.

He gave her a soft smile of gratitude.

"Hi, I'm Hank Williams," he mumbled into the microphone that reverberated through the room, and he reached down to his guitar, running his fingers over it, caressing the strings, and wanting to draw the audience's attention to him. "Guys, turn it on," referring to the band with whom he had previously played the song.

His forehead was sweating and a drop of sweat ran down it. He swallowed and took a rare breath, touched the string again, and closed his eyes, hoping only that he would be received appropriately.

"I got a feelin' called the blues, oh Lords,

Since my baby said goodbye."

The only thing that warmed him with hope and calmed him down was his beloved, who was always ready to show support.

***

He just couldn't believe it. His brain couldn't process everything that had happened a few minutes ago. People took it well and were really inspired and enthusiastic. It was so unreal that he didn't want to think of it as real. It was probably just a dream that wouldn't happen again, but that he would remember for the rest of his life.

Hank couldn't stop smiling. He was so impressed that he felt over the moon when he heard the audience applauding and shouting the words he wanted.

Standing in the backstage area, which was lit by small lights, he just kept his eyes closed, arriving in voluptuous bliss.

"You were amazing, Hank," said a voice he'd known and loved for a long time. He glanced at Andy, who was standing next to him, watching him with a smile that was very often seen on her face.

Williams took a deep breath, grabbing the girl's hand and squeezing it lightly. He looked straight into her eyes, feeling that this was the moment that should have been years ago. The moment when they finally admit to each other in immeasurable love and live "happily ever after". No quarrels, no bickering, no problems. They will be a real family.

His free hand reached into his sewn-on pocket, taking out the small ring he had been searching for for a long time, but which at the moment was the most secret for him and his future wife.

He didn't care that people were looking at them. I don't give a damn. The main thing is that they will finally be reunited.

"You..." He really didn't know what to say, even apart from the fact that he had been preparing for this event for a long time, constantly rehearsing how he would confess. He wanted to express his love in an unimaginable confession, but words just weren't enough. My heart began to beat even faster. "Will you share the burden of life with me? Will you let me be your legal husband by putting this ring on your finger?"

His eyes full of hope were reflected in her eyes, which were full of incomprehension and fear.

[auntie-diluvian]

What would have happened in chapter 2 if you decided to write it?

Eek I’m so sorry I took so long to answer this!

The longer I think about it, the more I think a second part would have really jumped the shark any way I’d have written it, but I did have some thoughts*, which got… uh, kinda long (hence me taking forever to answer your ask), so I’m gonna put them beneath a cut if I can figure out how.

Some of this was sort of charted out in a long chat between me and Py (specifically I think the bit with Papyrus showing up, which I think was her idea?), but that conversation was so long ago it’s been lost to the sands of time (and tumblr chat having no search function), so most of this is new and specific to the version I posted.

I had a couple of scenes in my head that were a little more defined, the rest was just kind of vague, and it never came to a conclusion, really. So I guess, in theory, all of those “Reader goes to Italy and carboloads themself into personal fulfillment, Sans dies of skelesyphilis, and his gf fucks off somewhere” fantasies can still happen. If, you know, by the end of me rambling about this, any of that still sounds, oh god, you know, fuck, appealing, or whatever. If not, then uhhh whoops sorry I don’t have any ending for you at all, my dude.**

Also this hasn’t been beta’d or anything, I didn’t want to give it the same status as the stuff I actually publish, just like, on principle? so like. keep your expectations in check maybe? especially re: some of the most cliche and melodramatic dialogue I’ve written to date lol

The first scene was to take place on Jan 2nd:

Your friend, the one you’re now glad isn’t speaking to you, is standing at your door, anxiously clutching a small, rectangular cardboard box bearing a sticker you recognize as the logo of your favorite bakery. She speaks to you, and you feel your stomach flip.

“Um, so, these are for you. Uh, happy new year, by the way, and um, the frosting probably got a little smushed- you know how high they like to pile it on. But, you know, they’re fresh, so- should be good. Got your favorites.”

She hands you the box and you peek inside. Cupcakes, of course. Half the frosting’s on the lid, like she said, and you stare at them, dumbfounded. Can’t look at her.

She clears her throat.

“I know what I’m like, sometimes. I can be melodramatic and petty and- and self-destructive. I do dumb shit like drive away my closest friend with the silent treatment because I didn’t get the answer I wanted. I’m so sorry. You were right, and, god, furthermore? The entire thing was just… stupid, you know? Can you forgive me?”

You sway on your feet, dizzy.

“Of course.”

She steps forward and hugs you, and as her arms wrap around you, so does an awful panic.

Your cell phone is burning a hole in the pocket of your bathrobe, from the text you had received ten minutes prior, alerting you to your friend’s impending arrival:

Sans: she’s coming over to your place. please don’t tell her anything. i’ll figure something out. sorry to ask you to do this. i’ll make it up to you

Sans: ok that sounded wrong. not what i meant. everything sounds wrong though

Sans: i’m sorry

“Oh, thank you,” she says, sounding more grateful than she should, her scarf tickling your cheek. “That’s such a relief. Thank you.”

Really just laying that guilt on thick. Uhhh let’s see, after that:

You tell her you’re sick just to get her to go away and she believes you because you look horrible and are wearing a bathrobe in the middle of the afternoon

Cue angst about furthering the extent of your dishonesty

The next day she texts you just to “catch up” but in the middle of it, drops that Sans has been more than usually distant. They talked about so much and she knows it’s going to take time for things to get better, but since that first conversation on New Year’s Day, he’s kind of shut down-

But enough about her problems, what’s been going on with you? Oh, Not Much, you tell her. You’re still getting over your cold but you’ve gone back to work. It’s the truth, more or less. You have the sniffles, at any rate, though that’s more due to your daily extended heartbreak/guilt crying alone sessions than any physical malady.

A week later, your friend is back to sending you memes and talking about her job, your favorite shows you watch. Sans is living with her. Everything is normal, on the surface. Sans chimes in on the group chat every now and again, but that’s it. Not another word from him. The awful feeling in the pit of your stomach has faded to a dull ache that only bothers you at night.

Which is why it’s a total surprise when Papyrus shows up on your doorstep one evening and lets himself in. You didn’t even know he was in town. You’ve met him a few times, loved the guy, but he’s not here for a social call.

Well, okay, he is, but it’s not a pleasant one. He is. So. Disappointed. In you. He’s prepared a speech! To express the enormity of your fuckup.

About the 45-second mark of which, you break down sobbing. He stops immediately and grabs you a glass of water and a cool washcloth for your neck.

He apologizes as you calm down, and you have a long talk with him about the hows and the whys. It’s incredibly cathartic, you’ve never told anyone about any of this situation, and you’re drained by the time you’re done. But as he leaves, he has this look on his face and you hate it- pity tinged with trace amounts of leftover dismay, so it’s a relief to lock yourself in for the evening, even if the alternative (i.e. being alone with your thoughts and your guilt and everything else) isn’t much better.

An hour or two later, you get another text from Sans: “i’m sorry again, i didn’t know he was gonna do that.”

Interrupting myself here to say as an aside, so much for a synopsis of my vague concept; this is now going on 800 words. Look at all this work you definitely made me do that I didn’t put on myself at all. Anyway.

Sans text, continued: “he’s in town cuz of me, though, so i think i gotta listen to him. he’s uh saying we should get together and talk about how i”

“hang on”

Five minutes later: “scratch that i’m not listening to him.”

Ten full minutes later: “we can have lunch tomorrow. to talk. if you want. you don’t have to agree to it. i’ll understand.”

It’s about two in the morning when you finally respond: “Where and when?”

He replies immediately.

It’s a good sandwich. A shame you can’t do much more than just poke at it and nibble at the toppings that have fallen out of it onto the wax paper basket liner. And the bag of chips is completely out of the question. You’ve already put them away for later, for when you might eventually start regretting skipping lunch because of the awful somersaults your innards keep doing. Sans’s sandwich isn’t faring much better- he’s twirling his frilly-ended toothpick between his fingers, occasionally poking it into his dill pickle wedge.

Neither of you has said a word past your perfunctory greeting and the order you’d both placed at the counter eight minutes ago. The rest of the sandwich shop doesn’t seem to care, though. Most of its other patrons are absorbed in getting their order and getting out, or making the most of their too-brief lunch hour. It’s noisy, and it would be the perfect setting for the conversation you’re supposed to be having, you credit Sans with that much. If you could just speak.

You’re staring off over his shoulder, at the display rack of different brands of hot sauce, when he startles you by biting off over half of his pickle, chewing, and swallowing with his eyes closed and a sigh.

“thanks for… you know, not telling her yet.”

“I didn’t do it for you,” you say with enough sourness to give that pickle a run for its money.

“no, yeah, i know- i just. yeah. i’ll tell her, though. soon. uh, -ish.”

“Will you tell me when you do it? I don’t think I can take another unexpected visitor, and  I-” you laugh, ”-I’m going nuts checking my phone, panicking at every single notification.”

“‘course. yeah.”

“Okay. Thanks. For that.”

“sure.”

You tear off a piece of sliced turkey that’s hanging out the edge of your sandwich.

“…can i say somethin’?”

“That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”

“i didn’t- uh, know you had- i just thought you were riding the same wave of… whatever that was, as me.”

He clears his throat.

“i didn’t know you felt that w- i mean, that you had actual feelings for- at least, not until you started sayin’ all those things–”

“–I changed my mind, I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

He ducks his head.

“yeah, okay.”

You take another bite of your sandwich, chewing as you scramble for something, anything, else to say.

“So. Uh, how’s, um, y'know, everything else?”

He blinks, shakes his head, and laughs.

“what, you really wanna know? or are you askin’ just to ask?”

Shit. No, you don’t really want to know.

“Yeah. I wanna know.”

He leans back, the plastic of the chair back creaking, and looks out the window behind you.

“shit… it’s all… it’s all fallin’ apart on me.”

“I’m sorry,” you say, already a well-honed reflex.

“not your fault, really. in the end. i’m just already tired. a week ago, this’s all i wanted, for everything to go back to normal. but it turns out normal was just a lot of her pretending she could stand me. and we’re not pretending, anymore. so… but that’s supposed to help us sort everything out, right?”

Goddamn your bleeding heart that got you into this in the first place.

“feels capricious of me, right? but if it’s gonna end, why can’t it just end already? but i’m not allowed to give up yet, because that’s not what we’re doing, we’re working through our issues.”

He pushes his basket over to the seat next to him, and folds his arms on the table, head nestled into them.

“even though giving up is all i wanna do anymore,” he says, voice muffled by his sleeves.

“Every relationship requires work, Sans,” you say. Platitudinal, but true, if not particularly helpful.

“but at what point do you cut your losses? is it before or after the seventieth thing this week she tells you you’ve been doing wrong all along that she never bothered to mention to you before? you know she prefers the loose end of the tp to come out underhanded? i didn’t. she’s wrong, but hey, fuck- anything for my baby. i’m tired. i didn’t know it was gonna be like this.”

Underhanded toilet paper rolls? Do you even know who she is?

“i should just go ahead and tell her about this whole thing, already, see if that- i dunno, breaks us beyond repair. but if i do that now when all our wounds are still fresh, i don’t get to say i tried to fix things, and i guess on some level, i need that.”

He rubs his face.

“fuck, listen to me whine. i’m making it sound worse than it is. ”

“Dude, I don’t know. I’m still horrified by the toilet paper thing.”

He snorts.

“i don’t even use the stuff much, so it wasn’t worth makin’ a whole thing out of it.”

“Okay, but I’m fixated on it. It’s like, all I can think about. What the fuck?”

You’re overcome with the strangest feeling- it shouldn’t be so odd to you now, three weeks into your guilt spiraling, but you want to text her about this so badly, to give her grief about it. And if this were a normal situation, if you hadn’t made everything awful, you wouldn’t hesitate. But you’re having a clandestine lunch with her boyfriend to discuss the awful thing you did, and therefore you can’t give her shit about her weird habit you now know about thanks to him, which is what friends do. Friends don’t let friends put the roll on the wrong way without at least dragging them for it for the rest of their natural lives, so can you still even call yourself her friend?

Probably not, huh? That, and the other thing you did. Friends don’t do that, either.

Your smile fades as you start to understand on a much more personal level what he meant. You doubt you’ll be granted the same mercy as him, of working out your issues, and until then you have to live like this, unable to even joke around without it turning bitter. You’re going to lose her, too- you’re going to lose them both, maybe, probably, and the waiting and pretending is only adding to your misery. It’s a hollow kind of wanting, for something to be over and done with, but it’s rooted in you all the same.

You finally decide you’re not going to finish your sandwich, but you wrap it back up in the wax paper liner anyway, and start putting your coat back on.

“Well. Thanks for meeting with me. I think I’d better head back to work, now.”

“you realize we didn’t talk about what happened at all, right?”

You shrug. “Maybe we shouldn’t. Maybe we don’t need to.”

“you don’t- you don’t have anything you wanna say to me.”

You close your eyes and sigh.

“I’m… sorry?”

“shit, yeah, me too.”

“It was a mistake.”

“unequivocally, yeah.”

“I think that about covers it, don’t you?”

He nods silently.

“Then… I’ll see you around.”

You almost make it to the door, leaving him slumped in his seat with his uneaten sandwich. You look outside at the cold, slushy parking lot, check the time, and nearly get in your car and drive back to work. But instead, your feet carry you back to the table, back to Sans.

“I do actually just have one question.”

He looks up at you, and you can see deep into his eye sockets, and the dark semicircles beneath them, how tired he is.

“sure. anything,” he answers.

“If you had known how I felt, would it all have gone- would we be here now, having this conversation? Or would I have gone home before and none of this would have ever happened?”

Your fool brain wants you to continue: Or would you have stayed?

But you already know the answer to that one, so you stop yourself; these questions are dangerous enough, as is.

He actually looks somewhat taken aback.

“i don’t- i dunno. and i dunno how much good speculating about it’s gonna do. what’s done is done.”

“Please. It’s the one answer I feel like I have any right to.”

He shoves his hands in his jacket pockets and leans back.

“yeah. i think i’d have done the same thing.”

Your chair creaks as you fall back into it, defeated.

“Why?”

“what do you mean, why? did it seem like i gave a shit who else i was hurting at the time?”

He slumps a little further down, and in a softer, more soothing tone, says, “what are you after? do i care now that i hurt your feelings? …yeah. not that it really counts for anything.”

“It counts,” you croak.

“hmm.”

He stands, finally.

“guess you’re right, though. i’d better be getting back to work.”

He shrugs on his wool coat and winds his scarf around his neck.

“you uh… you gonna be ok?”

Are you? Feels like… maybe not?

The sobbing starts, even as you will it not to- christ, no, anything but that.

“oh. uh. shit.”

People are staring, now. You hide your face behind your hands, try to even out your voice to reassure him and your new audience that no, really, you’re fine, but it just comes out all the more overwrought for your efforts. Sans is useless, grimacing, hands outstretched towards you, placating, like with a panicking animal, and it reminds you of the conversation you’d had that night, when you’d offered yourself up as a shoulder to cry on.

“you wanna get out of here?” he asks, and you nod, rolling your eyes at your own uninvited histrionics and swiping at your cheeks.

“k,” he says, and when you open your eyes again, you’re sitting on your couch, in your apartment.

“got tissues?”

You swallow.

“Uh, bedroom, but- please don’t go in there, it’s- it’s bad.”

“k.”

He returns a few seconds later with a handful of toilet paper, and you take it from him.

“hey. it’s gonna be okay. y’know why?”

You blow your nose.

“Why?”

“no matter what else happens, you’ll always know: you put the toilet paper on the holder the right way.”

You chuckle weakly into your wad of tissue.

“You’re right. I’ll always have that.”

He sinks down on the couch next to you. Not too close.

You sigh and slump forward, elbows on your knees, calmer now.

“Well, that wasn’t supposed to happen. The- you know, the turning on the waterworks in a sandwich joint. That was embarrassing. I’m embarrassed.”

“happens. plus, i think you’ve earned the right to cry.”

Your chin wobbles again, threatening.

“Oh? I have? Cool. ‘Cuz I don’t know what I have the right to feel, or do, right now. It all feels wrong.”

“yeah. i know,” he mumbles.

“Sometimes I start feeling sad, for me, because of what I’m about to lose because of this? But then- no, can’t do that, because- hey, maybe I should have thought of that before we-” you catch your breath.

“yeah.”

“I’m mad at myself, and I’m pretty okay with that. But then sometimes I think maybe I’m mad at you for like, seven different reasons, and half of those reasons conflict with each other, but I can’t even… stay mad at you like I think I want to.”

You aren’t looking at him, but you can feel his stare.

“like how?”

You poke and prod at your face, trying to relieve some of the tension headache that’s building around your eye sockets and temples.

“Like, as your friend, I’m annoyed that you put up with ALL of her bullshit. You’re such a doormat when it comes to her. But as her friend, I’m so fucking appalled that you’d sleep with me, her best friend, less than a month after the breakup of a like- how many years? Six?”

“…seven.”

“Seven year relationship. Fuck, sorry, not to belabor the point or anything, but- yeah.” You sniffle. “And then- here’s the kicker. Just as me, alone, not relative to anyone else- I keep wishing you’d just fucking stayed in bed after I poured my heart out to you. Like I have any right to feel that. And of all of it, all the shit, that’s the one that sticks the worst, so the rest don’t get a chance to mean anything.”

The second you turn your head to make eye contact with him, he’s there, leaning in, warm. Big old eye sockets looking at you just like you’d wanted for so long.

“i should’ve. i know.”

Your breath leaves you, almost-but-not-quite on a sob, as he kisses you, and everything is right and better, if only for a split second.

“Wait.”

“yeah- yes. ok.”

“What about-” you can’t bring yourself to speak to him more than a few inches removed from the kiss, as if tethered there by a spell, “-what about everything you just said, what- this isn’t fixing things.”

“no.”

“And I can’t- you can’t do this to me again.”

“i won’t. it won’t be like last time.”

“You can’t promise that,” you say as matter-of-factly as you can manage, given the circumstances.

“keep thinkin’ about how i can’t remember the last time i felt the way i did when you were sayin’ all that stuff about me.”

Your cheeks flush even harder, as if the rest of you hadn’t yet gotten the memo.

“That’s called an orgasm.”

The ridge above his nasal cavity scrunches up pleasantly when he laughs.

“We shouldn’t.  If it was wrong before, it’s so much worse now.”

“i know.”

You cast your eyes aside to your front door, then down to where your hands are almost touching as you lean towards each other on the couch.

“You’re so full of shit, you know that?” you ask. “Fuck you for making me fall for it twice.”

Your eyelids flutter shut as you pull him in by the back of his neck.

THEN YOU FUCK AGAIN!!! WHAT ARE YOU THINKING!!! HOW COULD YOU!!!

hehe

He keeps his promise, more or less. It’s not her he has to run off to, at the end. You both have half a day of work ahead of you. You’re both late, and it’s as good an excuse as any for you to pretend he won’t still be going home to her, later.

You still have questions. You can’t focus at work.

He never promised much of anything, you now realize. It felt like he was offering much more, but- so what? Is he actually done with her? After everything? What does this look like tomorrow? A week from now?

What, you seriously think he’s going to leave her for you? Only if she kicks him out, you think, bitterly. Which makes you what, exactly? A consolation prize for his neglected ego?

You call him right as you’re getting off work, but hang up before he can answer. You want the truth??? You can’t handle the truth!!!

Things get better as they get worse. He starts coming over to see you, at least once a day. He stays an hour or two when he can. He talks with you in bed.

Yours, now, you think, sometimes.

You don’t ask him when he’s going to tell her. He’s choosing you, so he has to, right?

He will. Soon.

*Now I’m looking back at the beginning of all this and I’m like-

Some thoughts??? Bitch! You just wrote most of the damn thing! And after you said you weren’t gonna!

…So CLEARLY I had like, a little more I evidently wanted to say about this fucking thing. So there you go???

GOD that was a lot of dashes in there though, huh? I didn’t even try to keep the number down.

Oops hehhe

But, uh, yeah! I don’t know how this ends! Or even, at the risk of sounding a bit pretentious, if it ends! Maybe everyone learns from their mistakes and suffers the consequences! Or maybe nobody does! Or maybe it’s a weird combination of learning and not learning and suffering and not suffering because it’s supposed to be like, way more complicated than that.

**Or maybe reader and Sans’s gf wind up auditioning for the same local network tv wrestling show and they have lots of sexual wrestling tension together and also reader has like a will-they-won’t-they thing with an 80s disaster caricature of Marc Maron and they both bond with a group of wonderful interesting women and get to create something bigger than themselves!

God, I love GLOW. Maybe just go watch GLOW instead of this, it’s like, basically the same thing only with more eighties vibes and less skeletons and more women’s wrestling and less magical penises.

So really, not the same thing at all except for the one plot point of sleepin’ with your best friend’s dude that they kind of share, but very very good, you know?

Anyway! I love getting asks (I apparently love them so much that I can’t help myself and end up writing almost an entire chapter just to answer them), and fleshing out all the vagueness a little more without the self-imposed pressure of having to finish it into something publishable was really fun. So thanks for this ask!

[brokendevilwrites]

How would Nerd/Popular clexa parent's and friend's react If they just up and eloped at say 20, after they get back together?

NOTE: This doesn’t really fit anywhere in their timeline I have but I wanted to write it anyway. Just take it with a pinch of salt.

===

They tell Lexa’s mother first and it goes about as well as expected. For long moments--moments that drag into minutes that feel like eons--Lexa’s mom just looks at them, an eyebrow arched highly that matches Lexa’s when she hears something ridiculous, and she sips at her coffee like she’s waiting for the punchline for a terrible joke.

The kitchen is warm and filled with the scent of home cooked meals that Lexa misses. Two vases of flowers sit on the window and Lexa knows they’re from patients, always grateful for the dedication her mother gives to them, and she feels at home again even though her life is being built in brand new ways in a brand new city.

“Married.”

It’s all she says and Lexa nods and nods and nods. Clarke notes, with a smile, that Lexa hasn’t shut up once about them being officially married since the second they slid rings onto one another fingers but all words seem to have left her the second they stepped into her mother's kitchen.

“Married,” Lexa finally parrots back and Clarke flexes her fingers under the table against her wife’s. Her wife. She’s married. She married the most popular girl in school and they’re in love and happy and full of future promises. It’s so much, almost too much, and Clarke wants to scream and sing and laugh at how happy she is. “We...I mean, we were always going to get married so I don’t really see why us eloping is such a big deal really.”

The cup makes a dull noise as her mom places it back on the counter and her fingers rub at her eyes, a long shift at work starting to wear on her. “You’re twenty years old.”

“I’m glad you remembered.”

“Lexa,” her mom scolds and Clarke has to hold back from apologising too. “If I needed some witty commentary in my life then I’d turn on the television. I don’t particularly need it from my daughter when she wants me to take the fact she’s married her high school sweetheart seriously.”

“But you like Clarke.”

“I don’t recall saying I didn’t like Clarke,” she snaps back and for the first time Clarke and Lexa notice what ripple effects their decisions have on other people. “I just don’t understand why you thought I’d be supportive of something that you clearly didn’t want me to be involved in.”

And just like that all of the fake bravado leaves Lexa. Her shoulders slump a little and she shrugs, looking a lot like a little girl and needing her mom to say something nice about her.

“That’s not --”

“I didn’t even know you two  were back together, Lexa. A few weeks ago you were telling me you weren’t sure if you would be friends again.”

“I mean, no. But nobody did and this just...It happened and we’re happy. Please don’t be mad, we’re happy.”

There’s a little part of Clarke that wonders if she should leave the room but she sits firm, showing support for her wife as they try to explain to her mom that them getting married so quickly wasn’t anything to do with anyone else. It was for them.

“I’m not angry, baby. I’m not even disappointed,” she finally sighs but Lexa doesn’t look convinced and her eyebrows narrow together slightly, a confused pout on her pretty lips. “I just wish I could have been there on the happiest day of your life. You were there on mine. I wanted to share that with you but it’s okay, I’m sure we can recreate it with a party or something.”

Lexa opens her mouth to speak but her mom stands and the couple watch as she walks over to them, placing a gentle kiss on both of their browlines, before whispering a congratulations.

When she leaves the room Clarke can see the seriousness of the situation in Lexa’s eyes.

===

“Well I’m not surprised.”

“I am.”

“That’s because you don’t pay attention to anything other than your reflection, Bell,” Octavia chuckles and Bellamy looks like he wants to argue before he realises it’s an argument that is a) pointless and b) one he’s going to lose. The siblings glare playfully at one another for a few seconds before they turn their attention back to the couple. “What did your parents say?”

“My mom is kind of pissed she wasn’t included in the wedding,” Lexa starts and rolls her eyes when Octavia makes a noise of agreement and she looks at Clarke who busies herself with stirring her hot chocolate. “We haven’t told Abby yet.”

“Why? Do you think she’s going to freak out?”

“It’s Abby Griffin,” Lexa says, her fingers fiddling with sugar packets, and she ignores the amused look that Octavia and Bellamy give the both of them. While she’s still definitely not the greatest fan of Clarke’s best friend, he isn’t that bad. After high school the ‘leader of the pack’ idiocy left him and he grew some. She doesn’t love the guy but she’s happy Clarke has him, he understands her in ways Lexa is still learning sometimes. And she likes Clarke has people who can provide her with different things. “She’s kind of a force of nature.”

Bellamy shrugs a little and sits back in the plastic chair, his large frame swallowing it. “She’s nice.”

“She nice to you because she wants you to marry Clarke,” Lexa retorts and it just makes the boy laugh.

“She likes you too,” Clarke whispers and presses a kiss to Lexa’s cheek like the girl doesn’t already know. “Although, she definitely doesn’t know we’re even back together. I didn’t tell her that part yet. You know when you tell you mom bad things about your ex and you can’t really take it back?”

She looks adorable even as she teases and Lexa laughs, her eyes rolling. She knows Clarke wouldn’t have said anything about her but Clarke’s eyes are gleaming with laughter and her lips are wide in a smile and she’s just beautiful.

Even now she take’s Lexa’s breath away.

“Great. Now I have to win her over even as I explain that I married her daughter while we went away on a vacation that nobody knew about before doing terrible things to her in a hotel room.”

“I don’t remember them being terrible,” Clarke shrugs and the table erupts into giggles and flying sugar packets.

===

Anya stares at them through the computer, her make-up and her hair clearly professionally done, and there are several people in the background who look like they’re probably waiting for her.

Lexa knows they’re going to wait a lot longer now.

“You got married while I’m in Europe?”

“In our defence, we never know where in the world you are,” Lexa says through a grin and Anya rolls her eyes so slowly that the only way Clarke knows the connection hasn’t frozen is because of the people hurrying around the set. “It just sort of escalated from me saying I wanted to marry Clarke to actually, you know, marrying Clarke.”

“Romantic.”

Clarke smiles and Lexa looks away from the image of her friend to the image of her wife on the computer screen and sighs. She’s incredible. “It really was.”

“Well congratulations,” Anya shrugs but there’s a look behind her eyes that Lexa has seen before. The image of disappointment on her moms face is still fresh. “Don’t think this gives you a pass to be more disgusting with one another.”

“No promises.”

“I want the full story when I’m back from Milan,” she says and before they can reply the screen goes black and Anya leaves.

Lexa blinks a few times and tries to smile. “That was better than I thought.”

“I think we’ve underestimated how much people actually love us,” Clarke says and Lexa hasn’t heard a more truer word spoken. She looks a little nervous and Lexa kisses her like she did when they were announced as wife and wife in front of a group of strangers. “I love you.”

“I love you, Clarke,” she reminds her and kisses her again, because she can. “Are you ready to tell your mom?”

“Nope.”

===

Clarke’s childhood home hasn’t changed from her first memories. The walls have had a new lick of paint and floorboards have been replaced, but the vibrancy is still the same and the love still holds strong in the foundations. On the stairs is a little chart telling of the growth of Clarke. It stops suddenly when she’s ten and Lexa knows why; they don’t talk about it, but she knows the handwriting next to the age and year is Jake Griffin’s.

Clarke went ahead to the snug first; it’s Abby’s favourite room, covered in books and movies and pictures of happier times. Slowly she’s filling spaces next to old memories with new ones and Lexa stands at the door while Abby and Clarke catch up, not unaware of the look she received when Abby opened the door to see the couple standing there.

Briefly she wonders what Abby thinks of her in those months Clarke and her broke one anothers hearts.

“Mom, I have something to tell you,” Clarke says and Lexa takes that as her cue to walk into the room, her hand going to rest on Clarke’s thigh as she sits next to her. She isn’t ignorant to the look she gets for it. “Me and Lexa. Lexa and I. We’re --”

“I know you’re married, Clarke. Lexa’s mom told me.”  The couple freeze and Lexa glares, hoping a psychic connection before her and her mother works and she feels the intensity of it. “Oh, you didn’t think we didn’t keep each other up to date on your lives? Of course we do. You weren’t speaking to one another and you had us worried for a while.”

“You’re not mad?”

Abby sighs and for a second Lexa worries she is. “I’m never mad at your decisions, Clarke. You’re incredibly smart and I know your mind works differently sometimes so I know you’ve made this decision because it’s the best one for you,” she says softly but there is that underlying tone that they’ve become accustomed to hearing. “But why did you feel you had to do this without your family or friends?”

Clarke looks at Lexa and Lexa looks at Clarke and they, in that moment, realise they don’t actually have an answer. “I just wanted to marry her and I needed to do it then,” Lexa says but she’s looking at Clarke and Abby smiles. “I couldn’t wait, Mrs. Griffin. Abby. I didn’t want to wait. I asked her to marry me because I needed her to be my wife and I had to be her wife, and we made it happen because we’ve always made it happen.”

“I see,” Abby says with a nod and she captures their attention again. “Well perhaps we can have a celebration? I’d like to congratulate the two of you without you running off somewhere and celebrating without us.”

And it isn’t about the marriage or the wedding or the secrecy, they realise. They’re surrounded by support and love and acceptance and they should have shared their love back; that’s the disappointment their friends and family have, that they couldn’t be included.

Clarke kisses Lexa again and tastes promise on her lips.

How many times can they get married before it becomes obnoxious?

[antonverloc]

i made verloc a playlist because listen it’s my day off and this is definitely the most productive use of my time. many of the songs refer to different aspects of him (or at least my portrayal) as well as his relationships, and those details and the most prominent lyrics in each are under the cut. 

GERM CELL TUMOR / SHOWBREAD (HIM). ❝ i’m often misplacing the conviction that i sell; i put it on display so arrogantly. sometimes being right is important to me; i need the vindication, but it doesn’t make me happy. i’m horrified by the prospect of defeat; so many demons want to make a home in me. ❞ + ❝ i think that when i started, there was hope in the tank. somewhere along the line, i replaced all of it. running on the arrogant fumes of self-satisfaction, got me reeking of the odor of my own pestilence. ❞ + ❝ so petrified, and i’m tangled in conceit. ❞

SHE BLINDED ME WITH SCIENCE / THOMAS DOLBY (SALLY).  ❝ i don’t believe it! there she goes again. she’s tidied up, and i can’t find anything. all my tubes and wires, and careful notes, and antiquated notions. but it’s poetry in motion, and when she turned her eyes to me, as deep as any ocean, as sweet as any harmony, she blinded me with science. ❞

DEAD IN THIS HOUSE / IAMX (CHILDHOOD/FAMILY). ❝ you’re in the dark, just you and anger; your oldest friend, your closest lover. show them your art, show them your alchemy - your addictive, viral, euphoric, raging need. ❞ + ❝ kick down the door, kick through the pain. you’ve been talking to the wall, ‘cause everybody is dead in this house. ❞

SMOKE AND MIRRORS / GOTYE (HIM). ❝ you’re a fraud, and you know it; but it’s too good to throw away. anyone would do the same. you’ve got ‘em going, and you’re careful not to show it. sometimes you even fool yourself a bit - it’s like magic - but it’s always been a smoke and mirrors game. anyone would do the same. ❞ + ❝ such highs and lows, you put on quite a show. all these highs and lows, and you’re never really sure what you do it for. ❞

ANIMALS / MUSE (HIM). ❝ out of control - you’re out of control. strike those in distress. analyze, advertise, expand, bend more rules - buy yourself an island. ❞ + ❝ out of control - we’re out of control. crush those who beg at your feet. analyze, franchise, spread out, kill the competition - and buy yourself an ocean. amortize, downsize, lay off, kill yourself - come on and do us all a favour. ❞ 

NUMB / MARINA AND THE DIAMONDS (HIM). ❝ one track mind like a gold fish, stuck inside my petri dish. i can’t breathe and i can’t smile - this better be worth my while. i feel numb most of the time; the lower i get, the higher i’ll climb. and i will wonder why i got dark only to shine; looking for the golden light, oh, it’s a reasonable sacrifice. ❞ + ❝ forego family, forego friends. that’s how it started, how it ends. i can’t open up and cry, ‘cause i’ve been silent all my life. ❞ + ❝ oh, i get dark - and oh, i’m in hell. i need a friend - oh, but i can’t yell. yeah, i’m no good, no good to anyone, ‘cause all i care about is being number one. ❞

SOLITAIRE / MARINA AND THE DIAMONDS (HIM). ❝ don’t wanna talk with anyone, i’m obsessed with silence. i go home and i lock my door, i can hear the sirens. i see buildings and bars from the window, and i listen to the wind blow. i see people and cars covered in gold, and i’m happy to be on my own. ❞ + ❝ hard like a rock, cold like a stone. white like a diamond, black like coal. cut like a jewel, yeah, i repair myself when you’re not there. solitaire, something you consider rare. i don’t wanna be compared with that cheap shimmer and glitter. ❞ + ❝ i’m in love with the ice-blue skies of england. i’ll admit, all i wanna do is get drunk and silent. ❞

HURT / JOHNNY CASH (HIM/SALLY). ❝ i hurt myself today to see if i still feel. i focus on the pain, the only thing that’s real. ❞ + ❝ everyone i know goes away in the end. and you could have it all - my empire of dirt. i will let you down; i will make you hurt. ❞ + ❝ i wear this crown of thorns, upon my liar’s chair; full of broken thoughts i cannot repair. beneath the stains of time, the feelings disappear; you are someone else, and i am still right here. ❞

WHITE SUBURB IMPRESSIONISM / IAMX (HIM). ❝ you might keep me alive, but i can let you down any time that i like. ❞ + ❝ break my neck or my fall, and burn all the bridges, and breach every wall. the sweetest of touches, the violent caress - the time of your life for the marks that you left on me. ❞ + ❝ never argue with these idiots, they drag you down to their level and beat you with ignorance. ❞

FLAWED DESIGN / STABILO (HIM). ❝ when i got older, i began to lie to get exactly what i wanted when i wanted it, and i wanted it. now i’m having trouble differentiating between what i want and what i need to make me happy. ❞ + ❝ and i will turn off, and i will shut down; burying the voices of my conscience hitting ground. the chemicals are restless in my head. ❞ + ❝ never take advice from someone who just admitted to being devious, who just confessed to treason.❞

COLD COLD COLD / CAGE THE ELEPHANT (HIM). ❝ doctor, look into my eyes. i’ve been breathing air, but there’s no sign of life. doctor, the problem’s in my chest; my heart feels cold as ice, but it’s anybody’s guess. ❞ + ❝ it’s cold, cold, cold, cold inside. darker in the day than in the dead of night. ❞

NOTHING PERSONAL / NIGHT RIOTS (HIM/DOWNERS). ❝ the center of the world is lonely me. ❞ + ❝ i’ll be the king, you’ll be the filth i wash away. it’s nothing personal. ❞

WHO ARE YOU, REALLY? / MIKKY EKKO (HIM). ❝ so, you feel entitled to a sense of control, and make decisions that you think are your own. ❞ + ❝ now you’re moving idle, and you say you’re alone. ❞ 

DON’T MESS WITH ME / TEMPOSHARK (HIM). ❝ how it all began, if truth be told: i had a master plan, now i rule the world. took ‘em by surprise, worked my way uphill. they looked into my eyes; i became invincible. no one can stop me, for only i am in control. if you want me, you’d better contact my people. ❞ + ❝ won’t you please disappear? something tells me you can’t further my career. ❞

CALL MY NAME / THE UNLIKELY CANDIDATES (SALLY). ❝ i keep my heart under the floorboards, deep in the dark, far away from yours. a panic starts in a little box when you’re at my door, and it’s fine. no, i lied - i feel it screaming. it knows what you’ve come for. ❞ + ❝ heart! what is it i hear? i’m moving past the real, and it wants to feel you call my name.  ❞ + ❝ i pass the time in cool paranoia, detail each crime that killed me before you. but your pale blue eyes trigger innocence and bind to euphoria, then it throbs, and i’m about to hear it laughing. my heart will destroy us. ❞

WIRES / THE NEIGHBORHOOD (HIM). ❝ mr. know-it-all had his reign and fall, at least that’s what his brain is telling all. ❞ + ❝ you knew the game and played it, it kills to know that you have been defeated. ❞ + ❝ the wires got the best of him - all that he’d invested in goes straight to hell. ❞

I DON’T EVEN CARE ABOUT YOU / MISSIO (HIM/SALLY). ❝ depressed again; morning comes too fast, and i’m tired of the routine. depressed again, let me sit alone in the tone of tranquility. angry again; no, i don’t want to have a conversation with you. angry again; let me sit alone with the kerosene. ❞ + ❝ i don’t even care about you, i don’t even care about you - depressed again - angry again - let me sit alone with the kerosene. ❞

EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLDS / LORDE (HIM/WELLINGTON WELLS). ❝ welcome to your life, there’s no turning back. even while we sleep, we will find you acting on your best behaviour, turn your back on mother nature. everybody wants to rule the world. ❞ + ❝ it’s my own design, it’s my own remorse. ❞ 

STORMS / FLEETWOOD MAC (SALLY). ❝ every night that goes between, i feel a little less. as you slowly go away from me, this is only another test. every night you do not come, your softness fades away. did i ever really care that much? is there anything left to say? every hour of fear i spend, my body tries to cry. living through another empty night, a deadly calm inside. ❞ + ❝ i haven’t felt this way i feel since many a year ago, but in those years and the lifetimes past, i did not deal with the road. and i did not deal with you, i know, though the love has always been. ❞

EARTH / SLEEPING AT LAST (CHILDHOOD/FAMILY). ❝ fault lines tremble underneath my glass house, but i put it out of my mind. long enough to call it courage, to live without a lifeline. i bend the definition of faith to exonerate my blind eye; ‘til the sirens sound, i’m safe. ❞ + ❝ meanwhile, my family’s taking shelter; the sparks send the fire down the wire. the countdown begins, until the dynamite gives in. ❞

BURN / AURAM (SALLY). ❝ if i burn, you burn with me. you got me so fucked up, feels like you’re watching me. thought you’d be haunting, but it’s her that’s haunting me. is this what you want? setting me on fire. i thought i loved you right, but this is what you inspire. and you were right when you told me “you’ve got a lot to prove”; may not be watching close, but i’m watching you. now i’ve got ammunition, baby - you don’t even wanna think about what i could do. ❞

WEIRD SCIENCE / OINGO BOINGO (HIM). ❝ from my heart and from my hand - why don’t people understand my intentions? plastic tubes and pots and pans, bits and pieces, magic from the hand, we’re making weird science. ❞ + ❝ pictures from a magazine, diagrams and charts, mending broken hearts. ❞ + ❝ things i’ve never seen before behind bolted doors; talent and imagination. ❞

THE SCIENTIST / COLDPLAY (SALLY).  ❝ running in circles, coming up tails, heads on a science apart. nobody said it was easy; it’s such a shame for us to part. nobody said it was easy; no one ever said it would be this hard. oh, take me back to the start. ❞ + ❝ i was just guessing at numbers and figures, pulling the puzzles apart. questions of science - science and progress - don’t speak as loud as my heart. tell me you love me, come back to haunt me - oh, and i rush to the start. ❞

PIPES / TOM MILSOM (HIM/SALLY). ❝ the world is strange; it’s all a game, a shooting range. for apathy and empathy, psychology and therapy; and even if i’m eloquent, this all defies my sentiment. ❞ + ❝ hovering intangibly is everything you mean to me; i’d cut open your humming heart if only i knew where to start. these microscopes replace my eyes, and everything it magnifies is something new, but everywhere you cast a shadow on the atoms in the air. ❞ + ❝ let me cut it open and explore the information, in the pipes that make it mazes of logistical holisticism. ❞ + ❝ there’s no emotion in my eyes, i’m just a robot in disguise. the passion, when it came to me, was more than sonic fallacy. ❞

OH NO! / MARINA AND THE DIAMONDS (HIM). ❝ don’t do love, don’t do friends. i’m only after success. don’t need a relationship, i’ll never soften my grip. ❞ + ❝ i know exactly what i want and who i want to be. i know exactly why i walk and talk like a machine. i’m now becoming my own self-fulfilled prophecy - oh, oh no. ❞ + ❝ one track mind, one track heart. if i fail, i’ll fall apart. maybe it is all a test, ‘cause i feel like i’m the worst, so i always act like i’m the best. ❞

DANGEROUSLY / CHARLIE PUTH (SALLY). ❝ i ignored the truth, drunk off that love. it fucked my head up; there’s no forgetting you. ❞ + ❝ you’ve awoken me, but you’re choking me. i was so obsessed, gave you all of me - and now, honestly, i’ve got nothing left. ❞ + ❝ knew we would crash at the speed we were going, didn’t care if the explosion ruined me. baby, i loved you dangerously. ❞ + ❝ usually, i hold the power with both my hands tied behind my back. look at how things have changed. ❞

[dustedmagazine]

Dusted Mid-Year Exchange: 2018, Part 2

Part two covers mid-year favorites from H. C. McEntire to Yuzo Iwata.  If you missed part one, check it out here.  

H.C. McEntire — Lionheart (Merge)

Who recommended it? Justin Cober-Lake

Did we review it?  No. 

Ben Donnelly’s take: 

 Country music likes to provide bona fides in the lyrical details. Be it bad boy specifics of a truck model or coffeehouse ballads spiked with animal bones and rusty weathervanes, the singer signals that they know life out on the dirt roads. What's striking about Lionheart is how it delves into the particulars of a North Carolina life, from textile miles to chicory and gardenias. Indeed, nearly every song mentions the local flora, yet such details fall into place incidentally. McEntire describes places where nature is growing over every outbuilding and brick alley. There's a sense of discovery in theses settings where relationships with friends, family and a lover play out. All those vines were too common to notice until now, when love and the gratitude that follows make the mundane vivid.

McEntire longs for the present moment perfected, not a past reconstructed, and that's why her rootsy details don't have anything to prove. She’s comes to this twang a decade after playing the knotted indie rock also endemic to the region, a style that leaves nary a trace musically here. When she sings “I’m the clown who feeds the crows,” she’s both a figure in her natural habitat and someone who knows the other locals are smirking and murmuring, as she wanders on her own.

 Efrim Manuel Menuck—Pissing Stars (Constellation)

Pissing Stars by Efrim Manuel Menuck

Who recommended it? Jonathan Shaw

Did we review it? Yes. Jonathan said that a “mind-scrambling collision of plasticized media culture and geopolitical rapacity provides the thematic impetus for Pissing Stars.”

Bill Meyer’s take:

Words and notes are mere platforms; it’s the blasted, low-definition, high-contrast sound of Pissing Stars that hits you first and leaves a mark. Menuck (founder of Godspeed! You Black Emperor and Silver Mt. Zion) uses grimy sonic filters to amplify an emotional anguish whose extend deeper than the current geo-political situation. The album’s organizing preoccupation is a love affair between TV personality and an arm dealer’s coddled son, which caught Menuck’s attention when he was in his teens (he’s well into his 40s now).  The songs address love and money, and the impossibility of redemption and the yearning to transcend that impossibility, not as binary relationships but as far boundaries of a vast and incomprehensible field.  Menuck sounds broken and partially remade, awash in sounds made to match.

  Mesarthim — The Density Parameter (Avantgarde Music)

The Density Parameter by Mesarthim

Who recommended it? Ian Mathers

Did we review it? Yes Ian admired the way that Mesarthim, “seesaws from something even the staunchest, pettiest gatekeepers would have to admit are metal, to sections featuring patterns and instruments that, in a different context, would make perfect sense at a rave.” 

 Eric McDowell’s take:

“Safe to say that black metal’s got what it takes to make innocent listeners uncomfortable: the corrosive distortion, the pummeling drums, those terrifying roars — not to mention all that netherworldly symbolism, mythology and branding. But if Mesarthim’s keeping somewhat more experienced listeners (Bandcamp dabblers, Dusted midyear exchange reviewers) on their toes, it’s not because they’re doubling down on those tropes. It’s because they take such a free hand with gestures to genres that seem to take the legs out from under their black metal persona.

 Not to overstate the case: The music on The Density Parameter, the Australian duo’s third full-length, is plenty dark and crushing. But then there are the unsettling touches — the synthetic arena-rock drums and boxing-movie-montage keys of “Ω,” the bleeding-heart strings of “Transparency” or the ghoulish club beat of “74%.” To say that Mesarthim sounds like a band bored with convention is really to say that they sound pumped about the possibility of subverting it. And when they want to indulge, they can do that, too, as they prove in the album’s final overpowering minutes.  

  Roscoe Mitchell and the Montreal-Toronto Art Orchestra—Ride the Wind (Nessa)

Who recommended it? Derek Taylor

Did we review it? Yes. Derek said: “Flimsy idiomatic descriptors like jazz, classical and the like are irrelevant to the proceedings, replaced by the umbrella adjectival phrase of organized and energized sound.”

Jonathan Shaw’s take:

Adequately describing music this enormously complex, aesthetically confrontational and confident requires a technical vocabulary and understanding of jazz history that this reviewer lacks. For this 2016 set, Mitchell wrote and worked and played with the 19-piece Montreal-Toronto Art of Orchestra. Their varied instrumentation and dexterous, evocative playing create some dizzying experiences: see the transition out of the choppy clatter of “Splatter” into the lyrical grace of the first few minutes of the title track. From staccato, oddly percussive reeds to undulant brass and strings—it’s a sharp and then gorgeous progress.

A couple reference points occur: Mingus’s orchestral and ambitious Let My Children Hear Music (1972), especially the whirling, swirling “The Shoes of the Fisherman’s Wife Are Some Jive-ass Slippers”; “A Brain for the Seine” (1969), a long composition by the Art Ensemble of Chicago, in which Mitchell has been a key player throughout its long and bewilderingly experimental existence. Those dates invoke the high point of the American free jazz avant-garde, and few personages loomed as largely, or productively, in that period as Mitchell’s.

That begs some questions: Can we still have an avant-garde in the early 21st century? Can a figure as established and prominent as Mitchell produce authentically avant-garde art? If the avant-garde is thought as a political and historically specific phenomenon, likely not; the postmodern and late capital have reduced those possibilities all but completely. But if by “avant-garde” we mean a style, and a style specific to jazz, then this music carries its mark and its intensity. It’s also lovely and bracing to hear Mitchell work through a new arrangement of “Nonaah” here, a song that recalls the mid-1970s cultural environment of its original composition and appearance in Mitchell’s oeuvre. The song caps this set, and in doing so insists that we hear history at work. Thanks, Derek, for recommending this stirring and provocative recording.

 Kacey Musgraves — Golden Hour (MCA Nashville)

Who recommended it? Patrick Masterson

Did we review it? No.  

Derek Taylor’s take:

“Jazz is dead” — it’s a declamatory provocation at once reductive, alarmist and cavalier that’s been floating around for the better part of a half-century, uttered by the idiom’s traditionalists, progressives and detractors alike. The same fatalistic phrase could equally and erroneously be applied to country music. Twenty-nine year old Texan Kacey Musgraves isn’t exactly a corrective to that combative line of thought and her brand of musical expression is fraught with certain stylistic choices (concessions?) that appear cardinal in this age of Country Music Awards commodification. But embrace of pop conventions has always been efficacious strategy going back to Countrypolitan, Western Swing and even The Singing Brakeman.  

Golden Hour, Musgraves’ fourth album, is reportedly a reflection of recently-found, matrimony-rooted optimism, audible in the gilded acoustic guitar melodies that serve as the skeletal frames for the songs around which a warm-blooded corpus of lap steel, banjo, drums and noninvasive keys is fleshed. Her voice is a modest wonder, musing on solitary afternoons leavened and enriched by the safety that comes in knowing that loving companionship is the current and foreseeable norm or using the kitschy metaphor of a “Velvet Elvis” to elucidate her lover’s left-of-center appeal. Apart from others of her age and ascendant success, she seems to cotton that the gifts of prosperity and stardom need not come through the mercenary espousal of whatever pop chart-calibrated admixture the A&R suits and million-bean counters deem worthy of exploitation.

  Olden Yolk—S-T (Trouble In Mind)

Olden Yolk by Olden Yolk

Who recommended it? Ben Donnelly

Did we review it? Yes. Jennifer Kelly said, “The vocals slide over one another like colored transparencies, creating shifting shades and moods.”

Ian Mathers’ take:

“Je suis les enfants/in the barrel of a gun” is a heck of a way to open an album, and the mix of the slightly sinister and the slightly baroque carries throughout the first Olden Yolk record. Which means, yes, building on that proud legacy of twee bands not afraid of the Velvet Underground, and I see those Clientele comparisons and can agree with them too. At points though I also think of early, spikier Go-Betweens. All of which is to say that the considerable charms and pleasures of Olden Yolk are coming from a distinct and well loved (if sometimes underestimated) lineage. There are discernible traces of psych-folk, jangle-pop, even a bit of the tang of the garage in there, but as with any act producing music worth paying attention to, here all those referents are just attempts to point at the contours of the very specific, individual thing Olden Yolk are doing. Whether it’s the brasher likes of “Esprit de Corps” or the lovely eternal sigh of “Gamblers on a Dime” or especially the forbidding sprawl and tangle of the closing “Takes One to Know One,” Olden Yolk build on the past with such verve and panache they never feel of the past.

  John Prine — The Tree of Forgiveness (Oh Boy)

Who recommended it? Isaac Cooper

Did we review it? Yes, Isaac said, “Prine finds his warmest balance yet between boundless empathy and joking detachment.”  

Eric McDowell’s take:

Portrait of the artist as an old man, the cover of John Prine’s first album of original music in 13 years says it all. He looks a bit tossed around, sure, but sly as ever. He’s surrounded by darkness and wearing black, but his face glows. Perhaps he’s “seeing the light,” but he’s gazing right at us, eyes skeptical, mouth ready to crack an acid joke.  

On The Tree of Forgiveness, Prine’s intimate and gruff voice doesn’t so much guide us from light to dark as show us their inseparability. Often they’re embodied in the figures and narratives characteristic of Prine’s music. There’s the down-and-out beggar of the trucking-on opener, “Knockin’ on Your Screen Door” whose family “up and left me / with nothin’ but an 8-track / another side of George Jones.” On “The Lonesome Friends of Science,” there’s the poor washed-up Pluto, “once a mighty planet there / now just an ordinary star / hanging out in Hollywood / in some old funky sushi bar.” While other tunes have an earnest tenderness that makes us want to pin Prine himself as not only their singer but also their subject — the strings-saturated “Summer’s End” or “Boundless Love” (“If I came home, would you let me in / fry me some pork chops and forgive my sins?”) — that risky move is no more tempting than on the closer, “When I Get to Heaven.” “I’m gonna get a cocktail / vodka and ginger ale / and I’m gonna smoke a cigarette that’s nine miles long / I’m gonna kiss that pretty girl / on the tilt-a-whirl / yeah, this old man is going to town”: The plan feels pure Prine, but it’s also sketched as a sing-along, inviting us to share in the fantasy.  

If everyone’s already pointed out that Prine’s always been this way, singing with wit about old age and death and wearing black since the early days, then I guess he’s done his job.

Alasdair Roberts, Amble Skuse & David McGuinness — What News (Drag City)

What News by Alasdair Roberts, Amble Skuse & David McGuinness

Who recommended it?

Bill Meyer

Did we review it? Yes. Bill Meyer said, “Turns out, the news is that Roberts has made the most unabashedly gorgeous record of his career.” Bryan Daly’s take: This inspired trio has shepherded both the songs and the traditional instruments on which they were played from deep in the past and conveyed them to the present, with all the care and fortitude it took to deliver news through the wild countryside in the age when they were written. An old Britain comes vividly alive not only because of the scholarly work that has been done in presenting them faithfully, but also because of the emotions that streak these songs with color. After spending some time with these characters in the world where they live and die, casual understanding of the song's history and meaning becomes insufficient. Digging through the archives for context becomes its own rewarding pursuit. But just as digging through the archives these days can mean typing few words into your phone, the world is another place from when these songs were written. Amble Skuse's subtle weaving of shifting modern noise provides the most sublime moments throughout, like the ambiguous but familiar clacking that opens the album. Is it a camera? A typewriter? A horse? What news is being prepared? Lest we forgot we haven’t slipped into the times when these songs were first sung, a familiar hiss and static of the current grounds us in the now.

Alasdair's ageless tenor also plays well against McGuinness's period instruments (grand piano, dulcitone), illuminating timeworn themes like betrayal and confused notions of honor. Characters are portrayed with such sensitivity that the dust that might have gathered on their stories has been shaken off in travel through time. When the players imbue such reverence for presenting the past as is done here, songs arrive freshly felt. The news travels fast, even through the space of hundreds of years.

 Caroline Rose — Loner (New West)

LONER by Caroline Rose

Who recommended it? Justin Cober-Lake

Did we review it? No

Patrick Masterson’s take:

Loner leads off with a song called “More of the Same,” but such a description could hardly be less apt for Caroline Rose’s third full-length. In the wake of 2014’s I Will Not Be Afraid, Rose took her catchy but simple country-tinged folk, her insecurities and her formidable wit and lathered a thick coat of synth-tinged pop on it. Press materials cite Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears as inspirations, both of which seem like more than lip service (check the FutureSex/LoveSounds vibe of “To Die Today” and, well, this cover of “Toxic”), but perhaps the most clear pop parallel is on the significantly altered (and, hence, appropriately titled) “Soul No. 5,” where her shog-off attitude toward admirers recalls Nicki Minaj or peak-era Ke$ha before she dropped the dollar sign: “I like to hit ‘em and quit ‘em / That’s just my style,” she shrugs with flair.

Bang, bang and away she goes is right: Whether it’s this kind of forthright pop approach or something more serious (and seriously invested) like “Jeannie Becomes a Mom” – I’m still thinking about how she ends with “Now you’re in real life” reverbing out to the point that you can barely understand it before metaphorically clarifying right at the finish – and closer “Animal” or even the funny, cringe-worthy cat-call escalations of “Smile! AKA Schizodrift Jam 1 AKA Bikini Intro,” every song on here moves at a swift clip to showcase some point along the spectrum of Rose’s talent. Call in Britney, call in Ke$ha, call in Angel Olsen, call in The Replacements — none of it seems quite sufficient. Caroline Rose is a league apart and better than she’s ever been.

 Salad Boys — This Is Glue (Trouble in Mind)

This Is Glue by Salad Boys

Who recommended it? Jennifer Kelly

Did we review it? Yes. Jonathan Shaw said, “The contrast of blithe pop with alienated, distraught lyrics is nothing new. This record reinvests that contrast with liveliness and complication.”

Patrick Masterson’s take:

The cover to This Is Glue is almost comically accurate, an album of pastel shades. Listening to “Blown Up,” which kicks off Joe Sampson’s 12-song, 45-minute-long sophomore LP under the Salad Boys name into gear with a propulsive indie-rock fling before segueing into “Hatred,” which… sounds like anything but, gives you the two major speeds of the record in just about nine minutes. So yeah: The Christchurch, New Zealander loads up on soft-baked indie jangle like it’s 1986. In one of Dusted’s first reviews this year, Jonathan described it as “compulsively listenable from the jump,” which is nearly as damning as it is praising. Put it on! Forget it’s on! And on and on and on.

But look at the album art closer and you’ll see the bright speckles of red and that smear of darkness to the left – there’s more going on than initially meets the eye. Same goes for the music; working harder to hear the details rewards multiple plays. Stuff like “Psych Slasher” or “Under the Bed” are fairly overt hits, sure, but there’s also “Scenic Route to Nowhere,” where Sampson’s accent is most evident and there’s this almost Oneida-esque stretch at three-quarters distance; the über-jangle of “Exaltation”; the frontier strings in “Dogged Out”; and “Right Time,” which had me remembering some of my earliest indie-rock encounters listening to 3WK and realizing I had no idea what I didn’t know. Trouble in Mind tells me these lyrics are “more claustrophobic and yearning” than 2015’s more upbeat Metalmania, but the way Sampson barely ever rises above an inside voice even at full emoting had me focusing harder on the guitar tones, frankly; in this way, Salad Boys’ closest analog to me isn’t whatever I forgot from the Left of the Dial box, it’s another Antipodean group increasingly lost to the salads of time: Ides of Space. I mean that as a compliment, and I almost never give stuff like this compliments. Eat up.

 Tove Styrke — Sway (RCA)

Who recommended it? Ian Mathers

Did we review it?  Yes, Ian called it, “ a perfect sparkling little showcase for how much the craft and delivery of this kind of pop song can matter.”

Jennifer Kelly’s take:

Um, yeah, Swedish electro-pop, not my favorite. Ian’s right, though, Styrke is good at what she does, imbuing glossy, focused-tested beats with soft, engaging humanity. “Sway,” one of the singles, has a big sweeping chorus, a sugary blast of “Swaa-aa-aay” that could melt the hardest heart, while “Say My Name” slathers staccato rhythms with giddy female empowerment. Styrke’s girlish voice has a nice touch of vulnerability to it, shading marketable hooks with recognizable human feeling. Production is immaculate, meticulous, air-tight, engineered for maximum impact. You could do worse, obviously. But really, when so many good, less commercially viable bands are vying for your attention, why spend time on stuff that’s doing just fine without you?  

 Yuzo Iwata—Daylight Moon (Siltbreeze)

Daylight Moon by Yuzo Iwata

Who recommended it? Bryan Daly

Did we review it? Yes. Bryan said: “these are deeply thrilling guitar-driven instrumentals with the room-live warmth and sense of play found on the Matrix Tapes, and mentally chasing a melody on any of these songs captivates fully.”

 Jonathan Shaw’s take:

It’s hard to know if “Gigolo” intentionally alludes to “Gigolo Aunt,” one of the most coherent songs on Syd Barrett’s eponymous final record of studio material. But Yuzo Iwata’s delightful tune has the same lively, blithely bouncy quality as Barrett’s, and it plays a similar role on Daylight Moon. “Gigolo” is a space of unadulterated joy on a record that’s otherwise redolent with more difficult feelings. The difficulties are suggested by variations in tone; the record’s instrumentation is invariably simple, with Iwata backed by a straightforward rock combo. That anchors the record in a consistent sonic vocabulary. But Iwata’s playing projects the record onto multiple emotional planes: the meditative lilt of “Up on a Dragonfly”; the foreboding, spaghetti-western shamble of “Border”; the gently somber “Goodnight, Daylight Moon.”

The most intense sounds on Daylight Moon assert themselves on the fuzzily metallic “Drone Beetle” (recorded in 1999, unlike the other songs on the LP, which date from September 2015), and on “Daylight Moon II,” easily the record’s most incendiary performance. It’s got an aching, terrible beauty, and it feels like the fiery catharsis that offsets the goofball charm of “Gigolo.” Both songs are terrific, but “Daylight Moon II” is more vividly present, Iwata’s soloing seeks transcendence. It gets there. I wish it were here longer.

[greengargouille]

Little Sugaya things

Hello AC fans, do you know whose birthday it is today? “No, but I have a strong feeling it might be the character whose name is in the title.” What a cheeky reader you are. But, indeed, in this October 25th Sugaya Sousuke turns... Well, he doesn’t really age, fiction and all that. This is an ideal time to talk about him!

I have a strong liking to this character, so I figured I would make a small post about him (especially if that can count toward ankyou week), my observations, mostly things I want to remember while I write fics.

...This isn’t a small post at all.

Note: I tend to link towards other posts whenever I make mention of extra-material, but there are 3 things that I will tend to use a lot, and for this reason I’m linking at the beginning, namely his Roll Book profile, his Graduation Book profile, and the Individual Ability chart. 

This first point is easy, but Sugaya is a really good artist, and really fast at that. And by that I mean really, really fast. Notable achievements includes, in non-chronological order:

Doing really neat drawings on the back of his tests. Like, already, it’s quite the art he’s showing us -and given he’s in the middle of a test that probably only last one class, he had less than an hour to do that. Uh. Impressive for someone in junior high, but still plausible.

A few moments after the class discovered they have to do a theater piece, he do a ‘realistic’ portrait of his comrade (I mean, it’s in the same style as the manga itself, so... that counts as realistic, right?) on the demand of Karma. Again, quick yet with some level being it. [Note that the anime version had Karma hold the image in colors. But no Sugaya in the background. Either we’re supposed to believe Karma have impressive photoshop skills he uses to have countless disturbing images of Nagisa in different clothes, either Sugaya hide himself because wow, it’s embarassing to be associated with art of Nagisa crossdressing. Don’t worry, Sugaya, at least this one wasn’t sexualised.]

Hey, do you remember how class E infiltrated into a building they knew nothing about, then had to disguise themselves to hide against the wall? Am I the only one wondering how did they happen to have just the right hue of spray paint on them, and for 27 students too? This isn’t so much about skill and speed that it is about Sugaya probably having who-know how many spray cans in advance on him during the whole arc. Like, okay, he’s the artist kid, but that’s probably way too many. Unless he have been able to convince his classmates to carry them for him. Or he could actually summon them out of nowhere.

He did seems to pull brushes out of nowhere during chapter 155 just for emphasis. I mean, he could be just happening to have random art supplies in his pocket, even if those can be costly and he is shown to have a little plastic case for his brushes during chapter 111. Buuut I’m still betting on summoning his supplies by demonish magic.

Okay, now it gets really really weird. Remember the island arc? The fight with Gastro the gun specialist? In a few minutes, in silence, under pressure of someone who have shown killing intent, he somehow manage to produce a scarecrow. Like, how. When did he even obtain some of those items. Is he some RPG protag that will put every random item in his inventory. Matsui please explain.

...Yet, somehow, this isn’t the most impressive thing he have done. For that we will have to come back to his own moment of spotlight, chapter 37.

So. He painted the arms of the whole class. (He argues some pages later that there’s no ‘blank canvas’ left for Korosensei, so it truly means the whole class had, at this point, their arms tattooed.) 

Yet some pages later the arms of the students are bare, and given Sugino’s comment, they cleaned themselves before it set off. Henna will dry after roughly 15-30 minutes.

The twist in all this? Try to look at how long it takes to make such a tattoo. Maybe you will be more lucky than me. All I could find is that a full hand or foot tattoo takes around half an hour. Yet it seems in less than that Sugaya have drawn around 50 full arm tattoos. Korosensei who? I’m sorry, but the only Mach 20 monster that I see here is a student. 

But really, think about this. He have impressive skills in drawing. Notably with chalk if we see chapter 37. Painting (he even made a Korosensei’s potrait in what I think is expressionism style? in the manga only though). Sculpting. Doing masks and disguises. Henna tattoos. Calligraphy too according to background details.

This boy is 14, 15 by the end of October. How the heck did he get so talented in so many forms of art? He had to dedicate his whole life to art- heck, his hobby is touring museums and art exhibits, and his treasured item is a watercolor paint set! Okay, I admit Hollands are expensive as heck, so it’s understandable he values them. But... He isn’t just your average artistic student. He’s a monster. 

So far, Sugaya seems less of a background students and more of a final boss in a art shonen, but how well does he fare as a student?

...Pretty badly, actually. Here what his Roll Book profile says about this: “At first he had wanted to excel in both academics and art, so he opted to enrol in an escalator school, but at Kunugigaoka he understood the limits of his academic prowess. His studies floundered, while his artistic sense flourished in contrast.  After coming to Class E, he overcame his limits in academics and gained a surge in confidence.”

And indeed, it is a big fall when it comes to academics. His manga-only chapter show his former headteacher to be the one dealing with class B, so he originally have some skills. Yet, during 3-E... his individual ability chart places his academic prowess at 1 on 5, something only Terasaka shares with him. He consistently is at the bottom of the exam rankings when comparing the scores of class-E only, and get scores even worse than Terasaka when it comes to Science and Maths, his biggest weaknesses if we’re to believe the Graduation Book profile. Though, if we observe his results...

...Japanese’s not his speciality either (not helped that it seems to be the favorite subject of more students). He do considerably better in English, yet in chapter 3 of Korotan D, taking place just after graduating high school, he mentions he’s not very good at English, so he either got worse with time or never was that good either. Most likely the second, though : plenty of characters are good at English, and the season 2 opening give us a shot at his first semester grades.

Since it’s a bit blurry and I suppose not a lot of you readers are proficient in Japanese, here are the results in a more accessible form (keeping in mind the grades are on 5).

First row

Japanese: 3, Social Studies: 3, Maths: 2, Sciences: 2, Music: 4

Second row

Art: 5, Home Economics: 5, P.E.: 3, English: 4.

Yes, definitely better at English. The good music skills is a nice surprise, and the good score in Home Ec. not so surprising with his dexterity, plus him being in Hara’s group when it comes to group activities. He’s really the kid that’s excellent at all secondary subjects...

And then there is Physical Education. He seems to be neither good or bad at it, but how does he compare with the rest of the class?

...That’s a good question, because the opening doesn’t give us good shot to half the class’ grades. What we do, however, is (yet again) the Individual Ability chart, which give us “Physical Ability” and “Mobility” (that I also include as I feel this cover both speed and agility).

The first one is... not brillant, to say the least ; with a score of 2.5 on 5, there are only seven students worse than him (and that include Ritsu, so really it’s more like six), and two of the same level. When only students like Okuda or Nagisa are the ones you can beat in arm wrestling, you’re not exactly at the peak of strength. 

As for Mobility, still 2.5 on 5. Seven students worse (still including Ritsu). Yet again, it’s low but barely enough for it to not classify him among the bottom.  And he have an avantage here: as Karasuma says in the Roll Book profile, ‘he has a tall back and has reach’, not something you can exactly argue with his 179cm, merely one cm less than Terasaka and Karasuma. Longer legs means longer steps, after all. 

...Still a weakass, though.

We talked art, we talked skills, now let’s continue with personality.

Let’s come back to the previous sentence from Karasuma, this time the full version: ‘Although he has a tall back and has reach, he is poor at close combat due to his personal nature.’ Sugaya is one who avoid fights, or is too nice to hurt someone. And he does seems of the nice kind ; after all, isn’t his hidden side in the Graduation Book that he’s helpful?

It’s not so much of an hidden side, to be honest. Besides teaching Kurahashi how to apply camouflage, we also have him help the others prank an ex of Maehara (in a manga exclusive story) by making disguises, and he helps paint Itona’s tank when he, according to the graduation book, is immune to girls (and wouldn’t have much of a thrill peeking under their skirts like some others)... Drawing Nagisa as Abe Sada on Karma’s request... Uh.

Note that at that point, Karma got along well with the class (so much that they send him messages during winter vacation), but there’s an interesting bit about Sugaya on his profile: ‘Even now, there are some in Class E who are still afraid of Karma. That’s why students-who-want-to-tease-and-Tsukkomi-him-a-little-but-decided-to-back-away such as Sugaya are common.’ It might hint at a teasing nature for Sugaya, but mostly that he can be intimidated. 

Another project on which he works because someone asked is Okajima’s, but he’s said to be ‘tricked’ into taking part in it. We don’t see much of him enough as an individual to know is he’s easy to fool (he does fall for Korosensei’s trick about a punchline in chapter 156, but then so does most of the class), but he doesn’t seems to inclined towards thinking much about things (he does have a 2 on 6 in Strategy/Planning aptitude, after all). 

Nice enough to participate in group projects if asked to, but still more of a lone worker: he’s classified among the individualistic students doing assassinations on ‘their own schedule’, and is shown to work more by himself (except maybe with Mimura what, did you thought I would not shamelessly use my previous posts). According to his Assassination Aptitude chart, he would make a pretty poor leader, too, with the lowest score possible of 1 on 6. Which might also tie in with him potentially being easily intimidated, too...

Not only he would rather work alone, he doesn’t seem to care so much about what others might think of him, either: tattoos are a big deal in Japan, yet he acts pretty nonchalantly when he comes in class with one on his arm. While the live-action movie doesn’t have such a moment, we also have an interesting bit of character design:

While Japanese schools are very strict about students not dying their hair, Sugaya have two purple lines of dye in his. Even Nakamura (who did have dyed hair in the manga/anime) doesn’t have her hair dyed. In fact, I think only Karma use hair dye (it’s dubious whether Itona’s hair is naturally white). Ignoring the rules for the sake of aesthetics is a pretty important trait of him, it seems. Maybe is it why he can so easily wear weird patterns?

So far, seems like Sugaya’s a nice, helpful guy who rather prefer calm and alone time, maybe a bit too carefree but nothing truly bad!

...Okay, maybe I spoke a bit too fast on the ‘nice’. That’s... a pretty blunt comment. And then going on how he couldn’t concentrate during the exam because of her and that’s why he got the lowest score of the class... Sure, totally her fault here.

...But outside of that, he’s much more mindful of oth-

Sugaya no. Don’t follow Korosensei’s example. It’s bad to take advantage of someone passing out to draw on them when they violently refused a few minutes before.

...Okay, maybe he would gain to take a bit more care of what other might think. Especially if this cause him trouble at work, like seen in the epilogue with him ignoring the allowed budget for the sake of artistic pride (though, according to his personal history page, he does learn to compromise on that point).

Artistic pride, now that’s an interesting point. Sugaya is mostly a calm student, even if he get as angry as the others on things like Bitch-sensei’s early treatment of class E, or Korosensei’s taboo game. There is, however, a comment from his part in his dedicated chapter:

‘Pissed me off’, talk about a strong reaction! Art really is an important thing for him. (Of course we end up talking about Art yet again. Of course). As a writer, I personally find this fact important to keep in mind, as it is easy to give in to flanderization. 

...I mean, you can make his character totally about art and you wouldn’t be too far from the original, so maybe flanderization isn’t that bad of a tactic...

Anyways, happy birthday, Sugaya! I hope with this post, others will take interest in this character!

[xtruss]

We’re Approaching a Level of Manufactured Mass Hysteria and Herd Mentality That Not Even Goebbels Could Have Imagined

"There comes a point in the introduction of every new official narrative when people no longer remember how it started"

— Covid-1984 | CJ Hopkins | Anti-Empire.Com | May 5, 2020

“It’s all right there in black and white. They aren’t hiding the totalitarianism … they don’t have to. Because people are begging for it. They are demanding to be “locked down” inside their homes, forced to wear masks, and stand two meters apart, for reasons that most of them no longer remember”

There comes a point in the introduction of every new official narrative when people no longer remember how it started. Or, rather, they remember how it started, but not the propaganda that started it. Or, rather, they remember all that (or are able to, if you press them on it), but it doesn’t make any difference anymore, because the official narrative has supplanted reality.

You’ll remember this point from the War on Terror, and specifically the occupation of Iraq. By the latter half of 2004, most Westerners had completely forgotten the propaganda that launched the invasion, and thus regarded the Iraqi resistance as “terrorists,” despite the fact that the United States had invaded and was occupying their country for no legitimate reason whatsoever. By that time, it was abundantly clear that there were no “weapons of mass destruction,” and that the U.S.A. had invaded a nation that had not attacked it, and posed no threat to it, and so was perpetrating a textbook war of aggression.

These facts did not matter, not in the slightest. By that time, Westerners were totally immersed in the official War on Terror narrative, which had superseded objective reality. Herd mentality had taken over. It’s difficult to describe how this works; it’s a state of functional dissociation. It wasn’t that people didn’t know the facts, or that they didn’t understand the facts. They knew the Iraqis weren’t “terrorists.” At the same time, they knew they were definitely “terrorists,” despite the fact that they knew that they weren’t. They knew there were no WMDs, that there had never been any WMDs, and still they were certain there were WMDs, which would be found, although they clearly did not exist.

The same thing happened in Nazi Germany. The majority of the German people were never fanatical anti-Semites like the hardcore N.S.D.A.P. members. If they had been, there would have been no need for Goebbels and his monstrous propaganda machine. No, the Germans during the Nazi period, like the Americans during the War on Terror, knew that their victims posed no threat to them, and at the same time they believed exactly the opposite, and thus did not protest as their neighbors were hauled out of their homes and sent off to death camps, camps which, in their dissociative state, simultaneously did and did not exist.

What I’m describing probably sounds like psychosis, but, technically speaking, it isn’t … not quite. It is not an absolute break from reality. People functioning in this state know that what they believe is not real. Nonetheless, they are forced to believe it (and do, actually, literally, believe it, as impossible as I know that sounds), because the consequences of not believing it are even more frightening than the cognitive dissonance of believing a narrative they know is a fiction. Disbelieving the official narrative means excommunication from “normality,” the loss of friends, income, status, and in many cases far worse punishments. Herd animals, in a state of panic, instinctively run towards the center of the herd. Separation from the herd makes them easy prey for pursuing predators. It is the same primal instinct operating here.

It is the goal of every official narrative to generate this type of herd mentality, not in order to deceive or dupe the public, but, rather, to confuse and terrorize them to the point where they revert to their primal instincts, and are being driven purely by existential fear, and facts and truth no longer matter. Once an official narrative reaches this point, it is unassailable by facts and reason. It no longer needs facts to justify it. It justifies itself with its own existence. Reason cannot penetrate it. Arguing with its adherents is pointless. They know it is irrational. They simply do not care.

We are reaching this point with the coronavirus narrative. It is possible that we have already reached it. Despite the fact that what we are dealing with is a virus that, yes, is clearly deadly to the old and those with medical conditions, but that is just as clearly not a deadly threat to the majority of the human species, people are cowering inside their homes as if the Zombie Apocalpyse had finally begun. Many appear to believe that this virus is some sort of Alien-Terrorist Death Flu (or weaponized Virus of Mass Destruction) that will kill you the second you breathe it in.

This is not surprising at all, because, according to the official narrative, its destructive powers are nearly unlimited. Not only will it obliterate your lungs, and liquidate all your other major organs, and kill you with blood clots, and intestinal damage, now it causes “sudden strokes in young adults,” and possibly spontaneous prostate cancer, and God knows what other medical horrors!

According to all the “scientists” and “medical experts” (i.e., those that conform to the official narrative, not all the other scientists and medical experts), it is unlike any other virus that has ever existed in the history of viruses. It certainly doesn’t follow the typical pattern of spreading extensively for a limited period, and then rapidly dying down on its own, regardless of what measures are taken to thwart it, as this Israeli study would seem to indicate.

Also, “we have no immunity against it,” which is why we all have to remain “locked down” like unruly inmates in a penitentiary until a vaccine can be concocted and forced onto every living person on earth. Apparently, this mandatory wonder vaccine will magically render us immune to this virus against which we have no immunity (and are totally unable to develop immunity), which immunity will be certified on our mandatory “immunity papers,” which we will need to travel, get a job, send our kids to school, and, you know, to show the police when they stop us on the street because we look like maybe we might be “infected.”

Germany (where I live) is way out in front of this. According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the federal government plans to introduce a coronavirus “immunity card” as part of its “Infection Protection Law,” which will grant the authorities the power to round up anyone “suspected to be contagious” and force them into … uh … “quarantine,” and “forbid them from entering certain public places.” The Malaysian authorities have dispensed with such niceties, and are arresting migrant workers and refugees in so-called “Covid-19 red zones” and marching them off to God knows where.

Oh, yeah, and I almost forgot … the germ and chemical warfare researchers at DARPA (i.e., the U.S. military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) have developed some new type of fancy blood test that will identify “asymptomatic carriers” (i.e., people who display no symptoms whatsoever). So that will probably come in handy … especially if the “white supremacists,” “Red-Brown extremists,” and “conspiracy theorists” keep protesting the lockdown with their wives and kids!

And these are just the latest additions to a list of rather dystopian examples of the “brave new normal” official narrative that GloboCap is rolling out, right before our very eyes (which the OffGuardian editors have streamlined here and here, and which continues on Twitter). It’s all right there in black and white. They aren’t hiding the totalitarianism … they don’t have to. Because people are begging for it. They are demanding to be “locked down” inside their homes, forced to wear masks, and stand two meters apart, for reasons that most of them no longer remember.

Plastic barriers are going up everywhere. Arrows on the floor show you which way to walk. Boxes show you where to stand. Paranoid Blockwarts are putting up signs threatening anyone not wearing a mask. Hysterical little fascist creeps are reporting their neighbors to the police for letting their children play with other children. Millions of people are voluntarily downloading “contact tracing applications” so that governments and global corporations can monitor their every movement. In Spain, they bleached an entire beach, killing everything, down to the insects, in order to protect the public from “infection.” The Internet has become an Orwellian chorus of shrieking, sanctimonious voices bullying everyone into conformity with charts, graphs, and desperate guilt-trips, few of which have much connection to reality. Corporations and governments are censoring dissent. We’re approaching a level of manufactured mass hysteria and herd mentality that not even Goebbels could have imagined.

Meanwhile, they’re striking the mostly empty “field hospitals,” and the theatrical “hospital ship” is now gone, and despite their attempts to inflate the Covid-19 death count as much as humanly possible, the projected hundreds of millions of deaths have not materialized (not even close), and Sweden is fine, as is most of humanity, and … just like there were no WMDs, there is no Virus of Mass Destruction.

What there is, is a new official narrative, the brave new, paranoid, pathologized “normal.” Like the War on Terror, it’s a global narrative. A global, post-ideological narrative. It’s just getting started, so it isn’t yet clear how totalitarian this show will get, but, given the nature of the pilot episode, I am kind of dreading the rest of the series.

Source: Consent Factory | Russia Insider

[jsctens]

i’m going to politely disagree. el very clearly loves mike for who he is, all these instances you’ve mentioned are super specific and completely erase all the other times when mike is being his authentic self and el loves him for it.

when it comes to the rory instance, el had literally only known mike for one day, so she still wasn’t completely sure about him, and on top of that, she definitely had NO idea what he was even trying to show her. i doubt she had much interest in a plastic dinosaur toy or his yoda impression because she didn’t understand what he was trying to show her, and she didn’t understand who he was as a person yet, which is why she walks away. she’s also in a house for the first time in her life, so she’s obviously going to be over stimulated and over interested, and would rather look around at other things than mike’s toys. that has nothing to do with his personality. (also, el literally has rory in her room in s3.)

el’s reaction in the “right, mike!” scene is ooc for different reasons—she’s not walking away because she thinks he’s being stupid, she’s still angry at him for lying at her, because the strongest influence in her life at that current point, max, was telling her that’s the reaction she’s meant to have. she’s clearly just upset about what he did the other day, which you can see is the case when she goes on to say that maybe hopper is right etc etc.

the singing scene at the beginning of the show is literally just meant to be flirtatious. like, el obviously doesn’t actually hate mike for his dorky singing, it’s more meant to be a teasing “i love you but pls shut up you dweeb” she’s laughing as she tells him she doesn’t like it, she’s not seriously being like “no. shut up.” and on top of that, mike isn’t singing to her to be romantic. his singing is over the top and loud because he WANTS to tease her and get that reaction out of her. he’s literally trying to get her to laugh and be like mike!!! what are you doing!!!! that’s the point of the scene. the way he jokingly goes “what you don’t like it??” shows that he was trying to get her to laugh at how bad his singing is. it’s just meant to be lighthearted and flirtatious.

and this post completely disregards so many scenes where mike is being true to himself and el is all for it. like when mike is being all rambly at the cafeteria and at the grocery store? el’s heart eyes are off the charts. when he’s getting her to use the la-z-boy and they both start laughing? the snowball? when he’s teasing hopper and she starts laughing? they’ve spent six months together at the start of s3, and i highly doubt mike wasn’t being himself over the course of that time period. and el still says i love you at the end of the season. you can’t point at literally a few instances and suddenly claim that the two of them aren’t compatible.

not to mention, literally only just bc i saw a gif and thought of this, no hate

but the continuation of el not liking ANY of mike’s actual character traits continued on in s3

like when mike is a massive nerd and voices the swimming manikin “right, mike!” and el walks away? when he sings to her in the beginning and she says she doesnt like it?

it just goes along with him showing her roary the dinosaur, doing his yoda impression and talking about star wars in s1 and el is just flat out not interested & walks away

just like. every time mike is mike, el doesn’t like it. they are not compatible.

[wuyifankris]

Amongst thousands of idols, why love Kris Wu only?

ELLE May 2017

Acting in 7 films in 18 months, working with Luc Besson and Vin Diesel, taking on the lead role in <Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons> which made 1.6 billion yuan box office; participating in the NBA All Star Celebrity Game, being appointed as ambassador of two major international brand labels, reaching over 20000000 fans on Weibo, getting millions of reblogs… Kris Wu is one of the most popular celebrities of the moment.

The bowl of soup noodles at 10pm

As the 7 hour photo shoot was coming to an end, making use of the interval when the staff were clearing the lights and cameras, Kris Wu remained seated on the sofa of the final set, staring into space. The cosy cafeteria was filled with the photography team of 20 staff, occupied with completing tasks on hand in an orderly manner, moving around, chatting to each other, and only Kris Wu remained unmoving.

His waist condition had worsened, till the point that he required surgery. But because he was still very young, he chose to opt for conservative treatment. Of course, the most important thing was to make sure he had enough rest, as he could not stand nor sit for long periods of time.

The doctor had instructed to remain in bed for half a year, but he just answered with, “There’s no way, there’s no way I would be able to control my time.” Helplessness painted his face, yet he did not hesitate to immediately return to the basketball court, film site, recording studio, event venues, photo shoots… There would always be a place which needed him.

Later on, when he encountered dangerous stunts during filming, his team intended to stop him, but he still chose to grit his teeth and go ahead to try it out, as he felt that he could do it on his own. “I feel that since I am young, I should be doing my best.”

Time had gone by and it was already 10pm. He sat at the corner of the dressing room, with a bowl of soup noodles which had already began to clump together, yet he still ate with gusto. We talked as he ate, alternating between spoonfuls of soup and noodles, until finally at the end of our conversation, the bottom of the empty plastic lunchbox could be seen. He said happily, “We’ve talked till I have finished this bowl of soup noodles, should I still eat more tonight?”

“Have to do it on my own, only then will it be even better.”

Kris Wu has written on his Weibo profile bio: Singer Kris Wu. Actually I’m an actor. As an actor, he is gaining more and more recognition, and Kris Wu is also forking out more time for his passion - Music.

A combined work of the world’s top music producers, <July> made it to number 49 on the US iTunes Chart upon its release, making Kris Wu the first Chinese male singer to achieve such a result. <Juice>, which was the theme song for <xXx: The Return of Xander Cage> which was released 3 months ago, made it to number 28 on the US iTunes Chart, beating his previous record. Vin Diesel even made an appearance in this MV.

His next song, is still in the works.

However, he is clearly a producer who writes songs very quickly, completing it in one go, and remain unfazedf by the his surroundings as well. He is able to write in the car, and on set as well. His previous song <Bad Girl> was written on the filming set of <Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back>. While waiting for his scenes, he would evaluate his acting of his character Tang Monk’s scenes, and his mind would churn out the melody of a new song. Usually, it would take around two hours for a song to take shape, after writing, would be added in.

It’s written so quickly? Why not write more? “Actually, I’ve written a lot.” He pauses his chopsticks and looks over, eyes shining. Why not release them? What is he waiting for? “It’s because I want to ensure the quality (of my music)!”

When Kris Wu talks about music, in an instant he becomes filled with excitement. Without having talked much, his self-confidence is already overflowing.

Directly obtaining songs would definitely mean less work, but he is certain that “he is not suited to this”, as he feels that he must personally participate in the production process. “For example, after making a song, there will be someone singing it, and after listening to it, I’ll say, alright, when you sing this part, I only like the first and fourth line, and the rest can be deleted.” He is like a military strategist, and he is also very clear on what he is comfortable with, what he can control. “Like a director of music.”

Because many of those whom he works with are overseas, on the other side of of the world, and time differences cause his days and nights to be swapped, later on when efforts are more concentrated and focused, in order to accommodate the other party’s timezone, sleepless nights are uncommon for him. “For many things, if you don’t pay close attention to them, others would not care. You have to do it yourself, only then would you be able to do it even better. For example if today I do not wish to wait for them to wake up and intend to go to sleep, once I fall asleep, an entire day would go by already.”

At only 26 years old, he already has the understanding of the urgency that time and tide waits for no man.

“When your level of passion is very high, the level of hardship you experience will gradually do go down.”

Before releasing a new song, Kris Wu would hold a small listening party for the people around him to listen to his song. He would listen to everyone’s opinions, and include friends who are not into music as well. He would ask them, see if you can hear any differences between these two segments, and at times there would just be a small delay in rhythm. There would be some who can hear the difference, “It’s different, but I can’t place my finger on which part?” Which one is better? Kris Wu would patiently ask about each point, then go back, and make amendments.

ELLE Q&A ELLE: For the final question of the interview, last year you…. KRIS WU: It’s the final question? Goodness! Really? I’m too happy!

ELLE: Have you thought about last year… KRIS WU: No. (What are you doing? Answering in advance?) Yes, I think I know what you want to ask me about. Alright, you can ask. (Summarise your growth last year!) I don’t think I do. I won’t really do a round-up myself, because my math isn’t good, this was the case since young, also my handwriting is ugly, hahaha! I won’t, I have never done such.

ELLE: Many people like to bring up topics about “get a clear understanding of oneself”. KRIS WU: What do I think of myself? Perhaps it’s because I feel that I am rather clear, no uncertainties, so I don’t really need to obtain a clear understanding of myself. It’s with my unchanging heart of original intent, passion, interests, and various things which I persevere in, there isn’t anything much that has changed.

ELLE: But the surroundings are so chaotic, so unclear… KRIS WU: Do you mean hazy weather? Then I won’t leave the house! I won’t be affected, I really won’t, really would not! I have a world of my own, this world is extremely quiet, and isolated from the rest of the world, it enables me to do what I wish to do, and dream what I wish to dream.

translated by: @wu_yi_fan

[lpdwillwrite4coffee]

CHILDREN OF LILITH CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

“I guess… now we wait,” Boz said, threading his fingers together and pressing his elbows into the tops of his thighs.

Lisa shifted, the hard plastic chair squeaking as she moved. “What about… when we can’t wait anymore?” She asked quietly. “We only have twenty-four hours to get out of the city. To pack up our lives…” She bit her lip. “What do we tell the others?”

“The truth?”

“But how do we convince a whole group of Hunters to leave a city. Their city. Especially if Griffin’s still…” She couldn’t finish the thought. Couldn’t imagine trying to do any of this without Griffin.

Boz took a deep breath and leaned back, staring at the ceiling. “We need a plan.”

“Griffin’s family is still in Massachusetts,” Lisa offered. “We could go there.”

Boz shook his head. “He never wanted them to know he’s a Hunter. It’s why he’s stayed away this long.”

Lisa thought a moment. “Doesn’t he have a friend in Connecticut?”

“Yeah, Cheryl, out in Hartford,” Boz said. “Except…”

“What?”

“Well, I don’t know if I’d really call them friends.” A small grin played at the corner of his mouth. “She’s Griffin’s ex-girlfriend.”

Lisa huffed out a laugh. “Good ol’ Griff.” She paused, looking at her hands. “Do you think they’d help us though? If they knew the situation?”

“Yeah, maybe.” Boz ran his fingers through his hair, glancing down the hall. “Hey, I’m gonna get some coffee from the cafeteria. You want anything?”

“Coffee sounds good.” She watched him stand up. “I’m gonna go make some calls.”

Boz nodded, starting to walk away when he stopped and turned back. “Ah, don’t tell them how bad Griff’s condition is…” He winced faintly. “Not yet.”

“Okay.”

When Boz rounded the corner, Lisa pulled her phone from her pocket and stood up. Phones weren’t allowed in the ICU but there was a small outdoor area the floor below them she figured would be private enough for a call, so she headed that way, already scrolling through her contacts.

* * *

Lilith’s white satin flats muffled her footsteps as she strode down the hospital corridor. The pull at the center of her chest drew her around the corner, where she hurried past a brunette woman looking down at her phone. Griffin was close… close enough for her to feel his heartbeat under her skin.

She stopped short in front of a closed door and she glanced at the chart hanging on the wall next to it. O’Connor, Griffin, she read.

Looking to make sure no one saw her, she slipped inside and locked the door. The glowing heart monitor was the only source of light, but Lilith moved easily through the shadows. Going to the window, she opened the blinds, fragments of ever-present city lights illuminating the room. She glanced over her shoulder, watching Griffin sleep. It made that pull in her chest ache.

She could feel his agony, pressed right underneath his skin, threatening to drain the life from him. But his pain wasn’t from the beatings he’d taken, though she knew each one of his injuries as if they screamed out how they’d been ma No, his anguish marred his soul, and that was far more dangerous than the wounds to his flesh.

Lilith slowly settled on the edge of his bed, white cotton dress fluttering around her legs. Brushing his right cheek with her knuckles, a trail of healed skin appeared where she touched, sickening purple fading away to nothing. She ran her index finger across the jagged cut at his hairline, knitting the torn skin back together. With her thumb, she sealed his cut lip and repaired the small fracture in his jaw.

At that, Griffin stirred, eyes dancing behind his lids. With considerable effort, he blinked at her.

“Don’t be afraid,” she whispered.

He glanced all around her, trying to understand. “Are you… Are you an angel?”

Lilith breathed a laugh, ducking her head. A lock of hair fell in her face and she tucked it back, looking up at him. “No. I am not an angel.”

“Oh. Okay.” Griffin swallowed, throat painfully dry. “You’re a hallucination. I can handle that.”

Cupping the side of his face, Lilith said, “I’m not a figment of your imagination, Griffin.”

“Then who are you?”

“This may be difficult to understand, but I’ll try my best to help you comprehend,” she told him, pulling her hand away. “My name is Lilith. I’m your first mother.”

Griffin stared. “My mother lives in Boston.”

Lilith shook her head, smiling ruefully. “You misunderstand. I know I’m not the one who birthed you.” She faltered, playing with the hem of her shawl. “My story is… complicated.”

“Try me.”

Meeting his gaze, she inhaled deeply and nodded. “Have you read the book of Genesis?”

“Yes.”

“There’s a part that was left out. My part. I’m Adam’s first wife.”

Griffin’s brows drew down. “You’re the Lilith?”

“You’ve heard of me?” She asked, surprise coloring her words.

“Um, yeah, actually. A lot of people have.”

The corner of her mouth quirked up but the smile soon faded. “The interpretation of my existence is… muddied. Convoluted at best. As I said, I was Adam’s first wife. But I wasn’t a very good one.” She paused, twisting her fingers together. “I fled from the Garden, leaving everything I had been given behind. It was a mistake. One that still ripples out, affecting everyone to this day.”

Griffin watched as memories shadowed her eyes. He cleared his throat. “They called you… a demon,” he said, afraid of offending her with the word. “Said you turned against God and became this… horrible creature.”

Lilith met his gaze with no heat in her eyes, only sorrow. “That’s because I did.”

The muscles in her delicate throat worked before she spoke. “I was found by a fallen Angel. Some theologians speculated it was Lucifer, but in fact it was a comrade of his in the war of Heaven. His name was Samael.” Her eyes fell to a spot on the hospital issued blankets. “I joined him, and we dwelt together, commiserating in our hatred and anger towards God. He promised me everything I had been denied before. All I had to do was give myself to him.” Inhaling a shaky breath, she forced herself to look up at Griffin. “Samael didn’t turn me into a horrible creature. I turned myself into one.”

Lilith fidgeted at the edge of the mattress, and Griffin wanted to reach for her, but his arms were too heavy to move.

“He made me immortal,” she murmured. “Gave me freedom. I became his queen. And I gave him children. Seven of them; four sons, three daughters, and they were all monsters.” Her voice broke, eyelids fluttering. “They were the first.”

Realization gathered in Griffin as he watched her. “They were Vampires.”

Lilith dipped her head. “Yes. But they weren’t like the ones you know. They were… a plague. More demon than human, they ravaged everything. If it breathed, they devoured it, and nothing satisfied them. And then they discovered their ability to create.”

“They sired more.”

She nodded. “They weren’t the same as my children, but they were still monstrous. And the scourge multiplied.” Her fingers tightened in the fabric of her dress. “I saw what was happening, what they did, and I begged them to stop, but they wouldn’t listen. And Samael… He thought it was funny. He said, that if God could throw them out of heaven, then they were allowed to rape the earth and take whatever He put there, as retribution. He used my children as a weapon against the divine, and all I could do was weep.”

Lilith was silent for a long time as grief flowed out of her so tangible Griffin could taste it at the back of his throat. When she spoke again, her voice was soft and trembling.

“Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I walked into the desert, crying out. Not for me, but for the people wounded by my sins. I screamed for days, wailing into the sandstorm around me, begging to be buried alive. Instead, I was rescued. Gabriel found me and gave me shelter.”

Griffin faltered, staring at her. “Gabriel… the Archangel?”

Lilith nodded. “The Messenger. The mouthpiece of God.” Absently, she touched the carved moth broach pinned to her shawl. “He wasn’t sure what his purpose in being there was- he hadn’t been given a vision- but that didn’t deter him. He stayed with me, watched over me. I couldn’t go back to Samael, and the Garden no longer existed. I was homeless and afraid, but Gabriel persevered.”

A small smile curved her lips. “I thought he would hate me for what I had done. I was already well aware of my reputation. But it didn’t matter to him. Somehow, he saw past all that. He saw my ugliness, and loved me more for it.” She shook her head, as if still confused by it all.

Griffin attempted to push up on the bed, still watching her. “You said… you were my first mother,” he started. “What does that mean?”

Lilith averted her eyes, playing with the corner of her shawl. “Gabriel had shown me something I had never had before: unconditional love. And I found that I loved him too, just as much. I honestly hadn’t thought I was capable of it.”

Griffin could see where this was going…

“That spring, I gave birth to triplets.”

Yup. Definitely saw it coming.

“So, you and Gabriel were, um…”

Bright green eyes met his. “Lovers. The one time, at least.”

“Right.” Griffin cleared his throat. “Guess you got a lot of bang for your buck,” he muttered and immediately cringed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean-”

Lilith laughed, truly laughed, and it was one of the most melodic sounds Griffin had ever heard. A blush tinted her cheeks and her eyes sparked.

“It’s alright,” she said. “I’ve heard worse.”

“So… your triplets…?”

“Two girls and a boy,” she said with a smile.

Griffin nodded, beginning to understand. “They were special, weren’t they?”

“Unlike my children with Samael, they were mortal, but obviously different. They grew fast, were stronger than other humans, and they had gifts very similar to Gabriel’s.”

The biggest puzzle piece imaginable thunked into place in Griffin’s head.

“They were Hunters.”

“We didn’t know that at the time,” she said. “Like I said, we only knew they were different. We didn’t know the extent of it until much later, after we had given them up.”

“What?”

“It wasn’t safe to raise them ourselves. I knew Samael would come looking for me, and if he’d found them…” she trailed off. “It was better for them to go where they did.”

“So you gave them to normal families?”

“Yes. We split them up thinking that if Samael tried to find them it would make it more difficult. But Gabriel kept watch, just like he always did.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “They grew up happy and healthy, and soon had families of their own. And with each generation, more of Gabriel’s traits came through. And soon they found a purpose for those gifts.”

The heaviness in her voice made the explanation clear, but she still uttered the words. “I gave birth to monsters,” Lilith whispered. “And to those strong enough to slay them.”

There was a beat of mournful quiet before Griffin said, “You never told me why you came here.”

“Gabriel asked me to,” she replied. “He said there was something I could give you… something I could do for you that no one else could. Unfortunately, he didn’t tell me what that is.”

The morphine must have been wearing off, because Griffin felt torn asunder by pain. His eyes watered and he couldn’t breathe.

“Shh,” Lilith murmured, leaning closer. “It’s alright…”

She laid her hand over his, and the puncture wounds at his wrist healed.

Griffin gaped down at the new pink scars on his arm. “What did you just do?”

“I healed you.”

“How?”

“It’s one of my few gifts that have lingered,” she explained. “I can heal my children.”

Griffin went from not being able to take in air, to taking it in too quickly, and he vaguely noticed the uptick on the heart monitor.

“You can… You can heal me?”

Lilith frowned. “Yes, I-”

“If you heal me, I can get out of this hospital.” Griffin looked around for a clock. “What time is it? Do you see the time?”

Lilith glanced above his bed. “Not yet ten,” she said. “Why-”

“There’s still time. It hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet,” he said, trying to sit up.

Her hands planted on his chest, holding him still. “What are you talking about?”

“Nikki. She made a deal with an Alpha to save my life. They gave her twenty-four hours, and then…” His throat closed up, cutting off the words. Inhaling through his nose, he tried again. “After that, they plan on killing her.” He locked eyes with Lilith. “But if you can heal me, I can get out of here, and go back for her.”

“Griffin…”

“Please. I can’t let her die in there. Not like that.” He gulped. “I love her,” he said firmly. “I love her, and I can’t leave her to die, scared and alone, at the hands of-” He broke off, suddenly aware he was talking to both his mother and Rex’s.

Lilith seemed to know, however, and she understood. “I applaud your bravery Griffin, but your injuries are severe…”

He felt himself sink inwards. “You can’t heal them.”

She shook her head. “No, I can, but the price-”

“I don’t care.”

“Griffin, I can heal your wounds, but the pain… I can’t take all of that away, not when you’re so badly hurt. Maybe some of it but not everything. And the scars…”

“I don’t care,” he cut her off again. “I don’t care about the scars or the pain.”

“It wouldn’t be as bad if you let your own abilities heal you-”

“Please, I’m begging you. Just get me up and mobile, so I can get out of here.”

Lilith’s mouth fell open as her own realization hit her. “This is what I was supposed to give you,” she whispered, barely audible. “This is why…” Her eyes widened as she stared at Griffin. “I will heal you-”

“Thank you.”

“But I must warn you,” she added, shaking her head. “Healing you like this… It will not be pleasant. In fact, it will probably hurt as much as it did when you received these wounds.”

Griffin wrapped his hand around her wrist, holding her tight. “Lilith, if you are who you say, and you can do everything you’re talking about, then please, do it. Help me get back to her. Please.”

Lilith leapt up and bent over him, cupping his face and kissing him gently on the forehead. When she pulled back, she looked close to tears.

“I will help you, Griffin,” she murmured. “I will help you be with her.”

“Thank you,” he whispered.

Flattening her hands on his chest, Lilith caught his eye one more time as reassurance. He gave her a short nod and inhaled deeply.

“Good luck, Griffin,” Lilith said before pressing down.

Sheer agony thundered through him, and Griffin was plunged back into darkness.

* * *

Lisa stepped out of the elevator and rounded the corner just as she heard mechanized alarms going off. Three nurses jogged past her, shoving into Griffin’s room.

“No,” she breathed, taking off after them.

Through the scrub-clad mob she saw the top of Griffin’s head and the pale gown falling off his shoulder. He was upright.

And then she heard his voice.

“No, I don’t want to lie back down,” he said to one of the nurses. “I’m fine.”

Griffin was yanking at the tangle of wires he’d found himself caught in, swatting away anyone trying to ease him into a horizontal position.

“I don’t need to see the doctor, okay? I’m alright. I just want out of this,” he said, waving to the web of cords.

When one of the nurses tried to put his blood pressure cuff back on, he glared at her and tore it off.

“I’m telling you, I’m fine,” he snapped. Jerking his thumb towards the ringing monitors, he said, “Can somebody please turn that off? It’s driving me nuts.”

“Griffin,” Lisa called over the other voices. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” he said, pulling off one of the leads from his chest. “I took myself off the heart monitor and the damn thing went off.”

“Are you kidding me?” She asked, pushing past one of the nurses.

“Does it look like I’m kidding?” Catching the same nurse trying to replace his BP cuff a second time, he stopped and stared at her. “Really?”

“Griffin, please, just relax,” Lisa said. “You just woke up.”

“I am relaxed,” he said. “But that noise is pissing me off.”

Sighing, she strode to the electrical outlet and pulled the cord out of the wall. The beeping continued.

Griffin rolled his eyes. “These things run on batteries Lisa.”

Cursing, she went to the monitor and tried to find the right button. “Can someone just turn this damn thing off before he goes full-on Frankenstein’s monster and chucks it out of a window?”

An older nurse with a deep set frown stepped over and pressed a series of keys, turning the alarm off.

“Thank you.” Lisa and Griffin said together.

“Frankenstein’s monster? Really?” He said, arching an eyebrow. “I’m not gonna go on a rampage through the hospital, Lisa.”

“Well that’s what it looks like right now,” she said, gesturing to the mess he made. “Griffin, what are you doing?”

“Leaving.”

All the nurses began talking at once, ordering him to stay.

“Mr. O’Connor,” a voice called over the chatter.

Doctor Chen came over with his chart in her hand. “What’s this I hear about you taking yourself off the monitors?”

Griffin stilled, his lips pressing into a tight line.

Doctor Chen motioned to the door. “Give me the room, would you?”

The pink and teal group filed out and the doctor shut the door behind them. Tossing his chart on the foot of the bed, she folded her arms and stared at him.

“Tell you what,” she said. “I’ll be straight with you, if you’re straight with me. Okay?”

Griffin nodded, giving his full attention to the doctor.

“Good.” Pointing at the folder, she said, “Would you like to know what kind of shape you were in a few hours ago? Broken bones, severe lacerations to your back and torso, extreme blood loss, and oh yeah, the tiny detail of us having to shock your heart back into a healthy rhythm because you were going into shock.”

The frown on Doctor Chen’s face stayed firm as she gave him a cursory glance.

“The fact that you’re awake, and not still in the medically induced coma we put you in is already cause for concern and a hefty dose of suspicion.”

Griffin cleared his throat. “Look, doctor-”

“Did I say I was finished?”

“Sorry,” he murmured, ducking his head.

Doctor Chen continued. “Now, I should sedate you and put you on lockdown for your erratic and aggressive behavior.” Her glare softened. “But I won’t.”

“What?” The question fell from his mouth.

She tilted her chin towards his right wrist and glanced at Lisa’s.

“I’ve seen those tattoos before,” she said, noticeably quieter than before. “A few times actually, in my twenty odd years of working here, and every time the people who had them were the biggest pain in my ass.”

Lisa snorted a laugh and coughed to cover it up.

“I don’t know what you do,” Doctor Chen said. “I don’t need to know. But somehow, miraculously, the injuries you came in with-the ones that should have taken weeks to heal- look to have healed in less than an hour, since the last time I made rounds.”

Lisa blinked, her brain finally catching up to the present. She had just been so relieved to see Griffin alive and awake she hadn’t noticed the extent of his condition. She felt like an idiot.

Yanking at the back of his hospital gown, Lisa arched over him.

“Lisa,” Griffin muttered, trying to move away from her.

“Oh my God.”

Her fingers traced over one of the scars along his shoulder. It was solid, as if he’d been wounded years ago, not earlier that day. She’d seen him heal fast before, but never like this. She didn’t think it was possible…

“How…?” She started to ask.

Griffin pulled the fabric back over himself. “I’ll explain later.”

“Yes, you will,” Doctor Chen interjected. “But you’re gonna save that discussion for when you are far, far away from here.”

“You’re letting me leave?” He asked.

She nodded. “I’m going to give you a quick check just to be sure you’re not going to split at the seams and spill your guts in the hallway, and then I’m going make a few very illegal alterations to your records. You are then gonna sign the hell out of some paper work because I’ll be damned if I get sued for malpractice because of you.” She picked up his chart and leveled her gaze on him. “And then you are going to get out of my hospital, without causing another scene, and you’re going to go do whatever it is that’s so important to you, that you inked it on your skin.”

Turning, she headed for the door and glanced over her shoulder. “I don’t usually say this but… I’ll pray for you Mr. O’Connor.”

She jerked open the door and was met with Boz on the other side, his arm raised like he was about to knock.

“Oh,” he exclaimed, dropping his hand. “Sorry, doctor.”

He skirted around her and kicked the door shut, balancing the tray of coffees he had. His eyes lifted and the soles of his boots squeaked on the tile as he halted. For a moment Boz didn’t even look to be breathing. Finally, a smile broke over his face.

“So those pissed off nurses in the hallway were talking about you,” he said, moving closer to the bed.

“What?” Griffin frowned.

“Oh, just ranting about some belligerent jackass taking himself off the heart monitor,” Boz said, smirking as he handed Lisa her coffee. “And I thought ‘huh, that sounds like something Griff would do,’ and whaddya know!” He waved a hand at Griffin, chuckling.

“I wasn’t belligerent,” Griffin muttered. “In fact I think I was pretty civil given the circumstances.”

“Yeah but ‘civil’ coming from an overly muscled giant like you is still pretty intimidating,” Lisa commented over the lip of her cup.

Griffin rolled his eyes but caught the gentle look Lisa gave him. Boz handed over his coffee to Griffin and tossed the cardboard tray.

“Seriously though,” he said, pushing his hands into his front pockets. “Glad you’re up man.”

Griffin nodded, fingers closing around the warm cup. “Thanks.”

It was real. He was awake, alive. He was whole again.

Lisa hummed, gesturing to his back. “And you’re gonna fill us in on the details of this when exactly?”

“Once we get me the hell out of here,” he said.

“I’ll go get an extra set of clothes out of the van,” Boz said, starting towards the door. “Don’t want you having a hospital wardrobe malfunction. ‘Cause buddy, I love ya’, but that’s a boundary I’d rather not cross.”

Griffin chuckled, lifting his coffee and taking a sip. Quiet enveloped the room and he felt Lisa staring at him.

“What?” He asked, looking up.

Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “We thought we were gonna lose you,” she whispered. “We thought…”

Griffin caught her hand in his, squeezing her fingers. “Hey… you haven’t lost me yet.”

Lisa swallowed hard, inhaling shakily. She opened her mouth to speak but no words would come. So she just nodded and tightened her grip around his.

* * *

Lilith paused outside the hospital exit, looking to the sky. She wished she could see the stars…

A shadow behind one of the concrete pillars near the ambulance bay shifted, whispering to her it was angelic. Tilting her head, she waited for him to step into the light.

The zipper on his leather jacket glinted, and Lilith’s heart plummeted.

“Hello, Michael,” she said, trying to calm the tremor in her voice.

There was no warmth in his eyes as he scanned her face, expression teetering on indifferent and cold. The longer he waited to speak, the more the muscles in her legs quaked.

“Lilith,” he said finally. Reaching into his jacket pocket for his Marlboros and gold lighter, he stared as if able to bore a hole through her.

She forced herself not to glance away from him. He would have taken it as a sign of weakness.

“Did Gabriel send you?” She asked, though she already knew the answer.

Michael placed a cigarette between his lips and lit it. “No.”

“Then why are you here?” She tightened her shawl around her arms, pretending it was the night air that caused her chill, and not the darkness that skirted across his eyes.

Holding his cigarette between his knuckles, he gestured behind her to the hospital and leaned against the pillar.

“I’m keeping watch,” he said. “You know, doing the whole guardian angel, Roma Downy routine.” Exhaling a cloud of smoke, he continued. “I’m making sure your great, great, great, great, grand-whatever makes it through the night.”

“I healed him,” she said, feeling a hint of confidence return. “He’ll be fine.”

Michael chuckled darkly. “A few broken ribs are the least of his worries.”

“What are you talking about?” Lilith frowned.

Flicking ash on the ground, he smirked. “You just auto-tuned your boy back into fighting shape. And that’s what he’s gonna go do. He’s barreling towards a war at lightning speed, and he has you to thank for that.”

“He’s going after the woman he loves,” Lilith countered. “I consider that a just cause.”

He gave a quick derisive snort and shook his head. “You would.”

Anger flared in her chest, hardening her stare. “Does Gabriel know you’re here?”

“Nope,” he answered casually. “I told him I didn’t want to be involved anymore, and I made with the disappearing act.”

“So you lied to him.”

Michael narrowed his gaze on her. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s something you know a little bit about, huh?”

Bitter rage rose in her throat, but Lilith refused to spew it forth, no matter how badly she ached to.

“Good night, Michael.” Turning on her heel, she strode towards the parking deck of the hospital.

“Tell me something,” Michael called after her. “Does it hurt you too?”

She halted but didn’t face him.

“Seeing him,” Michael continued. Pushing away from the concrete, he tossed his cigarette on the wet ground, following after her. “Does it kill you? Tear you up inside for months, years, afterwards?”

Taking a full breath, she slowly turned to meet Michael’s gaze. Her skin burned from the heat of his anger.

Unflinching, she whispered, “And then some.”

Michael nodded, satisfied with her answer. “Good,” he said, starting towards the building.

Lilith’s resolve fractured. “You can hate me as much as you want, Michael,” she called. “But it was Gabriel’s choice too.”

He paused, shoulders stiffening, before twisting to look at her.

“You’re right,” he said, icy indifference returning to his expression. “I can hate you as much as I want.”

The angel strode back into the same shadow he had emerged from and with a pop of electricity, he vanished.

Lilith exhaled until her sternum ached. Touching the moth pinned to her shawl, she started walking again, and didn’t stop until the hospital, with all its shadows, was far behind her.

[nintendoduck-blog]

Review & Giveaway: Fitbit Charge 2 Heart Rate and Fitness Wristband

New Post has been published on https://www.vivrelereve.co.uk/review-giveaway-fitbit-charge-2-heart-rate-and-fitness-wristband/

Review & Giveaway: Fitbit Charge 2 Heart Rate and Fitness Wristband

Review & Giveaway: Fitbit Charge 2 Heart Rate and Fitness Wristband

Make every beat count with Fitbit’s Charge 2. Including PurePulse® heart rate, multi-sport modes, guided breathing sessions and stylish interchangeable bands. The interactive OLD display makes it easy to get your stats- just tap the screen. With a battery life of up to 5 days you can track day and night without needing a charge.

PurePulse® Heart Rate gives you continuous, automatic, wrist-based heart rate and simplified heart rate zones. Track workouts like running, biking and weights and get real-time stats on display, then see post-workout summaries on screen and in the app. All day activity tracking tracks steps, heart rate, distance, calories burned, active minutes, floors climbed, hourly activity and stationary time.

Connect Charge 2 with the GPS on your phone to see real-time stats like pace and distance on display and record a map of your route. Get a better understanding of your fitness level and see how you can improve over time with a personalised Cardio Fitness Score. SmartTrack™ Automatically recognises select activities and records them in the exercise section of the Fitbit app.

Get friendly Reminders to Move that encourage you to reach an hourly goal of 250 steps. See call, text and calendar alerts on display when your phone is nearby. Sync stats wirelessly & automatically to computers and 200+ leading iOS, Android and Windows devices.

You can sync all your fitbit data with Apple Health via an app called myfitness sync. It works beautifully so even more awesome for iphone/ipad users.

It has made a huge difference to the way I live my life. I am moving more and am feeling healthier already. The app is really easy to use and the setup process was seamless. You can use it straight from the box as it comes partially charged. I like competing with friends who also have Fitbits – it was easy to find such friends via the app.

I am an active person, love the gym, hiking and running as well as long walks. I’ve never thought I needed a fitness tracker before but I’ve been thinking about getting one for a while so I was excited to test out Fitbit Charge 2. I’m really enjoying it, tracking my workouts is strangely satisfying and I love the reminders about hourly steps. I work mostly front of my computer and sometimes it is easy to forget about moving a little – this is where I really appreciate my Fitbit a lot. I’m also not sure if I should admit it in public but I feel happy when it celebrates reaching my goals with me!

It’s also really great for women with narrow wrists; some other fitness trackers are just too big and bulky for me.

But this one is nice and can be customized to a more elegant look with a replacement band. It is easy to use, but it does not come with instructions. The instructions are online and can be found in the first welcoming email sent after you register the device and download the application on your mobile. The screen is a little difficult to read without glasses for those who need them. It takes a little time to learn how to use it properly and utilize all of its features. But once this is done, everything becomes very easy.

Generally the Fitbit Charge 2 is a great way to monitor your exercise output. The apps allow you to chart your progress in graphical representation which is an excellent way of helping you to monitor, set and achieve goals. The sleep monitoring is a nice touch to see if you are resting your body as much as you should.

This is a great entry level activity tracker and will have a definite positive impact on keeping track of your general fitness.

Fitbit says that its original Charge and Charge HR were its best-selling fitness tracker. So it’s not surprising Fitbit has taken everything that proved popular on the original and used this as a basis for the Charge 2. Packed with everything you could want, except GPS, the Charge 2 covers all of the basics. You can consider this device more of an evolution than a reinvention, but by correcting many of the shortcomings of the original, the Charge 2 proves to be a great all-rounder.

The Fitbit Charge 2 isn’t a massive advance on the Fitbit Charge HR. The design has improved a bit, and the larger display is useful for running through your stats as well as for checking phone notifications, but those are things the Fitbit Blaze already offers, yet for a higher price. But if you’re looking for a fitness tracker to monitor your heart rate throughout the day, and want multi-sport tracking features, then you’ll want to consider the Fitbit Charge 2.

If you’re after a running watch you won’t want the Fitbit Charge 2. But if you’re after something to track your daily step count, and a bit of exercise every few days, this is one of the best choices money can buy. The additional fitness features bring this Fitbit closer to being the best option for those who want to be able to wear the same tracker day in day out. There’s not all that much reason to update from the Fitbit Charge HR, but as a first Fitbit tracker, or a replacement for a less-substantial model, the Fitbit Charge 2 is well worth a look.

There’s a much larger screen here than on the Charge HR – but the device is a fair bit thicker too, so you may not be a fan if you liked the compactness of the last version.

Having said that, the screen is still relatively small and it’s not colour, but it is an OLED display. The new selection of watch faces and the larger vertical display mean I can see time, steps and heart rate all at once – plus it’s a touchscreen, which is a first for the Charge range. However, I found the touchscreen to be a little unresponsive, you just need to give it an extra tap sometimes.

There’s a button on the left-hand side of the tracker that you use to skip through the menu options, such as steps, time, heart rate and calories; you can hold this button down to activate certain features as well. Its screen is not always on, but a lift-to-look gesture works okay. You can tap the display, or you can press the side button. The button on the left side of the device is much more pronounced.

On-board features include a stopwatch, exercise tracking mode, heart rate. There’s also a new Guided Breathing feature “Relax”, which will monitor your heart rate for 30 seconds and then set you a breathing challenge to help you improve your condition.

This is the first time Fitbit has offered this kind of feature, and I found that it would indeed calm down heart rate when I wanted it to. It’s interesting to see Fitbit focus on a feature that’s not entirely exercise-focused, and it’s a welcome addition.

The Fitbit Charge 2 tracker itself is rather small, and comes with one two-section strap in the box. Each part of the strap can be detached by pulling it out of clips on either side of the tracker, if you want to swap-in a different one for a style change. The choices are as follows: plastic strap in light blue, dark blue, black or purple. The two more premium options for the fashion-conscious among you are lavender/rose gold and black/gunmetal.

The Charge 2 isn’t waterproof like the Fitbit Flex 2, but it is water-resistant, meaning it can handle a few splashes while you do the washing up. You won’t be able to wear the Charge 2 in the shower or when swimming, though. It’s nice to be able to wear a fitness tracker in the rain without worrying about it being damaged.

In terms of tracking tech, the FitBit Charge 2 is similar to other fitness trackers. If you wear the Fitbit Charge 2 in bed it’ll monitor your sleeping patterns. Like other Fitbit products, this feature is a little more temperamental. However, I was slightly disappointed, as silent alarm and sleep tracking isn’t a smart alarm that can wake you up at a more optimal time.

The Charge 2 only gives you a time asleep, which is the time you spent awake and restless, subtracted from your overall tracked sleeping time. It means that while you might have slept for eight hours, the time asleep reading might only read 4hrs 23mins. It’s worth keeping this in mind before assuming that the device isn’t tracking your sleep correctly. I think this is actually a better, and less misleading, measurement than the overall sleeping time that other trackers offer. It can show you why you’re still waking up feeling tired come morning.

Really it’s the quality of sleep alongside duration that’s important for appropriate recovery and well-being.

A key improvement over the original Charge is that the Charge 2 offers multi-sport tracking – you can track outdoor running, treadmill running, walking and weight training, as well as bike, elliptical trainer and interval workouts. The Fitbit Charge 2 will track your exercise automatically, so you don’t have to start sessions manually. It means you don’t always need to remember to press buttons when you’re exercising – although if you’re embarking on a specific workout I’d recommend setting up the tracker to ensure you’re getting the exact readings you want.

Bear in mind that this isn’t the best device for running. There’s no GPS tracking, so if you want a dedicated running device I’d recommend the Fitbit Surge. The Fitbit Charge 2 will at least work with your phone’s GPS to track the distance travelled – a feature both the original Charge and the Charge HR lack. It does mean you need to take your phone out for a run with you though.

New with the Charge 2 is a VO2 max approximation to provide what Fitbit is calling your Cardio Fitness level.

This is the maximum amount of oxygen your body uses during intense exercise. And is another good indicator of your overall cardiovascular health. Fitbit calculates this by comparing your personal data against your running speed. Whilst using connected GPS and your heart rate measurements. Your score is provided against other people from your gender and age.

Battery life is rated at around five days, which is about right. A major improvement over the old Fitbit Charge is the new clamp-style USB charging cable. This locks around the tracker on both sides and makes orientating it much easier, ensuring it stays connected. The old Charge had a connector that plugged in directly and therefore could easily become dislodged. You’ll also get a notification and an e-mail to let you know the Charge 2 is running low on battery, which is useful.

You can buy the Fitbit Charge 2 here. We’re super excited to be able to offer you the chance to win a Fitbit Charge 2 Heart Rate and Fitness Tracking Wristband for yourself. Just enter via the rafflecopter below. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Terms & Conditions

Firstly, this promotion is open to residents of the UK only.

No purchase necessary.

By entering the prize draw entrants agree to be bound by any other requirements set out on this page.

Entry is only available online. No responsibility can be accepted for entries not received, only partially received or delayed for any reason.

Entries that are incomplete, defaced or damaged will be deemed invalid.

Entries must not be sent through agencies or third parties. Any such entries will be invalid. No trade or multiple entries.

No responsibility will be accepted for entries lost, delayed or damaged in transmission.

Winner details will be publicly announced if permission is granted.

Competition closes at 12am on 8th December 2018. Entries received after this time and date will not be entered into the draw.

The prize is a Fitbit Charge 2.

Prize details are accurate at the time of promotion; the promoter reserves the right to substitute the prize for one of greater or equal value.

Consequently, the decision of the promoter in all matters is final and binding.

The Promoter reserves the right to withdraw the promotion due to circumstances beyond its control. Neither Vivre Le Rêve™ nor any other respective agents involved with this promotion. Shall be liable for any failure that is caused by something outside its reasonable control. Such circumstances shall include, but are not be limited to. Weather conditions, fire, flood, hurricane, strike, industrial dispute, war, hostilities. Political unrest, riots, civil commotion, inevitable accidents, supervening legislation or any other circumstances relating to Force Majeure.

[2peasinapodme-blog]

Living like locals in Portland, OR – Our 2-week Experiment

Our families and friends don’t understand why we want to move to Oregon. Why would we want to give up all the comforts of the Midwest to pack up and move halfway across the country? To that I say, why wouldn’t we?

Well, to all the naysayers, maybe this will change their minds…

So on this, the second of our investigative, fact-finding missions to Portland, I will keep an ongoing account of our explorations, so all can see the reasons why we’re so enamored with this weird and wonderful place.

First of all, the fun begins before you even land at PDX. If you’re heading east to west, you will want to reserve a window seat on the left side of the plane, so you can take full advantage of the awe-inspiring views of Mt. Hood, its peak capped in snow regardless of the season. At 11,250 feet of elevation, it sits almost eye level as you make your final descent into PDX.

But don’t worry if you can’t secure a seat on the left side — the views of the winding Columbia river from the right aren’t too bad either.

Another benefit of flying into Portland is the proximity of the airport to town. To be honest, that was one of the features, among many others, that originally attracted us to Portland…we wanted to have easy access to an international airport. And in Portland, depending on where you live or where you’re staying, you can be there in 15-25 minutes.

As soon as we arrived at our destination, our home base for the next two weeks (a million thank yous, HM!), we bee-lined for a late lunch at the brick-and-mortar outpost of Op Wurst Sausage Bar on SE Division St. (they also have a stand at Pine Street Market). Owned and operated by the meat-centric brains behind Portland’s acclaimed Olympia Provisions, I knew their butchery expertise would shine through in their encased meats (i.e. sausages). I opted for their Daily Dog special, a “BLT,” and a local amber ale. Turns out, the so-called Daily Dog wasn’t a dog at all; it was, in fact, a BLT sandwich — and a very good one at that. With plenty of excellent quality bacon and homemade garlic aoli that was so good I wanted to take a bath in it, it was definitely a winner…even if it wasn’t the sausage I was expecting (and I was awfully curious to see how they were going to stuff bacon, lettuce and tomato into a sausage casing).

  Sticking to his roots, Mike ordered the house made Italian sausage with grilled peppers and onions. He gave it high marks for its respectable fennel-spiked flavor (any Italian sausage worth its weight must be long on the fennel), and that’s saying a lot from a guy who has sampled quite a few Italian sausages in his lifetime! And please don’t overlook their fries which are quite good, especially with a side of the aforementioned garlic aoli for dipping.

After lunch, we decided to check out the local Fred Meyer grocery store to pick up a few staples for the kitchen. I don’t have a lot to say about Fred Meyer except that I don’t need to go back any time soon. A cross between a meh grocery, a pharmacy and a Target, it offers a bit of this and a bit of that and specializes in absolutely nothing. It’s like one of those restaurants that advertises that they have gyros, pizza, fried chicken and sushi. Really? Why don’t you stick to one thing and do it well.

Returning back to the house, we unloaded the groceries, still full from lunch, and realized that we probably wouldn’t want or need dinner after all. We both agreed it would be a wine and cheese night in our pajamas instead.

Day 2: Up at a reasonable hour (which is never a guarantee when traveling from east to west and factoring in the backward time change), we were anxious to hit one of Portland’s innumerable coffee establishments. And since it was just up the street, we started with Stumptown’s flagship coffee shop on SE Division. Set in a small, unassuming storefront on a mostly residential block, its hard to comprehend that that is where it all began for the now nationally recognized coffee roaster. But we all know that size doesn’t matter, and there was no doubt that they know their way around a cup of java. I ordered the decaf mocha (as always) and Mike the latte. Completely sublime. Enough said.

  Refueled and ready to go, we spent the morning scouting neighborhoods and feeling our way around the city until it was time to make the daunting decision of where we would choose for lunch. Based on proximity to where we were at the time, we opted for Lardo on 12th and Washington. In case you didn’t know, there’s a sandwich war going on in Portland, and it’s dog eat dog. Many name the front runners as Lardo, Bunk and Meat Cheese Bread. We plan to try all three while we’re here and make our own assessment, so we started with Lardo. It wasn’t an easy task to select just two items from their inspired menu, but we finally agreed on splitting the Italian Cubano and the Korean Pork Shoulder. Regardless of which you choose, I don’t think you could possibly go wrong here (the chicken meatball bahn mi is rumored to be unreal). Both our choices were flavor-packed stacks of goodness, but we both agreed that the Korean pork number stole the show. The tender and tasty pork paired with crunchy kimchi and Sriracha mayo got a double thumbs up. And the magic doesn’t end with the ‘wiches  — don’t miss their garlic parmesan fries sprinkles with sea salt and rosemary!

  The afternoon consisted of more house-hunting and a trip to Blue Star Doughnuts (recommended by the more discerning critics over the more well-known Voodoo Doughnuts — but I’m personally still, and always will be, a Krispy Kreme devotee). Then, being just close enough to cocktail hour (it’s 5:00 somewhere), we decided to head back to our neighborhood and to The Woodsman Tavern which happens to be next door to Stumptown Coffee, where we started our day eight hours earlier.

Over cocktails — an expertly prepared Manhattan for Mike and a delicious local rose for me — we devised a plan for the next day. After consulting the weather chart, Mike said smugly, “Hey, you wanna go to the coast tomorrow?” And, of course I replied, “Absolutely!” Because, why not?

Once again too full and too lazy to make dinner, we ordered a small pizza and called it a night, excited to get an early start the next day.

Day 3: Bright and early, we were on our way to get our first glimpse of the Oregon coast. Undaunted by overcast skies, we grabbed a coffee to go (even the Starbucks cups are cooler out here!) and set the GPS for the town of Tillamook. As we headed west on Route 6 with Portland in the rearview mirror, the clouds began to dissipate and the sun broke through, just as the forecast had promised.

The first thing I noticed was that we were out of Portland proper in no time and with relative ease. Within minutes, the shopping malls and local commerce were replaced by hilly terrain and ridiculously scenic rolling farmlands. We’re definitely not in flatland Illinois any more! We wound through the verdant Tillamook Mountains, awed by the mischievous clouds playing hide and seek between the dips and crevices of the hills.

In just over an hour, we arrived in Tillamook. Most notable for its cheese production, Tillamook also enjoys an enviable position on the Tillamook Bay.

As we descended out of the mountains and approached the town, we noticed one consistent and overiding theme — dairy farms. And where there are dairy farms, there are cows. Brown ones, tawny ones, black-and-white ones — all lazily munching on grass in the picture-perfect valley with the mountains providing shelter on all sides. I think there must be no better place to be a cow.

We passed through the town of Tillamook and skirted around the bay to the tiny oceanfront hamlet of Cape Meares, where we parked the car and headed straight to the beach for our first glimpse of the Oregon coast.

No, it did not disappoint. My first impression, aside from its obvious natural beauty: you truly feel as if you’re at the end of the earth. (And if the tsunami evacuation signs are any indication, maybe you are.)

Also, I was expecting a rockier coastline, so the exceptionally wide, sandy beach was a bit of a surprise. Strewn with the sculptural carcasses of enormous petrified trees that had washed ashore in one storm or another, it was truly a thing of incomparable beauty.

I easily could have stayed all day, breathing in the fresh sea air and walking the beach, but our stomachs had other plans and lunch was calling. So, we returned to the car reluctantly, but knowing that we would return again very soon…as Oregon residents.

Heading back through the town of Tillamook, we arrived at The Fish Peddler in Bayside, a casual restaurant, market and oyster processing facility that prepares hundreds of oysters a day for their local clientele and for shipment all over the country.

  Unfortunately, they don’t offer an outside patio or a view of the bay — which is a shame since we were lucky to be there on a gorgeous day — but the food more than makes up for that minor deficit. (Our car, on the other hand, had a lovely view of the bay from the parking lot – below.)

We started with a cup of their clam chowder – always a good way to assess the real worth of a seafood restaurant. They passed with flying colors. It was properly thick and creamy without being pasty or cloying. With an unexpected hint of bacon, it was truly outstanding.

We followed the soup with a half dozen of their raw oyster shooters – my first Pacific oysters. They were nice-sized and very fresh, but too cold for my preference. I suggest removing them from the bed of shaved ice, allowing them sit for a few minutes to come to room temp. I also prefer mine still in the shell. Served in plastic cups, I missed the “liquor” that typically collects in the shells and provides the delicious briny flavor.

Their baked oysters, which are available in a half dozen different preparations, were truly inspired. We chose their Kilchis style, named for a neighboring cove a half mile away, which exploded with flavor from the pesto, Parmesan and hot sauce. Outstanding!

  Baked oysters with pesto, parm and hot sauce – The Fish Peddler, Tillamook, OR

The tuna melt was one of the best I’ve ever had. Upon arrival, it idn’t look like much, but the flavor made up for anything lost in its presentation. Let’s be honest, on paper, a tuna melt doesn’t make any sense — warm mayo-based tuna salad and cheese. Who pairs fish and cheese? It sounds terrible by any estimation. But somehow it works. And this one excelled in every sense. Made with locally caught and smoked tuna and Tilamook cheddar from around he corner, it was sublime.

Mike’s oyster po’boy was equally outstanding. The plump oysters were lightly dredged in flavorful herb breadcrumbs and quick fried. And the homemade tartar sauce was flecked with minced dill pickle, just the way it should be.

  After lunch, we headed back through Tillamook, stopping in at the cheese factory, of course — an impressive facility indeed. Milk from the local dairy farms is turned into cheese or ice cream within 24 hours. And every day they churn out 170,000 pounds of cheese, keeping the cows and the factory very busy!

  Then, we were off to the town of Oceanside and the coastal lighthouse at Cape Meares State Park. Built in the late 1800s, the lighthouse has since been decommissioned and its once vital function replaced by satellite navigation. But it remains a worthy tourist draw. (The free guided tour of the lighthouse was very informative and worth the time.)

If not for the lighthouse itself, then certainly go for the massive views of the Oregon coastline and a visit to the odd 8-armed Octopus Tree. With a 46-foot circumference and more than 105 feet in height, the 250+-year-old tree remains a mystery. Was it shaped by Mother Nature or by Indian hands? We’ll probably never know, but it’s a thing of beauty and curiosity nonetheless.

Seeing that it was nearly 4:00 pm, we decided to begin our return trip to Portland. Retracing our steps past the bay and back through the Tillamook Mountains, we made the trip in about an hour and a half, not bad for Friday at rush hour. Back at the house, we decided to kick back with some cocktails and a jigsaw puzzle. Later, we prepared some cavatelli with fresh tomato and basil sauce and watched Narcos. Maybe tomorrow we’ll actually venture out for dinner. Maybe.

Highlight of the day…

Day-by-Day in PDX Living like locals in Portland, OR - Our 2-week Experiment Our families and friends don't understand why we want to move to Oregon.

[sebotech-blog]

On account of Arduino, man realizes that 37,112 impressions destroy a LEGO block A Stack Exchange post on a block's "grip control" prompts a 10-day experiment.

Like numerous extraordinary Internet revelations, Phillipe Cantin's excursion begun at Stack Exchange. He and his kindred LEGO fans have been cooperating in a beta discussion about the toy block, trusting the space would draw in a crowd of people and stick around. The previous fall, Cantin posted that he needed more understanding from a Daily Finance article concerning why LEGO things were so costly. The piece refered to the utilization of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) in LEGO blocks, a plastic that "requires oil as a crude material, [so] the cost of the plastic nearly tracks the cost of oil." LEGO, the article proceeded with, feels constrained to utilize ABS because of its quality and strength, two unmistakable figures a block's "grip control"— the capacity for pieces to snap together firmly while all the while being anything but difficult to independent.

That is the place the question came in. "Since a LEGO block is ABS plastic and will wear with utilize," Cantin expressed, "I think about how often you can amass and dis-gather two pieces before they no longer remain together." A couple of reactions came in promptly, yet they were for the most part recounted. Cantin conceded that unless information was at that point accessible, he had an arrangement from the beginning: form a mechanical apparatus to decide the greatest "grip control."

Cantin took to his workshop. He needed to scrap his initially outline altogether when a metal tube joining a servo-engine to a LEGO block demonstrated excessively unstable (it kicked the bucket amid beginning testing). At last, however, his last outline just took two hours to conceptualize and manufacture.

The whole setup is depicted in the video above (and appeared in movement around the 2:45m stamp). Cantin picked an old CPU warm sink and, utilizing a point cutter, transformed that into his new automated arm. The apparatus utilizes the CPU warm sink arm to lift and drop the upper block for the investigation. A servo-engine (running on a different, nine volt control supply) holds and afterward discharges the base block to test "grasp power." There's an infrared sensor—which Cantin assembled himself—that decides if the base block does for sure lift and stay joined. At last, an Arduino Uno controls the whole operation while logging every impression to a microSD card.

In his presentation video, Cantin said he was "not exceptionally content with the building" for his definitive apparatus yet was "restless to get something going" with the testing. He felt the setup was too moderate since one cycle took around 10 seconds (so eventually, building it took way less time than utilizing it). It was additionally possibly feeble in his eyes. Cantin felt the equipment would bomb a long time before the LEGO blocks did. At last, the entire apparatus made a considerable measure of bustle. "Try not to attempt this at home," he cautioned on his blog. "It's long, loud, and barbarous to LEGO blocks." Cantin ran the entire thing at any rate and, after 10 days, had his answer.

It took 37,112 impressions for the LEGO blocks—in this test arrangement—to lose "grasp control."

"My girl experienced serious difficulties since she could hear the robot even down in the storm cellar," he told Ars. "I was upbeat when it at last ceased."

Cantin's work finished in late February, yet it got the eyes of Arduino's authentic blog this week. With the additional presentation, kindred LEGO fans had a lot of inquiries. Cantin discharged the video underneath to uncover additionally analyze subtle elements. He utilized a couple of 2x3 LEGO blocks on the grounds that the piece is among the most fundamental and unmistakable LEGO obstructs (in addition to it has a superior studs-to-weight proportion than say a 2x4 rectangle or the littler squares). Also, this specific test utilized pieces from the 1970s, yet that is on the grounds that it was step one in Cantin's bigger idea.Cantin didn't think his underlying investigation would take this long so he initially arranged to do nine tests altogether: three utilizing obstructs from the 1970s, three with pieces from the 1990s, and three with current-day blocks. "I figured I'd do every one of my tests and plot that on a pleasant chart, since that would be something more important factually," he said. "Be that as it may, after the principal test I understood I need to manufacture another apparatus all together. As a matter of first importance, it's too long. Furthermore, I didn't care for the way the pieces were being gathered by the movement of the pivot; it's not a characteristic approach to assemble LEGO blocks. Pushing down in a straight matter bodes well and perhaps it will wear the blocks in an unexpected way."

Cantin still has arrangements to push ahead. "I like that number—37,000—yet I need to see the appropriate response." Regardless, he discovered an incentive in the underlying analysis. Companions evaluated a LEGO block would just last 400 to 500 impressions, Cantin himself thought the number would be more in the range of 5,000. "In any case, it is highly unlikely a LEGO could be worn from this test. Breaking them or venturing on them is the manner by which they get broken."

Cantin is a Canadian senior programming engineer and this isn't his initially invasion into LEGO or Arduino. With LEGO, Cantin said he's been utilizing them since he was youthful and never became out of it. He worked with his young child to add working lights to the youngster's most loved LEGO robot and would like to work on a tabletop robot amusement later on. Already, Cantin even utilized a comparative Arduino-LEGO mix to reacted to another LEGO Stack Exchange address. (Gathering publications needed to know whether LEGO city-scale wheels could be mechanized. Short answer: yes.) But in the event that others were occupied with reproducing this specific analysis, he trusts it's exceptionally open. All it takes are essential servo-controls, the SD lumberjack accessible in different online libraries, and infrared finders that can be obtained for the less no-nonsense.

On the off chance that and when Cantin proceeds with his examination, you can make sure to discover comes about flying up on the LEGO Stack Exchange and perhaps the Arduino blog. In any case, up until now, no word from LEGO. Cantin keeps an eye on the Google Analytics for his site however, and informally he trusts some movement has originated from the LEGO controls that-be. "It would be pleasant on the off chance that they reached me, I would love that," he said. "To me, it'd be an adolescence dream."