#i wrote 700 words for this on the plane

[malinowaj]

plotting a new fic and starting to doubt a very major plot point. mostly because i fear it would get me dragged into a discussion about politics (that don't concern my own country, at least not directly as it stands, but globally may affect many) and taking sides, and it's kind of making me want to scrap it.

but if i scrap it, i basically throw away most of the storyline. ugh, i just need someone to tell me people won't hunt me down with torches and pitchforks if i center a plot around an occurrence that has happened in several countries but which people will most likely associate with the US.

(maybe starting to write a new fic when i'm sick isn't the best idea, but i have nothing else to do.)

[potatohater]

Maybe he just needed that laugh

Fandom: Criminal Minds

Characters: Aaron Hotchner, Derek Morgan

Words: 1857 (wtf I thought it would be like 700-900)

HIII, I BECAME OBSESSED W CRIMINAL MINDS SO HERE WE GOO; I couldn’t find enough tickle fluff w Hotch so I wrote it myself:))),, also it happens like in the middle of s2, when emily had joined the team but Haley and Hotch are still together;; also ITS NOT A SHIP FIC BETWEEN HOTCH AND DEREK (also on AO3)

Aaron Hotchner

A man who never smiles or laughs, everybody knows it, but nobody can do anything about it. Not even himself

“..and she said WHAT” Morgan said, finishing his joke, smiling when it earned him a few chuckles from the people who sat near him. JJ who was sitting on the other side of the plane gave him thumbs up, and even Reid cracked a smile. But his gaze stopped at Hotch who was looking at some file, he looked calm, but it was only at the first sight. Morgan could see how he bit inside of his cheek to keep himself from smiling. One question, why?

Sometimes he allowed himself to crack a smile in front of everyone, but he also took the part of a stoic leader too close to his heart; or at least the team thinks this way

There were moments when they were playing cards, or sitting at the office. There were moments when he smiled or even laughed. But they were so small and so quick, almost invisible. At some point everybody knew that they can’t influent on this but on the other hand, every-time he smiled or even chuckled, it just felt so.. complete

For a few days Derek kept in mind this, everything. He started to notice how Hotch could say something with a straight face, but the second he turns the back to his coworkers he smirks. There were questions that nobody asked, back in his head. There could be some deep dialogue between them, but Derek knew when the time would come, plus it’s not like he doesn’t have any work to do

;

Team decided to go to the club bar, take a break eventually. Everyone was there except for Gideon who decided to spend his time in the woods by himself

“Have you ever noticed how he never smiles?” Derek’s voice rang through the bar, quiet enough for nobody to hear him clearly, but loud enough for people around him to understand what he meant. He furrowed his brows a bit, and turned his head to his fellow teammates

“Really not sure about it, maybe.. sometimes?” Prentiss responded with a small smile, taking a sip of her beer and looking at another person who was sitting on the other side of her

“Well, I saw him doing it a few times for sure, so he is not immune to smiling” Reid said, his gaze stopped at something in the background, so he looked like he was hypnotised for a few seconds “Actually have you ever know that an average adult laughs only 17 times a day while a child laughs about 300 times a day”

“Well I’m not sure that the fact that he never smiles has to do something with his age” Morgan said, taking a sip of his drink

JJ at the same time was chatting with some guys from the bar and playing games with them while Penelope was dancing in the middle of the dance floor like she was the only one there, showing everyone who is their daddy

Prentiss looked at Garcia a few times before she finished her beer and looked at two men on each side of her

“Sorry, but I just have to join her” she grinned, looking at the blond girl again

“Take Reid with you, maybe you can teach him some dance moves” Morgan chuckled, and quirked an eyebrow at the younger male next to him

“Nononohono, I’m not good at this— please Morgan don’t do this” Spencer giggled through sentence and even if he was serious, Derek saw a smile creeping onto his face as Prentiss took his hand and pulled him further on the dance floor. He glanced at Morgan the last time until disappeared in the crowd

Morgan smiled to himself and looked in the Hotch’s direction. He was sitting in the corner, on the sofa next to Haley, bit drunk, so his usually serious facial features melted in something more human

Derek took his drink and danced up to their table, felling the rhythm in his ears. The pair turned his head to him, offering him a seat in front of them.

“You like my dance moves?” Morgan said with a grin plastered on his face

“Very much so” “Don’t think I’m the right person to answer this” Haley and Hotch said at the same time. Even though the Aaron’s comment wasn’t very welcoming, there were no venom in his words, he just simply smiled afterwards and took a sip of his drink.

“Hey, don’t be mean” Haley said, poking her husband’s side, making him to flinch and slightly choke on his drink

“Don’t—” he was cut off by another poke, making him jerk away now as he took a napkin to clean his lips and chin from a mess

“Yo, what was that?” Morgan smiled, his eyes were running from Haley to Hotch every second until he got an answer

“You don’t know? He’s ticklish, I though maybe someone knew, especially you” Hailey smirked, looking at Aaron who choked on his drunk again, but now, all by himself “He usually doesn’t smile, so this is one and only way to make him; because he doesn’t have a sense of humour either” she whispered the last part, earning a sigh from her husband

“No way man, is this real?” Derek’s eyes were lit up by a second, he looked like he just found a golden ticket

“Don’t even think about it” his boss’s voice was something between serious, amusing and terrified about the fact that his wife just announced

“What’s his worst spots?” Morgan tried to keep a conversation in this topic, smirking at Hotch whose eyes just widened when he heard woman respond to this question effortlessly

“Well, if I’m not wrong it’s his sides, ribs and maybe knees—” she tried to tell Derek most of it, knowing what’s his plan was already until she was cutoff by her husband himself, elbowing her in the side

“..actually if you got him laughing, every spot would work, especially when he’s drunk” she whispered and winked to a man infront of her until she was shushed again

“Don’t listen to her” Hotch replied, looking dead serious at his wife and then at Derek

Phone on the table rang, taking everyone attention, making them forget about a new discovery (happily for Hotch)

“Give me a few minutes” Haley picked up the phone and smirked at Morgan before she stood up, ready to answer the call “I’m also going to take more drinks” were the last words she said until she drowned in the crowd of people

Silence froze in the air for a second before they made an eye contact, dark eyes full of mischief met slightly widened, tensed eyes of another man

Morgan thought about it for a split second before thinking “ah, fuck it” and moving on the previously Haley’s seat, next to Hotch

“So how’s— how is Jack doing?” Derek asked, trying to make a conversation but Aaron could hear fake innocence in his voice. He squinted his eyes at him for a few moments until trusting him that he is a grown man who wouldn’t do something so childish.. or would he?

“He is alright like always” Hotch said, but being tipsy didn’t mean being blind. He saw Morgan’s hand trying to poke him in the same spot Haley did, and he immediately caught Derek’s hand, trying to put it away

“So you really is ticklish if you are so scared of me poking you”

“I’m not, and you are being ridiculous” Hotch said with a slight smile on his face; maybe it was alcohol, maybe it was just his mischievous side. Derek couldn’t tell

Morgan didn’t waste any time, moving his second hand fast enough to make a contact with Hotch’s side, earning a sound which sounded like a stiffed giggle. He let go of Morgan’s hand (big mistake), trying to protect his torso

And now younger man used his both hands to dig into Hotch’s sides earning new sounds that his boss tried so hard to muffle

“Come on man, relax. You know that you want to laugh, it’s been a rough week—” Derek even didn’t finish his sentence when Aaron’s facade broke into small pieces. He tried to curl up, mouth slightly opened and small chuckles and giggles filled the air

“Stohohop Mohorgahan” despite how much he tried to wipe off the smile on his face he couldn’t. Usually he could turn off his sensitivity, usually but not now

“This is gold” Morgan chuckled, moving his hands up, now going for his ribs. Aaron tried to push off his hands but he felt how useless his arms became, everything he could do is just to hold on to Morgan, desperately trying to push him away

His giggling turned into pure laughter when he felt knuckles being rubbed into his lower ribs. Hotch uncurled and tried to back off, hitting the wall with his back. He threw his head back and tried to cover his mouth with one hand, so other people couldn’t hear him

“dEHERehek” Aaron tried to make him stop verbally and furrowed his brows to sound more intimidating and serious, but a rare smile on his face ruined the whole picture

“You should laugh more often Hotch, it wouldn’t mean that you are less professional, and honestly it’s like the first time I see you like this” and it was true. Aaron couldn’t remember himself when he expressed his joy with more that a chuckle

“..and you have nice laugh by the way” Morgan teased, grinning like a Cheshire cat and looked at his boss; eyes closed shut, smile baring all his teeth and his laugh. Well it was hard to tell because nobody has ever heard him laugh like this. It was so high-pitched comparing to his voice and but on the other hand it even suited him in some way

At some point Derek just started to laugh with Hotch, maybe he didn’t even notice that

“What did Haley said was a good spot, knees?” Morgan let go of Hotch’s torso, and squeezed both of his knees, earning a snort

“Yohuhu thIHINK YOuhu arEHE BEHEteher thahan mehehe? Aaron laughed, putting all his strength into digging into Derek sides which made him to back off

“Hehey!” Morgan stopped, pulling his hands to protect himself

“Yohohu wihil NEVER speak of thihis” even when tickling stopped, a huge grin was still plastered on Hotch’s face. He let out a few giggles until sitting straight and elbowing Morgan in the side

“I won’t, cross my heart and stuff” Derek joked, earning rolled eyes from his boss. It was refreshing to see him like this not gonna lie

Haley came back almost immediately after everything finished, but by a sparkle in both of their eyes she could tell, she just knew

Maybe, just maybe Hotch wasn’t “that” drunk, maybe he could shove Morgan far enough so he wouldn’t reach him, maybe he could fight back, or maybe he just needed that laugh. I guess we’ll never know

[ego-osbourne]

The Flight of Velehk Sain

Written as if it was an in-game book to be found in any of the TES games, here’s my jab at presenting Velehk Sain’s backstory (as seen in TDI/SITw) as if viewed by other Coldharbour kyn. The complete accuracy of this book is debatable, but it was eventually caught by dremora from other realms and mortals alike, and the prideful dialogue about the well-known pirate captain became a laughing stock to throw back at Bal dremora.

The legend has been rewritten with more and more inaccuracies, like naming Velehk Sain as a power kyn, or conflating the details of the death of the summoner; or has been parodied to expound on the pride of the author. However, the truest stories are only held by those who experienced them, and Velehk Sain isn’t keen to speak about his past.

This is the first document regarding Velehk’s name (not including criminal charges due to his pirating). Enjoy :]

//also I wrote this forever back and just have forgotten to post it since, my bad

Word Count: 700

Status: Complete Mock-Book

CW: Fantasy Slavery, Implied Sex (specific to Molag Bal), Molag Bal in general

Summary: The account of Velehk Sain as written by a power dremora.

Dated: 20th of Last Seed, 2E 631

Authored: Pehricach the Blood-Scribe

In the glorious plane of Coldharbour, kyn reign with authority over all other lesser daedra, coming only after the Prince of Domination himself. However, even a great people must have its squalor. The greatest of us are named power kyn, who serve loyally, faithfully, and without mercy under the name of Molag Bal. For our glory we are given many gifts from our Generous Master, one of the first being a personal servant. These serving kyn are created specifically for the purpose of use — they are given great beauty, no intellectual talents, no physical skills, and no names. The best will perform their duties to their superiors faithfully, while those who rebel deserve a punishment no less than erasure from our Great Prince.

This punishment was escaped by a traitorous serving kyn who ran from his master. The master, Kyrahk the Dominator, treated his server with no more cruelty than deserved, and yet the runaway insisted on rebelling throughout his existence. Despite this, Kyrahk showed mercy to the server and did not wish for his termination. This kindness, which was a pleasantry of the rarest variety, was wasted.

Dating 2E 582, Kyrahk left Coldharbour for battle, leaving his server without a watchman. That day, a mortal wizard entered Coldharbour. He longed for a serving kyn to call his own, but since servers have no names, none could be summoned. The arrogant mortal planned to approach our Lord of Schemes to trade for a server to take back to Nirn with him, but he was intercepted before he could bask within the Prince’s presence. The traitorous server presented himself to the wizard and asked to be summoned, and the wizard was keen for a moment, telling the server that he could not be summoned because he had no name. The server, ever-devious, lied to the mortal, naming himself Velehk Sain — he justified this in saying that very few serving kyn have names, but those that do are highly coveted and are cherished by Molag Bal himself. The server instructed the mortal to summon him a week from then, and the foolish wizard happily turned back to Nirn and prepared himself for the summon.

The detestable server then traveled through Coldharbour until he reached the throne of our Great Prince, asking for a trade. In exchange for his services, the kyn asked to be named by Molag Bal. Unaware of his devious nature, our Powerful Lord agreed and asked the kyn what he should be called. The server replied, “Velehk Sain,” and the Prince of Schemes made it true, assuming no harm could come from such a small-minded gesture. However, now that the server had a name given by the Lord of Domination himself, he had more power than ever deserved, and his plan was falling into action.

The serving kyn exchanged pleasantries with Molag Bal for five days and five nights, undeserving of our Prince’s warmth. On the sixth day, the server was returned to Kyrahk the Dominator, who rightfully punished the rebellious kyn for leaving his care by cutting his face, thus damaging the beauty that servers are blessed with. However, Kyrahk was unaware of the server’s plan, and was left painfully alone when the seventh day arrived.

By the week’s end, the damnable mortal summoned the server to his home on Nirn. He asked the mortal to assist in freeing him of his chains that bound him to Coldharbour and promised to reward the wizard in his efforts. A mortal fool, though, is but an insect to even the most useless of kyn, and after the chains were broken, he was killed by that who he called Velehk Sain. The server then fled to the sea, pursuing a life of material thievery that should be detested by all faithful power kyn. This account is written after his false name has made great strides on the disgusting mortal realm. Should he ever be seen on Mundus, let him be cut down swiftly so that he may return to Coldharbour and be punished for his atrocities.

[anika-ann]

Okay, okay, but hear me out🤭🤭

Tony sets this up for him, which has Steve mortified. He's even too embarrassed to tell his girl, aka you.

You learn anyway, before it happens - and you are just as much of little shit as he is and you've got friends in convenient places. You spring into action.

Filth and crack-ish fun ahead, people, that is why it's under cut. Also, there's like zero editing to that 700-word thing.

The day of the interview/shooting, you just kiss goodbye in the morning, pretending you do not know Steve is going to do this kind of a public appearance, because he hasn't specified, too ashamed.

Then, you sit to the live feed, virtual or literal bowl of popcorn in hand.

Your boy looks as gorgeous as always, and despite the fact you know he can spew quite the filth in the bedroom or bathroom or kitchen, or the closet at the party, he's allready blushing.

And then he starts.

"He's so pretty I want to cry. Oh that is actually sweet. Please don't cry though."

"His..." he clears his throat, "his ass just won't end-- uhm, thanks." More blush to his cheeks. You grin.

"The thighs on that man, I swear, I want... I want a ride. There are taxis...?"

You can't but chuckle. You knew this was him putting on a persona. He knew all too well what the author of that tweet meant.

"His shirts are so tight I want to kiss his stylist. And then his... chest."

You almost aww. You liked taht one. You also know 100% that the word chest was not what was written there. 103%.

"...wait what do you mean now the spicy ones are coming in? Wasn't--- right. Alright. I'm doing this for the charity, just so you know-"

"Title of your sex tape," you mutter under your breath, wiggling in your seat in anticipation, maybe a little too amused.

But you simply can't help yourself, all giddy.

"Okay. So... he's as american as an apple pie but I'd like... a different kind of pie from him?"

You burst out laughing at his genuine confusion, taking a note of teaching him about this one.

"His face is so pretty. Those eyebrows of justice, lips of freedom,... thank you? I think. Uhm, and don't get me started on that nose. I want it to bump my--- as I-- and soa--- I'm not-- I'm not reading the rest of that tweet! I--- people actually put this out on the internet??" he sputters, horrified, the second prettiest blush you have ever seen on him adorning his face (the most beautiful one was when you were making love).

Your poor boyfriend has practically jumped from his seat, eyes all wide. He's fiddling with his microphone, refusing to continue, his dextrous fingers all fumbling.

He's a picture. He's perfect.

And you died. Of laughter.

You ascended to another plane of existence. But the best part was yet to come. You know it.

You know it, just as you know what the rest of the so-called tweet read - because you wrote it. You wrote all those fake tweets and called your friend, one of the producers, setting Steve up.

"Actually, they don't" sounds from behind the camera, causing Steve to stop toying with the mike, casting a confused gaze towards the person.

"I don't... understand?"

"They're fake. We'll tell you who wrote them off camera. Sorry to blindside you, Captain Rogers."

Steve is dumbfounded.

Except he isn't.

He looks directly to the camera and he might as well be staring into your soul. He knows.

He knows it was you and the ripple of excitement and fresh burst of laughter nearly tears you apart.

There's a comemrcial break lasting a whole minute.

While you giggle to yourself, you feel your phone vibrate in your lap.

Oh doll, just you wait until I get home. You'll get all those rides and bumps you wrote about. And you will beg for me to let you soak just about anything. Better eat up, you'll need the calories.

Gulping, you read an then reread the message, heart hamerring in your chest, coil in your belly already forming at the filthy promises - and you nearly jump when Steve's voice sounds from the screen again.

He's picture perfect; the blush barely there, million dollar smile of a golden boy, speaking in conciliatory manner about how he is not mad and he's happy to do it.

For the charity, of course.

He's innocence incarnate, his blush intensifying as he reads the real tweets.

The show runners weren't the only ones who could blindside someone. And you're not the only one who can be a little shit.

You squirm in your seat as something hungry flickers in Steve's eye at a particular tweet, just for you; and you know, he added it to his mental list of ways he will ruin you tonight, much to your mutual pleasure.

You should prepare snacks.

You feel like you really will be needing those calories.

I--- my hand slipped and fell on my keyboard? Repeatedly? 🥹🥹

I hope you ahd fun, I definitely did 😂

I'll tag some folks later maybe 🤭

someone stop him

[sunshinetoshi]

If you dont want to do this request just ignore it. Could you write headcannons or a scenario where reader decides to surprise her husband posttimeskip!Ushijima (and, separately, maybe Suna) at an away game, so he doesn't know they're there. Before the game starts he looks out at the crowd & sees the reader in the front row holding their beautiful baby girl. The 6 month old has little ear muffs on so the loud stadium doesn't overwhelm them and a tiny version of their fathers jersey. I can just picture the baby making little grabby hands at Ushijima for the whole game 😭. (Sorry if this is confusing at all, you can message me if you have questions)

surprising him at a game

post-timeskip!ushijima x reader (<700 words)

content (warnings): fluff, marriage and a kid, toshi is a little pouty in the beginning lol

a/n: askdjf this request is so sweet and good on it’s own omg so this is just me ~expanding~ HAHA but tysm for sending this in <33 and ushijima?? you get a gold star for loving that man. i only wrote for ushi this time around but i’d love to maybe do a part two with more characters and get to suna like you asked!! the end is super sappy bc i love this man.

while wakatoshi is always game ready, he takes his craft very seriously, he does pout a little when he feels the plane’s wheels finally touch the airport’s runway. it’s his first away game that required a plane trip hundreds of miles away from you and your little infant. he remembers how you coaxed him to go.

“it’ll be alright toshi you’ve done away games before.”

“yeah, but those have just been day trips or weekends. this will be the longest, farthest, i’ll be away from you and her since she was born.”

you laughed because your husband was never one to complain like this but ever since he found out the game schedule he spoke about this particular game with a pout.

“we’ll all be okay, love, i promise. you go play and win and then come back home like you always do. and we’ll call and text everyday,” you comforted him, placing kisses on his cheek for good measure.

but that made him pout more. “you sound excited for me to go.”

a scowl finds its way to ushijima’s face as he walks through the airport with his teammates.

one of them nudges him and teases, “cheer up, wakatoshi, the locals might think you hate them with that look on ya!”

“i don’t hate them,” he quickly interjects, hoping he hasn’t offended anyone simply because his thoughts were somewhere else. somewhere miles away where right about now you were getting ready for the day while the baby slept after her morning milk. somewhere where his little family was.

his teammates chuckle and another adds, “don’t worry, ushijima, they’re just joking. but you know what, i’m pretty excited for this game! aren’t you?”

ushijima nods absentmindedly, missing the knowing looks his teammates give each other.

knowing looks because they know you’ll be there.

there, sitting in the front row in your game day gear with your baby girl in a new matching onesie of her own with her daddy’s name and number on the back. her eyes travel around the room taking it all in, her ears covered with ear muffs to protect her little ears from the roaring of the crowd as the teams enter.

you want to giggle when you see your husband. he looks as intimidating as ever as if just twenty minutes ago he didn’t call you so that his two favorite people in the world could give him ‘his good luck smooches’ over the phone.

but the look on his face is priceless when he catches sight of the two of you. his eyes practically sparkling and he has that big warm smile only ever worn in moments he shares with you, egged on by the whoops and hollers from his teammates and staff who were in on it all along.

that game became one of the best played in ushijima’s career.

at the end of the game when their victory is announced, ushijima, who should be tired and spent from the spikes he made, jogs over to where you have already gotten down from the stands. a beaming smile on his face.

you lift your little girl higher on your hip and point to where her dad was approaching. “baby, look it’s daddy, look,” and despite her ear muffs she’s at the age where she can follow your finger.

and you feel your heart just about to burst when she recognizes her daddy, reaching her arms up and babbling to get to him.

in a flash he’s sweeping her into his arms and giving her cute chunky cheeks little kisses, asking what his little girl was doing here.

when he pulls you, too, into his chest, you smile when he places a kiss on your cheek. “congratulations on your win, toshi.”

and his eyes are still shining. “you’re here. you’re both here.”

you laugh softly and push his postgame hair off his forehead, “did you like your surprise?”

he nods and his grip around your waist tightens, “i love you, so much, y/n. both of you.” because you bring so much light and love into his life.

“i love you, ushijima wakatoshi.” because he does the same for you.

taglist 💛💛 @elianetsantana @love-oikawa @shoyotime @lyssaima @ahtsuwu @itachislut @arrogantsonofabiscuit @miss-minty-writes @livy384 @izhyperfixates @tsumooo @kenmaslov3r @tetsunormous @mystic-helena @oikawaandkuroostan

if you want to join my taglist the link is in my pinned post <33

[evil-t4t-lumpygrab]

Woody Nightshade

Summary: Living alone in the woods was often dangerous, that was to be expected. She’d gotten hurt before but never as badly as this. Word Count: 700

Cws: severe injury and bleeding, and while not character death, comes close.

I wrote this for the “unable to stop bleeding” prompt for my LSP event hee hee. I feel like just how much danger LSP is in as someone who lives in the woods all my herself with no shelter or people looking out for her is very rarely featured in the show. The potential is untapped imo. 

Scavenging for food was hard. There were never enough berries or thrown out scraps of stale food or mushrooms to feed herself. Even after she’d eaten she felt hungry. A constant, gnawing hunger that felt like a hole inside her. She spotted a bush with some red berries that looked like rose hips, or maybe guelder rose so she reached out and plucked a few, dropping them into her palm. She jostled a branch as she reached for more and something behind her clicked. 

She heard it before she felt it. A high pitched whistle like the one the kettle in her old house had made, and then agony. It hit something inside her that made the tip of the arrow burn with pain as if on fire, with the flames spreading through her body. The blood swept down her side like an oil slick until the side of her body glistened dark purple. 

She crumpled and closed her hands around the arrow embedded in her body. A gasp escaped her but it felt like a mile away. The ground seemed to move away from her as she sank to it in a wobbly, unstable line. Like a meandering, crashing plane. The impact jolted the arrow painfully and more blood spurted out, bubbling in between her fingers thick and gooey. 

Her ears were ringing and she was breathing hard, wincing. The edges of her vision were fading into an eye searing vignette as she squinted down at her side. The arrow was tipped with green leaves which marked it as one of Huntress Wizards’. She must have triggered one of her hunting traps - it wasn’t the first time, last time she’d opened up a hole dug into the ground, but obviously hadn’t fallen in. 

The arrow was halfway into her body. She imagined the sharp tip nestled in between her organs, waiting for her to move so it could slice one open. Meanwhile the blood kept pouring and pouring. 

Her heart was thumping so hard it ached. It was getting hard to think as consciousness drained out of her with the blood, but she tried to remember what you were supposed to do with injuries like this. You were supposed to leave it in, right? Otherwise the bleeding would worsen. Though the bleeding was already so, so bad and showed no sign of stopping.  

She gritted her teeth and pressed down around the wound. A single frightened sob came out of her followed by rattling breaths. The pressure was supposed to help, why wasn’t it helping? She was too weak to fly so she pushed herself along the mud and grass like a slowly moving slug, leaving a trail of dark purple behind her. It hurt so bad. Tears escaped from her eyes but she bit her lips and pushed forwards. It took so much effort to push herself just an inch in the direction of her camp. 

It was all starting to go black and she was still so far away. Anything could happen to her if she passed out here. The smell of blood was already attracting flies, soon she would be swarming with mosquitoes. Maybe even carrion, maybe even wolves. Their teeth hadn’t been able to pierce her rubbery skin last time she got attacked, but now that she already had an open wound. It would be so easy for an animal to rip its way into her where the arrow had already invaded and left a gaping, bleeding hole. 

She could no longer see. The only thing left was the uncomfortable, scratchy grass and the cold mud underneath her, with the pain in her side like a firework. The only thing she could feel in the darkness that had pounced on her was the pain, though even that was starting to fade. She wondered if she was dying. If this was how she was going to die. Bleeding out all alone in a forest in a faraway country, her parents would be so disappointed. She’d die homeless and stupid and hungry. They would be so confused. The last thing she’d done was argue with them. They would never know how much she’d loved them. 

“M-Mommy…” was the last thing she said as she finally passed out, still clutching the arrow in her side, her uneaten berries scattered along the grass.

[vampcubus]

3 AM (Midoriya/Reader | nsfw)

| A/N: Here’s another self-indulgent fic I wrote in my phone’s notes this week, there’s no plot, no excuse other than me being big thirsty like all the time. |

| Warnings: nsfw!! Literally zero plot just smut. (Mutual?) Masturbation, pining, wet dreams, inappropriate use of a pillow. |

| Words: 700+ |

| Summary: Lately you and Izuku have been sharing one another’s wet dreams. Oblivious to the fact that the other is experiencing the same dreams, you’ve been tip-toeing around one another for weeks. |

.   .   .

Your skin was softer than the silver silken sheets beneath you, jumping and reddening underneath his hands as they explored the planes and curves of your body. Your half-lidded gorgeous eyes stared up at him, lips parted as hot puffs of air were pushed from your legs with each pump of his hips as his cock dragged between your soft thighs. Your eyes squeezed themselves shut as his shaft repeatedly rubbed over your swollen clit, the slippery underside massaging between your puffy folds to slide blissfully against your pink labia. His gaze shifted from your ecstasy-twisted face to where his cock slipped between your thighs, glistening with your juices and producing an obscene wet sound of soaked flesh on flesh. Your hands surround your bouncing breasts, squeezing the supple globes between them, skin spilling out between your fingers. You were panting and whispering out gentle praises, beginning to get louder and moan out his name in a chant as you approached your orgasm. Your hands released your boobs and wrapped around his neck. His pace quickened when you pulled him down and brushed your lips against his ear, begging him to push inside of you, to fuck you, make you cum. And when he drew the tip of his cock to your pretty pink entrance and shoved himself inside of you, your voice peaked in pitch, pleading for him to keep going, to cum inside of you. Izuku woke with a start, breathing heavily and covered in sweat. His blurry eyes were met with darkness instead of your beautiful face, and he groaned when he realized he was humping the shit out of his pillow. 

He kept bucking against the plushy object, letting the stuffing now bunched towards the middle envelop his bare cock that had slipped from his boxer shorts.

“Ahm… mmm, a-ah…”

Drool dribbled down his chin as he grew close, images of you and his lewd dream flashing through his mind as his balls began to tighten. In his frenzy to reach his release, a small hint of One For All activated, surrounding his squirming body in bright green sparks as he humped his pillow at an inhuman pace.

“Ah, ah, ghnnn! Oh fuck, oh god, fuck, Y/N p-please!” He moaned into the pillow, imagining you on your knees, breasts surrounding his cock and your mouth sucking sensually at the tip.

An image of you arching and screaming out as your orgasm overtook you, his name falling from your lips shoved him right over the edge. No longer caring how loud he was, he let out a series of lustful cries into his pillow as he finally tensed and convulsed, cock twitching as he came, covering the pillowcase with his thick cum as it shot out. He whimpered and panted for breath as his hips continued to weakly grind against the damp fabric, riding out his orgasm as the knot in his stomach unwound with every spasm. He collapsed into his mattress, heaving raggedly as he came down from his dizzying high. When he came back down to earth and his big green eyes reopened, he was met with the glowing light of his alarm clock sitting near his bed.

It was 3 AM. He shivered in discomfort when he felt his sticky release drop onto his thighs and onto the pillow. His face burned bright with embarrassment when he realized what he's done. He jumps out of bed, hastily stripping out of his damp boxers and ripping the soaked pillowcase off of the pillow. He rushed to shove the soiled garments into the laundry and jump in the shower to rinse away the shame. That was the fourth wet dream he had of you this week. And the nth time he's woken up hard and or covered in his own cum. .   .   . You panted heavily through your parted lips with glossy eyes, reddened cheeks and shaking thighs as you removed your slick-covered hand from your panties. The covers were kicked off the bed and you were sweating up a storm, skin buzzing with the aftershocks of your orgasm. Your head turned to the side to check the time, your clock reading 3 AM. You'd awoken squirming around on the sheets and rubbing your thighs together after a particularly vivid dream about your green-haired classmate, again. When was this going to end? .   .   . You could barely look one another in the eyes the next morning. Guilty, longing, and oblivious.

[sayitdido]

1.4k already written and i wrote 700 words today. more than 2k in total. i am planing to make it a 4 or 5k fic so good job ig.

agh inspo finally came back i hope i can finish the fic before it runs out

[atsuminthe]

i just wrote 700 words and it feels like a fever dream because i have no idea how i wrote them. i don’t remember why or how, i just did it

don’t you love it when your brain shuts down and just—does its own thing while you float in another plane of existence?

[justforbooks]

The physicist Freeman Dyson, who has died aged 96, became famous within science for mathematical solutions so advanced that they could only be applied to complex problems of atomic theory and popular with the public for ideas so far-fetched they seemed beyond lunacy.

As a young postgraduate student, Dyson devised – while taking a Greyhound bus ride in America – the answer to a conundrum in quantum electrodynamics that had stumped giants of physics such as Richard Feynman and Hans Bethe. As an author, guru and apostle for science, Dyson also cheerfully proposed that humans might genetically engineer trees that could grow on comets, to provide new habitats for genetically altered humans.

He had already proposed the ultimate solution to the energy crisis: a sufficiently advanced civilisation would, he argued, crunch up all the unused planets and asteroids to form a giant shell around its parent star, to reflect and exploit its radiation. Science fiction writers were delighted. The first suggestion became known as the Dyson tree. The second is called the Dyson sphere.

He was born in Crowthorne, Berkshire. His father, George Dyson, was a musician and composer, and his mother, Mildred Atkey, a lawyer. The young Dyson reported that his happiest ever school holiday – from Winchester college – was spent working his way, from 6am to 10pm, through 700 problems in Piaggio’s Differential Equations. “I intended to speak the language of Einstein,” he said in his 1979 memoir Disturbing the Universe. “I was in love with mathematics and nothing else mattered.”

He graduated from Cambridge and in 1943 became a civilian scientist with RAF Bomber Command, which experienced hideous losses with each raid over Germany. Dyson and his colleagues suggested that the Lancaster bomber’s gun turrets slowed the plane, increased its burden and made it more vulnerable to German fighters: without the turrets, it might gain an extra 50mph and be much more manoeuvrable.

He was ignored. Bomber Command, he was later to write, “might have been invented by a mad scientist as an example to exhibit as clearly as possible the evil aspects of science and technology: the Lancaster, in itself a magnificent flying machine, made into a death trap for the boys who flew it. A huge organisation dedicated to the purpose of burning cities and killing people, and doing it badly.”

The young Dyson was already convinced of some moral purpose to the universe and remained a non-denominational Christian all his life.

After the second world war he went to Cornell University in New York state to begin research in physics under Bethe, one of the team at Los Alamos that fashioned the atomic bomb.

By 1947, the challenge was one of pure science: to forge an accurate theory that described how atoms and electrons behaved when they absorbed or emitted light. The broad basis of what was called quantum electrodynamics had been proposed by the British scientist Paul Dirac and other giants of physics. The next step was to calculate the precise behaviour inside an atom. Using different approaches, both Julian Schwinger and Feynman delivered convincing solutions, but their answers did not quite square with each other.

It was while crossing Nebraska by bus, reading James Joyce and the biography of Pandit Nehru, that the young Dyson saw how to resolve the work of the two men and help win them the 1965 Nobel prize: “It came bursting into my consciousness, like an explosion,” Dyson wrote. “I had no pencil and paper, but everything was so clear I did not need to write it down.”

A few days later he moved – for almost all of the rest of his life – to the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton, home of Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb. “It was exactly a year since I had left England to learn physics from the Americans. And now here I was a year later, walking down the road to the institute on a fine September morning, to teach the great Oppenheimer how to do physics. The whole situation seemed too absurd to be credible,” Dyson wrote later.

He went on to deliver a series of papers that resolved the problems of quantum electrodynamics. He did not share in Feynman’s and Schwinger’s Nobel prize. He did not complain. “I was not inventing new physics,” he said. “I merely clarified what was already there so that others could see the larger picture.”

Dyson tackled complex problems in theoretical physics and mathematics – there is a mathematical tool called the Dyson series, and another called Dyson’s transform – and enjoyed the affection and respect of scientists everywhere. He took US citizenship, and worked on Project Orion, one of America’s oddest and most ambitious space ventures.

Orion was to be an enormous spacecraft, with a crew of 200 scientists and engineers, driven by nuclear weapons: warheads would be ejected one after another from the spaceship and detonated. This repeated pulse of blasts would generate speeds so colossal that the spacecraft could reach Mars in two weeks, and get to Saturn, explore the planet’s moons, and get back to Earth again within seven months. Modern spacecraft launched by chemical rockets can take 12 months to reach Mars, and more than seven years to reach Saturn.

The Orion project faltered under the burden of technical problems, and then was abandoned in 1965 after the partial test ban treaty that outlawed nuclear explosions in space.

Dyson was a widely read man with a gift for memorable remarks and a great talent for presenting – with calm logic and bright language – ideas for which the term “outside the envelope” could only be the most feeble understatement.

In 1960, in a paper for the journal Science, he argued that a technologically advanced civilisation would sooner or later surround its home star with reflective material to make full use of all its radiation. The extraterrestrials could do this by pulverising a planet the size of Jupiter, and spreading its fabric in a thin shell around their star, at twice the distance of the Earth from the sun. Although the starlight would be masked, the shell or sphere would inevitably warm up. So people seeking extraterrestrial intelligence should first look for a very large infrared glow somewhere in the galaxy.

In 1972 – a year before the first serious experiments in manipulating DNA – Dyson outlined, in a Birkbeck College lecture, in London, his vision of biological engineering. He predicted that scavenging microbes could be altered to harvest minerals, neutralise toxins and to clean up plastic litter and hazardous radioactive materials.

He then proposed that comets – lumps of ice and organic chemicals that periodically orbit the sun – could serve as nurseries for genetically altered trees that could grow, in the absence of gravity, to heights of hundreds of miles, and release oxygen from their roots to sustain human life. “Seen from far away, the comet will look like a small potato sprouting an immense growth of stems and foliage. When man comes to live on the comets, he will find himself returning to the arboreal existence of his ancestors,” he told a delighted audience.

He went on to predict robot explorers that could replicate themselves, and plants that would make seeds and propagate across the galaxy. Plants could grow their own greenhouses, he argued, just as turtles could grow shells and polar bears grow fur. His audience may not have believed a word, but they listened intently.

Dyson had a gift for the memorable line and a disarming honesty that admitted the possibility of error. It was, he would say, better to be wrong than to be vague, and much more fun to be contradicted than to be ignored. Dyson was by instinct and reason a pacifist, but he understood the fascination with nuclear weaponry.

He enjoyed unorthodox propositions and contrarian arguments; he maintained a certain scepticism about climate change (“the fuss about global warming is greatly exaggerated”) and he argued that a commercial free-for-all was more likely to deliver the right design for spacecraft than a government-directed effort.

He had little patience with those physicists who argued that the world was the consequence of blind chance. “The more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe must in some sense have known we were coming,” he once said.

His Cambridge mentor, the mathematician GH Hardy, had told him: “Young men should prove theorems, old men should write books.” After Disturbing the Universe, Dyson wrote a number of compelling books, including Infinite in All Directions (1988) and Imagined Worlds (1997). In 2000, he was awarded the Templeton prize – worth more than the Nobel – given annually for progress towards discoveries about spiritual realities.

He was a frequent essayist and to the end a contributor to the New York Review of Books. But he continued to think as a scientist and in 2012 entered the field of mathematical biology with a published paper on game theory in human cooperation and Darwinian evolution.

Dyson is survived by his second wife, Imme (nee Jung), whom he married in 1958, and their four daughters, Dorothy, Emily, Mia and Rebecca; by a son, George, and daughter, Esther, from his first marriage, to Verena Huber, which ended in divorce; and by a stepdaughter, Katarina, and 16 grandchildren.

• Freeman John Dyson, mathematician and physicist, born 15 December 1923; died 28 February 2020

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[fy-skz]

[TRANS] Beat Maker Series : Stray Kids Bang Chan

Your bag looks like a bulletproof bag. It’s my work bag. I thought it’d be good for working while moving around, so I bought it. My notebook, hubs, license, mini keyboard, charger, USB… I put in things that I must have when working on tracks. People say it’s like a weapon, so they call it the ‘007 bag’. I think they’re right? To Bang Chan, it’s a weapon, is it not? Ah, that’s right. It’s my weapon. If I carry this around, even on days that I’m really tired I can think of ideas. Amazingly. If there’s one thing you must bring besides you ‘007 bag’ when working on songs? A drink or jellies, chocolate. I have to eat something sweet while working to feel like my brain is working. I don’t drink coffee. I’m the type to avoid caffeine or carbonated drinks. Didn’t you say before that you like working during the night so you work on tracks with the lights off? Nowadays you must be constantly working regardless of the time. That’s right. Then, when I worked on tracks the atmosphere was really important. Nowadays I work a lot in planes. Since there’s not much to do inside the plane. I even work in the waiting rooms. Recently, there’s a track I worked on with Changbin and Seungmin, it’s a track I made in the waiting room on the day Stray Kids stood on stage on for the first time. Almost all the tracks on Stray Kids’ albums are made by the group’s internal producing unit ‘3RACHA’, made up of Bang Chan, Changbin, and HAN. I’m curious about 3RACHA’s collaboration method. It differs per song. There are times where we put the lyrics HAN wrote on top of Changbin’s melody… we work together with the most appropriate method for each track. Overall there’s lots of times when I take the role of organizing and arranging. I do almost all of the track work. Changbin and HAN and my colors and criteria are each a little different so when we work together it’s fun.

“The world of music if very deep and wide, so the feeling of excitement is very big. Since there’s so much that I’ve yet to try. I still get excited when I work on songs.”

Stray Kids’ new single ‘Double Knot’, released this past October 10th, is also 3RACHA’s track. It’s extremely powerful. What kind of song did you want to make? ‘Double Knot’ is a track overflowing with the fighting spirit of double-knotting one’s shoelaces and being ready to go anywhere. It has a mix of powerful genres like electronic, hip hop, etc. We worked together with the composer DalasK in America. It’s a song that runs straight in C minor, but I think we were able to capture the sound and feeling that I wanted so I’m happy with it. For ‘Double Knot’, I wanted to go with C minor from the start. When I played the chord and melody that I first thought of on the keyboard, it was C minor. Compared to D minor and A minor, it’s a bit more comfortable to sing. While making ‘Double Knot’, what were the keywords you thought of? I thought about the performance. The first thought was that I wished the performance would be really showy. I also wanted to express a showy and intense performance with the track. I especially paid attention to the impact during the drop. For some beats I completely got rid of all other sound and just focused on one instrument. ‘Bbam!’ ‘Bbam!’ Like this. I put emphasis and priority on the performance, formation, a strong and intense feel, and fighting spirit, etc. The fighting spirit was important. I wanted to make a song with fighting spirit. Generally, how you go about working on tracks? Do you have a specific method? It’s different depending on the circumstance. There are times when I start with the drums and layer sounds, and there are times when I play a few chords and then put chords that suit them on top. Do you tend to take a lot of time when working? It’s different every time, but sometimes I get caught up on one thing and finish within 2 hours. Of course, there are times when it takes a week. The song ‘Maze of Memories’ was like that. I wrote the rap really quickly. It was finished within an hour. The song ‘Rock’ on our debut album was like that as well. It took around that long. There are tracks that took a week to make but were still thrown out as well. When did you start really working on making tracks? I think it was around 2015. I already knew how to play piano and guitar, and around then I tried making sounds with Logic, but while Logic was comfortable it wasn’t suitable to really start working with. I put aside making tracks for a but and then around 1 year after I tried again with Cubase and it was definitely better. Now it’s been around 3~4 years since I’ve worked on tracks. During that time I’ve make around 7 albums. While release 7 albums, you’ve continuously been producing results, don’t you feel any creative strain? Occasionally there are moments, but the world of music is quite deep and wide so the feeling of excitement is bigger. Since there’s still so much I’ve yet to try. I still get excited when I work on songs. Ever since Stray Kids debuted you’ve continuously been both a player and a producer at the same time. From the perspective of someone doing both roles, I would think your way of looking at things must be different from someone who immerses themselves in just one. Maybe that’s why, but I think I’ve always been the middle-man. If there’s anything the trainees wanted to tell the company, it would always be that I would relay it in their stead. I liked it. I’m the type to like having responsibility, so to me, that role fit me well. I also have tendency to want to please everyone, I don’t know if that’s a positive attribute but… I have yet to experience any sickness from this kind of personality, since I’m living healthily, I’m thinking of continuing to run on like this. Haha. Between an artist and a careerman, what kind of person do you think yourself closer to? I don’t think I’m either. I’m just a person who wants to say something through music. A person who wants to approach people with music. To fans, Stray Kids members, and to people who listen to my music, if I can give a good influence and energy to them then that is enough. Those moments are happy and fun enough, that whether I am a careerman or an artist it doesn’t matter at all.

Nowadays, what do you want to say with your music? What theme have you become immersed in? The topic I want to handle is always very diverse. But in the end, I tend to think of the people who listen when I make music. When talking to the 3RACHA friends while making songs, we tend to go in that direction. Most recently, to talk about a personal idea, I want to make a song with a calm melody about the topic ‘I don’t like outside the blanket.’ Fitting for the cold winter, I hope it can be a song that contains the coziness of being under the blankets. Because I think there would be a lot of people who would relate. This is an idea I had while showering a while ago, but I only thought about it. I haven’t started it yet. Good melodies or good lyrics always come to me in the shower. Maybe that’s because that’s when you’re most comfortable, when you are most relaxed? That must be it. Because it’s when I don’t think of anything else. Since it’s comfortable.

“While working on songs the are times when I’m unsure, The words my members say from beside me become an immense help.”

If there’s a music producer you like in particular, who would it be? Hip hop producer Metro Boomin. And Drake and Travis Scott. There was a time whe I really liked Drake. I became interested in making songs after watching Drake’s engineer Noah Shebib work with sounds. I raised my dream thinking that it’d be fun to work together with those people later. I still look up to Metro Boomin, Drake, and Noah Shebib. Where do you get the energy to do good work? There are two. One is fans’ feedback. If they felt good through Stray Kids’ music, or when I hear they gained hope, I come to make the resolution that ‘I really must keep doing this’. Another one is when Changbin and HAN say, “Huh, hyung. This track is good.” From that one phrase a lot of strength flows forth. While working on songs there are times when I’m unsure, the words my members say from beside me become an immense help. I love receiving feedback from Stray Kids the most. As both a producer and player, what is the one point you worry about the most? Until now, with the series and the series we’ve talked a lot about our story, but from now on I kind of want to show a song or performance with a bit of a different direction. I am thinking a lot about a new way to show the genre that is ‘Stray Kids’ well. When you define the genre of Stray Kids, what is one word that must be included? Energy. Musically, or on the aspect of the group’s identity, ‘energy’ is the word that defines us. If there’s an artist that stimulates Bang Chan the most nowadays? People might not know them very well, but the kids called Stray Kids are quite good.

Source: ARENA KOREA Translation: Candace @ FY!SKZ ; take out with full credit

[thesevillereport]

In Focus: Buffett Sells a Bank

As I was scrolling through Twitter looking for something interesting to read to feed this column I saw the same tweet headline pop up back-to-back-to-back-to-back. Buffett's decreased stake in Goldman Sachs was the headline of the tweets appearing on my feed. Whoa! That is a big deal and worth a tweet. It's also insight into how bad Mr. Buffett sees things getting from here forward.

In 2008, when the world's financial system was falling apart, Warren Buffet invested in Goldman Sachs. Berkshire Hathaway purchased $5 billion of Goldman Sachs preferred stock. The purchase also included warrants to purchase $5 billion of Goldman Sachs common stock at $115 per share. The warrants came with a five year expiration date, and the investment paid a 10% dividend. It wasn't a bad deal for Berkshire Hathaway and Warren Buffett. To me it's one of his best deals ever.

That deal wasn't made on blind-faith in the Goldman Sachs' name and brand, or their financial and intellectual capital, all of which Buffett pointed to for making the deal. Buffett made it clear that his faith in a financial recovery was contingent on the $700 billion bailout being discussed by congress at the time.

Buffett's dealings with Goldman Sachs took place around September 2008. In October 2008 congress approved the $700 billion bailout. At the time of Buffett and Goldman's union, Goldman's common stock was trading at ~$128 per share. Five years after the deal the stock was ~$156 per share. But it wasn't a slow grind from $128 to $156. In the months following the deal GS traded down to ~$53 per share. But when it was all said and done it was another win for Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway.

There is a Warren Buffett quote that comes up time and time again about being fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful. He did put those words into practice in 2008. With the financial system melting down before our eyes, and so many people unsure of how banks and the banking system would look after the Great Financial Crisis, Buffett bought a bank, or an investment bank to be more technical. It's tough to make an apple-to-apples comparison today, because unlike the financial crisis, which was seen as the doing of greedy financial institutions, there is no publicly traded fat cat to blame for COVID-19.

So now in 2020 Buffett is cutting his Goldman Sachs position, what does that say to the markets? I can't speak for the markets, but it tells me that unlike 2008, Buffett doesn't believe that government stimulus will help the financial industry in the short run. It tells me he's fearful of a United States that operates in a negative interest rate environment. It tells me he is fearful of a larger economic downtown than the administration wants to believe.

In Peter Lynch's investment playbook "One Up Wall Street" he discusses when insiders sell their positions. A CEO, CFO, VP, or any other important executive selling shares in the company they work for is a red flag to Wall Street. Investors treat an insider sale as a warning that the company is no good or heading for troubled waters. Lynch wrote that insiders sell for numerous reasons, and that we shouldn't take anything away from the insiders selling. In reality, it could be as simple as the insider is selling stock to pay for a kids education, or treating themselves to the yacht or sports plane they've always wanted, or even looking to upgrade their living quarters. Lynch tells investors to focus on when insiders buy their own stock, because an insider would only buy if they felt the stock price would go up in the future.

Buffett isn't a Goldman insider, but we view him as connected, and because he's connected maybe we're reading too much into his Goldman Sachs sell. As Peter Lynch wrote, insiders sell their positions for several different reasons, and this could be true for Warren Buffett as well. He could just need the money. (I'm laughing from that last line).

Still, my thoughts are on being fearful when everyone else is greedy. We've witnessed markets make an amazing rise since late March, as investors put their faith in the Fed with a strong belief that the Fed will prevent an economic depression. Investors have gotten greedy since late March, and maybe that is why Mr. Buffett is so fearful.  What also makes Buffett's sell more interesting is that during the week billionaire investors Stanley Druckenmiller and David Tepper both emphasized that the markets are overvalued at the current levels, David Tepper calling it one of the most overvalued markets he's seen, behind only '99, which was the markets run up to the dotcom bust.

I believe it would be wise for any market participant to take Buffett's move and Druckenmiller and Tepper's opinions into consideration. I mean they did gain their wealth by navigating the markets. I believe they are telling us, without telling us, the future of the economy looks shaky, and we should all be a bit fearful.

Thanks again for checking out In Focus, stay safe!

[myrecordcollections]

AK Musick

AK Musick

@ 1972 Germany Pressing

*****

AK Musick formed back in the early 70’s. They were interested in producing music in a very democratic way. Their legendary LP is now a very rare item of what I would call “German experimental era”. More about it in the following interview with Hans Kumpf, clarinetist. Special thanks goes to René Debot for helping me to get in contact with Hans.

There is not much known about your group AK Musick. Tell us about the formation of the band? Where did you find other members? We all five members were studying at the Teacher’s College (“Pädagogische Hochschule”) in Ludwigsburg close to Stuttgart in Southern Germany. Three of us (Alfred Lell, Winfried Koch, Hans Kumpf) had the same clarinet teacher. The singer Angela Weber I have known already from my hometown of Schwäbisch Hall, where we joined the same pupils’ choir. The Keyboarder Helmut Grab also studied with the famous composer of contemporary music Helmut Lachenmann, a Luigi Nono alumnus. Were you and other band members of AK Musick involved with any other projects before 1972? Helmut Grab was busy in improvised rock music; the others were more active in classical music. I was the only one who was really involved in jazz before. Let’s share a few words about your childhood and teen years. You grew up in Stuttgart. What did you study and what influenced you the most? I was born in Stuttgart in 1951, but the next six years I grew up in Markgröningen in the Stuttgart area. My parents moved then to Schwäbisch Hall, quite in the middle between Stuttgart and Nuremberg, in 1957. There I was impressed by foreign students of the University in Heidelberg who performed in my hometown: I could listen to the original music of Africa, Asia and America. When I was a teenager I was already interested in the music from the whole wide world. In an alternative youth club (“Alpha 60”) I attended interesting jazz concerts (like pianist Wolfgang Dauner and trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff) and later I organized “music weeks” (including classical + contemporary music, jazz an             advanced pop/folk music). In my school, which was specialized in music, I as a pupil/student had the responsibility for culture. In May 1969 I organized a bus trip to Stuttgart, where Jimi Hendrix performed – even some months before the Woodstock festival. When I was eight years old, I began with a recorder (simple flute), later I learned in lessons trumpet, piano and clarinet. Now clarinet is my main instrument. AK Musick is a really avant-garde project consistent of free jazz influences. What can you tell me about the concept behind it and what does the name actually mean? We all were eager in new things, we wanted to make music in a very democratic way. Everybody had a classical education – this was the base. Of course we were also influenced by the avant-garde  composer Helmut Lachenmann (who also was in the studio during our LP recording). He writes very intellectual compositions, and the parameters are very important (this we learned with the Stockhausen alumnus Johannes Fritsch in Darmstadt, too!). AK Musick? “AK” is a German abbreviation for “Arbeitskreis” (“workshop”), which was used at the universities quite often at that time. “Musick” is a mixture of the English “music” and the German word “Musik”. Even in medieval times they wrote “musick” in England. And in “Musick”, there is included the English word “sick”. We had humor.

Is the musical content a live-recording from the 13. German Jazz Festival Frankfurt, that held on 14.11.1972? Would you like to tell us a bit more about the pieces on the LP?

No, no – be careful! In March 1972 we played at the German Jazz Festival in Frankfurt at the Newcomer’s Concert – with more than thousand listeners and “live” a radio/TV recording. In the same hall the Rolling Stones and Janis Joplin performed before, later Miles Davis and many others. On November 14 in the same year we recorded the LP at the famous Bauer Studios in Ludwigsburg. We prepared the studio session very carefully – time is money. At least we did it in three hours. The sound engineer was Martin Wieland, who had recorded before the popular cologne concert by Keith Jarrett for the ECM label.

“Impro-Vision” sounds like electronical music – but we used only natural instruments, “Hava” is a feature for three clarinets, “Ron Do” is like a classical rondo, but with solo improvisations as the new parts. The theme we played only once, and it was later technically copied to fulfill the rondo form.

The “composition” of the first track of the AKM LP.

What can you tell me about the label AKM Records. Was this your label? The cover artwork and everything is all handmade. How did you decide to do so and how many copies were released. I believe 200?

We released 150 LP’s. We were students and had less money. Therefore it was the cheapest way to make the cover art for our own as handwork – with templates. The booklet we printed with the help of the student’s association. We worked for a December weekend at the floor of the Ludwigsburg teachers college. It made fun.  It’s crazy: Today at Ebay they pay more than 700 Dollars for our old and historic long playing disc.

How long did the project last and did you play anywhere else? Are there perhaps any other recordings still unreleased? Besides of Frankfurt, we only played in the area round Stuttgart. AK Musick as quintet xisted for a decade. In 1980 we did the performances “Spuren einer Russlandreise” („Tracks of a Russian Trip“) after Winfried Koch and me were in Moscow and Leningrad/St.Petersburg. It was a multimedia combination of art and music. We all stayed friends, but we didn’t play in the old quintet ensemble. For instance, Angela Weber, Alfred Lell and me were singing in the choir of the musical “Cabaret” at the Stuttgart State Theater…

Twelve years ago I went with a radio tape of the Frankfurt festival concert to the Bauer Studios for digitalizing the analog recording. Then I burnt CD’s for my own. That is all.

‘Free Blacks’ is your next music project. You joined forces with Perry Robinson. Wolfgang Dauner was also part of this album. What can you tell me about it? This was again a very limited issue? Perry Robinson was famous as the leading free jazz clarinet player. So he was interesting for me. I heard him several times before, but when he played in 1974 (2 years after AK Musick) at the Frankfurt festival I spoke with him, and soon we settled a duo on a bark bench outside the festival hall. We played in harmony like two brothers. After that I organized a studio recording in Stuttgart. It was after a concert he did with Gunter Hampel – between 1 and 3 o’clock in the night. Because there was time left for the LP I added three solo pieces. There is one (“Mona-a-gogo”) with a little help of my friend Wolfgang Dauner. He had invited me for recordings at the Radio Stuttgart before, and after that I arranged this peace for me as a clarinet on two different tracks. These two tracks he transformed with a ring modulation of his synthesizer. I produced 200 LP’s of “Free Blacks” (it means the free black clarinet instruments…)

AKM Records released ‘In Time’, feat. Theo Joergensmann, Bernd Konrad, ‘Jam Session Leningrad’, feat. Anatoly Vapirov, Sergey Kuryokhin, Alexander Alexandrov and ‘Jam Session Moscow’, feat. John Fischer, Leonid Chizhik, Alexey Zubov. What can you tell us about projects you had together with previously mentioned musicians? You know, I established the AKM label for my own – with no business strength. Just for fun. My clarinet colleague Theo Jörgensmann (we met us in Remscheid – close to Cologne – at a jazz clinic in 1969) had no own label, then I said he could write “AKM” on the sleeve. My second trip to the passed away Soviet Union was in December 1980/January 1981 when I had my regularly vacancies as a teacher. But then I smuggled my clarinet in and a tape out – Jam Session Leningrad. There I improvised together with saxophonist Anatoly Vapirov, bassoon player Alexander Alexandrov and the late pianist Sergey Kuryokhin. I was the first Western jazz avant-gardist to play in USSR together with resident musicians. I came as normal tourist and had to hide my ambitions against the KGB. Some months later, I traveled with my New York based friend John Fischer (piano), to Russia and we did a Session in Moscow together with the well-known players Leonid Chizhik (p), and Alexey Zubov (ts). Chizhik now lives in Munich, Zubov moved to Los Angeles. In 1984 you released ”On a Baltic Trip” album on Leo Records. What’s the story behind it and what followed after this? Leo Feigin is a refugee of former Leningrad, who worked for the Russian Service of the BBC in London and found the label “Leo Records”. He had presented my LP’s recorded in Leningrad and in Moscow already in the British radio. And so he was so friendly to release my sessions done in the Baltic metro poles of Riga, Vilnius and Tallinn as a “real” record company. In Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia I played together with leading jazz musicians there. Of course I was quite famous in whole Soviet Union thanks to the underground propaganda of the free jazz dissidents…

What are you currently working on? In meantime I am retired as a teacher. I am busier in writing articles and working as a photographer than as a clarinetist. So have no special planes as a musician. If the people ask to perform with my Polish wife Katarzyna “Polish Poetry + Jazz”, I can do it. On other sides I like to play at openings of art exhibitions, and often I play a kind of Klezmer music at events for killed Jews by the Nazi regime. If you look back in the late 60’s and 70’s. How did you see this German scene. You were more part of jazz scene, rather than rock experimental scene with acts such as Amon Düül II, Embryo etc. But were you connected with what was happening at the time and what was the scene in your city? Hitler time was not long far away. We wanted to have a better Germany. We wanted to make a democratic and world open minded music. Of course, I have known and listened to Embryo, Amon Düül, but it was no influence to AK Musick. When we played at the Frankfurt festival Paul and Limpe Fuchs (often partner of the piano player Friedrich Gulda!) joined us as surprising guests on the stage. The best concert of my hometown Schwäbisch Hall in 1969 was “Black Sabbath” with Ozzy Osbourne… They played for 600 Deutsche Marks (approx. 200 Dollars) in a former church.

AK Musick with Limpe Fuchs. Thanks for taking your time. Would you like to send a message to It’s Psychedelic Baby readers?

Keep the eyes and ears open. International understanding is so important. Maybe music can help.

Klemen

[katzenflocken]

LA Times

I went to a Halloween party in October and I wrote down my experience in my phone.

A month or so ago I had made the decision that I wanted to attend a Halloween event and ultimately I decided on scream in Edmonton. I had bought the pre-sale ticket without actually knowing who was playing since there was no lineup details but this didn't concern me because I just wanted to go have fun and listen to some jams with cool people. I had calculated the cost of bus and hotel and came up to roughly 700 for a comfortable trip with all the best food/mixed drinks at the show. I had already had my own party favors so this was one of the reasons why I wanted to keep it local in Alberta. But then the lineup got released and I only seen one artist that was potentially going to be "okay" after listening to their SoundCloud. I was feeling very on the fence and on top of that, the party only went until 2am which was making it real hard to justify a long boring ass bus ride for a short night of mostly lame edm music. (No offense to the edm enthusiasts out there)

After some Olympic tier mental gymnastics of being so sure I wanted to go to Scream, I got curious and went to the handy dandy Resident Advisor and looked at shows in Alberta then Vancouver, even Toronto. I didn't see any events I was interested in and I left it at that. Then I got the brilliant and brave idea to possibly venture outside our borders, and a few clicks later I stumbled upon louisahhh's upcoming events and noticed she was playing a show along with boys noize and tbh, it was a no brainer. I had to make this happen. After a few calculations, it was literally going to cost the same as going to Edmonton (600 cdn) but with more spending money required in American. So naturally it was 💯 percent the logical choice. The event was called Minimal Effort which was an all techno show with 4 stages. Like holy shit! This event was most definitely calling my name.

I had told family and a few friends and some them ask me why? I've already vacationed once or twice this year so why a third time? I really don't know why, there is no reason. I just like doing these things. It is true that given the current situation, I better to avoid these such things. but the idea of letting someone's words prevent me from doing something so fun and exciting yet so doable drives me mad. In fact this very idea is what makes it so evident that I am in control of my life. I create the reality I live in and why should I let others shape it for me with manipulating opinions. I would argue I am not living to die, I am dying to live. Personally I don't think it's very odd or strange to do exactly what you put your mind to, so it is in such a context that I wanted to make this trip. I hope people see what I do and feel encouraged or empowered. If I can do it you can too. But everyone isnt me and is open to their own opinion.

So my passport is lightly damaged, a few months after I got it I washed it lol whoops. I've been using it since without incident and it expires pretty quick in early 2019 so I felt confident I will make it on the plane and I did! I flew air Canada btw and their service was very meh. There was also some meean turbulence, other than that it was boring. Planes suck ass and I can't sleep on them. I had bought a roaming plan so I can text and use Google maps like a real Traveller. This was the best decision of the whole trip actually, so get ur phones working guys!

Upon landing I was very nervous because I literally didn't want to pay a lot of money to get downtown where my hostel was. But I asked this Tony hawk looking guy he gave me the rundown and to take the skyaway bus which was like 9 dollars. Hella life saver! I got downtown and got Subway spicy chicken wrap at Union station. Now I taxi'd to my hostel... It was near or in the ghetto. When the man dropped me off it was dark and these yuuuge dogs were jumping at me from the other side of the fence, confirming my suspicion that this is in fact the ghetto. I find the property next door and these dudes are smoking outside, I got their attention and they said to go upstairs and talk to "Champaign". In my head I instantly thought a black drug dealer... But then I was greeted by a slim easy going japanese dude with a samurai ponytail who spoke poor English but still had a friendly vibe. Turns out he is the cook/caretaker. I came on the night they had a dinner party that they hold once a month. Pay 10 dollars and you can eat the food that he was cooking. Champaign cooked for a army and I felt like an asshole because I literally came with a belly full of Subway. I had a few snacks and met the other Traveller's/Tennant's that were residing here. In that exact moment I felt like this is exactly where I needed to be. I was not alone and I was amongst other human beings like myself and we were all brought together by an unknown force all so Champaign can go to bed we knowing no one went to bed hungry. I actually passed out after midnight. Kinda lame but tbh I was wiped out from that hectic almost frantic trip to this hostel. The toppest compliment I give to any hotel/hostel is that this place had the best mattress, apparently they were italian (I asked lol).

Saturday (party day). My goal in the afternoon was to adventure and have a decent meal but it was getting off to a slow start due to me not figuring out where I wanted to go. I was recommended business district and looked up reviews but it was all meh. I want that yummy and probably unhealthy local food locations. The guy also said to take an Uber. Which I was like uhhhhhh iduno man... Maybe. Then as I was just getting ready to leave, this korean guy named Sam asked where I was going and he said "you should check out Korea Town, it's dope!!" And I looked up places and he said "no go here!" And I was like okay. Then he said he'll come with me and show me around after he finishes the laundry. Like a good lad I waited and in between he looked at me and whispered "hey do you do... Stuff" and there are a lot of implications there lol so I had to ask like what? And he pulled a little baggie and my reply was "yeah I like stuff" then did it and the kid lit up like a Christmas tree. He was mad hype folding the towels and then him and Champaign blazed downstairs.

One of the most fascinating yet mundane happenings was that I installed Uber on my phone. While those guys were blasting off I went ahead and gave the Uber a good historic first whirl. Little did I know my life was about to change in that exact moment. In 2 minutes after selecting where I wanted to go the driver was there. Holy shit! The cool part was that I only paid 8 dollars to go to the opposite side of the downtown. I wish I can expand on what I did, but tbh all we did was just walk and talk. It was great because it made me feel more immersed in to the city. Kind of like you had to be there type of experience. Then it was food time, he pointed out a Korean joint and I got a meal and he didn't order anything and then like 10 sides came and then 6 more little plates for the main dish. I told Sam he can have some because this is absurd. As we were eating, I slowly gazed around the place and everyone was just a little bit chubby. Sam told me Koreans don't waste their shit and eat as much as possible... Plus it's America lol. After eating like an animal and totally ruining my white shirt we went to get smokes and the line at 711 was almost way too long. Sam pointed out that everyone was powerballin' it... Then upon paying for the smokes and soda I said "one Powerball please". I had caved in and joined the race. We took an Uber back and the driver was a Mexican mom. She was cute in a grandma kind of way and we talked about there should be a "good news" radio because it's so scary listening to the radio. We laughed and laughed some more while Sam had fell into a Korean BBQ coma.

We get back to the hostel, Sam goes back to work and I have about an hour to get ready/nap before the party. Sam asked if I needed party favors and I took him up on his offer, because I hate asking at parties because it's so sketchy. At this point of the trip I realized everything is going 110% right. Sometimes I feel like I am just lucky because I always find myself in surprising situations and that now it's almost normal to me. My body and mind was totes ready to party, then I almost forget... I have stickers!!! I always have some in my bag and I grabbed at least 50 of them. People always love that shit, plus it makes everything more fun by adding another layer to the party... Lol get it? Layer?!? Aaanyways the one girl showed me how to work the door lock, basically it's an app that registers my phone to the deadbolt... What a game changer! Technology huh?! What a cool place! Then the Uber came and took like 4 dollars to get there, I think I can get used to this LA lifestyle if I ever had the chance. The dude dropped me off and I was proper nervous, made sure to hide my shit good and have my ID, ticket and game face ready because there was like 8 security in front... Also I am a pretty nervous person in general, I may seem cool and collected on the outside but on the inside I am a scared little shaking Chihuahua barking internally.

So I finally made it! All my hard work payed off! The weird thing was the guy didn't even look at my ticket, just my ID. Any Yahoo off the street could have walked in. Butt fuck it, I am here and that's all that matters. Imediately I get a beer... 8 dollars. The shit I put up with tbh, the price I pay for fun is worth it but my goodness is it painful. I wander around the theatre and it is nicely large and open. Not hot!! Can you believe that? The other stages weren't bad, too much to take it all in tbh. I settled at the main stage which was the first one you sent me when you walk in. The first artist playing was a chick, she played some good jam actually so I quite enjoyed her set. The only thing that led me to believe she doesn't actually make music and only is a DJ, was that every track she played I knew. Which is expected from shows like this but she didn't play anything "original", it's not a bad thing but if I was to critique her I'd be disappointed because I am the type of person to be wowed and I like to seek new material. I went for a smoke and met this couple dressed and Vegeta and Bulma, hella rad. They were cool, totally forget their names tho. Met this Mexican dude too who was a little short had crazy contact lenses and had a friendly chat. he was rolling which was cool because I wish I was, I even asked him but he was fresh out. The party started picking up too and louisahhh's set was about to play and I am 3 beers deep so I gotta step up my game. And guess what!? It's Modelo time homie!! Met a dude in a headdress and took a pic with him to piss off other people who are against that bullshit, as long as they are respectful about it I think it's awesome... so @ those who are trying to be offended on purpose, fuck you. Went to the bathroom and dropped my Modelo and the worker watched me do it and didn't say anything and swept it up. I went back to get another normal beer because the Modelo was 9 dollars. They mind as well get the lube ready because they are already fucking me dry. I had run out of party favors at this point because I only had a little but that's not why I am here so I accept that fact and I am just glad to be here. The dancefloor was sticky but as more spills happened it was less annoying and more people came, it made it more bearable lol if that makes sense. The sound was definitely worse at the front of the stage so I found that sweet spot 15 feet back in the zone where the speakers were pointed. 7/10 audio, it's no pk system but hey I don't mind too much! Louisahhh was stepping in and she had a super neat outfit going kind of future/madmax like. Her hair was excellent if I might add. I've always wanted to catch her set but never had the chance until now. I could say it was what I expected, which was basically the same set I've heard her play on other sets I heard from her. It's not a negative but mental gymnastics aside she could have spiced it up some more by playing new shit, like I said. I am just glad to be there.

After louisahhh played her set Boys Noize had stepped in and he opened up with that one song he always does lately lol I forget the name but let me tell you, my body was ready! The "wares" I had bought off Sam at the hostel were already used up but I didn't need any, my body was tingling from the energy in the room. I met the maddest group of lads in the crowd and I gave them a handful of stickers to help me distribute. They loved it! I was also doing "rogue" work by slapping stickers on people without them knowing. The funniest ones were the Dealer and Wasted stickers. The lazers and lights in this place were magnificent. Production was nearly top notch 7.8/10. it's a theatre but they used it as well as they could. I want to describe this experience more but going to a party is the purest chaos you can experience. It almost can't be explained, only witnessed. I honestly love being social at these events. In real life I can be very shy or unwilling to exchange or talk with others. It pains me really, I just love people and I want to make genuine friends but I feel so reluctant to meet new faces because I don't really click that well with others. I know that I am unique and sometimes strange, I am sometimes don't give a fuck but I tend to be antisocial because of paranoia that other people won't like me when they get to know the real me. When I attend rave parties, I tend to feel more free and open because I know the people in attendance are also there for the same reason I am. Obviously this may or may not be a healthy life style but it is very fulfilling in a very emotional way. I may not have that many real life friends but when on the dancefloor everyone is my friends lol that sounds like the gayest shit ever but it's true. Anyways party is still bumping and it's 6 am and I am wiped out, boys Noize played some of the best tracks I heard at awakenings I noticed. Kind of the same shit really. But it was LA so more mainstream crowd. I leave the club and it was so fucking foggy outside, like a horror movie. 2spooky4me. I hit up Uber like 4 blocks away because it was just too crazy in the front of the theatre. I got this younger driver about my age and we talked about McDonald's lol she was fun then I get back to the hostel hungry as fuck. Eated bread and smonked some herb and hit the hay.

Next morning I hung out in the common area. Watched friends and watched Champagne die from smoking weed lol he was my favorite. Cool hostel tbh very home like. I had few hours to myself before my flight so I decided I wanted to go to little Tokyo. I had to say goodbye to the hostel, the guys downstairs gave me a donut lol and I got into the Uber. The guy talked about the dodgers game like I actually give a heck about sports. He dropped me off at the entrance of Little Tokyo. This was actually the most wholesome part of my trip. The first sight of the Japanese style outside mall was kind of exhilarating because LA is mostly just the same everywhere. The buildings and decorations were very refreshing and it was a feast for the eyes. Such beauty. As I continue to explore the small but busy space I feel this feeling of wonder and excitement, it made me feel less hungover if I am being honest. The world I was seeing in that moment was powerfully moving and rich with happiness. I wanted to stay forever. In the centre there was an open space where an older Asian man in a scooter and an array of instrument s in front of him. He had a little sampler Casio and hi hats and maracas. It was like a scene out of the movies where you see those cute moments because he was playing to this couple from China that were standing in front of him and you can hear them talking to the Man in between singing lol, they gave him money to play that song from toy story "skies of blue" or whatever it's called and then at the end he pulled out the maracas and hit them on the cymbals with style. I filmed a little bit of it actually. I ended up eating sushi and chicken katsu outside on the deck and just enjoyed the experience. Alone. Fucking sad actually that I couldn't share my emotion with someone else but I really enjoyed the place. I shop in the anime store and gift shop, got a few things for friends and family then had to rush to the airport. I got to Union station and shuttle to the airport right on time. Slightly early since the flight changed to a later time. I walked around and had some beer and wings then got on the plane. Nice cozy airport experience. My dad picked me up and he was working in siksika that week so I slept in his trailer. It was cold as shit and I was late for work the next day like nothing ever happened lol. Just a quick weekend trip, no big deal. Travelling is so so so much fun, I want others to read or see my adventures and feel somewhat inspired to take more risks and go on their own adventures. Its good to open your eyes and free yourself of your surroundings, especially on the reserve. There's a world out there and there's more to life than the bullshit drama that happens here. I look at the world in wonder and amazement, I know it's a sick and sometimes dangerous place but I make it my world by appreciating it for what it is. Everything is kind of all right. Sometimes I wish I didn't exist but I don't want to die either, doing these things remind me that life can be great so I hope I don't come off braggy or I am acting "too good". I make minimum wage yet I still do all this cool stuff. It's not hard to do, just literally set your mind go and do it . I chase my dreams while others think "what if" lol but yeah do more fun shit guys!!!!

[bucky-at-bedtime]

For your 700 followers celebration congratulations by the way you deserve them 😁 I would like to request 8 and 14 with Sebastian please ?

Thank you! I hope you like this - I’m pretty sure it’s the first Seb thing I’ve written and I kept going to wrote ‘Doll,’ and then remind myself that is a Bucky thing. Anyway, I hope you love it, I certainly do ❤️❤️❤️

8: “You’re the perfect height for me to rest my chin on your head.” (Look, I modified this one a little bit, but same thing)

14: “sweetheart, come here. it’s been far too long without seeing your face.”

Words: 630

“Hey, gorgeous.” Sebastian’s face popped up on the screen of your phone and his beaming smile made you grin in response.

“Seb! I miss you so much, come home already,” you whined jokingly, knowing there was no way that could happen. He was filming a new movie in LA and you hadn’t seen each other in person for almost three weeks, only Facetiming every couple of days because you were both so busy.

“Sweetheart, you come here, it’s been far too long without seeing your face,” the words rolled of his tongue like honey and you felt a blush creep onto your cheeks.

“You’re seeing my face right now, baby,” you sassed, sending him a smirk.  You smiled down at the screen and watched him moving around his trailer.

“It’s not the same, sweetheart.”

You missed him so much. You missed his hugs and how he smelled. You missed holding his hands and his lips pressed against your skin. You missed him so much that you had booked a ticket on a plane to LA and were in an Uber on your way to the airport right now.

“Where are you?” he asked, brows pulled together in curiosity. “Are you in a car?”

“Yeah I’m in an Uber on my way to see my parents,” you lied easily, wanting to surprise him. “They making dinner and I didn’t feel like cooking,” you giggled.

He chuckled in response and let out a small groan. “God, I miss your cooking,” he mumbled, flopping down onto the couch in his trailer and holding the phone above his face. “I miss our bed. I miss running my hands through your hair. I miss the way you fit perfectly under my chin when we hug. God, I just miss everything about you”

You glanced up at the Uber driver and blushed, even though you were wearing headphones you still felt embarrassed. “I’ll make you tacos as soon as we’re together again” you giggled. “Now, I gotta go, the Uber is pulling up. love you.”

“Love you too, baby, have fun!”

When you got out of the Uber, you made your way through the airport as quickly as you could, ecstatic with excitement as you thought about surprising Bucky. When you finally boarded the plane, you couldn’t relax and spent the entire flight talking to the girl next to you about your wonderful boyfriend.

The plane landed in LA at 6pm and you got in an Uber, heading straight to the hotel Sebastian was staying at.

“Room Service!” You knocked on the door of the room you knew he was staying at and heard some movement from inside. He mumbled something about not ordering anything.

Finally, the door swung open and he froze in shock. His mouth was open and his eyes wide as he stared at you.”

“Hi, Seb.”

“Are you– You’re really– what’re you–” he gave up quickly on forming a sentence, instead,  pulling you towards him and wrapping his arms around you.

It was as if the world disappeared for a moment - all that was left was you and him, his arms around you and your body pressed against his. all you could hear was your own breath and his heart beating a mile a minute in his chest as he pressed his lips to your head, your face, your mouth. At that moment there was nothing but each other. 

“I couldn’t stay away,” you chuckled, blinking away the tears that had formed in your eyes. “I missed you too much.”

His propped his chin on your head and took a deep breath in, comforted by your presence alone. “I’m so happy you’re here. God, I love you so much,” he mumbled, eyes squeezed shut in relief. “Missed you so much.”

[hugthesnail]

I wrote a short story! :D

SKY-DIE-VING

I’m falling.

‘Thanks, Captain Obvious. You’re literally free falling right now, after all.’ The sarcastic voice in my head rang. The wind whistled in my ears, tangling my hair, making it a mess. Just like my life, I guess.

No one knew what I had planned. A little sadistic act of surprise.

It was only a few minutes ago, where I was still on land. My friends (or should I say betrayers) looked at me anxiously as I agreed to get on the plane, to only jump from it after a while.

‘Skydiving’s… dangerous, ya know? Ya sure you’ve thought this through?’ Sylvia asked, her voice trembling, with a faux look of concern on her face. What an actress. She probably wants to get rid of me anyway.

I nodded, my face stony as the pilot passed me the consent form. His face bulged as he stared at me, confused. Apparently, he didn’t expect such a young kid to do this. Especially when the kid’s parents aren’t here.

‘Show me your ID, please.’

I gave him my ID card and gave him a pointed look as he finally registered the fact I was 18.

‘Where are your parents, kid? I know you’re 18, but normally your parents would be here to make sure everything’s fine…’

‘They’re on vacation.’ I replied, with a slight edge on my voice. Those were the code words for MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS.

The pilot shut up immediately.

My parents were… let’s say it’s better for everyone to not know the truth. They simply don’t care about me. They wouldn’t miss me if I was gone. I’m not important to them.

I got on the plane and listened to the instructor ramble on and on about safety measures. I kept nodding complacently, keeping the instructor in my peripheral vision while my mind wandered around. Slipping my hand into my pocket, I fumbled around, looking for the note. It was important, made sure no one got the blame. I didn’t want to screw up others’ innocent lives just because of a stunt. My hand balled into a fist, covering the note, holding on to it as if my life depended on it.

Wow. The irony.

Soon, we were up to 4000 meters. With all the equipment fastened around me, the parachute container tied snugly around my waist, I waited for the instructor’s signal. Slowly, the plane door slid open, groaning loudly against the metal walls that protected me.

As I stepped closer to the edge, the instructor’s voice called behind me. ‘You sure this is your first time skydiving? Normally, newbies would be freaking out. But you...you don’t seem scared at all!’

‘Yeah. I’m not. I guess I’m not like the others, then.’ I smiled gingerly, to placate any suspicion the instructor had. No one must know what I’m going to do. Or maybe I’m just being paranoid.

‘3, 2,1! JUMP!’

I leapt from the plane, away from the safe haven.

People say it’s a leap of faith, skydiving. In my scenario, it’s a leap of death.

And now I’m freefalling. With no one around me, but the picture-perfect clouds that looked like cotton candy. Mmmm, cotton candy. Do they exist in the afterlife?

It’s peaceful up here. No one to hurt me, but my thoughts. Sylvia and her entourage couldn’t touch me here.

How did I even become friends with them before?

Sylvia was once my best friend. Well, she’s technically still my friend now, but everything’s changed.

She met Abbie. The Sylvia I once knew, was gone. She’s only sticking with me because she’s forced to. Her parents thought we were still ‘best friends’. She’s probably down there right now, chatting with Abbie, thinking about how this was a waste of time.

Gone were the nights we whispered and gossiped about others.

Gone were the nights where we called all night long.

Gone were the nights where I listened to her cry, consoling her, trying to cheer her up.

I tried to mend our friendship. Maybe I just suck at socializing.

I’ve heard her complain to Abbie about me. ‘Oh, she’s so hard to deal with, I don’t know what to do anymore. She does nothing but trash talk others.’

Look who’s trash-talking now.

You were the one who turned against me, leaving me the only one trying to salvage our friendship.

Who stood there, apathetic, as Abbie crushed me with her cruel words? Abbie was probably the one who spread all those rumours about me too. I asked you once, and you got defensive.

Of course. Popularity and reputation are more important than friendship. I get it.

No one’s here for me now, no one’s here consoling me while I cry and think about how useless I am as a person.

All this thinking makes my heart hurt once again. I should stop thinking about this.

I focus on the scenery, while I fall from the sky, the blue and white swirling, mixing to form some immaculate pattern on a porcelain vase.

Everything’s getting closer and closer now. I can make out the faint outlines of the buildings, and even the trees. I check the altimeter, and I’m now at around 1500 meters.

I’m supposed to deploy the parachute when the altimeter says 760 meters. Guess I’m not going to listen. Considering I’m a newbie here, normal procedures would require me to use an Automatic Activation Device. Thank goodness this skydiving company is too broke to actually have any. Normal procedure would also require an instructor to dive along with me.

I’m sure they’ll get some mandatory upgrades after this happens.

The thoughts keep coming, hitting me as I try to fall in silence.

‘No one will miss you.’

‘You’re making the world a better place.’

‘You’re a burden to everyone. Wasting your parents’ money.’

I used to fight them, but I’ve given up. They always come back, haunting me.

As I let the thoughts consume me, my heart starts to ache more. A pair of invisible hands tightens against my throat, trying to cut off my air supply. I tell it to stop. That’s not how I want to die, by suffocation.

It’s not too late to turn back...yet. But I have no reason to turn back. It hurts to live, why would I keep living?

Oh, spare me the spiel. ‘Plenty of people would miss you, don’t die, you matter!’

I sigh and stare straight ahead. Lies. All lies.

I check the altimeter again. 970 meters. I thought this would be quicker.

Well, I’m allowed to have some fun I guess. It’s called self-care.

I spread my arms and flap them around. Not my hands, though. They’re still curled into fists, my right hand holding the note that would explain everything. I fly, like a bird, soaring through the sky. A taste of freedom. I close my eyes and imagine myself as light as a feather, floating and bending gently, at the mercy of the wind.

‘BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP’ The frantic alarm blares, waking me up from my imagination.

760 meters. I glance at the altimeter, as it drops.

700. 650. 600. 550.

The numbers flash in a frenzy. The instructor probably knows something’s up now. Sylvia and her posse too.

It feels quicker now. I shoot down, speedy as a bullet. ‘GOGOGOGOGOGO’ my mind screams at me, insane from the sudden adrenaline rush.

I start laughing uncontrollably, tears threatening to spill out from my eyes. Finally, freedom!

My life starts flashing before me. Hah. So the cliche’s actually true.

My parents’ fuzzy faces swim in front of me, swiftly replaced by a cackling Abbie and a smirking Sylvia.

I can finally escape from my failure of a life now.

I glance at the altimeter. 190 meters away from the end.

I see my target now, on the grey asphalt below me. I see small ants, rushing towards the spot where I’m about to land. They’re too slow. No one can save me now. And I don’t want to be saved.

100.

The visions come lightning fast, people’s faces merging, the insults, the laughs, all intensifying, becoming louder.

I clench the note harder, feeling the paper crinkle under my grasp.

50.

Shrill screams are piercing through the air, sharp as knives.

Calmly, I position my limbs into a perfect swan dive.

I am a fallen angel, falling from grace.

As every second passes, everything magnifies. I see everyone’s looks of fear as they witness a girl plummeting to her death.

25.

I smile, for the first time in ages.

0.

My head smashes against the runway, as footsteps vibrate the ground beneath me, ringing in my ears. I don’t feel anything.

The darkness swaddles me in a warm blanket, giving me a hug, welcoming me like a loving mother to her child.

I fell.