#it would be very funny to me if you name the cat Taxi short for Tax Evasion

[eightfoldslibrary]

Prompt: A stray cat follows Isabel home one rainy afternoon. Bonus: The cat is a spirit that almost matches her spectral color, but is not the same shade.

Alternatively: the cat is normal and is actually friendly, but only to her specifically.

[artificialqueens]

Galactica, Chapter 23 (Group Fic) - TheDane/Veronica

A/N: We know our posting schedule has gotten slower, but we hope you’re still enjoying the story. XOXO! Click here if you’re looking for previous chapters (or here if you’d rather read on AO3). 💫

Last Chapter: The Galactica afterparty brought people together in many different ways.  

This Chapter: NYFW comes to an end, and the team leaves for London, some more enthusiastically than others.

***

Ivy strolled through the courtyard at Bryant Park, on her way to deliver a charged battery pack to Raja before the Ralph Lauren show began, since Raja was as incapable of keeping her own alive as she was caring for the plants she continually adopted, all of that falling on Ivy - who fortunately didn’t mind, enjoying the relaxing tasks of caring for them as a break from the craziness of corporate life.

Most assistants as experienced as Ivy would be annoyed at doing this kind of menial delivery task, some probably even seeing it as demeaning, but Ivy was happy for the excuse to get out of the office and observe the colorful chaos of New York Fashion Week in person. Especially today, on the last day, when people from every walk of life seemed to converge in Bryant Park in a strange and glorious blend of humanity.

If Ivy was being honest with herself, she was quite the people watcher. She loved sitting back and collecting knowledge about others, not because she wanted to do anything with the information, but just to satisfy her own relentless curiosity, which was as much a part of her as the gap in her teeth.

She’d seen so much over the course of this week, so many things that she knew people probably had no idea she knew. She had watched her own boss quietly panic a few hours before the Galactica show, a look in her eyes that everyone else missed--people always assumed that Raja was 100% confident all the time, but Ivy knew better. She’d seen the way Pearl showed up every day looking more and more hungover, the young executive clearly going through something that she was desperately trying to party away. She’d noticed Violet at the party last night, slipping away with Sutan, one of her first glimpses ever into Violet’s personal life.

After dropping off the battery pack, Ivy took her time returning to the line of waiting taxis, taking in the eclectic group of people swarming around and she stopped to buy herself an iced coffee. She was leaning against the wall when she noticed someone staring at her. Ivy definitely recognized the other woman, a redhead with even brighter hair than her own, but she couldn’t place her, which made her feel slightly uncomfortable as the other didn’t look away, their eyes meeting across the courtyard. A fellow observer, she supposed.

Ivy smiled a little, deciding to take a chance on fate, and raised her hand to wave, and the other woman returning it with the brightest smile Ivy had ever seen.

***

“Remember to check with the hotel if they have washed the sheets correctly. You know I can’t tolerate perfume.”

“Yes Miss.” Violet nodded as she jotted down the last of what Fame had asked her. They were leaving the last show of the week, the sun going down as Fame walked towards her car.

“And what about Monday?”

“Your travel itinerary is printed, packed and ready to go. I even emailed it to Mr. Bertschy.”

“Good.” Fame looked at Violet, her sunglasses perched in her blonde hair, and for a moment, just a moment, it almost seemed like Fame was smiling.

“That’s all.”

***

Courtney swayed a bit to the music in the crowded club. It was Saturday: New York Fashion Week was officially over, and on Monday, her boss was flying to Europe for three weeks. Three amazing weeks where she wouldn’t have to run around like a maniac fetching coffee or jumping up in fear every time she heard footsteps or trying to read her mind while on the receiving end of a withering glare.

“Uh oh…”

“What?” Courtney asked, seeing Willam’s furrowed brow.

“Four o’clock. Someone better call the wedgie police, because...yikes.”

Courtney giggled, turning her gaze in the direction Willam gestured and then immediately covering her face.

“Oh god, that looks painful!”

“I bet she’s bleeding.”

Courtney laughed harder. She’d been having a surprisingly good time with Willam; in spite of her apprehension about him, it wasn’t awkward at all. She felt comfortable, almost like she was with one of her girlfriends. He was funny and charming and when she said she was thinking about going vegan, didn’t make an annoyed face. He simply took out his phone and searched for the best vegan restaurants in the neighborhood.

He’d treated her to a pretty good dinner, where he’d again listened kindly while she vented about work, and then they’d made the short walk to the club, where Sólseturstríðsmenn was about to perform.

The best thing about Willam so far, though, was that he was such a perfect gentleman. He wasn’t trying to get her drunk, or getting handsy like most guys. He was treating her like a person, which Courtney supposed shouldn’t have been such a brand new experience on a date, but here she was.

“So, I know you said that you’re a lightweight, but I’m gonna grab another drink. You want one?”

“Um...yeah, okay,” Courtney said with a smile. “Why not?”

As he headed towards the bar, Courtney watched him closely, trying to gauge her attraction. As different as he was from the boys she’d dated in the past, there was something oddly compelling about him. She found her eyes drifting down to his ass--which wasn’t flat like most guys, but rounded, almost peachy, and Courtney wondered what it would feel like to just grab ahold of it. She looked away quickly, her cheeks growing hot.

She wondered if he would try to kiss her tonight. She didn’t love the idea of a beard against her face, but he did have full, soft lips, and maybe it would be nice. Maybe she did like Willam. Wouldn’t it be crazy to date a boy who didn’t make her sigh with irritation when his name came up on the caller ID?  

When he returned with the drinks, she accepted hers gratefully and beamed up at him.

“What?” he asked, those pretty blue eyes looking at her with amused curiosity.

“I was just thinking about what a good time I’m having,” said Courtney.

“Why do you sound so surprised?” he laughed. “I’m a very fucking good time.”

Courtney gave a cute shrug, then giggled, taking his arm and leaning a head on his shoulder. Maybe she should have tried dating a guy who wasn’t an absolute dickhead much sooner.

***

“You’re such a brat,” Pearl laughed, sipping a beer as she watched Trixie stuff clothes into his suitcase, pouting the whole time.

He had really hoped to avoid Europe this year, or at least be able to cut his trip short. But instead, Fame had decided that it was important for the whole senior creative team to be there the entire time, to absorb the inspiration. As if he couldn't get all the inspiration he needed right here in New York.

Trixie looked up at Pearl with a scowl.

“Don’t you have your own packing to do?” he asked.

“It takes me exactly 4 minutes to pack,” Pearl told him, a smirk on her face. “When you’re this perfect, everything looks good together.”

“All black everything helps too.”

“I have whites.”

“Whatever.” Trixie rolled his eyes.

“I don’t know why you’re pouting, man. It’s three weeks in Europe, paid for by the company. Partying on someone else’s dime.” Pearl flipped her long blonde hair over her shoulder. “It’s the dream.”

“I don’t like partying.”

“You used to like partying,” Pearl said, adding, “You used to be cool.”

“Well, I guess I’m just not cool anymore!” Trixie snapped, just as Katya appeared in the doorway.

“Of course you’re cool, baby,” she cooed. “The coolest cat in the joint.”

Pearl burst out laughing, and Trixie crossed his arms.

“Are you mocking me now, too?”

“Nooo, never!” Katya dropped down to her knees beside him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. “And just to show you how great I think you are, I’m making a special lunch just for you.”

“Oh yeah?” Trixie asked, suddenly interested.

“Uh huh…” Katya rubbed his back. “Now, I’ve never tasted this regional delicacy myself, but I have it on good authority that it’s one of your very favorites. It’s called ‘Tater Tot Hotdish.’”

“What? Tater Tot Hotdish? Seriously?” Trixie clapped his hands excitedly.

“Yes, baby, and I made enough for you to take a big old portion with you on the place tomorrow.”

“God, you’re the absolute best,” Trixie said, taking Katya’s face in his hands and laying a kiss on her. “I’m gonna miss you so much.”

“Aww, I’ll miss you too, along with the goods.” Katya squeezed his ass, giggling.

Trixie pulled back to study her face. She seemed normal, but he’d noticed her getting up early lately, meeting one of her friends from rehab in the mornings before work. They’d been together long enough for him to know that these things came in cycles, and getting some extra support was nothing to panic over, but with both him and Pearl leaving town at the same time, he couldn’t help but worry.

“Are you gonna be okay while we’re gone? Really?”

“Of course I am, sugarbutt.” Katya gave him one of her signature 1000-watt smiles. “Now, excuse me, I need to go check on your tots.”

He watched her go, still not entirely convinced. Maybe it would be a good idea for someone to check on her while he was away. Someone responsible and trustworthy...

***

Violet saw her work phone vibrate out of the corner of her eye, her screen lighting up. She tried to read it, tried to make out who had contacted her, when she was pulled out of her thoughts.

“Am I not entertaining enough?”

Violet turned to look, Sutan’s warm voice loud and clear, a smirk on his lips. They were eating breakfast at a cafe near his apartment, a plate of half eaten avocado on rye in front of her, while Sutan had opted for waffles and scrambled eggs.

“Of course.”

It had been Violet’s idea to meet up for breakfast before Sutan had to leave. She had meant to come over, had meant to spend more time with him, but the week had flown by, and suddenly it had passed without the two of them actually seeing each other.

“I just need-” Violet bit her lip and titled her phone, surprise hitting her when she saw that Trixie was the one who had texted. “Oh. I have to-”

“Lovely eyes-” Violet looked at him again, Sutan’s elbow leaning on the table, his fingers around a steaming hot cup of coffee. “What could possibly be more important than me?”

“Work.”

“Ow.” Sutan laughed, holding a hand to his heart, and Violet felt a surge of embarrassment crash over her.

“Sorry,” Violet hadn’t meant to be so blunt, hadn’t meant to dismiss him so harshly, “I didn’t-”

Her phone vibrated again, and Violet saw that she had gotten a second message from Trixie.

“I have to-”

“Ignore me if you must,” Sutan was clearly entertained by it, his tone teasing, “but know that I’m not usually treated like this Miss Chachki.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Violet opened the texts, quickly scanning them.

TRIXIE: Hi Violet. I was wondering if you could do me a favor? While I’m in Europe, do you mind checking in on Katya?

TRIXIE: Just once or twice if you have time.

Violet bit her lip. She considered Katya someone she liked, maybe even a friend if the blonde agreed, but she wasn’t sure and that she was close enough to check in on her, whatever that meant.

TRIXIE: You could bring her dinner? She likes chinese.

“So,” Sutan titled his head, his foot on tapping against her shin.  “Is it important?”

Sutan’s voice was still warm, his tone still light, but Violet didn’t want to push him any further, didn’t want to risk him getting annoyed or tired. Violet flipped her phone, turning the screen to the table. “It’s not an emergency.”

“Good,” Sutan chuckled, and Violet felt her stomach do a flip, the man stupidly attractive when he was laughing, his dark eyes ones she swore she could drown in. “I was worried for a minute that Fame had remembered she was flying tomorrow.”

“Ah,” Violet hid a smile behind her teacup.

“I’m just happy that I’m on an entirely different flight.”

She had never seen Fame on a plane, but she had heard first hand experiences from senior staff who had been with her, and had even helped her prepare more than once.

“Speaking about phones though-” Sutan smirked.

“We weren’t-“

“I looked for you on Instagram.”

Violet raised an eyebrow, her food still forgotten on her plate. “Why?”

“Because I enjoy your company?” Sutan chuckled, and Violet realized that she was being unnecessarily harsh once again, but she didn’t like that Sutan had gone looking for information about her, her chest tightening. “I couldn’t find you, do you have a nickname or somethi-”

“I don’t have an account.”

“Violet,” Sutan leaned back in his chair, “Just because I wasn’t upset about the assistant thing doesn’t mean I’m okay with you lying.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Please.” Sutan rolled his eyes, actually sounding annoyed now. “Why wouldn’t you-“

“I don’t use social media.” Violet ran her fingers through her hair, looking directly at Sutan. “I don’t have time.”

She wasn’t lying. When everyone else had jumped on the social media train, Violet had been busy, so she had never gotten on Myspace or Twitter or Instagram or whatever else people had profiles on. When Violet applied to Parsons, she had even deactivated the Facebook her mom had made her make when she moved to New York, the decision almost making itself.

Her lack of social media was one of the reasons she became friends with Pearl, the blonde absolutely fascinated by the fact that the only way she could reach Violet was by email or text.

She wasn’t unaware of the online world, Pearl keeping her in the loop of trends, and she sometimes used the office computer to look at pugs on Youtube, but all in all, Violet simply wasn’t interested in creating her own content.

“Do you promise?”

Violet was happy with being anonymous, was very happy that she didn’t exist online, and she intended to keep it that way for as long as she possibly could.

“I promise,” Violet nodded, leaning over the table to give Sutan a quick, closed mouthed kiss.

***

“Darling,” Fame tightened her grip, the fabric of Patrick’s jacket between her fingers. The hustle and bustle of the airport was all around them, and Fame wished she could disappear.  “Look at me.”

Fame huffed, turning her head and nuzzling further into Patrick’s neck.

“I know you’re upset-” Patrick ran a hand up her back.

To say that she was upset was an understatement. In fact, she was livid, anxiety and anger like a storm inside of her. She knew it wasn’t fair, knew she was being a child, but she didn’t want to fly without Patrick, didn’t want to risk her life without her husband at her side.

She had asked him to come along, had been ready to beg, but Patrick had work, had his own company to run, and it wasn’t fair of Fame to expect him to get on a transAtlantic flight with her, just so she didn’t have to do it alone.

“You’ll be fine.”

Fame sighed, the scent of Patrick filling her nose. They were waiting for Raja and Raven, Raja ready to take her hand and not let go until they touched down in London.

Fame knew that Raven hated it, but she could live with the stink eyes and Raven’s pouting if it meant that she had one of the few people she trusted by her side the entire time she was off the ground.

***

Courtney typed at lightning speed, adding the last three messages into Miss Fame’s phonesheet, then clicked back over to continue checking her emails.

Since most of the senior executives were on a plane to London, she had been expecting a chill morning, but it was the exact opposite: the phone was ringing off the hook: press requests for interviews and to borrow pieces of the collection, invitations, buyers, influencers. Not to mention the flurry of activity within the company to get the ready to wear versions of the Spring line into stores. Courtney could barely read one email before three more came in, she and Violet in constant communication as they made sure nothing slipped through the cracks.

The one saving grace was that apparently, it was tradition for things around the office to get much more casual while Fame and the others were away, and so she was wearing jeans, sneakers, and a cute Lululemon top.

The clothes were such a huge bonus that Courtney didn’t even mind that Violet had sent her to marketing three times: running up and down the stairs in sneakers was a hell of a lot nicer than doing it in heels.

Courtney was almost finished catching up on her emails when Violet stood up.

“I’m getting a cup of tea, do you want anything?”

Courtney looked up with a smile, thrilled that she and Violet were getting along so well today. Although the frenzied activity was a bit overwhelming for her, Violet seemed to thrive in it, and thus her patience had increased about two thousand percent.

“Um, I’ll take coconut water, if we have any. Thanks,” Courtney said, and Violet nodded, ducking into the kitchen.

The phone rang once again, and Courtney answered it, picking up her notepad and a pen. “Miss Fame’s office…”

“Hi, Bianca Del Rio for Fame.”

“I’m sorry, she’s unavailable right now, may I take a message?” Courtney asked sweetly. She couldn’t help wondering if Bianca might possibly recognize her voice, and found her cheeks coloring slightly at the thought.

“Oh shit. She’s on the plane to London now, huh?”

“Umm…” Courtney knew that she wasn’t supposed to reveal exactly where Fame was, but it was one of her closest friends, so maybe it would be okay. She settled on a slightly evasive, “...Possibly.”

Bianca laughed. “Very good work, Courtney. Protecting your boss’s privacy. I love it.”

“I do my best,” Courtney said, trying to suppress the grin she couldn’t seem to help whenever Bianca paid her a compliment. She wasn’t sure why, though, since Bianca obviously couldn’t see her, but even so… “Did you want to leave a message?”

“Nah...I’ll just text her,” Bianca said. “Bye, Courtney. Have a good day.”

“Bye, Bianca. You too.” Courtney hung up, just as Violet’s head appeared in the doorway, irritation all over her face.

“That better not have been Bianca Del Rio,” Violet said, a hand on her hip.

“Umm…”

“Courtney! We’ve been over this. You need to show people more respect. She’s the editor-in-chief of Marie-Claire, for god’s sake!”

“I know, but I…” Courtney trailed off, biting her lip. She wasn’t sure how to explain to Violet how wrong it would’ve felt to address Bianca as ‘Ms. Del Rio’ like she was supposed to. It was so stiff and formal, and their relationship felt much more casual than that. Courtney blushed, realizing that even the word ‘relationship’ was an overstatement. She was probably just being stupid, should probably just listen to Violet and shut up. “I’m sorry, I’ll remember next time.”

“You better,” Violet said. “Because if Miss Fame had heard that, she would’ve been livid.”

Courtney nodded, and Violet seemed satisfied with that, handing over the bottle of coconut water.

***

In the nearly four years that Ivy had worked for Raja, she’d lost count of the number of times people expressed amazement that the infamous “Dragon Lady” had managed to hold onto an assistant for so long.

In spite of Raja’s deserved reputation for being tough, Ivy felt immensely lucky to be working for her. For one thing, she was smart and insanely talented. And while she was by no means soft or low maintenance, Ivy always found her to be fair--even generous, when the situation warranted it. And the fact that she respected Ivy so much, often asking her for her opinions and consulting with her about important decisions, meant a lot--as did the trust she put in her to handle many things on her own. They had a system, and it worked for both of them.

But all that said, Ivy still enjoyed the few times a year when her boss was out of town. For one thing, it was nice to be more in control of her own schedule, and for another, it gave her the opportunity to work on one of her absolute favorite tasks: organizing the deep storage in one of their downstairs warehouses.

The styling closet next to Raja’s office was relatively easy to keep up with. Sure, it got a little messy at times, but if she stayed late or came in early every few weeks, she could manage. But the warehouse was another animal entirely. It often became the dumping ground for everything from design, referred to with nicknames like the Bermuda Triangle and the Couture Graveyard.

It was Ivy’s job to keep everything neat and labeled, and with how rare it was for her to get large amounts of time to handle it, this was no small feat. Right now, her task was to meticulously label and store every piece from the runway show, and to update her system to track the loans. She always felt a little bad about the cast-offs. In the past, they saved every garment, even the ones that were not approved, usually all smushed together in one extra-large garment bag--but this collection had about 10 times the amount of these little orphaned pieces as usual.

The three weeks of European Fashion Week were truly the greatest; all of senior management was  gone, which meant that the support staff could wear whatever they wanted to the office. Ivy was personally dressed in something she would never get caught dead in with Raja in the office, but sneakers and jeans were perfect for dancing along to Taylor Swift and moving heavy boxes as she got down to the nitty gritty of cleaning the warehouse.

[keichanz]

Smooth

I’m not even kidding when I say this literally came out of absolutely freakin’ nowhere while I was at work today and I just had to write it sooo here, have this funny little oneshot that I had so much fun writing lol 

Smooth talking Inuyasha is smooth as fuck and honestly i want him to do naughty things to me lajdf;ajfi okay soRRY HERE’S THE STORY 

“Hey there, gorgeous. How about a smile? Bet you’ll look even prettier.”

The familiar press of a hand against her scantily clad ass had Kagome freezing in her tracks and a force smile to spread across her face as she slowly turned to face the what seemed to be the nth pervert that night that couldn’t keep his hands to himself.

She was greeted with a wolfish smile and a suggestive leer coming from starling blue eyes that made her skin crawl. Wisely the man retracted his hand and gave her an obvious once over, male approval in his gaze as he took in the short leather skirt that barely covered her ass and the matching blank and red corset that she was forced to wear as part of her “uniform.”

It was the most ridiculous thing Kagome had ever been required to wear for a job, but her boss insisted on it, and she needed this job, so she sort of had no choice in the matter. Still, it was the number one reason why she’d been felt up so many times this night, as well as any other night she worked here at The Tipsy Monk, and she swore she was not going to be held responsible for her actions if some pervert grabbed her ass one more time...

“Can I get you anything?” Kagome managed to girt out through her forced smile and inconspicuously edged herself away from him. A brief flash of silver caught her peripheral and she flicked a curious glance toward at, but it was already gone so she tuned he attention back to what appeared to be the wolf demon in front of her.

Teeth flashed in a charming grin and Kagome mentally groaned. Oh god, here we go—

“For starters, sweet thing, you can get me your number.” He waggled his eyebrows at her like it was the most clever pick up line in the entire world.

Kagome had heard better lines from her cat.

Still keeping the fake smile pasted on her lips – luckily this guy looked dumb enough to fall for it – Kagome tittered and cooed, “Well, give me your phone, big guy.”

The wolf looked shocked for a minute, like he actually couldn’t believe that it had worked, before frantically searching in all of his pockets for the elusive device and then withdrawing it with a sound of triumph a full minutes later.

Tucking her server tray under an arm, Kagome wordlessly took the device from him, went into his contacts and added a number that consisted of all zeroes before handing it back to him with the same false, sugary sweet smile.

“I don’t get off until ten, though, so make sure to call me after that, yeah?” Kagome said, tipping a pink to the shell shocked wolf demon and then promptly turning around to continue her work, immediately dropping the smile and rolling her eyes so hard it hurt.

Determined to ignore the handsy wolf demon for the rest of the night – she heard a badly stifled “fuck yes” and had to refrain from rolling her eye again – Kagome sighed and tried not to look at the clock as she approached the nearest table and started piling empty glasses onto her tray.

She was exhausted, the leather was chafing uncomfortably against her skin, her feet were killing her in the only pair of heels she owned that went with her monotonicity of a uniform, and she was one badly timed grope away from fucking decking the next asshole that dared put his hand on her like she was a piece of meat.

“I need this job, I need this job, I need this job...” Kagome muttered to herself as she wiped down the polished wood then headed back to the counter to drop off the empties and get a fresh round for the table in the back that liked to tip in twenty’s.

Well, Kagome mused as Sango smiled sympathetically and prepared her order. At least that’s one good thing coming from such a crappy night.

A little ways down the bar, sitting on the bar stool and nursing a cold brew, amber eyes discreetly studied the black-haired bombshell with the great legs leaning over the counter and chatting with the tender as she waited for her order. He wasn’t blind; of course he noticed how it looked as if she’d been poured into that mini skirt and corset, the leather clinging to her figure in all the right places and showing off a generous amount of cleavage he wouldn’t mind getting closely acquainted with.

The thing was, though, Inuyasha wasn’t the only one who’d noticed and it was very obvious her patience was running thin. He’d noticed her the instant he’d walked into bar at around 6 pm and he’d been watching her get grabbed at and handled all night. Anger on her behalf always flared up whenever he spotted some asshat daring to put his dirty mitts on her, and he was relieved to see that she handled herself beautifully, always skirting away with a smile and a playful wag of a finger. He knew her smile was forced, though, and as the hours dragged on the strain was becoming that much more evident.

He suspected the next poor sod that made the unfortunate decision to grab that perfect ass was going to get throat punched. And Inuyasha was going to revel in it.

Frowning, the silver-haired hanyou tipped back the rest of his beer and fished out a twenty to pay for his tab. While it was hard for him to get truly drunk, he still wanted a clear head just in case he had to intervene if one of the aforementioned poor sods decided to ignore her chaste reprimand and get a little more than just handsy with the attractive waitress.

Bar brawls were uncommon in a place like The Tipsy Monk – Miroku had a very strict policy that all fights be taken outside or you were banned indefinitely – but Inuyasha had more than once had to step in before things got out of control between drunken patrons.

Disagreements between female employee and male customer were at a grand total of zero, and he’d like to keep it that way. He was sure Miroku felt similarly.

Preoccupied as she was avoiding grabby hands, delivering drinks, and keeping up a cheerful disposition while most likely trying to maintain a regular breathing pattern in that tight as fuck corset, his beautiful waitress failed to notice his blatant staring so Inuyasha continued to watch her, propping an elbow on the bar and resting his head in his hand. He made sure to pay special attention to the wolfshit that had so boldly asked for her number earlier, and though he doubted she’d put her actual number in her phone, he didn’t know that and as such he might think it was grounds to get a little more confident with his moves.

Keh. Inuyasha narrowed his eyes.

Not on his fucking watch.

The night dragged on until suddenly it was last call and thankfully his services hadn’t been needed. His little vixen in leather had successfully managed to dodge wandering hands for the remainder of the night, the wolf hadn’t approached again, apparently content with his perceived success, and Inuyasha felt confident in leaving the bar for the employees to start closing.

He didn’t go far, though, only going a few feet away and leaning against the brick wall of the neighboring building as he waited for his pretty waitress to leave. He knew Miroku was always the last one out, and he never let his female employees leave through back entrance at night.  Sure, he may be a pretty sketchy pervert, but he was a decent guy where it counted and he did care for the welfare of his employees. Knowing this, you’d think the guy would allow his waitresses to dress in a way that did not draw the male gaze.

So, decent guy? Yes. Smart?

Nope.

The door opened and the bartender exited first, a tall brunette by the name of Sango who’d given him his beers with a friendly smile. She was fairly new and Inuyasha liked her. She waved at him, he waved back, and then his beautiful bombshell appeared right after her and his face lit up.

He watched as she bid a weary farewell to the tender and then walked in the opposite direction, away from him, and she appeared to be digging around in her purse for something as she walked down the street, distracted.

Pushing back from the wall Inuyasha followed after her, opening his mouth to call out for her to wait when he stepped on something with a slight give and he paused, looking down because that hadn’t been pavement.

Black brows popped up into the silver fringe of his bangs and Inuyasha knelt down to snatch up the rectangular object. It was one of those wallet phone case combo things, where one could slid their phone into the designated sleeve while the rest of it operated like a regular wallet, credit card slots and everything.

He opened it up and grinned. Staring back at him was his beautiful brown-eyed waitress, smiling from the photo on her license through the clear sleeve. Her phone was safely tucked away and secured in its own spot and when his thumb touched the screen, he chuckled when the screen came to life and he saw her lock screen was a picture of a very fat cat.

“Cute,” he mumbled before closing it up and making sure it was closed. Then he took off after her, glad he had the excuse to approach her now and not come off as some creeper waiting for her shift to end.

You know. Like what he was doing before she dropped her wallet.

Pushing those thoughts to the back of his mind, Inuyasha caught up with her just as she rounded the corner and reached out to stop her with a hand to her shoulder.

“Hey—”

Throwing him completely by surprise, Kagome Higurashi swung around, balled her fist, and decked him right in the fucking face.

“I’ve had it with you grabby perverts!” she hollered before promptly turning on her heel with a huff and stomping off, deciding to hail a taxi instead of walking the block to her apartment. She flagged one down in short order and didn’t even look at the scumbag still lying on the ground as she climbed inside, muttered her address, and disappeared down the street.

Stunned, Inuyasha could do nothing but lie there and stare up at the dark sky as his mind slowly processed what had just happened.

Jesus Christ, she had just punched him. Hard. And it had actually knocked him off his feet.

Holy fuck, he was in love.

Sitting up onto his elbows, Inuyasha gingerly touched his jaw and stared down the road where she’d taken off, his face completely awestruck even as a smile slowly worked its way onto his lips.

Then he winced because his jaw protested the muscle use and then he had to chuckle despite the pain. In all of his thirty years of life, nobody, not a fully-grown demon or even his asshole of a half-brother, had managed to hit him hard enough where it actually knocked him on his ass.

And then this little slip of a woman wearing a fucking mini skirt and a corset comes along, gets harassed for a few hours by drunken men, and then easily sends him flying with one swing.

Inuyasha was not ashamed to admit that he was not fully and absolutely smitten and he had to make her his. Beautiful, wily, and gutsy—god, she was fucking perfect and he’d be damned if that was the last time he ever saw her.

Heaving himself to his feet with a grunt and ignoring the already fading pain in his jaw, Inuyasha opened up her wallet once again and quickly found what he was looking for. He grinned. Turned out she only lived about a block away from here so at least that was in his favor.

Chuckling, Inuyasha stashed the wallet combo in his jacket, gave one last look down the street where she disappeared, and turned around to head back home himself. He’d give it back tomorrow—tonight he figured she’d need time to cool off and it was late anyway. No doubt all she’d want to do is pass out after a long night of fending off creeps and he didn’t blame her one bit.

Smirking to himself, feeling proud and more than a little excited for what tomorrow would bring, Inuyasha shoved his hands in his pockets and strolled leisurely down the street, really looking forward to the next day for the first time in a long time.

Standing outside the apartment complex, Inuyasha compared the address to the one printed on her license one last time and nodded to herself. This was it—Sakura Landing Apartment Houses. It was a nice little community, where all the buildings looked the same, with maybe two or three apartments in each one, and each apartment had its own parking place.

He approved of it. It was safe, quiet, and smelled nice, which was always a bonus for him.

Tucking Kagome’s wallet into his back pocket – he’d foregone a jacket today since it was warm out – Inuyasha strolled farther into the community and searched for the number he wanted, his ears detecting children’s laugher, the rumble of cars, and doors opening and closing. Kagome’s building should be somewhere in the middle, number six...ah, there it was.

He jogged up to the maroon door with the gold figures of 6B nailed onto the center, took a moment to admire the pretty flowers hanging from either side, before raising a hand and ringing the bell. It was a little after 10 am and he hoped she was awake—

His ears pricked forward at the sound of approaching footsteps on the other side of the door and he grinned, happy he was finally going to see her again after a long twelve hours. Would she remember him? Coo in sympathy when she saw the bruise on his jaw? Usher him inside with a kind smile and gently treat it—

The door swung open and big brown eyes blinked at him in utter bafflement.

“Who are you and what the hell happened to your face?”

Inuyasha balked. Blinked. And then cocked a brow. “What, you don’t remember?”

He received a blank stare.

“You did this to my face.”

Kagome blinked.

Inuyasha’s stare was deadpan. “Last night. 10 pm. The Tipsy Monk. You were leaving.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh.” The she frowned and narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Did you follow me, you—”

Inuyasha wordlessly held out her wallet case and all color drained from Kagome’s face.

“Oh...damn.”

Inuyasha lifted another brow. “You dropped this and I wanted to give it back.”

“Ohmigod I’m so sorry I thought you were--”

“Another pervert, I know.” At her surprised look he explained, “Couldn’t help but notice you were getting a lot of unwanted attention no thanks to that ridiculous uniform. The good for nothing you call your boss is a fucking pervert and it’s for his own selfish pleasure than anything else. Show up to work tonight in jeans and a t-shirt and when he asks why tell him Inuyasha says ‘fuck off.’“

Kagome blinked. “You know Miroku?”

“Unfortunately he’s my best friend. Clear lapse in sanity on my part fifteen years ago when I met the guy and now I can’t get rid of him. I’ve tried but he’s a cockroach. He won’t die and always come back.”

Kagome giggle-snorted despite herself before reaching out to finally take back her phone and wallet with an abashed smile.

“Thank you,” she breathed, flipping it open to see several missed calls and a few texts on he phone. “I was in such a hurry to go home last night that I didn’t even realize I dropped it.”

Inuyasha shrugged and put his hands in his pockets. “I’m just glad I was the one that found it instead of one of your creepy admirers.”

Her smile grew. “Me, too.”

He smirked at her and it just suddenly hit Kagome that this man was downright attractive. With eyes the color of golden whiskey, long silver hair that reached his waist and the most adorable ears that sat atop his head, she surmised that he must be a demon of some kind, maybe that of a canine variety judging by the sinful flash of fang and the claws tipping his fingers.

An answering pulse of purely feminine appreciation curled in her belly and Kagome bit her lip, aware that she was shamelessly gawking, but not particularly caring. The already fading bruise on his jaw didn’t subtract from his attractiveness at all and Kagome was suddenly very glad she’d dropped her wallet and phone last night.

“See somethin’ ya like?” his amused voice interrupted her shameless admiration.

“Mmhm,” Kagome answered without even thinking and it was only when he released a throaty chuckle did she realize what she said and she smacked a hand over her mouth with a gasp, dark eyes going very wide as she snapped them back to his face from where they’d been openly staring at his chest.

In an attempt to save face and unable to control the blush that heated her face, Kagome cleared her throat and laughed nervously, directing her gaze toward the bruise she’d given him instead of his eyes.

“Ah, um, listen, I’m so sorry for punching you last night,” she said and reached up to brush her fingers across his jaw, caught herself at the last minute and hastily brought her traitorous hand back down with another flush.

She cleared her throat again and forced herself to meet his eyes. “I’d, ah, really like to make it up to you, but I’m working the afternoon shift today and I don’t get off until six.” Her smile was equal parts shy and hopeful then as she tentatively queried, “Do you...have any plans after that?”

Amber eyes flashed and fangs were revealed as his mouth stretched into a wicked smirk. Bracing one arm on the doorjamb and leaning forward, Inuyasha looked directly into her eyes and liked the way her breath hitched in her throat, her already enticing scent darkening with a heady spice that elicited a pleased growl from his throat.

“If I’m being honest here,” he rumbled, eyes heavy-lidded, “with any luck, I’ll be getting off with you.”

It took Kagome a minute to process just what he said and coupled with that devastating smirk on his face Kagome’s brain was having difficulty computing. But when it finally registered her eyes went wide, her mouth dropped, and she could only gawk incredulously at him while he looked quite pleased with himself at her reaction.

“You smooth bastard,” Kagome finally breathed after she found her voice again and Inuyasha merely waggled his brows at her, his smirk turning into a shit-eating grin.

“Charmed the panties right off ya, didn’t I?” he cheeked, amber eyes glinting mischievously.

Kagome snickered and couldn’t contain her grin, dark eyes alight with amusement. “Oh, you know it. I’m feelin’ the breeze, baby.”

Inuyasha laughed and thought fuck, this was the girl for him. She was it. He had to have her. He had to.

“You know,” Kagome suddenly purred and Inuyasha was instantly alert, body responding to the rather provocative lilt to her voice and really liking that suggestive little curl to her lips as she stepped closer to him. “That does kinda looks like it hurts...and it is my fault...”

Inuyasha’s gaze went hooded when she placed her hands on his chest and he shifted a little closer, reaching down to rest his own hands on her hips.

“Yeah?” he husked, not about to admit that it would fade away within the hour. And he most definitely was not about to admit that he’d decked himself before coming over because the one she’d given him yesterday had already been long gone.

“Mmhm,” she hummed and tilted her head back as he slid her palms up his chest to grasp his shoulders. “Soo, why don’t you come inside and I can treat that for you while you show me what other things that slick mouth of yours can do, hmm?”

Inuyasha’s response to that was to give a heady growl, hook his hands beneath her thighs to lift her up against him, and then walk them into her apartment, leaning forward to capture her grinning mouth with his own as he reached back with a foot and kicked the door shut.

“Uh...Kagome...”

“Mm?”

Pausing on her way to wash off a few tables, Kagome turned toward her boss and tilted her head, expression inquisitive.

Miroku chuckled awkwardly and rubbed the back of his neck as he eyed what she was wearing. Or moreover, the lack of uniform that he was seeing. “What are you wearing?”

She blinked. “Clothes?”

“Well, yes,” he said with a frown. “But where’s your uniform?” Forlornly he dropped his gaze to the long legs donned in blue jeans and stifled a whimper. He liked those legs...

Kagome blinked again and then a frown pulled her brows down over her eyes and she cocked a hip to the side as she tapped her lips with a finger, propping her free hand on her hip.

“Y’know, I think I was supposed to tell you something about that, but I can’t remember...oh, right! Miroku.” Kagome looked right at him and her boss balked.

Utterly perplexed, Miroku eyed her warily and ventured cautiously, “...Yes?”

She beamed brightly at him and said, “Inuyasha says, ‘fuck off.’”

Loud and boisterous laughter abruptly came from the bar and Miroku turned to gape at his best friend as he proceeded to lose his shit. Evidently having been in the middle of taking a drink of his beer, he’d ended up spewing his mouthful onto the bar top but he hardly noticed as he sat there laughing his ass off, one hand covering his face while the other loosely circled his pint glass.

Feeling quite proud of herself while her boss stood there and gawked at her lover, Kagome piped up, “Gotta get back to work, boss,” then cheerfully skipped off, humming a jaunty little tune under breath and unable to keep the grin from spreading across her face.

Realizing that his damned best friend had managed to snag his best – and most attractive – employee, Miroku scowled, flipped off the laughing hanyou and then promptly skulked away to see if he could entice the new girl Sango to wear the uniform. She had nice legs as well, but that ass...

His hand twitched and he walked a little faster.

About an hour or so later, during a lull in the evening where business was slow and the employees could take a short breather, Kagome snuck up behind the lone man sitting at the bar and slipped her arms around his waist from behind, pressing her hands to his stomach as she rested her chin on his shoulders.

“Well, hey there, handsome.”

Grinning, Inuyasha set down his beer and gently tapped the hands. They released him and he wasted no time in spinning around on his bar stool to face laughing brown eyes and full smiling lips.

“Fancy meetin’ you here,” he returned smoothly and snagged her hips, dragging her forward to stand between his spread knees.

“Must be fate.” With an impish curve to her mouth, Kagome looped her arms around his neck and smiled at him, her eyes going soft as she idly played with the hair at the nape of his neck.

“No doubt.”

He leaned forward and Kagome met him halfway, humming in appreciation as his mouth caught hers in a slow, lazy kiss that sent tingles of pleasure curling in her belly. It was amazing, how comfortable she felt already with this man she’d met only just that morning. Maybe it really was fate, but whatever it was, she wasn’t going to question it. Kagome was never one to question a good thing when it fell into her lap.

Or maybe in this instance, fell against her lips?

She grinned and she felt his lips curl upward in response, nipping gently at the soft skin before pulling back with a contented rumble. She sighed and melted against him, eyes fluttering open to find him staring down at her with an arrogant glint in his eyes.

“That good, huh?” he asked, not bothering to hide the hint of smugness lacing his tone.

“Oh, you know me,” Kagome murmured, reaching up to teasingly flick his ear. “Can’t resist a smooth talker.”

Inuyasha wiggled his eyebrows and shamelessly admitted, “I got more.”

Kagome huffed out a laugh and maneuvered herself to perch on his thigh, keeping her arms around his. In response he moved his arms to circle her waist in a loose embrace, reluctant to release her.

“Oh? Dare I ask?” Kagome teased and arched an expectant brow.

With a positively sinful smirk Inuyasha leaned forward to nip at her nose and then breath against her lips, “Are you a piece of art because I sure as hell nailed you against the wall earlier.”

Kagome gasped and then promptly dissolved into giggles, burying her face in he shoulder while Inuyasha sat there and grinned proudly.

“Okay,” Kagome managed through her mirth, lifting her head to reveal a flushed face and a wide smile. “I have to admit, that one was good.”

“A guarantee for at least some head,” Inuyasha lewdly remarked and Kagome’s loud snort didn’t even faze him.

“Oh, yeah,” Kagome agreed, the sarcasm heavy in her voice, but she was smiling broadly at him. “The urge to suddenly drop to my knees is positively staggering.”

“Carpet at my place is pretty soft,” he not so subtly hinted, grinning as he nipped at her jaw and pressed an open-mouthed kiss to her neck.

“Really, now,” Kagome murmured, her eyes fluttering close as he trailed hot kisses along the slender column of her throat. “But what about work? I still have two hours.”

Inuyasha grunted. “Tell Miroku I said—”

“‘Fuck off’?” Kagome supplied, opening her eyes and biting her lip to keep from grinning. She failed.

“No.” After sucking a bruise onto her neck, Inuyasha trailed his mouth back up to her lips and growled against them, “Tell him you need to leave because my dick is made of Skittles and you need to taste the rainbow.”

“Oh, be still my heart.”

“What can I say,” Inuyasha growled before pressing a brief kiss to her lips and then leaning back, heated amber eyes locking with impassioned brown as a hint of fang flashed from a wicked smirk.

“I’m a smooth talker.”

shoutout to my discord ladies for giving me the idea of having Kagome give Kouga a number with all zeros and even though I didn’t write it, he totally called that number after 10 and wondered why it wasn’t working ahahah xD 

[defdaily]

[TRANSLATION] VOGUE KOREA Magazine April 2019 issue x JUS2

190319 Vogue Korea JUS2 April ‘19 photoshoot & interview 

Translated by defdaily & doobseedoda

JUS2 is a unit of two members who were in charge of intensity in GOT7. This is a chemistry created when JB and Yugyeom, who love R&B in common, were absorbed in creative activities. Their hybridization was completed in a "minimal" state, which is neither strong nor soft. The mini album contains a story called six senses. Starting with the word Focus on Me, Drunk on You, Touch, Senses, Love Talk, and Long Black. It doesn't mean much nowadays to classify music into genres, but there are emotions of Deep House, Slow Jam and R&B in JUS2's music.

The unit's name was bound to be JUS2. It's only JB and Yugyeom, and it's a stage that can only be presented. "Actually, JUS2 means that it's both a performance and a song. We danced, sang, wrote and composed, and did everything." JUS2 is an example of a completely new creation without losing the members' identity in the group and reveal their talents and tastes.

Q. We are curious about the similarities and differences between you two.

JB: Our personalities are similar but our lifestyles are different. I really don't believe in blood type personalities but we're both type A and there is definitely a timid side to us. When you see us in reality we don't seem that timid. To sum it up, we're both timid and not timid at the same time (laugh). Both of us are considerate so we match well in some aspects. Yugyeom is all about 'let's live life having fun'.

Yugyeom: I don't put too much meaning behind the word 'happiness' and I'm a person who often feels happiness (doing little things).

JB: I like enjoying everyday life but I have a compulsion to not let my thoughts and mind slip alway so I tend to think a lot. There is music that we both like and there's also a point where (our styles) meet. I like strong/fast paced music and I also like calm smooth music, I like all kinds of music. Yugyeom likes the strong turn up kind of music and tends to lean towards the strong music.

Q. If GOT7's energy is bright and fresh, what would JUS2’s energy be?

Yugyeom: Jus2 would be having control and restraining yourself. If GOT7's energy is 'attacking' then JUS2’s energy is more like 'holding yourself back'.

JB: If GOT7 were the shooting star ice cream then JUS2 would be the Vanilla ice cream. Soft and smooth. Personally I like JJ Project's album the most. The story and track order contained all of what I wanted to say/include so it's the album I'm most proud of. After that is JUS2’s album which I'm highly satisfied with. Although there is no overall storyline, the theme of sensation was unraveled.

Q. You wrote and composed 'Focus On Me', if you could tell us about the collaboration process.

Yugyeom: We listen to the track and figure out whether to decide the theme first or make the melody first. The theme of FOCUS came up while writing the melody for Focus On Me and that's how it was settled. If anyone can think of a melody while listening to MR, they record it. "This part seems okay" then JB hyung sings it and I try singing it then we keep matching parts.

JB: At the start when I was working on the song and writing the chorus 'focus on me' stuck to me as matching. Since everyone else liked it we decided on it as the theme and wrote the lyrics. The first and second verse were written separately then the lyrics were put together.

Q. In what moments does inspiration tend to come to you?

JB: When I sense if a song's mood is a certain way, I think about what happened in the past or whať's happening now or what I've seen in movies and books. If I get inspiration first then I write it down in my notebook or phone. There are times when I turn songs on and look over what I have written down from the past. And sometimes the lyrics match what you want.

Q. What kind of lyrics do you think are good lyrics?

Yugyeom: the way you listen and the way you write is different. I'm the type to play a melody when I'm trying to write lyrics then I see what matches well in terms of pronunciation. JB hyung pays more attention to the lyrics so lyrics I could never think of came up (from JB). I would be into something else and hyung would come up with lyrics like ”Today you'll raise the white flag".

Q. What is a point you appreciate about each other's dancing?

JB: Yugyeom's dancing line is very clean cut. When he stretches out, the lines are really pretty and it also gives off a modern dance feel. He is the best at peculiar moves with his long legs. On the other hand my dance has more roughness.

Yugyeom: what's funny is, I realised this after watching the music video, that I dance with all my fingers out (?) together whereas hyung is the opposite

JB: (his fingers out together?) Yugyeom really likes this.

Yugyeom: That's what my favorite American dancer always did. It has become a habit.

Q. Yugyeom is always wearing black skinny pants in his Instagram dance videos, is it like a uniform?

JB: Not only when he dances, he just doesn't wear other pants in general. Yugyeom has lots of the same pants (laugh). He likes black skinny pants so much that he wears them even during practice. And he has stage shoes, which are more comfortable than sneakers, so he always wears them during practice too.

JB: For me I need the pants width to be big a little. And I always need to have sneakers on. Yugyeom likes skinny style while I'm the type to like a flimsy style.

Q. Things you talked about the most while preparing for JUS2.

JB: It was 'How should we organise/format the album”. Since it's our first time doing a minimal sound, we wondered if it would go well and we worried a lot about the album. We had lots of public relation meetings too (laugh). Looking back, it was fun. Feels like I've been travelling abroad for a few months. To be honest, I haven't been able to travel abroad much but whenever I travel even for a short time I feel really excited, but rather than an amusement park kind of fun I would feel a calm kind of fun. To paraphrase that, it's similar to the feeling.

Yugyeom: It was really fun. Seeing hyung almost everyday, we also talked a lot. I also liked the times where we would go grab a drink after finishing writing songs. Since JUS2 participated in songwriting and also outfits and choreography so it has lots of meaning. The teasers were also captured freely with a film camera while listening to music. Many new unique attempts were made in the preparation process.

Q. Feels like you have expanded a lot musically. Is there something you do to keep growing?

JB: When I see people I respect or people who are doing well think I should have more thoughts of ’Why is this all I can do'. That's how it works. I think. “Let's have a lot of experiences that will touch me, both indirectly and directly” When I have a chance, I go to exhibitions and think about the agony of the artists. I also wonder how I can use the SNS, which is so full of things, for my development. l once wondered how l could use so much SNS for my development. I take note of places and exhibitions recommended by people, I thought it would be good to get ideas from impressive artwork or videos.

Q. You've been a part of GOT7 for more than 6 years but this is your first time working together with just the two of you. Is there something new you learnt?

Yugyeom: There is no such thing. If I really try to find one, I thought hyung only ate Korean food but he actually likes eating even cream, curry and udon now.

JB: I feel like I've gotten influenced by the other members. I thought my preference for Korean food would never change but I've come to an acceptance point. Last time when we went to Paris, Bambam wanted to try snails. I rejected saying I could never eat snails but it was actually more delicious than I expected. That's the case, I have even eaten snails.

Q. If you were to pick the happiest moment in your day?

JB: When I clean the cats' dung. I see with my eyes that I can do something for someone else. I feel joy seeing the cats in a good shape/image. When I see the bin full of their dung, pride overcomes me as l know (they) have become cleaner.

Yugyeom: I'm the type who likes having lots of schedules but there are times when I become tired physically. I consult with my company and decide on a day off, and the moment I step foot into my house I feel really happy. A break once in a while could be so sweet. I'm happy when I can sleep late after working on songs all night.

Q: Is there anything you've discovered or thought about differently recently?

JB: On the way home after producing yesterday, the taxi driver took a wrong turn and we ended up at Yeouido. Looking out at the buildings through the window, this thought came to me. Within those buildings, people may be fighting or happy but the buildings seen from within the taxi only just look beautiful. I thought maybe the world looks more beautiful if you see it from a distance instead of up close. I thought we too might need some distance in our life as well.

Q: Is there anything you've discovered or thought about differently recently?

Yugyeom: I have always thought this but recently there's something that I've felt more strongly.I must really love music a lot (laughs). I would go crazy if I don't listen to it. If lI'm not listening to music, it feels like I have to and l'd keep thinking about the music I want to listen to. I've been producing songs lately and they've been very healing to me. Listening to and making good music in itself is a source of healing to me. So l realised once again. Ah, I must really love music.

Q. Do you feel the stress of writing while listening to music you like?

Yugyeom: not at all. I've never had such thoughts. There's a song I'm into lately. I really like Travis Scott's Can't Say' so l keep listening to it and watching the music video.

Q. JUS2 will have a world tour in April. GOT7 also proved themselves through a world tour too. What is the meaning behind world tours.

JB: It is like the result of one's efforts. Something that tells me how hard I've tried. An album allows me to witness the response to my agony/thoughts and a world tour allows me to experience that response.

Q. JB you've been uploading mixtapes on music sites for a few years now. How did this experience influence JUS2 work?

JB: I think it made me want to try doing what I really like. In fact, when you make music and keep storing them and going back to edit them, that way you won't have any results. Even if I get a beating (get punished) let's just show them!' that kind of mindset. The fans liked it but people around me reacted coolly. They said I put too much strength in it. I'm also considering different formats. Using the name Def. I wanted to differentiate between me who is in public and me who likes hip-hop R&B. Def. means the best with a full stop after it, ending it with the best. I wanted to convey the meaning that it's only over after I do my absolute best. Moving forward, of course l'll work hard doing the things I'm doing but I really want to show the image of me doing the things I like.

Q. What you want to achieve through JUS2.

JB: Music site ranking was not our goal. "Leť's show a fun and cool different colour”, let's show a completely different image from GOT7 were our goals. Actually even now I'm satisfied. As much as the album was well made, I like it/feel good.

Translated by: defdaily and doobseedoda

[visionmarred-archive]

OC Interview meme

couldn’t decide whether I wanted it pre-reveal or post-reveal so... guess I’m doing two different flavors for fun :^D

name ➔ Pre: “Amethylia Cypher. You can call me Amy.” Post: “Revan. The one and only.”

are you single ➔ Pre: “Yeah, because for some reason, women don’t seem to want to date cynical, rude schuttas without a filter. Can’t possibly imagine why.” She rolls her eyes and picks at her nails. Post: “...It’s complicated.” She says, with a slight smile. “No.”

are you happy ➔ “Do you care?”

are you angry ➔ “Keep asking me stupid questions and I’ll get there.”

are your parents still married ➔ Pre: “They’re dead. Thanks for the reminder.” Post: “Apparently they never were, and my father’s dead.”

NINE FACTS

birthplace ➔ Pre: “Deralia. Mom had me in a taxi before she could make it to the hospital.” Post: “None of your business.”

hair ➔ She stares derisively, then scoffs. “You blind? Black.”

eye colour ➔ She rolls her eyes. “Green. Next question.”

birthday ➔ “Autumn. Not telling you the date.” (she’s a Scorpio)

mood ➔ “Wondering why you feel this need to interview me. Don’t you have literally anything better to do?”

gender ➔ “Nonbinary. She or they, I don’t care which.”

summer or winter ➔ She wrinkles her nose. “Winter, I guess.”

morning or afternoon ➔ The wrinkle turns into an outright glare. “Pass.”

EIGHT THINGS ABOUT YOUR LOVE LIFE

are you in love ➔ Pre: Her expression softens, and she crosses her arms. “I, uh. Well.” She looks to the side, and then scratches the back of her head. “...Yeah, but it’s tricky. Sometimes I think Bas - she doesn’t like me very much. I can’t really blame her.” Post: Her expression softens. “...Yeah, I am. For some reason, she loves me back. Didn’t really see that one coming.”

do you believe in love at first sight ➔ She blushes. “Uh. Um. Krif, move on, would you?”

who ended your last relationship ➔  Pre: “Lia had a spice overdose and died in the ‘fresher.” She answers dryly. “Kidding. She dumped me. Who could’ve seen that one coming...” Post: “Not sure. Memories are still fuzzy.”

have you ever broken someone’s heart ➔  Pre: “That requires expectation, and people don’t usually have a lot for me. So I doubt it.” Post: She simply glares.

are you afraid of commitments ➔ “No. Stupid thing to be afraid of.”

have you hugged someone within the last week? ➔ Pre: She sneers. “Don’t touch me.” Post: “Yeah. Don’t touch me.”

have you ever had a secret admirer ➔ Pre: “I doubt it.” Post: “Wouldn’t be surprised if some horny ensign saw heroic Revan and sent her his nude photographs.”

have you ever broken your own heart? ➔ Pre: She simply glares. Post: “I had it coming.”

SIX CHOICES

love or lust ➔ “Love. But lust is fun.” She says, giving a slight smirk.

lemonade or iced tea ➔ “Don’t care. Iced tea, I guess.”

cats or dogs ➔ “Cats. Easier to take care of. But dogs are good, too.”

a few best friends or many regular friends ➔ “Few best friends. Less maintenance.”

wild night out or romantic night in ➔ “Romantic night in. I’ve done my partying, and I’m over it.”

day or night ➔ “Night.” Motioning to her all black clothing, she snarks, “Are you surprised?”

FIVE HAVE YOU EVERS

been caught sneaking out ➔ Pre: She shrugs. “Yeah, when I was a teenager. Grandfather caught me once or twice.” Post: “Apparently, Revan snuck out a lot when she was a teenager.”

fallen down/up the stairs ➔  Pre: “Yes, in the same tragic accident that claimed the life of my mother.” She says dryly. Post: “Yes. That’s how I got amnesia in the first place.” She says, with a deadpan expression.

wanted something/someone so badly it hurt? ➔ She scowls and looks away. “Move on.”

wanted to disappear ➔ She simply glares.

FOUR PREFERENCES

smile or eyes ➔ “...Eyes. Something striking about them.”

shorter or taller ➔ “Taller. Pretty easy to find, for someone short as me.”

intelligence or attraction ➔ “...That just depends on the situation. Intelligent people are attractive, though.”

hook-up or relationship ➔ “Hook-ups are nice, but I’d rather have a relationship.”

FAMILY

do you and your family get along ➔  Pre: “My grandfather and I get on just fine. Planning on messaging him later.” She says, with a slight smile. Post: She glares. “If I did before, I doubt I do now. How would you get along with people you didn’t know existed until now? I got along just fine with the family I thought I had, but he isn’t real. He never was.”

would you say you have a “messed up life” ➔  Pre: “Spice dealer and blaster smuggler turned Jedi? Probably.” Post: She just glares.

have you ever ran away from home ➔  Pre: “No, never. Loved my grandfather too much to think about it.” Post: “Do you read your history? I don’t feel like detailing my recruiting the Revanchists - space, and I named them after myself? How tacky can I get? - and running from the Jedi, thanks. That enough of an answer for you?”

have you ever gotten kicked out ➔  Pre: “No.” Post: “I should’ve been.”

FRIENDS

do you secretly hate one of your friends ➔ She scoffs. “You’ll know if I hate you.”

do you consider all of your friends good friends ➔ “Sure. Are we almost done?”

who is your best friend ➔  Pre: She smiles slightly. “Carth. Don’t tell him I said that. But I appreciate his honesty, and the guy’s funny.” Post: She frowns sadly. “I guess it used to be Malak. Alek. He was my best friend once. Then I dragged him to the Dark Side, and then I killed him. So I probably shouldn’t do best friends anymore.”

who knows everything about you ➔  Pre: “Nobody. That’s how I want it.” Post: “Bastila... she knows a lot, better than anybody else, but space, I hope she never learns everything. I want her to still like me.”

[arecomicsevengood]

Quarantine Movies, Part 3

OLD BOYFRIENDS (1979) dir. Joan Tewkesbury

Not often I watch a movie and feel like “What the fuck is happening?” but I did with this one, written by Paul Schrader and directed by the screenwriter of Nashville. Talia Shire stars as a woman getting back in touch with her old boyfriends. She’s… recovering from a nervous breakdown? Sort of out for revenge? One ex hooks up with her again, and then, once abandoned, hires a private detective to track her down. A little boring at first, and then becomes baffling for most of its middle. John Belushi’s in it, playing a kind of pathetic schlub that feels convincingly like “the real Belushi” to me in the sense of me finding it uncomfortable to watch. I think maybe the film can be understood as a take on feminine psychosis in contrast to the masculine psychosis found in Schrader’s Taxi Driver screenplay. The psychosis here being this lack of self-knowledge that leads to manipulating people ostensibly towards the end of finding love.

KLUTE (1971) dir. Alan Pakula

Feel like I got the impression this movie was a joke from somewhere? Some Murphy Brown reference or something, playing to consensus of losers. (Edit: The joke’s in Wet Hot American Summer, but doesn’t really contain a value judgment about the movie.) It’s not great by any means but it’s not particularly tawdry given the subject matter. It is confusing that the movie is mostly about Jane Fonda’s call girl character, but the movie is named after Donald Sutherland’s character, who’s a detective. Maybe the joke was always just that people thought Jane Fonda played Klute. Movie digs into the sex worker’s psychology in a way that feels contemporary, except contemporary discourse doesn’t really allow for psychological insight, in favor of empty gestures towards representation. Sutherland’s out to solve a mystery, Fonda falls in love with him: I really did think this was smart in depicting a relationship where person was uncomfortable with the act of falling in love as running counter to their techniques of emotional distancing, except, I guess, for the fact that this is depicted in scenes of Fonda talking to her therapist that spell out what’s happening rather than depict this in a more organic way. But that it feels sort of shoehorned in is cool because the movie then largely has this mystery narrative it’s about. It is a little dull and could stand to be shorter, though the musical score does some nice grooves with dissonant elements on top, vaguely Morricone-style, though of course he’s got a deep body of work.

EYES OF LAURA MARS (1978) dir. Irvin Kershner

Criterion’s description of this chracterizes it as an “American giallo,” which seems about right. About a woman (Faye Dunaway) who takes violent/erotic photographs (shot by Helmut Newton) that coexist in both advertising and art gallery contexts. She starts having psychic visions of murder, the police are investigating her because some murders seem modeled after her photos, although that is not the case with any of the murders she has visions of, which then start to involve people she knows. So, like a giallo, there’s a lot happening, an interest in lurid style, and a disinterest in internal consistency as things ratchet up, and the twist ending (that the cop she started dating has multiple personality disorder) falls within that pattern as well. Not as good as the best Italian giallo, (which would I guess be Argento’s TENEBRE) or for that matter, the slasher movie HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME, which is an American movie insane enough to exist in the same conversation.

THE GETAWAY (1972) dir. Sam Peckinpah

Steve McQueen gets out of prison and is immediately set up by the prison official, who his girlfriend (Ali MacGraw) slept with, to rob a bank. He gets double-crossed, and then goes on the lam with his girlfriend. While in the past I sometimes feel like I am listing the names of the actors as endorsements, I’m not really doing this with the cast of this movie or Old Boyfriends. Good action sequences and suspenseful moments. Feel like the iconic images in this are McQueen with a shotgun, blowing up cop cars. Peckinpah directs from a Walter Hill screenplay adapting a Jim Thompson novel. This predates Walter Hill directing movies for himself, but it’s interesting how much more flash there is to the action here than there is in The Driver, you can sort of detect certain elements as being Hill’s interest (like the suspense of being pursued) and other stuff being Peckinpah, like the baroque explosions of violence. I like all of it.

KATE PLAYS CHRISTINE (2016) dir. Robert Greene

This isn’t very good. One half adaptation of the Christine Chubbuck story with a documentary about Kate Lyn Sheil. Sheil’s good in other things, this feels like a failed experiment. Weirdly this came out at pretty much exactly the same time as a movie about Chubbuck starring Rebecca Hall? The Rebecca Hall movie’s pretty great, and is an interesting performance, I would be interested in watching a conversation between the two actresses.

BRINGING OUT THE DEAD (1998) dir. Martin Scorses

A rewatch. Nicolas Cage plays an ambulance driver, Scorsese directs from a Paul Schrader screenplay. I like Nicolas Cage a lot, I like the cinematography in this one. I knew I would enjoy this, didn’t remember John Goodman being in it, Mary Beth Hurt is really good in it, mentioned her being good in Light Sleeper too, didn’t realize she’s Paul Schrader’s wife. Insanely hectic energy, shot through with hallucinatory holy light. Patricia Arquette is probably the weakest link in the cast, though it is her different energy that enables her to seem like a potentially redemptive figure for Nicolas Cage.

RAGING BULL (1980) dir. Martin Scorsese

This one’s a classic, but I didn’t like it the first time I saw it, over fifteen years ago, I think on account of being hungry at the time. Still, probably not my favorite Scorsese. The dialogue is interesting, due to De Niro’s character having a high level of aggression and paranoia, where pretty much everything that gets said to him he responds “Why do you say that?” which lends short scenes this circular quality. This reveals his character, in an efficient way, even though it makes the scenes feel insane and somewhat circular.

HOPSCOTCH (1980) dir. Ronald Neame

I liked this one a lot when I saw it years ago, didn’t really know the director’s pedigree came from doing Alec Guiness comedies. I don’t normally rewatch movie but my memories of this were very pleasant in a way suggesting it would be comforting. Walter Matthau plays a spy who is retiring but who gets everyone mad at him, which makes this kind of Prisoner-adjacent. He runs around, being the smartest guy in the room, having fun at being able to outsmart intelligent agencies. All of the globe-trotting of a James Bond kind of thing, but with none of the bloodshed. No one dies in this, uptight people just get mad at Walter Matthau being cool.

NIGHTFALL (1956) dir. Jacques Tourneur

Tourneur directed the original Cat People, which I love, and Out Of The Past, a classic noir I was not fond of when I saw it in college. This one’s good too, adapting a David Goodis novel. I know Goodis from a piece in Jesse Pearson’s magazine Apology, that makes the case he’s the best writer of crime fiction, on a sentence level. The dialogue’s good in this, but there’s also a cool structure: Following different characters, with it being fairly unclear what their relationship is to one another for a while, some flashbacks reveal things. The characters in this are pretty likable, Anne Bancroft is the female lead and the romance is believable. She plays a model, it’sf ascinating to watch movies made by a studio and realize they have the same woman designing gowns for all of them. Like they have the glamour provided in-house because it’s recognized that’s part of what people go to the movies for, but the the films don’t become ads for the designer or anything, like the way Jean Paul Gaultier’s designs function in The Fifth Element or something. Theme song is sung by Al Hibbler, who cut a LP with Roland Kirk.

5 AGAINST THE HOUSE (1955) dir. Phil Karlson

Criterion Channel has a collection of noir films Columbia put out, this is one of them, with a pretty good-sounding premise: Kim Novak is a part of a group of college friends that set out to rob a casino, but one of the group’s PTSD sabotages it. It ends up not really working as a heist film, for a number of reasons, one is that the “perfect crime” they engineer is not that intricate, the other, more important element is the characters are unbearably smug in a way that makes them really hard to deal with. Novak’s good in it, but no one else is: While the men are supposed to be funny, but aren’t, Novak sort of just has to be beautiful. She sings songs in this, and maybe there’s a voice double, but it seems she has a good singing voice. You can probably skip this one.

THE BIG HEAT (1953) dir. Fritz Lang

Not as masterful as the films Lang made in Germany, but still really good. A cop investigating a murder quickly gathers that a conspiracy is afoot, people make mysterious phone calls immediately after he interviews them, he gets his life destroyed, but keeps going. Gloria Grahame (who’s also in Nicholas Ray’s amazing In A Lonely Place) is great as a gangster’s party-girl-who-loves-money girlfriend who has her beauty and then her life taken away from her. There is an element of feeling like you’re seeing cliches be run through their paces, but I don’t mind, given the pacing. It’s mean enough you don’t know how dark it’s going to get. Jocelyn Brando, Marlon’s sister who also appears in Nightfall, gets a nice role in this.

MURDER BY CONTRACT (1958) dir. Irving Lerner

Oh, this one rules! Although I knew none of the people involved in it, everybody’s great. It feels slow as you watch it, it’s deliberately paced and seems to appreciate every scene on its own terms as a point of interest, rather than rushing through a plot. The score seems like it’s very close to just one instrumental piece, being used over and over again. About a dude, (who’s also in Kubrick’s The Killing, it turns out) becoming a professional hitman, and then flying out to California for a bigger job, where he has two people minding him. The hitman’s psychosis is not over the top, he just seems very self-contained, in a way that gets a lot of (almost) comedic mileage out of his interaction with other people

INVENTION FOR DESTRUCTION (1958) dir. Marel Zeman

This movie looks REAL weird and I have no idea how they got the effect? The degree of artificiality is highly distracting, in a way I don’t have a problem with in Guy Maddin or whoever. The whole thing sort of looks like the portraits of people that run in The Wall Street Journal? There are lines on EVERYTHING, like the sets are being made in this patterned way to replace color values. Everything looks artificial, but also collaged together. “Freely adapted” from Jules Verne, this involves boats, explosions, heists, etc. but all done in this sort of deep-focus theatrical staging that seems to combine animation and live action but in a way I can’t work out but also isn’t enveloping or convincing.

MAY FOOLS (1980) dir. Louis Malle.

I like a lot of Louis Malle, this seems vaguely like a deep cut, as I believe it’s unavailable on DVD. It takes place in France during the May ’68 protests, but is about a family getting together for a funeral/reading of a will. It’s suffused with weird free-flowing sexual energy, like everyone’s down to commit incest? Sort of in the name of revolution, but understandable as a movie in terms of being very french, and maybe something of a light comedy. (While Murmur Of The Heart also has incest in it, and is not a comedy, it’s very French.) People flirt with each other a lot, this is a pleasant watch if you are under quarantine and are fantasizing about casual sex or the overthrowing of the political class.

MON ONCLE D’AMERIQUE (1980) dir. Alain Resnais

This, too, is very French. The spine of the movie is Henri Laborit lecturing, lending the film an essayistic aspect, illustrated with footage of lab rats, but also footage of people wearing mouse heads and human clothes, the best parts. The guy’s theories seem agreeable to me but I don’t know what other people think about them. They’re illustrated by the fictional life stories of three characters, whose lives intersect eventually in their adulthood, though the film starts with them as children. Resnais is interesting, I’ve seen very few of his films but they’re all radically unique, though united by this intellectual edge.

FUGITIVE KIND (1960) dir. Sidney Lumet

Lumet also had a long and varied career, but I essentially view him as a highly-skilled journeyman, I guess due to snobbish bias gleaned from secondhand takes. I’ll watch pretty much any of his movies though, and so I watched this Tennessee Williams adaptation. Not sure I’d seen Marlon Brando in anything before, though I thought it was funny to say I possessed “the raw sexuality of a young Marlon Brando” in college. This whole movie is about how hot Brando is, and how all women want to fuck him and how all the men resent him. You would think the heterosexual male default would be to not notice how hot a dude is, but Brando is both physically ripped but with a feminine face that makes me “get it.” There’s a poetry to his sensitivity, but also an element of threat to how basically everyone who gets along with him is at odds with the racist, patriarchal, and parochial attitudes of the small towns he travels through.

MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (1974) dir. Sidney Lumer

This is an Agatha Christie adaptation, where Hercule Poirot is played by Albert Finney, amongst a large cast of huge stars who are both hamming it up and not really doing anything. After watching two movies with Natasha Richardson, was nice to see her mom Vanessa Redgrave in something, though it’s a small part. The ending, where the detective works out that everyone schemed to commit the murder together and then decides that he will let them all get away with it, is fun, though by and large the “comedy” here feels a bit dated. This kinda feels like something that you would’ve seen already after having caught bits and pieces of it on basic cable growing up.

[jessiewre]

Day 13

Fri 17th Jan 2020

We were up at 4:30am - oh joy of joys - and ready to go at 5am, so we headed down to the reception.

There was NO sign of a boda boda or even a member of staff.

Ahh bloody hell, we could not be arsed with this...

Phil went up to the dining area and luckily found a security dude to ask for help, and so this guy went off to find the boss.

He came back after 10 mins to say

‘I couldn't find him’

WICKED MATE THANKS.

Then he went off again.

After 5 minutes a SINGLE motorcycle arrived and Bugs the boss appeared.

ONE BIKE though.

Surely we could not fit on one bike.

What am I saying, this is UGANDA. They could fit the whole cast of Cats on one bike.

So Bugs handed us our pre-made breakfast takeaway and we BOTH had to get on ONE Boda with ALL OUR BAGS. It was a like a circus act.

The light on the boda was beyond terrible and so the ride in the dark took 50 mins all the while we were both silently clinging on, wishing the journey would just be over with. We went super super slow at one point and the guy was trying to sort of ski along the dusty road - good times - then some random dude pulled alongside us and was like 

‘You need help?’

But he had a DODGY vibe, I don’t know why, just didn’t seem genuine - then when we said ‘No thank!’ our driver stayed COMPLETELY silent which made us even more uncomfortable, like he was scared of him?? Though we can’t be sure if the early morning weird situation was just getting to our heads and making us paranoid.  

Then we got into town FINALLY and recognized the petrol station as we passed it from when we’d arrived the other day and breathed a sigh of relief that we were nearly ready to get off the bike...

But then we got to a super dark part of town where the weird guy who had followed us was suddenly there, and we realised the only bus of the day to go directly to Kabale had already GONE.

Feeling uncomfortable, I thought quickly and immediately said to our driver ‘Please take us to the petrol station actually, we go now to petrol station YEAH’

And we sped off and went to the glorious haven of a Total petrol garage.

The staff there were really nice and there was also a gloriously clean non-smelly toilet WITH LOO ROLL. Pure luxury.

We sat at the station and talked to them there, trying to work out the best plan and one guy went and got us chairs. Was so nice. We even got an early morning call from Hillary to see if we had got the bus ok (we’d asked him the night before about travel advice) and he tried to help us with advice too.

Then a boda went off and found us a bus and bought it back to us to pick us up and all in all we only waited about half an hour before we went East to a random place called Rukingara. Didn’t need to go there but it would hopefully offer us up more options for onward travel.

On that journey Phil slept the WHOLE way while we went through so many villages & in each one you could see people queuing up with their big water containers at the village water tap, children and adults of all ages trying to get some water. In one village it clearly wasn’t working as there was a huge pile up of containers and people trying to fix it. Imagine having to do that.

We passed some young children trying to wrangle like 10 goats on leads, then a man sat behind me started to touch my HAIR (it wasn’t, like, terrible as he was super friendly and maybe had just never seen muzungu hair in real life before, and wanted to see what it felt like, and ok why am I making excuses for this) and also the driver stopped at one point and got out for a wee and so did Phil and the vehicle started to ROLL DOWN THE ROAD so I grabbed the wheel and started to try and steer it while he ran along and jumped in to push the brakes. He casually looked at me smiling and was like ‘Ah, hand brake don’t work!’.

The rest of the vans customeers were loving it though, they saw my cat-like reactions and thought it was impressive I think. Ok maybe they just thought it was funny that the muzungu with the weird hair slightly potentially panicked.

At Rukingara we found another crummy bus going directly to Kabale which was great, Wow we thought we were doing amazing, it was only 9:30am. 

The bus from Rukungari to Kabale should have been about 2 hours.

3 hours maximum.

So yeah the journey took 4.5 hours and it was soooooo annoying, Phil was ready for a meltdown. It took 30 mins to leave the actual bus station despite telling us we would leave in 5 minutes (not that we ever believe it when they say that, but still), then they kept stopping constantly, sometimes for aaaaggees, lots of shouting, it would empty of people and then fill up wiith like 50 people, at one point we were nearly the only ones on the bus so they drove around shouting KABALE! to try and get more customers and honestly it was just so boring. It’s the constant stopping and waiting without any idea of what is going on. 
The real problem was that we were not just letting it be what it is, these buses are always like this and we just need to let them do their thing. But the early morning stress had put us in a far from tolerant mood so it was definitely harder to be mindful in that moment. Plus Phil had a bit of the journey with his legs bent up towards him and I think they went numb for a short while so...we’ll allow the near meltdown on this occasion.

We FINALLY reached Kabale not a moment too soon and had arranged to meet Hillary as he was in town. It was only 1:30pm at this point but felt like 5pm.

We got off the bus and GUESS WHO WAS THERE STRAIGHT AWAY.

Yes of course, the annoying taxi guy (still do not know his name, deliberately forget it every time I hear it).

Like ok this was getting freaky now, why was he EVERYWHERE WE WENT.

We ushered him and everyone else away and went to Skyline restaurant to meet Hillary.

After 5 minutes, the taxi guy appeared wandering down the street looking around and spots me and walks over all like ‘Hi where are you going, how was Ishasha’.

For frigs sake like GO AWAY MATE.

So I said ‘We will call you if we need you OK thank you bye’.

Lunch buffet vegetarian style was beans, chips, rice, potatoes and veg, some of which were sour as fook, so basically I just ate carbs. Hillary arrived and we treated him to lunch on us with a coke and he seemed pleased. We wanted to thank him for all his help. The extremely camp waiter asked me to organise him a job in England which I politely explained might not really be possible but I told him to give me a call if he managed to sort it and get to England. Good luck to the guy.

Turned out we’d missed the nice bus direct to the Rwanda border by 15 minutes so we headed to the only other option we knew about - Bizmarken Buses.

We waited at this mosquito infested bus office for over 1 hour, then a total downpour of rain arrived and we felt grateful to be inside, but then after much pressing from Phil, the bus guy revealed the bus was STILL 1.5 hours away - so we decided to call it a day and find a hotel. It was a relief to make that decision, was nearly 4pm by this point and we didn’t want to arrived in a new place super late and in the dark and blah blah.

We got a boda boda to Hillary’s recommendation of Kwanzi hotel but they only had a dorm room and there were no mosquito nets or WiFi and obviously it wasn’t private and even though we were knackered and massively couldn’t be bothered to move, we just thought Naaaaahhhhh.

But we managed to get ourselves another couple of boda boda and went to Kings Hotel Kabale which was pretty tired looking, but actually fine. No WiFi, but an amazing shower weirdly - the best so far, what a surprise - and some beautiful hanger art where they had hung 1 hanger onto another hanger which was then hung onto another hanger, on a towel peg. Wow. Really. Wow.

We walked round to the bus station to try and find a new solution for our destination-Rwanda conundrum and met another bloke called Hillary (lets call him Hillary 2) who told us he could organise a shared car for us at 8am the next morning. It’s easy to be suspicious of everyone but we decided we liked him and thought frig it, better than the other morning option we’’d heard about - standing on the roadside at 6am hoping a big bus would pass, flagging it down and hoping it had seats. No thanks.

We got a boda up to a place called Miami restaurant and Phil’s first words were ‘This looks dung’, so we walked to Cafe Barista and saw muzungus sat outside - a very cliche sign that the food is going to be ok, or at least stomachable.

The first thing I spotted on the menu was Irish Balls - NO LIE. But we ended up ordering a pasta dish, a veg biryani and then Mexican Irish potato dish plus guacamole. I don’t know what we were thinking, but basically we had a carb party and it was fantastic.

Walked it off by going by foot to our lovely glorious hotel and watched dubbed Indian soap operas before heading to bed hoping that Hillary number 2 was not a con artist and would come good in the morning.

[sebastyansmith-writer]

Her Name Was Arthur

Or:

Getting to grips with my first ever panic attack at 30

Note: The following is written chronologically. The relevance of these events only became clear after a lot of soul searching and personal psychological analysis after the fact. 

Initially none of it was clear, but reaching back and finding the root cause of where I believe my panic attack came from helped massively with fighting through it and moving on.

I’ve had a few people ask for more information on this, especially those who have struggled with anxiety and panic attacks nearly their entire life. I think seeing someone process it all for the first time offers a unique angle. That’s what this post is about. 

At age 5/6 our family cat gave birth to a litter of kittens. I was allowed to chose one and name it, and from that point it would my cat. Looking back this was the first meaningful instance of real responsibility, and even at a young age I understood its importance.

I chose a kitten and named her Arthur. I can’t remember if I knew her sex, or cared, but I certainly loved me some King Arthur.

How not to hold a sword

For the first time in my young life I had a charge, a living creature that would rely on me. Obviously looking back I probably wouldn’t have had to do much, but all the same I took it very seriously.

A few weeks later she died.

It was an illness no-one knew she had, and according to the vet – unavoidable.

According to my mother I was inconsolable. It took a hundred conversations to settle me, and I’m fortunate that my mother excels at emotional conversations.

I remember choosing the name Arthur. I remember the kitten dying. I don’t remember what she looked like, or crying at all. Apparently my mind decided to repress all that.

From that point on I didn’t properly connect with any of the pet cats we owned, though to such a degree that I didn’t notice until getting Ink and Bobby, years later.

Ink

Bobby

I loved animals. I practically lived off nature programs. But I had a deep, subconscious fear of being responsible for them.

This might sound all a bit dramatic but I was – and am – what some would call a delicate flower. Losing Arthur hit me hard.

It’s funny, I started talking about the above on a regular basis. Saying how relieved I was that I could open myself up again to pets, happy that I was able to let myself feel things properly, even at the risk of eventually losing them.

In retrospect this was my mind trying to draw my attention to another issue that would only become clear to me later:

It wasn’t just pets that I had began detaching from.

As a child I had a smattering of friends. I loved them, and trusted them, but when we moved away I was able to disconnect from them without much drama. They had been good people, and probably still are (this is long before social media so who bloody knows!). Yet I moved on without much of a backwards glance. When they didn’t show much interest I would leave.

Anyway, I carried on, I grew up, I was able to develop some brilliant relationships with people. Things were going really well. I grew into a happy adult and am lucky to count some brilliant people as friends.

As an aside: I think this was due to my up-bringing. My parents (and other parental figures) were superb. They installed so much strength and self-respect in me. That’s not to say I haven’t stumbled over the years and been an idiot – I have. Even so, I had an exemplary upbringing and I will always be thankful for that.

I still retained the ability to move on from people if things didn’t work out, or if they let me down. Looking back it could be something as simple as them not keeping to an arranged meeting time or place and I’d totally cut ties with them. Not socially, but I’d take away any level of trust I had in them.

This came instinctively and followed me into my mid twenties until I made a breakthrough.

I found myself trusting people again, really letting them in. Here’s the issue –

As children we learn how to let people in and how to block people out. It’s a system of trial and error which most take for granted as ‘learning how society works’. I don’t think I did that. I think losing Arthur had such a profound effect on me that I took the shortcut of distancing myself from others as a means of avoiding losing them.

On some level my ability to process trust issues stopped when Arthur died (bear with me on this).

So when I started trusting people, I did so as a child might, because that part of my processing hadn’t had chance to develop.

Someone who I deemed ‘special’ (super cringey, I know – I assure you this wasn’t a conscious distinction, but rather a subconscious one I’ve only recently identified) would be elevated to such a degree that they could do no wrong. They were perfect, they were above reproach. They could – wait for it – be trusted and relied upon! They wouldn’t ever let me down, why would they?

wow

Here’s where the healthy/unhealthy cycle begins. Through sheer dumb luck, and hopefully my own judgement, these few people never let me down. They were, and are, brilliant. My child-like projections of them were never shattered.

Until they were.

What happens when the psychological foundations of your mind that you’ve been building subconsciously your entire life begin to crumble?

I can only describe it as my brain short-circuiting. I have never had any mental health issues. I have always had a positive outlook and tend to take difficult things in my stride. I am not one to obsess, or to spiral. I was thus utterly unprepared for what was to come. All at once my mind seemed to collapse in on itself. I didn’t react like an adult, I reacted like a 6 year old whose kitten just died.

I couldn’t understand it. I kept saying ‘I don’t understand, I don’t understand,’ like an endless mantra. I was unprepared.

You see, on a level I wasn’t aware of, child me blamed himself for Arthur’s death. It wasn’t my fault, obviously, but we’re beyond normal logic at this point (keep up Neurotypicals!). Arthur had been my responsibility and she died. I internalised that and blamed myself for it.

Therefore, if I was to blame for the kitten, then adult Me was to blame for any upset caused by an individual elevated to my special little compartmentalised group of friendships. What should have been something I reacted to and processed relatively normally became a mental cliff which I promptly fell off. The two events became linked.

I tried to shrug it off as I would a regular upset and ended up crying uncontrollably in work. Fortunately my colleagues were superb and called me a taxi home. I did all the things I usually did to take my mind off it and that only made me spiral more. My thoughts were no longer my own, I felt hurt, confused, and more vulnerable than I have ever felt before. My sleeping pattern almost vanished. I would have moments of clarity, but they were quickly fog over again. I’d have good days, but always bad days would follow.

Keep in mind that you’ve had this story in order. At the point of the panic attack I didn’t understand where this reservoir of emotion had come from. All I kept doing was blaming myself and silently arguing myself until I could feel my thoughts falling apart.

Artist: Bryony Mulvill

I’ve always known panic attacks were real, often comparing them to a type of fit, but experiencing one firsthand opened my eyes. It is terrifying.

For all my strength as a person, for all my good mental health, one incident and my world nearly fell apart. Fortunately I wasn’t alone. My partner and my friends were there for me and they pulled me through it. No-one is an island.

Do you know what surprised me further? The anger. As part of my mental block with letting people in I also restrained a lot of emotion. For the first time in my adult life I felt angry. It was like a damn bursting. Every single emotion all wanted to be at the front but the anger? That bloody scared me.

It also pointed out something fascinating: as an adult I had never been angry before. Not really, deep-in-your-gut, truly angry. Y’know what? Being angry makes me want to cry.

Delicate flower, n’all that.

Fortunately a lifetime of good mental health kicked in with a vengeance.

I began exercising to give myself the impression of control over my life. I began taking B12 supplements to help with the fatigue. I also began talking about what I was going through, not just to people on social media and to friends/family, but to myself.

I started asking: Why?

I’d gone through hard things in the past. I’d felt pain and loss and sadness, so why now? That line of questioning uncovered everything you’ve been reading.

I love psychoanalysis. I love the idea of the human mind as a machine with cause and effect, with a little bit of chaos in there for good measure. Until recently I’d had little cause to direct this interest inwardly. It took two months to trace things back to the Arthur conclusion. Written down it might look silly, and to some degree it is:

Child doesn’t deal with losing kitten = adult doesn’t know how to process being let down.

It’s dumb, but it’s also an answer. Rather than endlessly repeating: ‘I don’t understand’ I now DO understand. More importantly, I can tell my 6 year old self that it wasn’t his fault. He couldn’t have known what was going to happen. I can resolve the relatively innocent incident of childhood trauma.

Not me and Arthur, but probably fairly accurate. Fuck I wish I remembered more.

You see, giving myself the answer provides me with a key. I’m no longer looking outwards for a solution, I can look inwards. And until recently my own head was the safest place for me to be. Like fuck I’m giving up that ground to anxiety. That territory is mine, baby.

I can also begin to work on how I view people, how I project onto them, and why I project onto them.

This has been a chaotic post, and to get the first hand journey experience you might have to read it backwards, from panic attack to naming a female kitten Arthur.

So there you have it. My first panic attack. Such innocent, naive little origins for something that could have so easily ruined me as an adult. Ain’t the human brain great/terrible.

Weirdly, I feel stronger and more alive than I ever have.

2020 is going to be amazing, I promise.

– Seb

Her Name Was Arthur Her Name Was Arthur Or: Getting to grips with my first ever panic attack at 30…

[lovemesomesurveys]

1. When is the last time you sat around a campfire? For my birthday 5 years ago. 2. Is there an important event coming up at your school? I’m done with school. 3. Do you have a back-up career choice? What is it? I don’t even have a career or 1st choice for one.  4. Would you ever get caught with a fake ID? I’m 30 so there’s no need. I didn’t do this when I was younger, though. 5. Is there a comic book store in your city? I think there is. 6. Do you think religion justifies treating people unequally? No. 

7. Are men more attractive with longer or shorter hair? I personally like short hair on guys. 8. What colour was the ink of the last pen you used? Black, I think. 9. Do you know how to tie a necktie? Nope. I’ve never tried or had a reason to. 10. Have you ever attended a benefit dinner? Yes. 11. Is there a name that you hear and cringe? Eh. 12. What’s one question you’re sick of seeing in surveys? Marriage and kids. 13. Say something in Spanish: Amo las jirafas.  14. Did you ever think that running away would solve your problems? Not running away from my family and going out on my own, but running away in the sense of leaving this town and going far away, as if my problems would stay behind. Of course it doesn’t work that way.  15. Where was the last place to which you rode a taxi? It was years ago in San Francisco. 16. How long does it usually take you to read a decent-sized book? It really depends. Sometimes I just can’t put it down and I’ll finish it in a day, other times it may take me a little longer.  17. What was the last computer game you played? The Sims 4. 18. What colour are your dad’s eyes? Blue. 19. Could you choreograph a dance routine? Uh, no. I can’t dance at all. 20. Have you ever left your hair in braids overnight, then taken them out to make your hair look crimped? Yeah. 21. Would you say you were a cute kid? I thought so. Not sure what happened once middle school came around. 22. Can you handle a lot of drama? No. I really try and avoid it. 23. Have you watched “Prop 8 The Musical” on funnyordie.com? Is it funny? I have not. 24. How would you react if your mom told you she’s gay? I’d be very shocked to say the least. All I’ve known is her and my dad together, and I’ve never had any inkling that she might be into women. It would just come a huge surprise.  25. Do you remember wearing tear-away pants? No. 26. Can you count to 100 in another language? Spanish. 27. Have you ever donated clothes? Yes, many times. 28. When you were a kid, was there a boy/girl that you said you were going to marry? No. 29. What was the last sparkly thing you wore? I don’t recall. 30. Is it hard for you to trust someone? Not usually. I just have a hard time opening up in general to anyone. 31. What’s the shortest length you’ve ever cut your hair? I had the “bob” cut for a few years. 32. Do you always turn the light off when you leave a room? Depends what room. If it’s the bathroom or kitchen, then yes.  33. Is your favourite TV show very popular? Some of them are. 34. When was the first time you used a lighter? I don’t mess with lighters, I’m a big scardy cat. 35. Where would you rather be right now? Somewhere relaxing with nice, cool weather.

[turnupswritessometimes]

The One With the Zombies - AshEiji - Ch6

Title: The One With the Zombies

Chapter: 6

Word Count: 4074

Description:  Another what it says on the tin from me - it's a Zombie Apocalypse AU because how else could this anime/manga get any darker? Whilst on the run from the outbreak of zombies, reporters Ibe and Eiji stumble across a New York street gang, safely huddled in an abandoned warehouse. As if the undead weren't surprising enough, Eiji finds himself becoming closer and closer to the gang's leader, mysteriously dubbed Ash Lynx. But safety doesn't last forever and soon it's only Ash and Eiji. And they're up against more than just zombies.

Note: This is available on A03, and I would recommend you follow it there, as I remember to update it. I would post a link, but then Tumblr wouldn’t include it in search results.

6

Eiji had agreed to go. There was a painful twist in his stomach as they walked away from the wooden farmhouse. He was nervous – he was nervous about leaving Ibe. Leaving Ibe without a word was even worse. What would he imagine happened when he saw the unmoving zombie on the ground with no Ash or Eiji in sight? He’d probably be worried sick.

Ash had sent a text to Skip. He’d passed it on to Bones and Kong as well, so hopefully Ibe would get it. Hopefully he’d understand. Eiji had to go with Ash.

Ash. He was walking slightly in front of Eiji, not taking his eyes off of the road in front of them. Eiji could still feel his hands on his cheeks, his mouth on Eiji’s. The smell of blood and rotting meat in the air and yet Eiji’s heart had been racing. It had felt like jumping – the second where he swore that he could fly. The ghost of the kiss was still lingering on his skin. They hadn’t talked about it since. Ash had just been happy to be alive. That was all. Eiji kept repeating it to himself.

It didn’t mean anything.

In fact, it had helped kickstart his own heart. He hadn’t been able to believe that he had just done that. He had just seen the undead man approaching Ash. His hand had just pulled to activate the chain saw and he was running. His legs had pumped into action without a second thought.

And then there was blood everywhere. He had killed a zombie. Had killed someone. An undead someone.

Ash had kissed him.

Apparently they were moving on from that.

They had stumbled from the woods and onto the highway about an hour ago and had been following signs since then. Their ears were pricked for any approaching cars that they could hitchhike on. There hadn’t even been an engine in the distance.

“Ibe replied,” Ash said. “He said they’ll meet us in New York. I’ll send our location when we get there.”

“Okay,” Eiji said. “Thank you.”

“I couldn’t wait, Eiji.”

“I know. Is he okay?”

“They think.”

Eiji took a breath. “What are you going to do?”

Ash glanced across at him, green eyes dull. “I don’t know.”

“Do you want a cigarette?” It was the only thin he could think of to make things better.

“I’m dying for one. Didn’t have them on me.”

They hadn’t even gone back in the house afterwards. They had just left. Eiji was still splattered from head to toe in blood and Ash was the same. It had dried in his hair and made it look ginger in the afternoon sun.

“Are you okay if we keep walking through the night?”

Eiji was about to reply, when his eyes were drawn to a sparkle of silver at the edge of the road. He stared at it, trying to figure out what exactly it was. Then it clicked.

“Bicycle.”

“What?”

“There’s a bicycle.” Eiji pointed.

Ash turned. His facial expression did not change but he began to jog over to it. So Eiji jogged too. The bicycle was half-hidden in the underbrush. The spokes were rusted with dried blood, but the wheels still turned.

He was about to ask where the rider was, but then he spotted the trainers a few feet away from the bike. One looked empty, but the other still had a leg attached. It ended suddenly at the knee and Eiji couldn’t look further.

“Can you get onto the handlebars?” Ash asked as he tugged it free of tendrils of dry grass. There was blood splattered up his arms in the pattern of a firework.

Eiji nodded and perched himself on the front of the bicycle. It wobbled as Ash climbed on and there was a screech as the wheels began moving. As they started to pick up speed, Eiji became incredibly aware of Ash behind him, his chin bumping into Eiji’s shoulder every now and then as he kept an eye on where they were going.

Ash. Who had kissed him.

Ash, whose brother had been bitten by zombies.

The feeling of his hands and his mouth began to fade and Eiji couldn’t figure out if he was glad about that or disappointed. Whenever he thought of it, his stomach swooped and he wasn’t sure if he disliked the feeling. Actually, he quite liked it.

He quite liked Ash. He liked looking at Ash – at those cat’s eyes and cupid’s bow mouth. He was pretty – very pretty, in that 80s/90s movie kind of way. And he liked the way Ash looked at him. Like he was seeing someone much better than Eiji. Someone who was confident and funny and all of the things Eiji was not.

They were the things Eiji wasn’t in Japan. In America, he felt like that. No, when he was with Ash he felt like that. When they had been messing around in the farmhouse, he had forgotten about anything else. It had been the happiest he had felt for a very long time.

Did that mean that he wanted to kiss Ash again? He wasn’t sure. It wasn’t a thought that he could give time to –

Ash had only kissed him because he was glad to be alive.

The sun was setting as New York finally came into view. It was the same skyline – set against the fire of the sky. Just was breath-taking, if not more, than when Eiji had first seen it from the taxi. Ash whooped behind him as they started going downhill.

And it only took half a moment for Eiji to join in.

It was a short lived euphoria. The closer and closer the got into the city, the more devastation they saw. Shops had been pillaged and houses broke in to – the empty windows and doors gaping at them as they passed. There was blood as well – blood and body parts scattering the pavement.

The zombies started to appear as they got closer and closer to Manhattan. Ash handed Eiji his phone.

“Load up maps – it’s the last search.” He said, pedalling faster.

Eiji did, turning back to tell him the way to go. He didn’t want to think about how close he was to Ash’s cheek when he did.

But they went bothered by any of the stumbling figures. They glanced at them, started forward, but then seemed to see through them. Eiji wasn’t about to complain. It seemed like an age before they were turning into Chinatown and there was a voice calling, “Ash fucking Lynx!”

“Shorter!” Ash was slowing the bike down, already jumping off before it came to a stop. Eiji stumbled, letting it fall behind him as he jumped off too.

A group was running towards them, led by a tall boy sporting a bright purple mohawk. He met Ash as he ran and enveloped him in a bear hug so tight that Eiji could barely spot Ash.

“Shorter fucking Wong!”

They were like football players who had one at the last moment – all jumping and shaking hands and whooping. Eiji set the bicycle down on the pavement, glancing behind him to see if anyone – anything – had heard. That was when there was an arm around his neck, pulling him forward.

“Eiji, this is my best friend, Shorter,” Ash was saying. “Shorter – this is Eiji, he’s – he’s a friend. A stray we took in.”

“A pleasure.” The boy called Shorter held out a hand – a hand rather larger than Eiji’s, he realised, as he shook it. He could see himself mirrored in the sunglasses. He looked small and scared and covered in blood.

“Hello.” It seemed a ridiculous thing to say, given the circumstance.

The whole group was walking now – heading back to the buildings they had sprung from. Guns were out, trained on their surroundings, even though everyone looked too exhausted to aim.

“Where are you from?”

“Japan.” It was easier to stick to the basics.

Shorter gave a low whistle. “Well, Dorothy, I don’t think you’re in Kansas anymore.”

Eiji couldn’t help it, he glanced at Ash and received a smirk. He still had an arm around Eiji’s shoulders, as if he wanted to protect him. Or as if he needed him to stand upright.

“He came over as a journalist,” Ash said. He could speak English a lot quicker than Eiji. “To interview around gangs and stuff in New York. The boys found him looking sorry for himself near our base.”

“You left them there?”

“We had to scatter.”

Shorter pulled down his sunglasses then, seeming to read something in Ash’s face. They didn’t say anything more until they were bundled into a Chinese restaurant. The lights flickered slightly above them and the boys behind them put wooden bars across the doors. The windows had already been boarded up. There were guns everywhere and bullets scattered the place like bobby pins in a girl’s bathroom. But it was safe and that made Eiji relax.

“What happened?” Shorter wasted no time once they were inside, pulling a chair over to him and setting on it backward – so his could rest his elbows on the back of it.

Ash finally released Eiji, hopping onto one of the tables and using another as a footstool.

Eiji pulled a chair across and wondered if he was the only one here who could use one normally.

“It was like they were organised. They just crowded around – waiting – like they were flushing us out.”

“Like foxes around a rabbit hole.” Shorter ran a hand over his chin. It looked as though he hadn’t shaved in a long time.

“What the fuck do you know about hunting rabbits?”

“More than you, and I don’t have the last name of a big cat.” Shorter was grinning and Ash was grinning back and Eiji supposed that had to be a good sign. “You’re saying they were – what? Assembled there?”

“Organised – I said, organised.”

“Maybe someone led them to you,” Shorter suggested.

“No, no one had left in days.”

“Maybe they have a hive mentality,” someone else threw in.

“They would have found us a while ago, if they did,” Shorter said. He sighed, and leant back, resting his head in his arms, “You know the annoying thing about zombie movies?

“They're too realistic?” Ash asked. It earned a few snickers, and Eiji had to hide his smile behind his hand.

“They don't explain the origin of the zombies.”

“Cell does.” A boy who looked much too young to be filling the gun he was holding, said.

“You're right, Soo-Ling, Cell does,” Shorter said. “And because of that, we can deduce phones were not the cause. In fact, I was taking a call from my sister when it happened.”

“What does it matter how it started?” Ash was on the verge of snarling.

“Because then we might know if someone can control them. If there can be a cure.”

“How many movies are there where they succeed in making a cure?”

“In Shaun of the Dead, Shaun keeps his zombie buddy as a pet in the garage,” the young boy continued. He flicked his gun open and shut without looking at it. “It's not a solution, but the power of friendship might be a compromise.”

“Power of friendship, got it.”

“We have made some progress,” Shorter said. “We know that it started here, in the city. It wasn't brought from anywhere else.”

“And now its spreading.”

“And now its spreading, yeah.”

“We shut down the docks pretty quick.” The female voice was unexpected. A woman stepped through the crowds, tucking a strand of short hair behind her ear. “The whole country should be in shut down or evacuating. Then it’ll be contained.”

“And we’ll be trapped.”

“Until they decompose completely, yeah.” Shorter said.

Ash sighed, pushing his hair away from his face and scowling at the floor. He glanced up, after a moment. “Hi, Nadia.”

“Hello again, Ash.” She smiled then and it made her look so much younger and prettier. “No offence, but you look like crap.”

“I feel like crap.”

“Whose blood is it?” Shorter asked.

Ash glanced at Eiji then. He took a moment before he replied, “some zombie’s. Eiji killed it.”

“And here I thought you were being clever.”

“Come again?”

“The scent – it would have disguised you from them.”

"Yeah, that's what we were aiming for.” Ash winked at Eiji. He looked down. It made his heart stutter and his head feel light. What was wrong with him? It hadn’t meant anything.

It hadn’t meant anything.

“We still have running water upstairs.” That was the woman, Nadia. “Would you two like to wash up?"

"The waters still on?”

“For now,” Shorter said. “We don’t know how long it’s going to last. Consider it a treat before you have to make do with a shower a week. You know, as you smell like rotten meat.”

“You’re very kind.” Ash rolled his eyes. “Eiji, you go first. I have something to do – will you take me?” the last was directed to Shorter, who nodded, his expression turning solemn and serious.

Ash and Shorter were getting to their feet, so Eiji did too. He looked up at Ash, searching his face for – he didn’t know what, exactly. Ash’s face was a mask of indifference anyway.

“Be careful, Ash.”

“I always am.” Ash’s hand hovered above his cheek for a moment, before he took a breath and clenched his fist. “You stay safe too.”

Then he was pushing past Eiji and he was left standing with a group of strangers again.

Only this time he didn’t have Ash.

*

Ash couldn’t remember the last time he had been apart from Eiji. He didn’t like it. It made him feel like he was missing a limb.

Missing a limb. What if Griffin was missing a limb?

He had no idea what he was going to say – no idea what he was going to do. He was just following Shorter with a hand on his gun through the suburbs of New York.  These were the same streets that he knew like the back of his hand, and yet it was almost unrecognisable. This was the city that never slept and yet it was a ghost town. Lights were either off or flickering and it was really becoming dark. He’d never seen New York really dark.

“He’s up here,” Shorter said, as they came to another apartment block. “Third floor – the only closed door.”

“You left him here?”

Shorter leant closer, his voice dropping. “He’s infected, Ash. We couldn’t take him with us.”

Ash wanted to punch something. He wanted to punch the brickwork until his knuckles were bleeding. Then maybe punch Shorter too.

“I’ll go up,” he said, instead. His voice sounded strained. “Cover me?”

He didn’t stay to listen to the answer. Ash shoved the apartment door open with his shoulder and headed up the stairs. Something was leaking, he could hear it tapping through the walls. An electric light burst as he passed it, shattering stars over him.

As he walked down the hallway, he could feel his heart pounding in his chest. Nerves. He couldn’t remember feeling this nervous for a long time.

The only closed door was about halfway down and he paused outside the doorway. His ears strained to hear any sound from inside. No moans. No groans. No screams. Ash nudged it open with his foot, sliding his gun out of his waistband and holding it with both hands as he stepped inside.

It wasn’t trashed. It was just an apartment – bathroom door half open and magazines on the table. The windows intact and the pictures where they should be on the walls. Almost as if it was any other day. So, this was where Griffin had been living. It wasn’t great – barely even nice – but it was his own place. A proper apartment with lampshades instead of naked bulbs and wallpaper instead of cracking, mouldy paint. Griffin had a life. Ash didn’t, not like this. It should have been him with the bite.

Ash cracked the door to the bedroom open with his foot. He could hear ragged breathing and held his breath as he stepped into the room.

A gun was pointed at him. He had been planning to raise his own – just in case, but he lost his nerve. The pistol hung from his fingers as he stared at a man with pale, sweaty skin and lank hair.

“Get out,” the man said in a cracked voice.

Ash opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He just stood there.

“I said get out.”

“Griffin.” Ash’s voice was barely more than a whisper.

“What?”

“Are you – you –“ Ash forced himself to swallow. “Griffin Callenreese?”

“I was.”

“You are.”

The gun was lowered slightly. The man’s breathing was laboured as he stared at Ash. Ash, who was covered in blood. Ash, who was a teenager stood in front of a man. His brother was a man.

“You need to go,” the man said. He paused to give a hacking cough. “It’s not safe here.”

“I know.”

“Then leave.” Another long and painful coughing fit. Ash saw blood and his stomach turned.

“I can’t.”

The man – Griffin – looked at him for a long time. His eyes were blue – the same watery blue that Ash remembered.

“You too?” he croaked.

“What?” Ash blinked. Then understood. “No – no – this is – this is someone else’s. I’m not hurt.” The gun was wavering even lower and he stepped closer. “I had to come here.”

Griffin dropped the gun with a clatter, doubling over and spluttering with a cough. Ash darted forward, kneeling down and rubbing his back. It was then that he noticed the wheelchair. Max had warned him – but there was still something that scared him about it. This was someone Ash didn’t recognise. Someone with a completely different life.

Then again, he couldn’t speak about being unrecognisable.

“Griffin,” Ash said. “You had a brother, right?”

“Have a brother.” Griffin’s voice was even weaker. “He’s still out there. He’s in the city.”

“He is.”

Griffin looked up then. His eyes were red, but they were searching Ash’s. He was still there. Some of him.

“He’s here,” Ash whispered.

“Aslan.”

There was a hand on Ash’s cheek – a wavering hand and he steadied it against himself without even thinking. Aslan. That was a name that he hadn’t heard in a long time. It was a name that didn’t even feel like his anymore. But it was. That was him. He was Aslan.

Griffin’s hand moved on his cheek – just slightly. Just enough to wipe away the drop of water that had appeared from Ash’s eye. He hadn’t even realised his eyes were damp.

“Where have you been, Aslan?”

He couldn’t say. Not when Griffin already had a foot in the grave and seemed to be inching into it as they spoke. The truth had no place here. Instead he tried to make his mouth smile. “Yonder.”

That made Griffin chuckle. Ash wanted to believe it was a chuckle, but it sounded like the dry laugh of a skeleton.

"You shouldn't be here," Griffin repeated.

Ash shook his head. "I had to. I had to come."

"It's too late, Aslan."

He knew that. He knew it but that wasn't right. His heart was telling him that it wasn't right.

"It's not - it can't be - not after - not after everything." It wasn't fair. It really wasnt fair that they'd only just found each other and now - this. "We'll - we'll find a cure - there has to be a cure."

Griffin gave him a tired smile. He had such a gentle face - Ash couldn't imagine him as a soldier. He couldn't imagine him killing anyone. His other hand was searching Ash's matted hair with clumsy fingers, as if he was trying to feel as much of Ash as he could.

"I don't want to know what it's like," Griffin said. "To be like that. I don't want that."

"But - it can't be too late." Ash sounded like a child, but that was okay. He could be a child now that his big brother was here.

Griffin shook his head and the movement left him panting for air. "My heart is slowing. Here - feel."

He took Ash's hand, moving at the snail's pace of a man much older, until Ash's curled fingers were on Griffin's chest. He forced himself to move, to feel it with his palm. A small, childish part of him hoped that against everything, he would feel a strong heartbeat. A heartbeat getting stronger because he was here now and brotherly love would win out.

This wasn't a movie. He could barely feel anything. And as a result, he couldn't bring himself to meet Griffin's eyes.

"How did it happen?" he whispered in a cracking voice.

"Well I could hardly going anywhere, could I?" His voice was gentle. So gentle. "My friend was meant to be getting supplies. Searching for a safe house and coming back to get me. I have no idea how he would have gotten us out of the city, but Max is like that. A very brave man."

But he abandoned you, Ash wanted to say. He had left. If he had stayed this wouldn’t have happened. He kept his mouth shut. Nothing would make this moment worse than it was.

'They found me - could probably smell me. One was on me before I knew it and by the time I had got my safety off my gun and killed it - it got me. I thought it was easier to stay here, where I can't infect anyone else."

"I can help you," Ash whispered.

"You can," Griffin said. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear. He knew the drill now. "The thought of that moment - that moment of changing - has been haunting me for days," he wet his mouth with a greyish tongue and Ash wished that he wouldn't say it. Of all the crap that had happened to him, don't add this on too. "Will you be able to do it?"

"I don't know."

"Not wanting to isn't the same as not being able to. Here." Griffin was searching for Ash's arms and he let him. He let the gun in his hands be raised as if he was a doll. As if he was helpless. But Griffin was looking at him clearer than ever. "I'll help you. We'll do it together."

He was holding Ash's gun against his forehead, hands closed over Ash's. They were already stained with blood and they were smaller. Too small.

He shook his head because he couldn't speak. Could barely breathe for the pain in his chest and throat and could barely see for the tears in his eyes.

"Look at you, Aslan." There was that gentle voice again. The fingers tightened around his ever so slightly. Calloused, Ash realised. Experienced hands. "You're all grown up. Almost a man."

"You have grown up," Ash whispered. He felt a tear drip down his cheek and it felt like a raindrop.

"I wish you didn't have to." For a moment, it looked as if he was going to put the gun down. That he'd put the gun down and hug Ash. But then his face hardened into a resolution. "But it's time, tiger."

There was a sound in the back of Ash's throat. He hadn't realised how much he'd missed that nickname.

"I want to be your brother. Not anything else. Don't let me change."

"Okay." The word finally came out, even if it was against his will. He shifted his fingers under Griffin's, made sure that he would be able to pull the trigger. "I love you, Griffin."

Griffin tried for a smile again, but his face was stiff. His hands were weakening over Ash's and it would have to be this moment - it would have to be now.

"I love you too, tiger."

The bang reverberated through the apartment like the first firework of the fourth of July.

Ash let the gun drop into his lap. Let himself rest his arms and head on Griffin's knees. Gave himself ten seconds to let the wave of emotions wash through him.

Then he stood.

And he left.

[sagamemes]

podiots sentence starters, part i.   contains 143 lines of dialogue collected from episodes one through three of the vidiots’ fortnightly podcast podiots. i’ve edited some lines to fit roleplay better, and randomised the order. contains two mentions of violence against nazis---last two sentences on the list, if don’t want to see it---feel free to change those into your muse’s in-universe equivalents, as well as edit anything else needed to fit your muse’s mouth or life better.

❝ after my dad showed me that, i never trusted him again. ❞

❝ that’s actually an explanation for a lot of ghost sightings, carbon monoxide poisoning. there are symptoms that cause like hallucinations and feelings of dread and fear. ❞

❝ i would be called chocolate thunder, and i’d wear a cape. ❞

❝ would you just get over it? i was a kid! ❞

❝ it was just this weird rag doll girl who happened to be in a bikini just falling, forever. ❞

❝ is there ever not a sexual element to it?! ❞

❝ well, you’ve clearly never met a salaried genie who’s on a retainer. ❞

❝ you’ve had your money taken. ❞

❝ i just want people to pay attention, for fuck’s sake. ❞

❝ you guys are really into your obscure shit. ❞

❝ it’s a bit like class tourism, isn’t it? ❞

❝ that’s what i was saying, this is---this is probably not legal. ❞

❝ you asked to bring weird things. ❞

❝ boy, do i hate facebook! ❞

❝ to be fair, her balloon animals are quite impressive. ❞

❝ jesus, why aren’t you on neopets yet? ❞

❝ you can’t always afford the homemade stuff. and typically, there’s less of it. and sometimes it’s not very good. and you’re paying a premium! ❞

❝ i’m so fucking over [thing]. to be fair, i ruined it for myself. ❞

❝ he’s just some time traveller, fucking with them with a fucking mp3 player. ❞

❝ what the fuck is a ‘num noms’? ❞

❝ so it’s a miracle that [name] didn’t asphyxiate himself as a child, and it’s amazing that i didn’t have some kind of cardiac issue almost immediately in my late teens. what do you bring to the table here? ❞

❝ i’m a big fan of weird gameboy stuff. ❞

❝ i’m like that rabbit from alice in wonderland. tiny, and late, and white. ❞

❝ it’ll make you terrified of ever going to a hotel again. ❞

❝ i like watching it but it’s not teaching me anything. ❞

❝ no, i don’t think there was any bubbles in it. ❞

❝ what do your mums think about what you’re doing? ❞

❝ gho-mophobic. that was a really difficult pun. ❞

❝ should we just start it? should we just go without him? ❞

❝ not that i could out-style you in any capacity. ❞

❝ i shouldn’t have asked for a horse. ❞

❝ our problem was nobody would take us seriously. ❞

❝ i’ve spent months trying to explain the job to her. my old job, she kind of got that, but now... ❞

❝ about halfway into the first [food] i went ‘oh... this is a lot of food’.---/i ate it all/, and then i felt sick for the rest of the sunday. ❞

❝ you were skirting around it, but if you ask me, directly, that’s what i’m going to say. ❞

❝ say a ghost laid a ghost poo on the floor, does it just stay there forever? ❞

❝ do you have an answer to this? because i’ve never given /any/ thought... ❞

❝ i’ve heard somewhere you can do that now. ❞

❝ my mum thinks you’re very funny, [name]. ❞

❝ no, that was all you. every penny, all you. ❞

❝ not the reason i was there, but it was a nice benefit. ❞

❝ stop. i mean---don’t stop. but /stop/. ❞

❝ [name] is the kind of man who’s so rich, he thinks a can of beans costs two thousand dollars. ❞

❝ just before going/coming in, my taxi driver said ‘oh, be careful, people get stabbed around here, bye!’ ❞

❝ be aware that this is /not/ a donation to a charitable cause. ❞

❝ i just do shots of olive oil. ❞

❝ no wonder he’s so fucking weird. ❞

❝ get a big old truck, for all that junk inside your trunk. ❞

❝ you’re not supposed to put cotton swabs in there, let alone a lit flame. ❞

❝ fuck you... [name]. i’m gonna... suck. your dick. ❞

❝ i’ve admittedly grown more bold with my culinary disgusts. ❞

❝ my chocolate shotgun, it’s a legally non-threatening weapon. ❞

❝ you did look very smart. very respectable. ❞

❝ everyone’s pulled the legs off a daddy longlegs, but that’s just like level one, that’s where you leave it. ❞

❝ see, that just sounds like batman. ❞

❝ i forgot that was the origin of this. ❞

❝ i feel like there’s something in the air. ❞

❝ there’s cosplaying and dressing up, and then there’s furries. ❞

❝ obviously, he--i mean i say obviously, like it’s /logical/, but... ❞

❝ if they did that, it’d be a lot more convenient for me. sometimes, it’s not the end of the world, is all i’m saying. ❞

❝ i am a freak. i have hands and feet, and if you’d saw me, you’d be petrified. ❞

❝ they have a meal deal which is like [£40/€45/$55]. and you get like a 25" square pizza, like seven garlic breads, and several ice creams. i could never make a dent in that, but the idea of it sounds very sexy. ❞

❝ well, he’ll be back soon! ❞

❝ you know, like a hammer throw---if i tied a string around it, i think i could throw a ps2 pretty far. properly like, swing it around, lean against it, do a spin. ❞

❝ day to day... i don’t eat breakfast. ❞

❝ we’re trying to be on everything, that’s our goal. ❞

❝ my finishing move would be called the ‘fuck you.’ ❞

❝ but i could never do that, i've got stuff to do! ❞

❝ i like dad rock. ❞

❝ if you’re having a party, i’m going to tell you what to do. ❞

❝ she looks far more normal than i expected. ❞

❝ i asked metaphorically, not physically. ❞

❝ i asked for some ___. we got about fifty. we only needed five. ❞

❝ there’s still time to save this american icon. ❞

❝ there were two [job title]s in there, who were like, super young and sexy men with really nice hair. ❞

❝ it’s read like it’s a documentary, not like ‘haha, and then he died!’ ❞

❝ i don’t want my lampshade looking at me! ❞

❝ give him something to do, he’ll be quiet, [name] and i can go to the shops and talk about where our marriage went wrong. ❞

❝ you don’t need to look at the front. usually, you’re behind ____. if he’s got a nice arse, that’s all that matters. ❞

❝ what’s your favourite cereal? ❞

❝ i’m just saying---sometimes local shops are shit. ❞

❝ i don’t think if you know this, [name]---i think you do, because you told me. ❞

❝ you take kids to a mcdonald’s, they’ll play at mcdonald’s. ❞

❝ you exist and then you don’t. ❞

❝ [name] is going through some financial issues, by which i mean, it’s fucked. ❞

❝ that’s a bit morbid. ❞

❝ i was thinking about ____ earlier. yeah, it crosses my mind at least like once an hour. ❞

❝ i had a great day, we went outside for lunch, i got gelato, it was great! ❞

❝ the tabloids loved the story. ❞

❝ you have to be really confused. ❞

❝ i really wanted to include h. h. holmes in this list because he’s my favourite murderer. ❞

❝ we’re not journalists, we’re just idiots on the internet. ❞

❝ it’s not the kind of name you gloss over. ❞

❝ ‘how did it get there?’ this is a /talking mongoose/ and you’re wondering how it got there? ❞

❝ is he a cat?! ❞

❝ i bought a replacement [name]. ❞

❝ i grew up in a village that didn’t even have a supermarket. ❞

❝ he was just---he was borderline abusive in my own house. ❞

❝ that’s gonna take you forever! ❞

❝ okay, well, i’m uncomfortable, what are we doing? ❞

❝ we’re not like... ‘i think i can make a joke about fighting your mother while playing a game’. we don’t know that well. ❞

❝ he’s like a genie, we only get one wish per day. ❞

❝ you take a drink and then you’re like ‘i don’t wanna drink too loud’ so you end up taking a tiny amount but then you don’t want to swallow too loud so you sort of inhale it a little bit and you’re like ‘i can’t cough, i can’t cough’... ❞

❝ now, [name] just heard that i wanted the attention and instantly decided he needed it instead. ❞

❝ we’re in dire need of new shelves. that money is going straight to shelves. ❞

❝ i never played ____. i kinda missed that train. ❞

❝ i could do the face for free. ❞

❝ it’s immediately feeling very warm in here. ❞

❝ presumably, this guy owns a lot of toys, so num noms is a thing. ❞

❝ i think that’s just a [region/state] thing. ❞

❝ let’s play a game called ‘how many people did they murder?’ ❞

❝ who is getting out of this room alive? ❞

❝ it’s like that song about the grandfather clock. ‘and it stopped, short, never to go again, when the ooold maaan died’. ❞

❝ [in the tune of new york] you’ll get punched in yoouur face. ❞

❝ don’t---don’t entertain his odd nonsense! ❞

❝ i don’t like people! i want my own space! ❞

❝ that’s something i always found really fascinating, like just wanting the username ‘batman’. how early would you have to be just to be ‘batman’? ❞

❝ you can’t complain about something disappearing if you’ve not been using it. ❞

❝ oh yeah, i always go to the dentist and get my brows done. ❞

❝ i loved [old place], and [this place] is also very lovely, it’s just a lot more expensive. ❞

❝ it’s a shame. just a couple of months longer and you would’ve had some employee rights. ❞

❝ there is a very good balloon elmo in this picture. ❞

❝ so, with all of this, what do you think the result is of this kind of upbringing and toxic relationship with your mother? ❞

❝ yeah, think about that. maybe we don’t like you. ❞

❝ they're’s so comfortable, i could almost fall asleep. ❞

❝ could you take this bottle of water, pour it in the sink, fill it again, and bring back to me? ❞

❝ it’s a sex number, i like it. ❞

❝ so what did the police do?---return him to [person]. ❞

❝ i wish /my/ mum thought i was funny. ❞

❝ okay, that’s gonna be interesting, having someone with a blade on my throat. ❞

❝ they can fire me if they want! they can fire me! ❞

❝ i don’t know why i said ‘basically’ like i’m about to explain how the internet works. ❞

❝ before, i had---there’s a shame element, isn’t it? you don’t want to do it because you’re afraid of judgement. ❞

❝ at one point, he had me squatting barefoot in my own bath. ❞

❝ eventually, we’re just gonna have to buy a storage locker for all this stuff. ❞

❝ i’ve got quite a sizeable list, i won’t talk about all of them. ❞

❝ how did we become the internet goblins we are today? ❞

❝ are you allergic to a.i.? ❞

❝ at least this is something you’re self-aware. if it was something other people had picked up on... ❞

❝ we have yellow and black, kind of a barry b. benson inspired look. ❞

❝ i was very disappointed at like eight when i found out they weren’t called ‘the food fighters’. ❞

❝ oh yeah, kicking hitler and shooting nazis is a lot of fun. ❞

❝ i’d love to throw a bop it extreme at hitler’s face, is what i’m saying, and i could do it from a long distance away. ❞

[artificialqueens]

Dancing On Air (Scyvie) - Peridot

A/N: Hello wonderful people! New fic who dis? This is the longest thing I’ve ever written (5.6k words, not that much but it’s still an achievement for me) and it took me way longer than I anticipated to write. I’d like to thank everyone for the love on my last fic, I think it has something like 60 notes now which is so insane to me, thank you thank you thank you! Anyway, enough rambling, here’s the fluffy/angsty Scyvie dance class au that literally no one asked for but I wrote anyway. Let me know what you think!

Summary: To say Yvie didn’t like herself would’ve been the understatement of the century. She quite literally danced around the problem, distracting herself by moving to the music.

When she first saw Scarlet, Yvie was upside down.

Who knew she’d be the one to turn Yvie’s world upside down?

TW: Light bullying and low self esteem.

Feel free to come annoy me on my sideblog @peridot-aq. Hope you enjoy!

Yvie was early, for once.

Usually she would walk into dance class very late, after having rushed out of the house and practically sprinted to the bus stop only to discover that the next bus would arrive an hour later. She blamed the government for unreliable fucking buses.

However, this time she was early. Which was nice. It gave her time to properly get ready, instead of enduring the mad fluster to get on her dance shoes and join the class before a teacher discovered her lateness. No, today she could take her time. Breathe. Ponder the meaning of life, if she wanted. Hell, maybe she might even have time to stretch before the class. That would be new. The dancers were always expected to stretch beforehand, but thanks to untrustworthy public transport, Yvie decided to skip it almost every week in favour of catching up on what she’d already missed.

When she waltzed into the dance studio (a grand total of 10 minutes early, a new personal record) she was surprised to see that the cloakroom was pretty full - and she could recognise almost all of her classmates’ bags and coats and belongings. Funny.

This lead Yvie to come to the groundbreaking conclusion that they had all already arrived. She wasn’t expecting that. She was really early, after all. Ten whole minutes early, in fact. She wondered if they always got here at this time- and if she looked even worse walking in late each week as she thought she did.

Fuck punctuality.

Nevertheless, she was proud of herself for being ahead of schedule. She hung up her denim jacket on a hook and entered the studio with her head held high in a mock confidence, swinging the door closed behind her. She glanced around the room, mentally counting how many girls had arrived in an attempt to prove that her theory was correct. And, unsurprisingly, it was. Pretty much everyone in her class was already sitting around the wooden floor in small groups, some stretching, some getting into their dance gear, and others just talking aimlessly.

She quickly spotted Brooke alone in the left corner tapping on her phone and moved to join her friend, a somewhat smug smile creeping onto her face as she dropped her bag onto the floor beside her with a heavy thud. Brooke looked up at Yvie, slightly startled to see her.

“You’re early.”

“Hello to you too, Brooke!” Yvie replied sarcastically, joining Brooke to sit on the floor.

“You’re never this early, though. Did you get a taxi or something?”

“Nope, the same old shitty bus. Just a stroke of luck.” Yvie flashed Brooke a wide grin.

“It’s a miracle.” Brooke replied with a roll of her eyes.

“Hey, you should be proud of me, bitch!”

“I am proud. Maybe my good influence is finally rubbing off on you.”

“Shut up!” Yvie laughed.

Brooke was a pretty good influence. Yvie could admit that much to herself. She was a real perfectionist in everything she did- and more than anything, her dancing. Brooke wanted to be the best. And, in Yvie’s opinion, she was. She won competitions, choreographed routines for other schools, and was undeniably every dance teacher’s favourite. And it wasn’t difficult to see why. She was a star pupil- never forgot a step, toes always pointed, learnt new routines like learning the alphabet, and, as Yvie had come to realise today, was more punctual than her.

Yvie didn’t want to be the best. Yvie didn’t want to win competitions or festivals. She didn’t have Brooke’s perfect technique or her determination to succeed.

Yvie just danced. She would bend and stretch and twist and leap until her muscles burned and she was out of breath. The music would pound in her chest and make her head spin and overwhelm all of her senses until she forgot everything else around her.

And that’s why she danced. Yvie danced to forget. To push her thoughts out of her brain. To make everything stop inside her head. To forget the people in her life, her memories, her hopes, her aspirations, the things that made Yvie Yvie.

Yvie danced to forget who she was. Because she didn’t want to be herself.

She danced because even for just a few seconds, she could be someone else.

Of course, Yvie would never tell anyone that. She had come to learn that it was safer not to focus on it. People wouldn’t see her emotions that way. She had no intention of being pitied by anyone. She didn’t want to seem even more pathetic.

Besides, she faced enough unwanted attention on a daily basis- her collection of judgemental glances she’d received at dance class was rather large, and not something that she was proud of.

So, she didn’t acknowledge it. And whenever she remembered, she would simply dance to distract herself.

And, even though it wasn’t true, she convinced herself and those around her that there was nothing to worry about.

She zoned out of whatever Brooke was saying- something about cats, probably- and pushed the creeping insecurities to the back of her mind. Undoubtedly, she’d come back to that thought later.

To distract herself, she opened her dance bag and grabbed a pair of soft black jazz shoes before kicking off her red Vans and slipping them onto her feet. Brooke had mentioned something about the focus of this month being contemporary dance, and she was not prepared to dance barefoot, so her jazz shoes would have to do.

“and then, he jumped up onto the sofa and knocked over the…. are you even listening to me over there?” Brooke interrupted Yvie’s train of thought and shot her an overly exaggerated glare.

Yvie shrugged. “Short answer or long answer?”

“Both.”

“Short answer- nope. Long answer- I would literally rather watch paint dry whilst listening to a chess tournament on the radio than listen to another fucking story about one of your cats.”

“Fucking bitch!” Brooke playfully punched Yvie’s upper arm.

“Language, Brooke Lynn!” Yvie spoke in a fake posh accent, mocking a teacher.

Despite the terrible impression and Yvie’s inability to keep a straight face, Brooke jumped a little, afraid she had been caught misbehaving. She blushed slightly when she realised her friend had noticed her panic, and, of course, Yvie started laughing, as loudly and obnoxiously as always. Brooke had always been afraid of authority.

“Looks like my bad influence is finally rubbing off on you, Miss Brooke Lynn,” Yvie teased.

“Shut up and stretch already.”

Yvie liked being friends with Brooke. She liked being able to slightly bully her, and she liked that Brooke never took any of it seriously.

What she didn’t like was that she wasn’t friends with anyone else in the class.

It isn’t so bad, she’d often think. They all seem bitchy anyway. But, she wasn’t kidding anyone. She was kind of lonely, admittedly. Brooke was good company until the class actually started, and after that, her full attention was given to dancing perfectly. But, other than her, Yvie didn’t really know anyone else in the class. Sure, she knew their names, and they’d make small talk every once in a while, but she didn’t really have that meaningful connection with any of the other girls.

She could understand why Brooke didn’t, either. She was so focused on her dance that she never made time for anyone else. On the outside, she sort of seemed cold. But, now even she was higher on the social ladder than Yvie- she’d taken a real liking to this girl Vanessa, and was starting to drift away from her.

Yvie knew Brooke would much rather spend time with Vanessa than her. She also knew that Brooke only stayed with Yvie because she knew she had no one else.

Yvie didn’t care about being isolated. She didn’t care that Brooke would gaze over at Vanessa during the time she spent with Yvie.

All she cared about were the reasons why the other girls didn’t like her.

Sure, she was a little odd. And she was tall and lanky and she laughed too loud and she let her anger out when she didn’t mean to. But nobody knew who she actually was as a person. She always wondered what she did wrong.

But, as usual, Yvie pushed the thoughts out as quickly as they came, distracting herself by playfully punching Brooke in the arm after her comment. She was grateful that she still had her, even if she would rather be with someone else.

She decided to take some of Brooke’s advice and stretch- after all, she still had 6 minutes until the class began. She tossed her bag to the side and stood up, stretching her arms a little before bending over to touch her toes, and impressive feat for someone of her height. Brooke stood up to join her, performing Yvie’s stretches a little more precisely before slowing siding into the splits. A smirk spread on the blonde’s face. Typical Brooke, one-upping Yvie.

Well, that was a challenge that Yvie wasn’t about to turn down.

In one quick motion, Yvie hurtled backwards and bent her back as far as it could go. Her head swung just above the floor, and Brooke flinched at the sudden movement. Yvie felt the eyes of the whole room on her. She stuck out her tongue at Brooke, who had a look of surprise and bewilderment on her face.

Brooke didn’t laugh. She looked more confused.

That was her first warning sign.

Then, she heard a whisper. A mumble. She swore she heard someone start to laugh. It was starting. She panicked for a split second, her regret crashing through her brain like a stampede. She must look like such a weirdo. A creep. What sort of freak can bend right over like that? She froze, back still bent like a pretzel. She’d fucked up again. Why the hell was she like this? Why couldn’t she act like a fucking normal person, just for once?

And then, Yvie heard the door open. All the heads snapped towards the door, the sight of Yvie forgotten as quickly as she had been noticed. She sighed a grateful breath, thanking every God that she knew of that the ordeal had only lasted a couple of seconds.

The door closed abruptly. There was a girl standing in front of it.

The first time she saw Scarlet, Yvie was upside down.

Well, bent over backwards. But it doesn’t change the fact that in her first glimpse of the redhead, she was walking on the ceiling.

The girl lifted her chin and smiled, looking around the room. Yvie quickly straightened up to get a better glimpse of her.

She was pretty. She looked around Yvie’s age, but she seemed quite small. Thin, short, pale skin with a few light freckles. She stood tall and confidently, wearing a dark grey sports bra and matching leggings, clearly an expensive purchase. She carried a small black bag over one shoulder, and had a silver charm bracelet around her wrist. Her auburn curls fell loosely over her shoulders. Her pink lips formed a smile. Long black eyelashes framed her cool blue eyes.

She was pretty alright.

She announced her name as Scarlet. It was a pretty name. Of course she had a pretty name. It suited her well.

The groups of girls gathered around her to introduce themselves, a swarm immediately surrounding the small girl until Yvie could no longer see her. Yvie didn’t move. She just watched in awe of girl.

Not just because she was pretty. But she seemed nice. Something about her smile was genuine.

There was still no way to prove it she was or not, of course. She could easily be another Ra’jah or Ariel from her confidence and her clothes alone. But Yvie had a feeling, a feeling that she didn’t quite know where came from.

A feeling that she might be on her side.

The girl was immediately dragged over to a huddle of girls at the front of the room beside Ra’jah, bombarded by endless questions and compliments. Yvie stayed in the back of the room. She wanted to ask the girl so much, but quickly came to the conclusion that she wouldn’t be able to get a word in edge ways. Instead, she listened to her answers- she was 16, she bought her bag in top shop, and yes, her hair was naturally that colour.

It didn’t answer any of Yvie’s questions, but it was a start.

The door swung open again, this time no one turning to face it, too distracted by the new girl. Miss Alyssa entered the room, ready to begin the class, and upon seeing Scarlet greeted her with a warm smile and a few kind words. Something about how she’s already fitting in well in the class.

Before she knew it the sea around Scarlet parted and the other girls took their positions, spread out in front of a wall of mirrors, waiting for the class to begin.

It was at this point that Yvie realised that she never finished stretching.

The one fucking time she’s early and she didn’t even get to finish stretching.

Miss Alyssa tapped at her phone, connecting it to the speaker, and announced to the class to practice their improv as a warm up whilst she… did something- Yvie wasn’t paying attention. Some slow ballad started pouring out of the speakers, and their teacher left the room as quickly as she had entered.

There were a few seconds of uncertainty before anyone started to move. As much as Yvie would’ve loved to just start dancing there and then, she waited until most people were already preoccupied by their own movements. She couldn’t risk doing something weird and everyone staring. Not again. One embarrassment per lesson was sufficient.

The music slowly seeped into Yvie’s muscles, and she let a breath escape from her lips. A breath that she hadn’t realised that she had been holding. A breath that allowed her to let go.

She kicked her legs high and stretched out her arms and twirled, loosing herself in her movements. She didn’t care how she looked in this moment- she felt like no one else was in the room, and everything about herself was a distant memory. She felt nothing but the music, coarsing through her veins and moving each limb for her. She didn’t have to think. The next move just came. She didn’t have to be Yvie, just for a moment.

Her moment was broken, however, when her eye caught Scarlet dancing in the mirror.

Dancing. If you could even call it that.

The girl flailed her arms around wildly, spinning and bending and jumping like a maniac. Her legs moved like a baby giraffe, and Yvie was genuinely concerned that she was going to hurt herself.

It took Yvie longer than it should have to realise that she wasn’t joking. She was dead serious.

Soon enough the other girls around her stopped in their tracks too, eyes glued to Scarlet. And then came the whispers. And the mumbles. And the laughter. Sounds that Yvie was all too familiar with.

But this time, they weren’t about her.

And, somehow, even though Yvie was sure she must have noticed the staring, Scarlet didn’t stop moving. And the smile on her face never dwindled, not even for a second.

Strange.

***

Even from her first moments in the class, Scarlet had created a reputation for herself. The other girls who at first swarmed to be her friend had scattered from her as far as possible, only giving her the time of day in order to laugh at her later.

But, the girl didn’t seem to care, even though everyone else seemed to care about her.

Even Brooke had something to say about her.

“She’s clearly delusional,” she said to Yvie over the phone later that night.

“What makes you say that?”

“Oh come on, you saw the way she was acting. She genuinely believes she’s some amazing dancer.”

Yvie paused for a moment. She thought about the girl’s confidence, the way she held her head up and smiled through the stares.

That smile. It didn’t seem boastful. It just seemed like she was having fun.

“I don’t know about that…”

“Why else would she sign herself up for an advanced dance class?” Brooke laughed to herself.

“I don’t know, to learn? Did you think about that, Brooke? Maybe she just wants to get better and-“

“But an advanced class. Why the hell would she sign up for an advanced class if she knew she can’t dance for shit? She’s so full of herself, and everyone else thinks so, too.”

Yvie didn’t know why she was getting angry. Brooke had a point. But, for some reason, with every passing word about Scarlet, she felt as though she needed to protect her.

Yvie’s jaw clenched “Why do you care?”

“What?”

“Why the fuck do you care, Brooke? This isn’t like you. Is it Vanessa? Is she telling you all this shit? You trying to impress her?”

“No, it’s not Vanessa, it’s-“

“Well then why do you care?”

“Are you serious, Yvie? I care because…” Brooke faltered. “I care because she’s making dance a joke. You know how much I care about dance… She’s an embarrassment-“

“Shut the fuck up!” Yvie felt tears sting in her eyes. She was yelling down the phone now. She couldn’t hold back anymore.

“Whatever, Yvie. I’m just telling the truth.”

“But you don’t even know Scarlet-“

“Neither do you!”

Yvie’s heart dropped in her chest. She was right. She didn’t know Scarlet. But something told her that they were wrong about her.

Maybe she was just being idealistic. Maybe she’d lured herself into a false sense of hope.

Or maybe, she was delusional too.

She didn’t know.

“I’ll see you in class, Brooke,” Yvie said dryly before hanging up the phone, holding back the tears that brimmed her eyelids.

***

The next week Yvie walked into class late. Back to her usual schedule. Maybe it was because of unreliable buses. Or maybe it was because Yvie had second thoughts about showing up at all.

She saw Brooke huddled beside Vanessa and some of her friends. She didn’t even glance Yvie’s way the whole lesson, not once.

However, everyone else stared alright. Word must have gotten around about their argument. Yvie wasn’t surprised. Rumours spread like wildfire amongst insecure teenage girls.

Scarlet was receiving her fair share of glances too. If a pair of eyes wasn’t on Yvie, it was on Scarlet. The whispers and murmurs filled Yvie’s ears for the whole class, but she couldn’t decipher whether they were about her or Scarlet anymore.

All the while, Scarlet didn’t seem to give a shit.

Yvie danced to distract herself from it all, the music taking over each limb as she freely improvised a solo in the back of the room. She forgot about it all for a while, filling her brain instead with the emotions of the song.

This was why she needed to dance. She savoured every second of her blissful ignorance.

The end of the class felt like a rocket ship crashing back down to earth.

Yvie knelt on the floor and packed up her dance bag in silence, once again painfully aware of the eyes on her. She didn’t look up until she heard a voice by her side.

“Hi.”

She jumped. Tilting her head upwards, her eyes met an eager-looking Scarlet with an arm outstretched towards Yvie to help her up. Without thinking, Yvie grasped Scarlet’s hand loosely and allowed the smaller girl to haul her up off of the ground.

“Um, hey.”

“Yvie, isn’t it?” Scarlet asked, raising an eyebrow and smirking.

“Uh, yeah. And you’re Scarlet.”

“Yup,” Scarlet giggled. “So listen, there’s something I wanna ask you.”

“Uh, go for it.”

“I noticed your dancing earlier, and I think you’re really good. Like, really really good. I was wondering if you could teach me a little sometime. Y’know, help with my technique or whatever.”

For a second, Yvie couldn’t breathe. Her heart swelled at the compliment, and something about Scarlet’s dorky smile made her feel special.

Plus, she was even prettier up close.

But, she was ever aware of her classmates’ suspicious glances. A hush fell across the room, ease dropping girls desperate to hear Yvie’s reply.

Yvie was conflicted.

She liked Scarlet. She wanted to know so much more about her.

But Scarlet was dangerous. Yvie knew that the longer she spoke to Scarlet, the more the class would hate her. Scarlet could make everything worse.

Her heart told her yes. Her head told her no.

A million thoughts rushed through Yvie’s brain at once. Thoughts of Scarlet and her smile and her compliments. Thoughts of Brooke and her anger and her judgement. Thoughts of the others and their insults and their laughter.

And, they led her to do something that she would regret.

“Um… no thanks… I don’t really want to.”

She did want to. She wanted to so badly.

But she couldn’t face it.

Without another word Yvie walked away from Scarlet, a chorus of quiet giggles filling the room. Guilt washed over her, knowing that the laughter was at Scarlet’s expense.

She didn’t dare look back at her.

***

The next time Yvie saw Scarlet wasn’t at dance class. Yvie had decided to skip the next week. And the week after that. She didn’t think that she would be able to keep herself together. She had acted like a fucking idiot. She repeated the same words in her head over and over- Scarlet didn’t do anything wrong. Scarlet isn’t the bad guy. You are.

Her guilt had swallowed her whole.

She swore she would do anything to start that day again. To change her answer to yes.

Yvie found herself outside studio for the first time in weeks because she was at the end of her tether.

Since she hadn’t been to dance class, she had no way to distract herself. All of her insecurities had built up, and now she found herself at breaking point.

She needed to dance. She needed to get everything out.

She had double checked there were no classes on that night, bolted out of her house, jumped on the next bus and stumbled to the studio door in a daze, without so much as a second thought. But now, as she stood with one hand resting on the door handle, her stomach flipped, reminding her of her of all the reasons why she shouldn’t go in.

Her fear. Her guilt. All the bad things that have happened behind that door.

And that is exactly why she needed to go in.

To face it on her own terms. To forget it.

She pushed the brass handle and practically fell through the door, each step forward making her body shake. Even just being in the building made Yvie’s head spin.

Some would say she was overreacting. Yvie wished she was.

Of course, she’d done bad things before in her life. It wasn’t a new feeling. But she’d never felt guilt like this before.

Scarlet was the one person who had been nice to her and she still acted like a bitch.

She hung up her coat in the empty cloakroom, fiddling with the zip on her dance bag as she tried to calm herself down. It’s fine. You’re alone. Nothing bad can happen this time. She slipped on her worn jazz shoes and took a deep breath before walking into the hall.

There was a girl in the room.

A familiar girl with auburn hair and sea blue eyes and a smile as wide as the Milky Way.

Of course Scarlet was there. Great. Just great.

Scarlet’s curly hair was tied back in a emerald green scrunchie, with a pair of white earphones framing her face. She wore an oversized band t-shirt, primark’s finest black leggings and not a stitch of makeup, and somehow she still managed to look like a sports illustrated model.

Ok, maybe she wouldn’t go that far. But she still looked pretty fucking good.

At first, she didn’t notice Yvie enter. She stood in the centre of the room in front of the mirror wall, lipsyncing some song to her reflection as she jumped around wildly. Her facial expressions were addictive- unpredictable and exaggerated, drawing Yvie into the story that the song was telling. She wiggled her eyebrows and opened her mouth wide, making Yvie smile to herself.

God, she was such a dork.

Yvie silently made her way towards the centre of the room to where Scarlet was flailing around. Just watching her. She noticed little things that she hadn’t before. The way her ponytail bounced as she danced. The way her chest rose and fell with each quick breath. The way dimples appeared on both cheeks each time she flashed a smile in the mirror. Each little detail, every freckle and mole, painting a perfect picture that Yvie tried to memorise.

Yvie wasn’t one for sappy romance. But fuck, if Scarlet wasn’t the prettiest girl she’d ever seen.

Scarlet jumped out of her trance upon spotting Yvie, her face flushing red as she took out her earphones and laughed to herself. If Yvie had been in her position she probably would’ve melted into the floor, but somehow Scarlet’s demeanour never changed.

“Oh my god! You scared me!” Scarlet laughed loudly, her trademark smile making Yvie feel a little warmer.

“Sorry! I didn’t know anyone was in here,” she laughed in return.

“Don’t worry about it, it’s fine.” Scarlet tucked a few strands of baby hairs behind her ear and fished in her pockets for her phone. She tapped the screen twice, pausing the music, and let the earphones slip out of her ears and hang loose. “How are you, anyway? I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Oh yeah, I haven’t been in class for a couple weeks, but I’m pretty good I guess.” Only part of it was a lie. Sure she hadn’t been feeling great for a while: but right this second, she didn’t think she could feel any better. “Um, how are you?”

“I’m alright,” she giggled. “Trying to improve my dancing but it’s not really working. I guess I just have two left feet.”

“Oh, no you don’t! I’m sure your improving loads!”

“I better be,” Scarlet rolled her eyes and grinned. “I’m paying too much money for these classes to still dance like fucking a stick insect after.”

The two burst into laughter, the sound echoing off the walls and bouncing around the room. The sound reminded Yvie of the laughter that normally filled the room- the laughter of her peers, usually directed towards her. But this laughter was kind and warm and genuine. Nothing like what she was used to.

However, it did remind her that she had something to do.

She didn’t know how she was able to form the words of an apology in her head. But before she could overthink it, the words escaped from her lips.

“I’m really sorry, by the way.”

“Sorry for what?”

Yvie had rehearsed what she was going to say in her head every day since the incidents. But in the moment, her perfect speech was forgotten, and she just let her thoughts spill out of her brain the way they were, frantic and messy and real.

“About the other week… when I said I wouldn’t help you. I acted like a dick, I was in a bad headspace and I really, really wanted to help you, I swear, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it because I was worried that-“

“Shhh. It’s okay. Calm down.” Scarlet shook her head and chuckled. “I get it. You were just protecting yourself.”

“I… Why would you think that?”

“It’s alright, Yvie. I know you were. And I don’t blame you for it. I’m not oblivious. I’m aware they talk about me. I find it kinda funny, actually.”

“Really?”

“Yeah! They all believe that I think I’m the best dancer in the world.” Scarlet shook her head and smiled. “They really don’t know me at all.”

Yvie sighed. “They don’t know me, either. None of them really do.”

“Well, the way I see it, people’s blatant stupidity can be the perfect comedy.”

Yvie roared with laughter. She’d never thought about it that way before, but she couldn’t deny that it seemed like a pretty good outlook to have.

“So anyway, Miss Yvie. How’d you find yourself here on a Tuesday evening?”

Yvie hesitated for a moment. “I honestly don’t know. I just wanted to dance, I guess. Dancing’s kind of my therapy. Is that dumb?”

“Not at all. Acting’s kind of mine.”

“Oh, so you’re an actress?” Yvie smirked, watching the way Scarlet’s nose scrunched up at the question.

“You could say that. All amateur stuff though. Mostly musical theatre. But, I thought if I’m actually gonna pursue it I would probably need some dance lessons.”

“Ah, so I assume that’s how you ended up here?”

“Yup. I’m very much aware that I can’t dance, but thanks to acting I’ve been with plenty of dancers.” Scarlet snickered. “I’m kidding, obviously. But you could be the first, if you’re lucky.”

Scarlet winked before dissolving into fits of giggles, Yvie laughing nervously beside her. Her comment should not have made her heart somersault in her chest. It should not have made the blood rush to her cheeks. And it definitely should not have made Yvie think about Scarlet’s full lips, and what it might be like to kiss them.

Definitely not.

It was at this point that Yvie realised that she wasn’t overthinking about anything. And she hadn’t even danced yet.

She realised that maybe she didn’t need to dance. Maybe she just needed Scarlet.

“Anyway, Yvie,” Scarlet started, pulling Yvie out of her trance, “is there any chance you wanna go back on that no? Because I still can’t figure out how to do a fucking pirouette.”

***

The two girls talked and laughed and danced for what felt like hours. Scarlet had connected her phone to a speaker, and blasted every Lewis Capaldi song in existence, including loads that Yvie had never heard of. She didn’t really view herself as a Lewis Capaldi kind of girl. But, it suited the lyrical genre, so it would have to do.

And, to Yvie’s surprise, Scarlet wasn’t actually that bad. Sure, her sense of rhythm was a little off and she danced kind of messily, but she could tell that Scarlet was a true performer. She really acted out the emotions of the song, and it was something special to watch.

Afterwards, Scarlet had suggested that she would buy Yvie a smoothie to thank her. Despite her refusal Scarlet had insisted and practically dragged Yvie to the café down the street, Yvie only going along with it because she had convinced Scarlet to let her pay next time.

And that’s how Yvie found herself sipping a strawberry smoothie across the table from a beautiful redhead with ocean eyes, twirling a strand of her own dark hair around her finger.

The closest thing to date Yvie had ever experienced.

She was busy enjoying the sound of Scarlet’s voice as she told a story when a question caught her off guard.

“So, you never told me, why weren’t you at dance last week?”

Yvie hesitated. For a moment, she was unsure what to tell her. She didn’t want to be pitied. She did want to seem pathetic.

But sometimes it’s okay to be vulnerable. And something about Scarlet made Yvie throw her inhibitions to the wind.

“I had a fight with Brooke a few weeks ago… the next week in dance class I felt like I had nobody. And the other girls were all talking about me and staring. More than usual, anyway….”

Yvie sighed. Scarlet didn’t interrupt. She just listened, encouraging her to continue with a nod of her head.

“I don’t know why it affected me so much this time. Whenever things have got bad before I would dance to distract myself. I don’t know…. I was feeling really guilty about you too…”

“Don’t feel guilty about me, I already told you it’s okay.” Scarlet gave Yvie a soft smile and place a hand over Yvie’s on top of the table. “And you never have nobody. I’m here now.”

“I know, and I’m so fucking grateful, Scarlet. Thank you for forgiving me, I know I don’t deserve it, I was stupid and I should have never-“

“Stop, Yvie. It’s alright. It’s in the past.”

“I know, it’s just….. the guilt didn’t really help out the fact that I don’t like myself.” Yvie glanced downwards, a pang of shame forming in her chest.

Scarlet squeezed Yvie’s hand across the table. “Well, I like you a whole lot.”

Yvie’s eyes widened. “I like you too.”

The day ended with fingers interlocked at a bus stop, Scarlet insistent upon waiting with Yvie for her bus. And, when it arrived, Scarlet leaned up and pressed a kiss into Yvie’s cheek as they loosened their grip on each other’s hands.

A kiss that was soft and sweet. A kiss that set off fireworks in Yvie’s brain. A kiss that made Yvie feel like she was walking on air.

No. Dancing on air.

She got onto the bus, her mind floating in euphoria, and smiled at a waving Scarlet as she rested her forehead against the window.

***

The next week, Yvie arrived at dance class early. Her fingers were laced with Scarlet’s, and they entered the room side by side, seemingly oblivious to the whispers and stares of the other girls.

And, they danced. Not because Yvie wanted to distract herself, but because she enjoyed it.

Besides, nothing could distract her from Scarlet.

[planetarixm]

2 x 11 questions tag game + Bold stuff tag game

And we got tagged by some lovely people, thank youu ♥

1 - tagged by @sayitaliano

What’s your favorite beverage? least favorite?                         Orange juice / coke

Name 3 things on your bucket list. To learn as many lenguages as possible,to travel europe, to have a cat haha

What attracted you to learning each of your target languages? Not a reason in specific, i think each lenguage has something that other doesn’t, also learning them you can understand their culture and also have access to more information

Who are your role models or inspirations?  @yourfavwolf for sure, i love the way she thinks and the things she stands for, also she is the sweetest person ever and even tho i don’t know her personally she has a big influence in the person i am today

What do you do when you’re feeling down in order to cheer yourself up? Whatever distracts me from thinking, usually talk to my mom or watch series

Opinions on social media? Love it? Hate it? Not sure, i think i am in the middle, social media can be whatever you want it to be, inspiration, a curse, blessing, etc

Do you already have childrens’ names picked out? Yes, but I’ll talk with their dad. I like Lucas, Amelia, Felipe, Kylie, Cindy

If you got to do-over one moment, what would you choose? A bunch of random things hahah

Do you want to be famous? If it means i can meet rihanna and halsey, then yes

What do you do when you can’t sleep? Go into my phone until i start getting sleepy

Not really a question, but…go learn 5 words in your target language! Oohh, that’s hard

lindeza - prettiness - belleza xodó - girfriend/boyfriend - novia/novio apaxionada - in love - enamoradx coração - heart - corazón sempre - always - siempre

______________________________________________________

2 - tagged by @sayitaliano

1. Do you like spicy food?                                                                            No, i hate it so much

2. If you could move somewhere, where would it be and why?

Idk probably somewhere in Europe

3. What kind of learner are you (visual, auditory..)? I think a little bit of each

4. What was the last photo you took? No idea

5. What’s your cure for hiccups? Hold my breath 

6. Do you have a motto/ quote you live by? Be kind but take no shit

7. Share your favourite meme or funniest joke. How do you call a mexican that lost his car?

Car-los

8. If you were to change your name, which one would you choose? I would love Khloé because my mom’s name is Kelly so I think they are alike

9. What’s the one thing you regret buying?                                                  A looooot of food in the cinema that i didn’t end up eating hahahah

10. What food do you crave often?                                                          Fries, doritos and churros

11. Describe your ideal day.

Being with my best friends doing crazy things

My Questions: using again some old questions nobody answered yet. 1. What is one thing you have to do but hate to do??

Clean my room 

2. Let’s suppose I’m visiting your hometown: what should I do/see first?

Well, I live in Venezuela so i think you should go to the parks or some iconic places 3. What’s your biggest dream? Is it the same you had when you were little?   As for right now i don’t remember 

4. Tell me a line/quote from your favorite book/song/movie                          ‘‘The eyes chico, they never lie’‘

5. What’s the first word you learnt in the language you’re learning/have learnt? So a lot of my friends are portuguese but the first thing i learned was ‘’eu ñao se nada’’ which is ‘’i don’t know anything’’ and in portuguese i would say the happy birthday song HAHAHAH @sayitaliano 6. Is there a very old memory you want to share?                                        Hmm, one time i almost drowned in a pool trying to get water in a cup but luckily my older brother saved me  7. Do you talk to yourself? What do you usually tell you?                                    I really don’t do it at all 8. Let’s suppose you have a terrible memory (as me), and you need to take a note: do you take a pen and write it down or do you write it on your smartphone?                                                                                                        I write it down in a book or something 9. Do you like to swim?                                                                                      No, i hate it  10. What’s your biggest passion?                                                              Culture, lenguages and other people 11. Do you have a particular bad habit?                                                               I compare myself and lot and bc of that i have really low self love

Tagging: see below

_____________________________________________________

3- tagged by @sayitaliano

1st rule: tag 9 people you want to get to know better: i don’t really know so if u want to, do it

2nd rule: bold the statements that are true

appearance - i am 5'7 or taller - i wear glasses - i have at least one tattoo - i have at least one piercing - i have blonde hair- i have brown eyes (only one tbh) - i have short hair - my abs are at least somewhat defined - i have or had braces

personality - i love meeting new people - people tell me i am funny - helping others with their problems is a big priority of mine - i enjoy physical challenges - i enjoy mental challenges - i am playfully rude to people i know- i started saying something ironically and now i can’t stop saying it - there is something i would change about my personality

ability - i can sing well - i can play an instrument - i can do over 30 pushups without stopping - i am a fast runner - i can draw well - i have a good memory - i am good at doing math in my head - i can hold my breath underwater for over a minute - i have beaten at least 2 people arm wrestling - i can make at least 3 recipes from scratch - i know how to throw a proper punch

hobbies - i enjoy sports - i’m on a sports team at my school or somewhere else - i’m in an orchestra or choir at my school or somewhere else - i have learned a new song in the past week - i exercise at least once a week - i have gone for runs at least once a week in warmer months - i have drawn something in the past month - i enjoy writing - i do some form of martial arts

experiences - i have had my first kiss - i have had alcohol - i have scored a winning point in a sport - i have watched an entire tv series in one sitting - i have been at an overnight event - i have been in a taxi - i have been in the hospital or er in the past year - i have beaten a video game in one day - i have visited another country - i have been to one of my favorite bands concerts

my life - i have one person that i consider to be my Best Friend™ - i live close to my school/work - my parents are still together - i have at least one sibling - i live in the united states – i have hung out with a friend in the past month - i have a smartphone - i own at least 15 cds - i share my room with someone

relationships - i am in a relationship - i have a crush on a celebrity - i have a crush on someone i know (not sure though) - i’ve been in at least 3 relationships - i have never been in a relationship - i have admitted my feelings to a crush - i get crushes easily - i have had a crush for over a year - i have been in a relationship for over a year - i have had feelings for a friend

random - i have break-danced - i know a person named jamie - i have had a teacher that has a name that is hard to pronounce - i have dyed my hair - i’m listening to a song on repeat right now - i have punched someone in the past week - i know someone who has gone to jail - i have broken a bone - i have eaten a waffle today - i know what i want to do in life - i speak at least two languages - i have made a new friend in the past year

[acidwaste]

hey so it seems i’ve forgot to do a l o t of tag memes, and i’m lucky i drafted a big bunch of them! lots of questions overlapped so i did my best to answer in different ways, sorry for the lateness! also @ the people that tagged me here, i wouldn't hesitate to kill for you

@natcaptor / @gayspaced

name: leon or lionel!

nicknames: literally the only nickname I’ve been referred to is “big gay” and like. word!

gender: im pretty sure im a guy, i have been kinda 🤔🤔🤔 abt my gender identity since around november-ish though

star sign: sagittarius!

height: 6’1! i’m told that I’m tall but my uncle is 6’7 so...

time: 3:36pm rn! ive been watching video essays and binging music all afternoon

birthday: december 9th!

favourite bands: animal collective, beach house, camp cope, car seat headrest, death grips, fleet foxes, florence + the machine, gang of youths, glass animals, gorillaz, hop along, iceage, idles, kero kero bonito, mgmt, miike snow, modest mouse, run the jewels, superorganism, the avalanches, the cat empire, the go! team, the mountain goats, the wombats, xiu xiu

favourite solo artists: alex lahey, anderson .paak, ariana grande, billie eilish, bjork, cashmere cat, charli xcx, courtney barnett, cupcakke, d.r.a.m, eric taxxon, frank ocean, gfoty, hatchie, janelle monae, jeff rosenstock, joanna newsom, jorja smith, jpegmafia, kacey musgraves, kali uchis, kendrick lamar, khalid, kimbra, lorde, mac demarco, madeon, mick jenkins, mitski, oneohtrix point never, perfume genius, ravyn lenae, rina sawayama, serpentwithfeet, sophie, st. vincent, sza, vince staples

song stuck in my head: caramelo duro | miguel // kali uchis! its a bop, miguel is one of the few singers that can convincingly make sex jams

last movie i watched: deadpool 2! it was even better than the first, which is a feat in itself ngl

when did i create my blog: december 2016??? i only started using it properly in february last year tho

last thing i googled: “im in my mums car broom broom.” dont @ me

do i have any other blogs: yeah, plenty actually!! i have blogs for aesthetic (@moltenstar), general inspo (@wverns), flight rising (@szarising, kinda inactive?), and overwatch (@blackhardts) tbh the vast majority of my ‘sideblogs’ are just saved urls H

do i get asks: when i say stupid shit like “rung has the ass of a dilf but the dick of a cockroach”

why i chose my url: that one panel where kobd have a vacation at the acid wastes because fuck its finally canon babey!

following: 1,767, which is kinda horrifying!!

followers: 890?? somehow??? thats almost One Whole Thousand and i don't even make content

average hours of sleep: around 6 or 7!! n e v e r more though

lucky number: 43 and 64!!

instruments: i'm too poor to afford music lessons or instruments jsbddsjknfs

what am i wearing: a grey shirt and nothing on my bottom half so my [redacted] is hanging tf out, i should put on some damn clothes

dream job:  oooo uhhh, i’m studying to get an education degree rn because i’d love to teach children (around grade 3-4s preferably because i'm too jittery to handle anyone younger and older kids probs won't listen to me as much as i lack plenty of assertiveness), but!! i’d honestly love to be a musician, one of those underground ones that get lots of critical acclaim

dream trip: one day i wanna gather up some friends and just go on a road trip! idm where we go to, as long as we just have fun and just! adventure!

favourite foods: rare steak, mashed potatoes, eggs, and energy shakes made with like. fruit / cheese / yoghurt / oats / chia seeds ! protein is a large part of my diet

nationality: new zealand, but living in australia

favourite song right now: best part | daniel caesar // h.e.r - gosh i need to re-listen to daniel’s album again, i don’t remember this beautiful song being there and that’s a crime

@damndesi / @novarebel / @luciform-philogynist

APPEARANCE - I am 5'7 or taller - I wear glasses - I have at least one tattoo (but I am getting a tā moko in December, I believe) - I have at least one piercing (planning to get a nose ring, like a bull!) - I have blonde hair - I have brown eyes - I have short hair - My abs are at least somewhat defined (b a r e l y) - I have or had braces

PERSONALITY - I love meeting new people - People tell me I am funny - Helping others with their problems is a big priority of mine - I enjoy physical challenges - I enjoy mental challenges - I am playfully rude to people I know - I started saying something ironically and now I can’t stop saying it - There is something I would change about my personality

ABILITY - I can sing well - I can play an instrument - I can do over 30 pushups without stopping (barely) - I am a fast runner - I can draw well - I have a good memory - I am good at doing math in my head - I can hold my breath underwater for over a minute - I have beaten at least 2 people arm wrestling - I can make at least 3 recipes from scratch - I know how to throw a proper punch

HOBBIES - I enjoy sports - I’m on a sports team at my school or somewhere else - I’m in an orchestra or choir at my school or somewhere else - I have learned a new song in the past week - I exercise at least once a week - I have gone for runs at least once a week in warmer months - I have drawn something in the past month - I enjoy writing - Fandoms are my #1 priority - I do some form of Martial arts

EXPERIENCES - I have had my first kiss - I have had alcohol (tastes like shit) - I have scored a winning point in a sport - I have watched an entire TV series in one sitting - I have been at an overnight event - I have been in a taxi - I have been in the hospital or ER in the past year - I have beaten a video game in one day - I have visited another country - I have been to one of my favorite bands concerts

MY LIFE - I have one person that I consider to be my Best Friend - I live relatively close to my school/work - My parents are still together - I have at least one sibling - I live in the United States - There is snow where I live right now - I have hung out with a friend in the past month - I have a smart phone - I own at least 15 CDs - I share my room with someone

RELATIONSHIPS - I am in a Relationship - I have a crush on a celebrity - I have a crush on someone I know - I’ve been in at least 3 relationships - I have never been in a Relationship - I have admitted my feelings to a crush - I get crushes easily - I have had a crush for over a year - I have been in a relationship for over a year - I have had feelings for a friend

RANDOM - I have break-danced - I know a person named Jamie - I have had a teacher that has a name that is hard to pronounce - I have dyed my hair - I’m listening to a song on repeat right now - I have punched someone in the past week - I know someone who has gone to jail - I have broken a bone (do fractures count?) - I have eaten a waffle today - I know what I want to do in life - I speak at least two languages (not fluently) - I have made a new friend in the past year

@smstransformers

age: 16

birthplace: auckland, nz

current time: 4:19 pm rn!!!

drink you last had: i just skulled half a liter of water whoops

favourite song: jesus etc. | wilco if we're talking abt an all-time favourite

grossest memory: accidentally swallowing a bee when i was seven years old (somehow nothing bad happened?)

horror, yes or no: not unless it’s an incredibly tame horror t b h, my threshold for scariness is very low

in love: i believe so!

jealous of people: lots of times, over really dumb things

love by first sight or should I walk by again: i believe that infatuation can exist at first sight but true love not so much. wish that could happen tho :C

middle name: shane!

siblings: my sister is eight years old, and my brother is seven!

one wish: EZ, make my anxiety disappear, i’d have a much more productive life

song i last sang: jupiter | haiku hands

time i woke up: 7:13, woke up immediately because i usually like to wake at 6:30

underwear colour: blue + purble

vacation destination: auckland / kingston / sydney!

worst habit: not remembering to make my goddamn bed, it looks like garbage

favourite food: mashed potatoes….

zodiac sign: sagittarius !!!

@alyonian

relationship status:

at the moment i’m single! and while being in a relationship sounds brilliant, the last two relationships i was involved in? didn’t work out to say the least, lucky i’m still young

favourite colour:

it’s been emerald green for the longest time but orange seems to be dethroning it at a steady pace

lipstick or chapstick:

i haven’t used chapstick since i was six but i probably should use it again, water is my substitute rn fdghdgh - and i haven’t ever used lipstick in any capacity? so i’d have to go with the former

last song i listened to:

the space traveller’s lullaby | kamasi washington - i’m trying to get through his second album rn (i left off on the second disk yesterday) and while everything he makes is undeniably amazing, it’s? a three hour album? i don’t have the attention span for his spiritual jazz, as great as it is

last movie:

monsters inc is playing on the television right now, i’ll go with that! the animation aged kinda badly but it’s still such a fun movie! sidenote: james p. sullivan? a childhood crush, so this gives me memories

top 3 tv shows/podcasts/comics:

i rarely, if ever, venture into these forms of media but! if i had to answer, i’d say;

unbreakable kimmy schmidt / parks & recreation / luke cage

taz / mbmbam (i havent like. watched a full episode of either but they seem cool,)

tf idw / …………. yeah that’s it, i’ve never read anything else. probably should!

additional favs:

my friends, writing (in theory), listening to video essays, learning music theory + instruments and understanding audio production software

top 3 bands / artists:

HHH okay if i had to limit my choices to just three artists, uh. lorde, the mountain goats, and sophie. i couldnt even fit janelle in i hate th is

----------------------------------

@alyonian

color(s): light colors are always nice and pleasant, though anything peachy and sandy are the best! orange (specially pastel orange) is like. the best thing

last band t-shirt i bought: usually merchandising is very expensive and i dont have the money to accommodate that, but like. i do recall having a wiggles shirt when i was five. i wore it all the time, shjdjgsksd im sure that counts

last band i saw live: i almost went to splendor in the grass last year with family, which wasn't only cool since i’ve never been out of the state since i immigrated - the festival was in queensland, which is around a two hour flight from victoria - but the lineup was pretty fuckin lit too! the xx, haim, peking duk, tash sultana, future islands, vallis alps, a.b original,, i was p excited! unfortunately my uncle fell ill and so they had to give the tickets to extended family :( otherwise, i haven't been to a single concert in my life

last song i listened to: street fighter mas | kamasi washington - up to this song on the album and i really fuckin dig this! also the video is hypnotizing

last movie i watched: monsters inc is about to finish and up next is monsters university! which like…. honestly, this is an extremely unpopular opinion but, i like it just as much as the original? my opinion might be skewed because i’m a monster [hugger], but i like everything abt the movie! except for the finale of the scare games and the last five minutes of the movie, both were just. dreadful.

last three tv shows i watched: if aggretsuko counts that’s the last series i watched of my own volition, which is a miracle in itself considering that’s legit only the second anime i’ve watched to completion (the first being shirokuma cafe, which i probably need to re-watch). otherwise, the last two shows i had beared witness to were thirteen reasons why and queer eye bc my cousin put them on! that first show i could completely do without but queer eye is iconique

last 3 characters i identified with: grimlock (legit. all of them), urdnot grunt (mass effect) and vector the crocodile (sth), i’m not sure what this says about me other than Big

book(s) i’m currently reading: i’m reading ‘maus’ by art spiegelman at the moment, for the third time i believe? i believe my classmates are supposed to be writing an essay on this next term and shit, this novel is heartbreaking, i haven't been this emotional when reading a book than… ever, really. it’s a recommendation of the highest caliber

@victorion

name: leon / lionel, i picked up the second name because i was in a server with an admin that was also a Leon™

nickname: besides ‘Big Gay’ i also have the nickname ‘lemon lion’ which is! nice!!

zodiac sign: archer man

height: Tall™

language(s) spoken: english / some maori + italian

fav fruit: watermelons (only when in season)

fav scent: the smell of a freezer tbh? it just smells Nice i don’t know how to properly explain it

fav season: spring! the breezes are welcoming without being overbearingly freezing

fav color: ornge,,,,

fav animal: SHARKS + CROCS + FERRETS

coffee, tea or hot chocolate: tea! with some milk tho

average hrs of sleep: too little

fav fictional character: One character?????? uhhhhhhh……. like. biggest cc right now is either idw skids or oz from monster prom

no. of blankets you sleep with: depending on my mood but i’d say the average is like, 3??

fav songs: i quickly whipped up some songs i listen to

fav artists: i came to the realization that i like acts that are considered ‘bad’ like maroon 5/drake/lil yachty etc in specific doses… i wouldn't call them good yet, but! i have no beef and thats good

fav books: remember ‘where the wild things are’??? that shit was like. literal childhood, man.. :happytears: i really need to look for a copy again

@thonany-klieme

name: leon / lionel, interchangeable really

gender: male, im probs an nb guy

star sign: sagittarius!

height: 6’1

sexuality: gay??? im not sure, im mostly attracted to other guys but i have had very brief crushes on girls + nb people? sexuality’s confusing so im gonna just latch to the gaybel (gay label) for now

lock screen image: its the album cover of 1992 deluxe by princess nokia, tho it was “T Hanos” a few days ago since i change it often - my home screen is venom but his torso says ‘fuck machine’

ever had a crush on a teacher: no??

where do you see yourself in ten years: ideally i’m teaching kids math n english, realistically i’m probably going down with the political climate

if you could go anywhere, where would you go: new zealand!! or the netherlands

what was your favorite halloween costume: halloween is not big at all where i live, the only time i tried trick or treating was when i was like 7?? i threw a bedsheet on myself and pretended to be a ghost, though since there were no eyeholes + the sheet was blue, it looked more like i was just a moving lump

last kiss: never had one

have you ever been to las vegas: nah and i dont plan to?? how do you handle regular days of 40C wtf

favorite pair of shoes: i have this pair of jandals that ive worn for a fair bit longer than my other pair of shoes, tho i only wear them in summer + very warm nights

favorite book: ngl its. ‘the very hungry caterpillar’ by eric carle. i just, love it alot and i cant explain w h y

[romaniassexdungeon]

Credit to @phyripo for the header image.

Oh look, I’ve finally finished another fic inspired by a Pogues song! This time it’s NedRo, based on ‘Haunting’ and the tone is rather… different compared to my other fics. Whilst most stories in the series are rather angst-filled (though there are happier ones scattered in there to mix things up) this one’s… well, I don’t want to say funny, more stupid and terrible. And most of it’s in verse. Because I hate myself. This took months to write and I’m so glad that it’s finally finished and I get to share this monstrosity with everyone.

I’m sorry.

Also Ned's name in this is Siemen. Blame Phyripo. Also thanks to her, @peteradnan and @tikola-nesla for reading extracts of this terrible thing and letting me ramble.

It’s probably better to read it on AO3

Siemen – Netherlands

Isabel – Belgium

Luca – Luxembourg

Alin - Romania

“Sit down on that stool hear the cant of a fool,

And a strange tale I'll impart to ye…”

“Opa, will you tell me a bedtime story?”

A big fat ‘no’ wasn’t going to be an acceptable answer here, was it?

The last thing Siemen wanted to do was read anyone a bedtime story, but two pairs of bright green eyes were staring right back at him in the gloom of their shared room and he knew he could spend an hour arguing with a pair of screaming children, or he could just tell them a damn story. At least this way, he could be downstairs with a glass of wine in ten minutes.

Isabel and Luca’s room was a mess of toys and clothes and Siemen wasn’t sure he’d ever seen two people with so many possessions. When he was a child, he had a few toys and books and a little bike. That was all. How did they even have time to play with all these toys? Especially since he’d never seen Luca play with anything except an iPad and that one plastic cash register.

Okay, maybe he was a little proud of Luca for that one. Especially when the kid short-changed a teddy bear for being rude to him.

He stared down at his grandchildren in despair. They… really wanted a story, didn’t they? Was there not something they could watch instead?

No, a story was always the best thing to send a child to sleep with. That was what his daughter insisted when she caught him letting the children watch Watership Down until they fell asleep (the TV show, not the film – he wasn’t a monster).

“Okay,” he said, voice cracking, “what book do you want?”

“Can’t you tell us a story from when you were young?” asked Isabel. “You’re so old! You must have interesting stories, right?”

It was illegal to dropkick a small child out the window, right?

“What did you do when you were little?” asked Luca.

“Respected my elders.” A fat lie but oh well. It was a lie his family told him to get him to behave. It didn’t work but they could sleep easily.

“Did you have TV?”

“Yes but only a few channels,” he sighed, “and it was small and grainy.” And if anyone knocked the aerial then the image was fucked and he’d miss the end of Floris in the time it took to fix it.

“So what did you do when you weren’t watching TV?” asked Isabel.

“Rode my bike.” He smiled, remembering the long summer days wasted cycling by the beach in the sun, maybe taking a picnic with him and spending hours just looking at the sea.

If he was being honest, he had to ride his bike everywhere, because he grew up in the countryside and everything was stupidly far away.

It was how he discovered-

That’s it!

“What about a story a friend of mine wrote?” he offered. Anything to stop them asking questions about his personal life. Even his wife – God rest her soul – could only recall approximately 5 facts about his life. And that was before the dementia set in.

The kids perked up.

“Well, he wrote poems,” Siemen clarified, “but story poems.”

Luca’s face lit up. “Ooh, like Dr Seuss?”

No, nothing like Dr Seuss. “Oh, sure. Like that.”

Leaving an excited pair of grandkids to their chatter, Siemen hauled himself up to shuffle into his room. He always tried to keep everything as organised as possible, a habit that now served him well in his old age. For example, he knew – under his bed – was a battered old suitcase where he kept old mementos regarding a certain someone.

There were two books in the suitcase, one a heavy scrapbook containing preserved leaves and twigs, the other was a notebook on the verge of falling apart.

The unpublished poems of Alin Radacanu, his final volume.

Hand written by Siemen Morgens, upon the poet’s insistence.

Most of these could only be described as ‘sexually menacing’ and certainly not appropriate for adult human beings, let alone children. There was one though…

When he hobbled back to the bedroom, Luca had climbed on the bunk bed to fight Isabel. Again. It was almost perfect, like Alin had planned to have his poem read aloud – for the first time – to a pair of fighting kids.

He snarled and began with a growl.

“Sit down ya wee bastard,

I’ve a tale of disaster,

And romance all to tell ye,

About a young man,

His name was Siemen,

And a strangely attractive ol’ tree.”

The kids jumped, Luca falling off the ladder and Isabel looking at him in utter confusion.

“Dr Seuss never swore in his books.”

He would if he ever met Alin. “I said it was like Dr Seuss, but not entirely. Now, if you promise to not tell your mother about the bad words, I would like to continue, please.”

The kids nodded, eyes sparkling at the thought of hearing ‘bad words’ with cool Opa Siemen. And keeping a secret from mum.

“One night, a cold night,

A night full of fright,

He set off on his little old bike,

Off to a party,

His attire classy,

As the rain it speared like a pike.

If a journey could kill,

Oh, this man hated hills,

He much preferred land to be flat,

He was a Dutchman,

So hills he would ban,

If he had the power to do that.”

“Why don’t you just get a taxi?” asked Isabel.

“It was the 1960s and I lived in the countryside. We didn’t have taxis like those fancy fuckers in Amsterdam. Also I was poor.”

Luca laughed at him.

“You shut your bitch mouth.”

“The rain was too much,

The trip dangerous, as such,

And the hill a steep torrent of mud,

So this man turned around,

For shelter was bound,

Before he got knee-deep in sludge.

At the foot of the hill,

Trapped in a chill,

Our hero sat, sulks by a tree,

But lo and behold,

Gnarly and bold,

This tree was in fact me.

Now a prankster I am,

And I can’t spare a damn,

So as slick and as sly as an oyst-

-er, I bent down to his ear,

And in words loud and clear,

I simply said to him: moist."

“Your friend isn’t very good,” Luca commented.

“Do you want me to stop?”

“Well, no.”

“Then shut up.”

“He was up like a cat,

Or poker to the back,

And let out a terrible shriek,

His face deathly white,

Oh, what a horrible fright!

Simply too fearful to speak.

When nobody was seen,

Except for this tree,

This young man decided to run,

Away from ground haunted,

By ghosts he was taunted,

I, the living tree, he did shun.”

“Your friend��� is a tree?” Isabel raised an eyebrow.

“Yes.”

“Mum was right; you’re a senile old bastard.”

“I swear to you it’s tr- I’m a what?”

Isabel shrugged. “Her words, not mine.”

Siemen glared at her for a long moment. “Can I continue?”

They nodded.

“Good.”

“Back on his bike,

Almost flew into a dyke,

In his haste to get away from me,

Shaken and shook,

Without a backwards look,

At me, the twisted old tree.

For weeks, I, alone,

Just stood and bemoaned,

The loss of a potential new friend,

I want him back now,

My soul he will plow,

Will my loneliness ever just end?

Then one silent night,

A strange speck of light,

This man had come back to me,

Though he was scared,

My power he feared,

A new friendship, could this possibly be?”

Luca raised an eyebrow. “You went back to the scary old tree?”

Siemen shrugged. There was a time where he’d been less sensible, almost reckless. And maybe he just wanted to prove to himself that ghosts weren’t real because, dammit Siemen, you weren’t raised to be such a gullible fool.

“If you had found out ghosts were real, would you not want to find out more?”

“Ghosts aren’t real, though.”

“Well, you are wrong. Very wrong. Wrong and stupid.”

Luca began to cry. Because that is what happens when you call a seven-year-old stupid, Siemen.

“Wait, no, I didn’t mean it!” he hissed, “please don’t tell your mother.”

“Give me €20.”

“Absolutely the fuck not.”

Luca cried harder.

The little fu- “Fine! Here!” He – incredibly reluctantly – opened his wallet and fished out a twenty.

He already knew that smug smile on Isabel’s face meant bad news.

“You’ll have to pay me to not snitch too,” she said slyly. Why did his daughter have to go and have 2 kids?

With a growl, he handed over another twenty. “Can I continue my story now?”

“Sure thing, Opa!”

“He kealt at my root,

His glare was acute,

And demanded to know what I was,

Malevolent spirit,

A vision too vivid,

Or was he a cruel laughter’s cause.

I spoke to him gentle,

A voice thin and fragmental,

I begged him to hear my sad tale,

I meant him no harm,

No need for alarm,

I am but a man, cursed and frail,

Though his eyes showed his fear,

Siemen’s ‘yes’ was sincere,

He wanted to know tragedy,

This blight called my life,

My well-deserved strife,

The price of noxious vanity,

Alin the annoying,

A poet so trying,

A genius hated by all,

Though his rhyme was sublime,

And looks so divine,

He was regarded as quite the arsehole.

He made a bet with the devil,

Their power was level,

And he simply won’t ever die,

He put a gun to his head,

And in one shot was dead,

In blood did that idiot lie."

“This moron killed himself to prove he was immortal?” exclaimed Isabel.

“Well how else do you prove it?”

Isabel thought for a moment, then scowled when she couldn’t come up with a reply. Ha! That’s what Siemen thought!

"The devil punished this poet,

Eternal life? He’d bestow it,

Let this man live his mistakes,

Trapped in a tree,

Trickle of time oversee,

Alone in a silent heartache.

Well now I have Siemen,

Promised to be my friend,

He’d come back to visit again,

And the next day he came,

My heart was aflame,

This feeling spread like a bloodstain."

“Eugh,” Luca pulled a face. “A tree fell in love with you?”

“A tree that used to be a man, mind you.”

“It’s still weird. I mean, you couldn’t fall in love with a tree back, right?”

Siemen fell silent. His grandchildren looked at him in horror.

“Well it’s more about personality, you see.”

“And what kind of personality did Alin have?” asked Isabel.

“A horrible one.” They both raised their eyebrows. “Not really. Well, he was very strange, but I couldn’t help liking him. He was funny, and witty. And, well, I don’t know.” He could feel a blush creeping onto his face, and wanted to punch every single one of his blood vessels. “I just found him charming.”

Luca stared at him for a good minute. “Wait, are you saying this actually happened?”

“Of course.”

“You’re senile.”

“Sinterklaas isn’t real.”

Five minutes of crying, and a €30 bribe later, Siemen turned back to Alin’s poem.

“Our friendship, it grew,

To the town’s harsh ado,

Their tongues, like me, were thorny,

Though we broke the taboo,

Our hearts painted rouge,

The truth was he made me so-“

Sieman stopped. Why, Alin? “Oh no, that’s a bit too rude.” As were the next few verses, it seemed. And this was supposed to be one of the cleaner poems.

“We sat in the sun and he told me poems,” he explained, in the hopes of distracting his grandchildren from the prospect of something with a rude word in it, because holy fuck did children love rude words and he couldn’t have them asking their mother what ‘horny’ meant. “We talked about our lives and grew closer. He had a lot of interesting stories, though I’m not sure just how many were actually true.”

He desperately scanned the poem for something that was’t complete and utter filth, vaguely remembering just how disgusted he felt hearing it from Alin’s voice all those years ago.

Ah! Here we go!

“Our cruel reputation,

Across this flat nation,

The madman who French-kissed a tree,

I go naked in winter,

His lip has a splinter!

And his step-child a family of bees!”

Well, it was cleaner than the last seven verses. Isabel still looked disgusted though. He couldn’t blame her. It took him a week to get that splinter out. And that was just the one he got on his lip.

“Our time was a blast,

But it could never last,

He was a human and I just a tree,

I had stood here for years,

Cried cold, lonely tears,

What I wanted was my soul’s release.

What I ask of you dear,

I make this quite clear,

To go set me free at last,

Take your little axe,

Plunge it into my back,

And chop me up quite fast.

I know you will miss me,

With ice where you kissed me,

But the only way to break my cruel curse,

Is to chop me down,

My spirit set down,

Your axe shall be my own nurse.

I’m ready to die,

My soul has run dry,

And my bark has grown dark and inky,

So cut down this tree,

And let me be free,

In fact, I’ll find it quite- God fucking dammit Alin!”

“He’ll find it quite what?” asked Isabel.

“…Stinky?”

“That’s not the word! We’re not idiots!”

Siemen had had quite enough at this point. “It is the word now shut up and go to sleep!” And he left the kids to their protesting, turning off the light and creaking downstairs to find that wine bottle. After locking up the unpublished poems of Alin Radacanu somewhere innocent eyes couldn't find them, of course.

[harryimaginedstories]

I’m happy for You

Hello! This is a request and because of that inspired by the song ‘Stone Cold’ by Demi. I recommend you to listen to it whilst reading. I know it’s taken me ages to come up with a story and I very much hope the person who requested it sticked around long enough to read this short little one shot. I hope you’re all well! x

Plot: Dinner is really hard to enjoy when Y/N notices her ex, Harry, is on a date.

Warnings: Nothing but angst and fluff ahead so I’d say no.

Request: Yes.

Pic isn’t mine but I do love the hat.

He looked so good. And I hated him for it.  For once he wasn’t wearing one of his flashy and bright suits that only he could pull of, but instead was dressed in a simple black shirt and a pair of dark and washed out jeans.  It wasn’t his choice of clothing that made my heart sink.  Harry looked good. Meaning he looked like he was doing fine. His cheeks were pink from blushing and his eyes sparkled with joy. The mouth I knew was soft and warm to kiss was pulled into a wide smile that made my stomach flutter with longing. I wanted to know what it was that made him smile like that. I needed to know why he was so happy. It hurt to be excluded.  And his stupid hair. Why did the short look suit him so well? He looked soft and adorable, so much so my fingers tickled with the need to reach out and touch him.  But I wasn’t allowed to do that anymore. Only she was.  The female he had clutching to his arm was pretty. Her lips were painted a dark red I knew he must be crazy about, her hair was long and a thick blond, blonder than any other girls’ hair I’d ever seen that still looked as if it was the natural colour and when she looked up at him her eyes widened to reveal the most stunning shade of blue.  She was pretty and she had him, the Harry who used to be mine and I both envied and hated her for it. 

“Y/N, you can’t look at him like that I’m sorry.” 

Eileen’s soft voice murmured the words into my ear gently, aware that she was pulling me out of a trance and away from my ex boyfriend. Her hand squeezed my arm and slowly nudged me to turn away and to give my attention to the people we’d come to the restaurant with so that I would at least pretend to be part of the conversation.  I knew I was doing a poor job, though. It’s hard to smile when your heart is breaking.  Why was he happy? And how? I was living with half of my soul missing and he sat there, drinking and eating dinner with a new girlfriend and a smile that was big and honest decorating his beautiful features. 

“I’ll be back in a minute.” 

Kim who was in the middle of talking about something funny that happened at work shot me a worried glance before looking at Eileen who gave me a soft smile and nod. 

“Toiled? Need me to come with you?”

“Yes and no I think I can manage. I’ll only be a minute.”

I jumped off my chair and hurried towards where I knew the restrooms were without glancing back at the person I missed so dearly. The door of the ladies’ room fell shut behind me and finally I could breathe in deeply. I wasn’t crying. That was at least a small victory in a shitty situation and for the first time my hands weren’t shaking that bad.  The last time I’d seen Harry it’d all been much more awkward, especially when I’d run off and jumped into a taxi in the middle of a busy Londoner street so I could escape the situation as fast as possible. He’d seen me, he must have, and the thought of him confronting me about it made my cheeks burn with embarrassment. How might that conversation go, I wondered as I stared at my reflection in the mirror? Hey, Y/N, I was wondering... why exactly did you run off like a crazy person the other night? Ugh. Why was I like this? Oh well... at least my makeup wasn’t messed up and the bit of concealer I’d smeared on did a pretty good job at hiding my red cheeks. Still... I wasn’t as good looking as the girl he had taken to sit by his side. 

“Y/N.” 

The way he used to say my name was forever burned into my memory, so vividly in fact that I could hear them replay in my mind just as if he was whispering them into my ear.

“I love you, Y/N. I always have.”

We were a sappy couple, Harry and I. So in love. Looking at him first thing in the morning when his body was naked and wet from the shower he’d taken, hair dripping onto the soft skin... it was a sight that made me melt every time and turn to hide under the covers before he would notice my flushed cheeks. Harry would know of course, always aware when there were eyes on him and he’d know instantly where my thoughts were going. 

“I know you fancy me,” Harry would love to joke, “M’hard to resist, aren’t I?”

“You’re full of yourself.” 

But really he was right. I was crazy about him and in love with all of my heart. I still was. It was difficult to know that Harry didn’t feel that way about me anymore. I’d made his heart beat faster once and now I probably didn’t earn the slightest reaction anymore. Well... maybe embarrassment. I took a deep breath. Harry was here and he was happy and there was nothing I could do about it. Not that I wanted to change his mood either. It was probably because I loved him still that I wanted Harry to be happy, even when it meant it was with a woman with blonde hair and the shade of lipstick I knew I would never pull off.  So really all I had to do was get the courage to face him again.

“Okay. Woman up.”

I stepped out of the bathroom with the fakest smile pulling at my lips and eyes that were still very far from crying, ready to be strong and totally over it, only to (lucky me!) walk straight into his chest. Fuck.

“Hi.”

Hi. That’s all? And why did he sound so fucking calm? I might as well have been his neighbour’s daughter that came over to lend a pound of flour from him. His tone was kind and the smile he wore genuine, like he was glad to find an acquaintance so unexpectedly.

“Hey, Harry.”

Up close he looked even more perfect. His lips were so pink and pillowy soft, his eyes filled with emotion upon finding mine and when his hand reached out to push a strand of hair from my face it made my heart flutter. How could he look so much like my Harry and still be the furthest away from being just that?

“Didn’t see you earlier. Did you just come here?”

My breath hitched and his eyes furrowed when I took a small step back. 

“Are you alright?”

But I couldn’t form an answer. We were so different. I’d seen him the moment my feet stepped into this restaurant, felt his presence like an energy crushing into me and warming my body from within. And Harry... he only noticed I was there because I’d physically knocked into him. I’d lost my spell on him and my eyes watered at the thought that I would probably forever be under his.

“I’m happy for you, Harry,” was all I managed to murmur before brushing past his shoulder and towards my friends. 

They didn’t question me when I sat back down with watering eyes and they didn’t comment it when I stayed silent. It was obvious what was wrong and both, Eileen and Kim knew what had happened when they noticed Harry walk from the narrow hallway in the back to his chair and date. He looked distraught and deeply lost in his own head.

“We can go home,” Eileen offered quietly but I shook my head, trying to smile.

Harry was over me and I needed to come to terms with that and be somehow happy to know that the guy I loved as okay. 

”I’m okay. Let’s just stay and enjoy dinner.”

What I didn’t know though was that the pretty blonde at Harry’s side was his neighbour (funny enough), who’d been nice enough to watch his cat while he’d been on tour and who he’d decided to take out for a nice dinner to say thank you.  Not a date. Not ever. Harry’s heart burned at the thought of me thinking that he was okay when in reality absolutely nothing in his life was even close to being okay without me with him. He missed me. Every inch of his skin prickled and every muscle in his body ached with the intense pain of knowing that I was only feet away from him but that there were worlds between us.

“Are you okay, H?” Saide looked at him with worried eyes and it was only now that Harry noticed that he hadn’t said a word in several minutes. Instead he’d been staring at me where I sat at the table with two people he only knew from brief encounters. 

He noticed how my food remained untouched and how I sat with my back tensed and rigid.  Fuck. He missed me more than what he liked to admit. 

“That girl over there,” Saide spoke quietly, “That’s her, right? Your ex.”

Ex. Harry hated that term. I was so much more than that. I was his lover once and he was pretty sure that I was his soulmate still. But an ‘ex’ I was not. No way did that term ever describe what our relationship had turned out to be, regardless of its end.

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to go talk to her?” 

Harry hissed. “S’nothing to talk about, Saide. She’s... she’s better off without me.”

Saide shifted in her seat. “Don’t take this the wrong way but she doesn’t look that great to me, Harry. I wouldn’t say she’s better off or fine even. She looks like she’s in pain and so do you.”

His chest ached and when Harry dared glance at me once more his lips parted. Saide wasn’t wrong. To him I looked as beautiful as I’d always had, but there was a change in my appearance. My neck was bent in a way he was sure it must leave me aching the next day and when I tried to force myself to eat some of my food the fork in my hand shook heavily. 

“You don’t... I mean you wouldn’t hate me if I went to talk to her for a moment, would you?”

Saide smiled. “Of course not.”

Harry nodded and with an unfamiliar sense of anxiety he got up and made his way to where I was. He was so nervous his knees felt like jelly. The shoulder he touched me on was cold beneath his fingers and when I turned to look at him the heart in his chest dropped to the very bottom of his stomach.  If we weren’t in public right now with dozens of people around and watching us, he was sure I would be crying right now.

“Y/N.”

“Harry, I think you should just leave her alone,” Kim muttered but before he or Eileen could’ve said anything further my body was wrapped up in Harry’s arms and my head was hidden away in his neck. He just couldn’t help himself. 

Just like earlier in the hallway the magic between us drew him in and this time there was nothing that could’ve kept him from embracing my body and hold me to his.

“M’not leaving,” Harry murmured, more to me in his arms than as reply to Kim’s words, “Y/N, you hear me? M’not.” 

The embrace came sudden and with my face pressed up against the warm skin of his collarbones it felt as if I could breathe for the first time in months. My lungs burned under the pressure. Never did I think that I would get to smell him again and I almost smiled at how ridiculous it was to miss something so insignificant as somebody’s scent. Harry understood though as he himself couldn’t keep from sighing upon burying his nose in my hair.

“Harry.” 

His stomach fluttered at my whine.

“Let’s go outside for a minute,” he proposed, “Need to talk to you.”

I nodded, almost dizzy from the surreality of the situation and whimpered quietly when Harry removed his hold on me so I could slip from the chair, only to have his arms wrap around my shoulders the moment my feet touched the ground. For the first time that night my smile was genuine. I had him back! Harry was here and talking to me and all of a sudden it physically hurt how much I had been missing him. How had I ever managed to cope with this kind of pain caused only by his absence? Suddenly everything seemed to be brighter. Maybe things would be okay after all. Well, that was until I found her face. Her pretty and kind face. And when her eyes found mine I noticed her red lips part with shock.  Oh god. What was I doing? I was ruining this woman’s lovely night with a wonderful guy simply because I couldn’t stop moping around right in front of hi eyes. And of course ever caring Harry would try to cheer me up before returning to his new girlfriend. No. I couldn’t take Harry from her after he’d left me. She had a right on a nice date and a good evening with him and to whatever that may lead. My feet stopped moving.  Harry turned to me with a confused expression. “Y/N-”

“You shouldn’t leave her hanging like this,” I defended quietly and was about to shrug him off when the blonde shot from her seat. Oh god. If she was to slap me that would be okay and so deserved.

But no, the girl gave me a smile, picked up her plate and marched over to where Eileen and Kim were sitting where she without hesitating for a moment took my seat. I watched in shock how she held out her hand for my friends to shake and I tensed when I heard her speak:

“Hi! I’m Saide, a friend of Harry’s.”

Friend. Eileen shot me a surprised glance before taking the girl’s hand and introducing herself as well. I turned to Harry who grinned down at me and when his hand reached for mine I let him take it. Friend?

“Just a friend, love,” Harry confirmed, “Now come on.”

Outside the streets were empty aside from few people gathered in groups having a smoke and when Harry pulled me further away from the entrance I felt myself relax. It was cold (though I had Harry’s jacket around my shoulders before my skin could even shudder) and the freshness of the air combined with the beauty of the night sky made me want to forget all about the uncomfortable conversation we were about to have.  Though when Harry stopped and I let my back rest against the stone wall of the building the discomfort drained from my veins. It was just Harry, I realized, no stranger who’d judge me or wish me harm. This was the nicest person I knew and somebody I loved dearly. He stepped around my body so he his was shielding me from the wind and when I dared reaching up to brush my fingers against the soft skin of his cheek he hummed.

“I’m really not okay without you, Harry.” 

The whispered confession had his pink lips part and for a moment his eyes fell shut. My hand was taken in his and he held it against his cheek, keeping it there so he could press sweet kisses to it by turning his head in my palm.

“I miss you,” I continued quietly, “Miss you more than I thought possible. I’m sorry I messed tonight up and I’m sorry I was such a shitty girlfriend to you but I... I can’t cope without you anymore.”

Every word followed a kiss to my hand, my wrist, my arm... Harry listened intently and the more I opened up the deeper the sorrow he felt ached in his chest. Harry’s free hand met my left side and pulled me into him gently.

“You weren’t a shit girlfriend,” he murmured, his warm breath fanning over he exposed skin of my arm, “You still are the most amazing person I ever had the chance to meet. If anything I owe you an apology for being a crappy boyfriend.”

I shook my head but bit back what I wanted to say next because when our eyes locked I realized that there was nothing that needed to be said out loud. He was Harry and I was Y/N and the two of us always understood what was going on in the other’s head. It’s what had made our relationship so wonderful in the first place. His nose brushed mine and my eyes closed. I hadn’t even noticed him coming this close to me but before I could catch a breath his hands were on either side of my head and his chest was pressed against my own and the two of us were kissing. The short curls of his tickled my hands and his mouth opened against mine when a groan fell from it, caused by my fingers pulling and scratching his head. His hand travelled to my cheek and I giggled when his other tickled my waist before grasping it tighter and bringing me closer to him so he could deepen the kiss. I was dizzy and so was he, the both of us so drunk on each other it must’ve looked laughable from afar. 

I wanted to tell him that I loved him.  He wanted to tell me that he loved me.  But after being separated for so long, left with nothing but dreaming and yearning for the other day in and day out... there was nothing either of us needed more than to feel the other’s skin. In that moment I would’ve given everything to be home with him, be that his place or mine.

“Soon,” Harry moaned into my neck and I hissed when his teeth bit into the sensitive skin, “M’taking you home soon, Y/N. Just- can’t let you go yet. Need a minute and... just-”

“I know,” I breathed into the shell of his ear, “I know, me too.”

And so we stayed, embraced and caught up in each other’s arms, kissing and sighing as the intensity of being reunited crushed our bodies repeatedly until we were so high on the happiness we were feeling all that tumbled from our lips were giggles.

I really hope you like this one... I just couldn’t leave the story as a sad one with him actually being on a date and her ending up alone. So yeah... happy couple finding each other again is a bit nicer isn’t it?

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