#oh and vietnam...I would love to visit vietnam

[llycaons]

I love planning trips

[snackara]

Strange Catch

Washington, 1992

Tom had days where he regretted becoming a fisherman, and today would be one of those days. Although he didn’t know it yet.

Most of the time he enjoyed being out on the open ocean, miles away from any land. He preferred the long months hauling in salmon with his crew to the lonely winters on the coast. Though there were some days when a crew mate would piss him off, or something would break, and he regretted not being able to get away from it.

Tom’s strife today, however, would be a little different.

He leaned against the railing, taking a long drag from his cigarette. The boat gently rocked and creaked beneath him, and the salt stung his nose. Apart from the faint thumping of boots on wood nearby, there was a tender silence he found calming.

“You’re sulking again,” someone said from behind him.

Tom turned and saw the first mate approaching, his dark brown curls spilling out from under a baseball cap.

“I am not sulking, Steven, I’m just enjoying the silence. You ought to try it some time,” Tom replied, a smile creeping over his lips.

Steven chuckled and leaned on the railing next to Tom. He scratched at his stubbly chin and scanned the wide expanse of gray beyond their boat. “Sad the season’s almost over?”

Tom shrugged. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. You know how much I love it out here.”

“Yeah. I do.” Steven rubbed his hands together, trying to warm them despite the chilly autumn air. He sighed. “You know, you’re welcome to visit us in Seattle anytime. Carol and I hate to see you alone, especially during the winter.”

“Ah, I’ll make it. I always do,” Tom waved his hand dismissively.

“I know, I know. I just—” Steven straightened up. “Actually, I insist that you visit us. Come over to our house for the holidays, don’t spend it wasting away in a cabin. Bring something for the kids, that sort of thing. We’d love to have you around for a couple days.”

Tom took another drag of his cigarette, deliberately giving himself a moment to contemplate the offer.

“Is her family going to be there?”

“Oh, God no. Not after last year,” Steven said.

“The hell happened last year?” Tom raised an eyebrow, amused already.

“Well, her mother—” Steven was cut off by the loud plodding of boots.

A younger, scrappier deckhand ran towards them. His face was pale, and he trembled a little when he spoke.

“Captain, you need to come see this.”

Tom straightened up and turned to the younger man. “What’s the problem, boy?”

“It— Christ, I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s big and— Just come look,” the boy turned and jogged to the main deck.

Tom glanced at Steven, putting his cigarette out on the railing. They followed the young man, and found the crew crowded around the port side, shouting over each other. Tom pushed his way through, with most of the men parting as they saw him. Three men stayed at the very edge of the boat, practically clinging to the gunwale. Two gripped a net, trying to heave something up.

“What the hell is going on here?” Tom shouted above the rest. They went quiet.

One of the men turned to Tom— Roger, he remembered. “Something’s caught in the net. We’re trying to haul it in and see what it is. But it’s a strong one.”

Tom felt even more confused. “What exactly is it?”

Roger opened and closed his mouth a few times, at a loss for words. Finally he just grabbed the net and tried to help pull it up. “Take a look for yourself.”

Tom remained dumbfounded, looking between the men and trying to figure out what had them so spooked. Finally he grabbed onto the net and attempted to help hoist it up. Whatever was caught in the net, it thrashed violently and pulled back with great strength.

During his forty-one years of living, Tom had seen a lot. He had grown up on a ranch in Nebraska, and during his childhood he had seen plenty of cattle born, die, and contract nasty diseases he wouldn’t wish upon any animal. For his eighteenth birthday, he was shipped off to Vietnam and saw his comrades killed during an ambush. A bullet had shattered his kneecap as well, and the pain had become his closest companion. When all was said and done he returned home to find him and his fellow soldiers painted as the bad guys.

He figured he had seen everything a man could during one lifetime. But when he and his crew mates finally managed to lift the net out of the water, he found he was wrong.

At first he thought it was an orca calf, but it was far too slim. It was a pale, almost dusty blue. It let out a hiss as it was withdrawn from the water. Everyone flinched at the noise. Tom and the three other crew mates swung the net around, dumping it on the deck. It took Tom a moment to fully register what he was seeing.

The bottom half of the creature was a long, black fish’s tail. It wound about and thrashed wildly against the net, its fin snapping like a flag during a storm.

Its upper half, however, was human. Somewhat. Scales dotted its skin, clustering by the fins on its arms and back. Long nails, or perhaps claws, slashed at the net in an attempt to free itself. And its face… Two slits served as a nose, and its mouth was gaunt with a few sharp fangs poking out. Its eyes were completely back, except for the pupils, which were the strange color of aged parchment. Dark locks of hair fell down to its shoulders, hanging heavy and wet.

The creature thrashed again, letting out a horrible hiss that made Tom cover his ears. It bit at the net to no avail.

Tom looked around his crew, as though to ask if this was some sick joke they were pulling on him. By their open mouths and wide eyes, they were just as shocked as he was. He looked again to their catch. No wonder Roger had been so speechless. Tom himself had no idea what to say. What was he supposed to do with this thing?

He was the captain for a reason though. He knew he needed to take action, and quickly. “Tie it up,” he cleared his throat and spoke a little louder. “Tie it up, but don’t kill it. Not yet.”

The crew hesitated, but at a sharp look from Tom two men leapt forward, grabbing a rope and attempting to untangle the beast. It hissed again and tried to swipe at them, but they managed to bind its hands together.

“Steven,” Tom called.

His first mate rushed up to his side, straighter then Tom had ever seen him stand before. “Yes, captain?”

Tom stroked his beard thoughtfully. “What do you think this would sell for?”

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝

🎄MERRY CHRISTMAS TO AAAAAALLLLL THE MOOTS!🎄

@rascalentertainments @thesafireartist @fellow-human-writer @ishadow246 @tumblingdownthefoxden

@your-ne1ghbor @flicklikesstuff @cielos-pintados @chillwildwave

@cocoapowderpictures @spectator-zee

I wanted to give you guys a little something for Christmas, so here’s a little short story/one-shot. It’s not tied to the Marcach Chronicles or Upon a Star in any way, but I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless. I think I needed a little refresher since The Marcach Chronicles has been kicking my ass lately. Who knows, maybe this will expand into a novella of its own someday.

[xnorthstar3x]

𝟐 𝑺𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑵𝒆𝒘 𝑭𝒂𝒄𝒆𝒔

𝟏

As much as I hated to admit it, I felt the tiniest bit better after the session. It was as if I carried the weight of the world on my shoulders but the tiniest speck of sand was lifted from my load. I still needed to run a few errands before it got too late. After finishing with the lady at the front desk I made my way to the glass doors. A chill attacked the warmth that settled on my skin waging a war for dominance, ultimately winning.

'Take a moment to enjoy the good in the world. It would do you good to observe any light you might find.'

That's what Mrs. Thompson had said to me. I decided to take her advice and stood at the front door observing my surroundings. Salt trucks had already been here the night before shoving all the piled-up snow into soiled brown banks. People walked down the street greeting each other like old friends. Snow fell from the sky, dusting the ugly ground in a blanket. It was almost like a mother comforting her child after a nightmare. Speaking of children, Kash was out of food and probably expected me to return home with a heap of it. For such a loving dog he was pretty demanding. Luckily on the way home there happened to be an old grocery store nearby, the owner had known my family for years.

"Hey, Jerry," I said, walking in and waving to the old man at the front counter. He was in his early 70s and was the definition of sunshine. He'd often start his stories with some flashbacks from Vietnam.

"Well hello, little (Y/N). I guess you aren't very little anymore though." He chuckled. He turned around and pulled a pack of Marlboros off the rack.

"I don't think you should be smoking these things. But I don't think I should be telling you that it just ain't my place."

"Thank you, I need to get some more stuff." He nodded and picked up the newspaper he was reading. I grabbed a basket and made my way around the store. When I arrived at the produce in the small store the bell above the door jingled.

"Welcome, are you guys just passing through?"

Out of curiosity, I glanced at the entrance to see two people, a girl who looked to be my age with fiery red hair and a yellow shirt. She stood next to a boy with black hair, who seemed just shy of 6 feet.

"Oh yeah, we're just visiting a family home. We needed a break from the city, we even brought some friends." She smiled gesturing to the parking lot.

"Shame you didn't bring them inside." He stuck a wrinkly hand out to the two of them. "I'm Jerry, Jerry Smith. Nice to meet y'all.."

"My name is April O'Neil and this is Casey Jones." April offered her hand and Casey followed suit. I turned and found refuge in the dog food aisle ignoring the rest of their conversation in favor of choosing between the beef or pork flavor. In all honesty they probably both tasted the same. I closed my eyes and threw whatever my hand landed on in the cart and made my way to the front to pay.

"till next time Jerry." He smiled in response.

When I opened the old glass door I was met with the cold winter air as it slapped me in the face. I was shocked to see a vibrant "hippie van" next to my truck. I threw the bags in the passenger side and stood on the drivers side lighting up a Marlboro. I remembered April mentioned friends when someone inside the van shuffled and began talking.

"What a babe." The statement was followed by a loud slap and a whimper as someone inside the van made a comment about 'respectin women'. I made a face and rolled my eyes, I looked like I just got done shoveling shit (which I practically did) but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. With one final drag of my cigarette I threw it to the pavement and stomped it out as April and Casey came outside with their arms full of groceries. April dumped what she had into Casey's arms and made her way over to me smiling brightly.

"I'm April." She gestured to the struggling male. "That's Casey."

"I heard," I offered simply. I stuck out a hand for her to shake. "I'm (Y/N)."

"Well, Jerry told me we are neighbors for the time being." She pulled her coat closer to her body as Casey finally got the groceries in the van. A few quiet jests could be her as he gave someone named Donnie the finger before slamming the door.

"Don't worry I won't show up at your door unannounced." I pulled out another cigarette and lit it. I offered it to April who politely declined, I took a long drag from it.

"Well, if it's alright with you," she fished around in her back pocket pulling out a cellphone. "I'd like to get your number."

"I don't have a cell phone." Her face twitched in shock but she masked it quickly with a smile. "I have a house phone though."

After giving her my number I waved bye and hopped into my truck, I pulled out of the driveway and made my way back home. I pulled into the driveway 45 minutes later after a few more stops, Kash was in the window wagging his tail excitedly. He began to bounce when I pulled the bag of food from the cabin of the truck. The snow had let up just a bit, enough though where the tracks of another vehicle were visible in the driveway. A bag was hanging on my doorknob with a note attached to it.

Hey, Dad says to give you this box to take to your new neighbors. The O'Neil girl. He insisted I give it to you, said she left it there in a rush to get outside and meet you.

That's what I figured was going to happen. I chuckled. Jerry always said I needed to socialize more. I took my groceries inside and gave Kash some food before grabbing the bag for that April girl and her weird friends.

Main masterlist

[lords-of-mayhem]

I love Social Cues by cage the elephant! I know it’s one of their more recently popular songs but I really feel like it didn’t get the love it deserves.

Would you care to elaborate on your country music stance? Where I’m from is like 80% country music so personally I’m pretty tired of it but can’t admit there are lots of great country songs - 🐈‍⬛

I love Cage The Elephant so much and Social Cues is a fantastic song that doesn't get the love it deserves. Have you gotten to see them live? They are fantastic. I've seen them a few times and one of those was actually their tour with Beck for the Night Running album which is what Social Cues came out on.

And I personally love country! I was very fortunate to grow up with a family that played a lot of different genres, everything from country to punk to metal to you name it. (There is also a lot of musicians in my family and one of them is a locally very well-known country musician.) I like country a lot, so it always sucks to see people hate on it. Especially because I know a lot of people only think of the whole "I love God, guns, and hunting" or stadium country when they think of country, but country is so much more and it can be so fun.

I always like shouting out country songs that I think people will listen to and go, "oh! Country can actually be a genre I like."

And some people don't even realize they like country. Dolly Parton? Country. Sweet Caroline? Country. Country Roads Take Me Home? Country. The Devil Went Down To Georgia? Country.

Here are some of my personal favorites when it comes to country that other people might like too.

Bad Moon Rising // Creedence Clearwater Revival

I see a bad moon rising, I see trouble on the way. I see earthquakes and lightning, I see bad times today. Don't go round tonight, well, it's bound to take your life. There's a bad moon on the rise.

I hear hurricanes a-blowing, I know the end is coming soon. I feel rivers overflowing, I hear the voice of rage and ruin. Hope you got your things together.

Hope you are quite prepared to die. Looks like we're in for nasty weather. One eye is taken for an eye.

If Heaven Wasn't So Far Away // Justin Moore

(if you want to see me ugly cry, play this song)

If Heaven wasn't so far away, I'd pack up the kids and go for the day. Introduce them to their grandpa, watch 'em laugh at the way he talks.

I'd find my long lost cousin John, the one we left back in Vietnam. Show him a picture of his daughter now, she's a doctor and he'd be proud.

Then tell him we'd be back in a couple of days. In the rearview mirror, we'd all watch 'em wave. And losing them wouldn't be so hard to take if Heaven wasn't so far away.

I'd hug all three of those girls we lost from the class of '99. I'd find my bird dog Bo and take him hunting one more time. I'd ask Hank why he took those pills back in '53.

And Janis to sing the second verse of "Me and Bobby McGee." Sit on a cloud and visit for a while, it'd do me good just to see them smile.

Blown Away // Carrie Underwood

Daddy was a mean old mister, mama was an angel in the ground. The weatherman called for a twister, she prayed to blown it down. There's not enough rain in Oklahoma to wash the sins out of that house.

There's not enough wind in Oklahoma to rip the nails out of the past. Shatter every window 'til it's all blown away, every brick, every board, every slamming door blown away.

'Til there's nothing left standing, nothing left of yesterday. Every tear-soaked, whiskey memory blown away. She locked herself in the cellar, listening to the screaming of the wind. Some people call it taking shelter, she called it sweet revenge.

Whiskey Lullaby // Brad Paisley and Alison Krauss

(Another crying song)

She put him out like the burning end of a midnight cigarette, she broke his heart. He spent his whole life trying to forget. We watched him drink his pain away a little at a time.

But he never could get drunk enough to get her off his mind until the night...He put that bottle to his head and pulled the trigger, and finally drank away her memory.

Life is short, but this time, it was bigger than the strength he had to get up off his knees. We found him with his face down in the pillow with a note that said, "I'll love her 'til I die."

And when we buried him beneath the willow, the angels sang a whiskey lullaby.

Red Dirt Road // Brooks & Dunn

I was raised off of Rural Route 3 out past where the blacktop ends. We'd walk to church on Sunday morning and race barefoot back to Johnson's fence.

That's where I first saw Mary on that roadside, picking blackberries. That summer, I turned a corner in my soul down that red dirt road. It's where I drank my first beer.

It's where I found Jesus, where I wrecked my first car, I tore it all to pieces. I learned the path to Heaven is full of sinners and believer, learned that happiness on Earth ain't just for high achievers.

Online // Brad Paisley

I work down at the Pizza Pit and I drive an old Hyundai. I'm a sci-fi fanatic, a mild asthmatic, never been to second base. But there's a whole other me that you need to see.

Go check out MySpace. 'Cause online, I'm out in Hollywood. I'm 6'5 and I look damn good. I drive a Maserati, I'm a black belt in karate, and I love a good glass of wine.

It turns girls on that I'm mysterious, I tell them that I don't want nothing serious. I'm so much cooler online. In real life, the only time I've ever even been to LA is when I got the chance with the marching band to play tuba in the Rose Parade.

But online, I live in Malibu. I pose for Calvin Klein, I've been in GQ. I'm single and I'm rich, and I got a set of six pack abs that'd blow your mind. I'm so much cooler online.

Friends In Low Places // Garth Brooks

Blame it all on my roots, I showed up in boots and ruined your black tie affair. The last one to know, the last one to show, I was the last one you thought you'd see there.

And I saw the surprise and the fear in his eyes when I took his glass of champagne. I toasted you and said, "honey, we may be through, but you'll never hear me complain."

'Cause I got friends in low places where the whiskey drowns and the beer chases my blues away. And I'll be okay. And I'm not big on social graces, think I'll slip on down to the oasis.

I didn't mean to cause a big scene, just give me an hour and then. I'll be as high as that ivory tower that you're living in.

Cover Of The Rolling Stone // Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show

(This one is very special to me because it's my dad's favorite band)

Well, we're big rock singers. We got golden fingers and we're loved everywhere we go. We sing about beauty and we sing about truth at ten thousand dollars a show.

We take all kinds of pills to give us all kinds of thrills, but the thrill we've never known is the thrill that'll get you when you get your picture on the cover of The Rolling Stone.

Wanna see my picture on the cover, wanna buy five copies for my mother. Wanna see my smiling face on the cover of The Rolling Stone. I got a freaky old lady called Cocaine Kitty who embroiders on my jeans.

We got all the friends money can buy, so we never have to be alone. And we keep getting richer, but we can't get our picture on the cover of The Rolling Stone.

Goodbye Earl // The Chicks (TW for domestic abuse, but with a happy ending)

Mary-Anne and Wanda were the best of friends all through their high school days. Both members of the 4-H club, both active in the FFA. After graduation, Mary-Anne went out, looking for a bright new world. Wanda looked all around this town and all she found was Earl.

Well, it wasn't two weeks after she got married that Wanda started getting abused. Well, she finally got the nerve to file for divorce. She let the law take it from there.

But Earl walked right through that restraining order and put her in intensive care. Right away, Mary-Anne flew in from Atlanta on a red-eyed, midnight flight.

She held Wanda's hand and they worked out a plan, and it didn't take 'em long to decide that Earl had die. Goodbye, Earl. Those black-eyed peas, they tasted alright to me! Earl, you feeling weak? Why don't you lay down and sleep?

Nobody // Sylvia

Sitting in a restaurant, she walked by. I seem to recall that certain look in your eye. I said whose that, you said with a smile, "oh it's nobody, nobody."

Maybe that explains the last two weeks. You called me up, dead on your feet. Working late again, I ask "who with?" You said, "nobody, nobody."

Well, your nobody called today. She hung up when I asked her name, I wonder does she think she's being clever? You say nobody's after, the fact is what you say is true. But I can love you like nobody can, even better.

Dooley // The Dillards

Dooley was a good ole man, he lived below the mill. Dooley had two daughters and a forty gallon still. One gal watched the boiler, the other watched the spout, and mama corked the bottles when ole Dooley fetched 'em out.

Dooley was a trader when into town he'd come. Sugar by the bushel and molasses by the ton. I remember very well the day ole Dooley died, the women folk weren't sorry and the men stood 'round and cried.

Now, Dooley's on the mountain. He lies there all alone. They put a jug beside him and a barrel for the stone.

Wagon Wheel // Darius Rucker

Heading down south to the land of the pines, I'm thumbing my way out of North Carolina. Staring up the road and pray to God I see headlights. Made it down the coast in seventeen hours, picking me a bouqet of dogwood flowers.

And I'm a-hoping for Raleigh, I can see my baby tonight. So rock me, mama, like a wagon wheel. Rock me, mama, any way you feel. Hey, mama, rock me.

Rock me, mama, like the wind and the rain. Rock me, mama, like a southbound train. Hey, mama, rock me. Running from the cold up in New England, I was born to be a fiddler in an old-time string band. My baby plays the guitar, I pick the banjo now.

Remember When // Alan Jackson

Remember when, I was young and so were you and time stood still. And love was all we knew. You were the first, so was I. Made love and then you cried, remember when?

We lived and learned, life threw curves. There was joy and there was hurt, remember when? We came together, we fell apart, we broke each other's heart. Remember when?

Remember when, thirty seemed so old. Now looking back, it's just a stepping stone to where we are. Where we been, said we'd do it all again. Remember when?

Almost Home // Craig Morgan

He had plastic bags wrapped 'round his shoes, he was covered with the evening news. Had a pair of old wool socks on his hands, bank sign was flashing five below.

It was freezing rain and spitting snow, he was curled up behind some garbage cans. I was afraid that he was dead, I gave him a gentle shake. When he opened up his eyes, I said, "old man, are you okay?"

He said, "I just climbed out of a cottonwood tree. I was running from some honey bees. Drip-drying in the summer breeze after jumping into Calico Creek. I was walking down an old dirt road, past a field of hay that had just been mowed. Man, I wish you'd just left me alone.

'Cause I was almost home." Then he said, "I was just coming round the barn, 'bout the time you grabbed my arm. I was close enough for my old nose to smell fresh cobbler on the stove.

And I saw daddy loading up the truck. Cane poles on the tailgate, bobbers blowing in the wind. Since July of '55, that's as close as I've been."

Dirty Laundry // Carrie Underwood

That lipstick on your collar, well, it ain't my shade of pink and I can tell by the smell of perfume it's like forty dollars too cheap. And there's a little wine stain on the pocket of your white-collar thread.

You drink beer and whiskey, boy. And you know I don't drink red. Now, I'm gonna have to hang you out to dry, dry, dry. Clothespin all your secrets to the line, line, line.

Leave 'em blowing in the wind and say goodbye to you. All those midnight sneaking in. "I'm late again, oh, I'm so sorry." All the Ajax in the world ain't gonna clean your dirty laundry.

[foundtherightwords]

Come, You Spirits

Pairing: Ralph (Timewasters) x OFC (Thu from "All Our Yesterdays")

Summary: Stuck in the past (again) and bored during the Ghost Festival, Ralph and Thu decide to check out the most haunted building in Hanoi, with unexpected consequences.

Warnings: none, just a brief mention of a murder and some general spooky stuff.

Word count: 4.6k

A/N: This is both my submission for the JQ Spookathon (yes, I've decided to participate after all! Thank you to @palomahasenteredthechat for hosting and all the mods!) and a soft continuation of my Ralph fic, "All Our Yesterdays" (if you haven't read it, that's OK. I tried to make this a standalone.) I've never written horror before, so here's something on the silly side instead. Plus, out of all of Joe's characters (other than Eddie), I feel that Ralph is most suited to a spooky story, and when Ralph is concerned, everything takes a silly turn for me.

As with "All Our Yesterdays", this is based on an actual urban legend of Hanoi and the location is real (see the photo at the end). The title is a quote from "Macbeth" too.

"You want to do what?" Thu asked, thinking she'd misheard Ralph over the flapping of the bamboo fan she was using to dry her hair. There was a power cut, and she was already sweating despite having just showered.

"Check out that haunted building you told me about," Ralph repeated.

Right, so she hadn't misheard him then. "OK... why?"

Ralph shrugged. "It's something to do," he said. "We've eaten at every possible street vendor in the Old Quarter, we've seen every sight there is to see—I know you take pride in Hanoi being traditional, but when it hasn't changed much since sixty years ago, there's not much left to do."

"That still doesn't explain why you want to see a haunted house."

"Isn't it the Ghost Festival today? Shouldn't we do something to celebrate?"

"Our Ghost Festival is not Halloween!"

"You said it was the day all the souls are released from the Underworld to visit Earth. That sounds like Halloween to me."

"Yeah, but we're supposed to be avoiding spirits, not searching for them!"

"Ah, that's no fun," Ralph sighed. He picked up a paper with a listless hand and threw it down again.

"And anyway, we did go to the mausoleum to see Uncle Ho's mummified body," Thu pointed out. "That wasn't macabre enough for you?" The trip to Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, a rite of passage for every school kid in Hanoi, had been less of a success than Thu had expected. Ralph had treated it less like a curious relic of Vietnam's past and more like a carnival sideshow. 

"No," now he said. "It was just... weird. It's not even real!"

"Oh, like you'd know!"

"You seriously believe that they can preserve a body that well?"

"Why not? The Soviets did it with Lenin."

"Have you seen that one?"

"... No."

"Well, I bet that's not real either."

Thu could tell they were in for another pointless bickering session, which had been happening with increasing frequency lately. Time traveling tends to do that to you, especially when it is as unpredictable as time traveling with Homeless Pete. No matter how in love you are with one another, it can be stressful when you keep ending up in different times throughout history, without warning. And this particular period hit a little close to home—in 1991 Hanoi, with her birth just six years away, Thu ran the risk of running into her parents and experiencing her own version of Back to the Future. She and Ralph had managed to find a place to stay on the other side of town, away from her parents' university, but the strain was getting to her.

Thu knew she should be thankful they had landed in peacetime—if it had been close to either of the wars, the suspicion on Ralph would make it impossible for them to stay. And they had managed to avoid the worst of the 1980s economic crisis as well—she still remembered too clearly her parents' half-humorous, half-painful stories about standing in line for hours to get their meager rations, the mortal fear of losing one's ration book, the stress of hoarding any product you could get your hands on. At least all of that was behind them now. But on a night like this, it was hard to feel grateful. The August air was muggy, the power was out for the third time that week, and the smoke from the burning of joss paper for the Ghost Festival only made the heat more unbearable. No wonder Ralph was feeling restless.

Still, she wished she hadn't told Ralph about that haunted building. They lived just down the road and had come across it while trudging around searching for Homeless Pete, who had disappeared yet again. Built in the Eastern Bloc style, all gray concrete and sharp corners, it squatted on an intersection like some scowling monstrosity, already exuding an air of inhospitality and menace despite being newly constructed.

"That's going to be the most famous haunted building in Hanoi," Thu said without thinking, pointing at it.

"Going to? What happens?" Ralph asked curiously.

Thu told him about how the building was meant to be the new Bulgarian Embassy, but was never put to use for some reason and was left empty over the next thirty years. "And in Vietnam, whenever a house is abandoned, it is said to be haunted," she said. "They say it was built on top of a cemetery or a hospital morgue, and people often hear strange noises or crying inside. The usual urban legend stuff. And then there was the murder—"

"What murder?" Ralph's eyes opened wide with fascination.

"Some woman stabbed her lover in his car right outside the back gate. In the early 2000s, I think. They say his ghost still lingers around."

"Wizard!"

Thu didn't share Ralph's enthusiasm. She didn't really believe in ghosts, but like most Vietnamese people, she had a healthy respect for the supernatural and avoided it when she could. Ralph had no such hang-ups, apparently. And now he wanted to check out the place! On Ghost Festival of all night!

"It's not really haunted, you know," she said, hoping to dissuade him. "Those stories are just made up by junkies and criminals, so they have a place to hang out."

"But you said those rumors only started after the building was abandoned," Ralph pointed out, and Thu silently cursed his memory. "So why was it abandoned in the first place?"

"It's probably just due to some bureaucratic crap."

"Where's your sense of adventure?"

"Let me get this straight," she said, rubbing her eyes. "We're stuck thirty years in the past with no IDs, and you want to sneak into an embassy to see if it's haunted, all because you're bored?"

"Yes," Ralph said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

"No. We are not doing that."

"Please?" He was practically pouting and batting his eyelashes at her, like freaking Betty Boop.

"Stop making that face. You know I can't resist that face."

"It's history!"

Thu sighed. Their apartment was cramped, and the fried fish that the family next door was having for dinner did not smell so great. Perhaps some fresh air would do them good. This was a time when you could still get fresh air simply by walking outside, without having to worry about pollution or traffic, so she might as well take advantage of it.

"Sometimes I do worry about your sense of self-preservation, you know," she said, getting up to find her shoes.

"Come on, that's what you love about me." Ralph grinned and gave her a kiss as she passed him.

***

They walked. Usually, during a power cut like this, they would meet plenty of people and families with kids all along the street, trying to cool down in the night air. That night, however, the street was deserted. The only person they saw was a scrawny student trying to read a book under a street lamp. Clearly, the night of the Ghost Festival was no time to be outside. And even if anyone had ventured out, the stifling, humid air would offer little relief. They really needed some rain soon.

"I'm afraid this isn't the vibe you're looking for," Thu said. "It's too hot to be spooky."

"That helps though." Ralph, always determined to make the best of every situation, pointed at the fat full moon shining languidly over the darkened street.    

Just a few minutes later, they reached the embassy building. The place was surrounded by a tall iron fence, sharp points piercing the moonlit sky. The wan light of the street lamps gave the concrete blocks a blotchy, moldy look, and when combined with the scraggly bushes around its courtyard and the leftover building material, the building looked old, ruined, abandoned even before it was inhabited. A giant banyan tree by the main entrance spread its twisted branches over the flat rooftop, its roots hanging down like a curtain, dark leaves rustling menacingly although there wasn't a breath of wind.

The sight of that tree gave Thu pause.

"What's wrong?" Ralph asked.

"They should have done something about that tree," she said slowly.

"Why?"

"A banyan tree, especially one this ancient, is usually home to spirits and ghosts," Thu explained, "but cutting it down will anger the spirits, so people often set up some sort of a shrine or an altar on the tree for them. There's no shrine here. Not even some rice and salt for the lonely spirits." She dug in her bag and found a packet of puffed rice, one of many she'd bought earlier that day as offerings for the Ghost Festival, and scattered the grains over the tree root. To do it right, there should be some incense as well, but she was sure the spirits would find the rice just fine.

Ralph gave her a sidelong glance. "I thought you didn't believe in ghosts."

"I don't."

"Then are you trying to frighten me?"

A corner of Thu's mouth lifted up. "Is it working?"

"Not a chance." Ralph walked around the back. "Come on."

The back was more of the same, sinister walkways leading deeper into the building, eerie shadows that seemed to appear just out of the corner of one's eyes, furniture piled up waiting to be moved in, creating all sorts of odd shapes. An empty swimming pool gleamed pale under the moonlight.

"OK, we've checked it out," Thu said. "There is no ghost or spirit to be found here. Are you happy now?"

There was no answer. She looked around, but Ralph was no longer by her side. He was at the back gate, unwinding the chain holding the gate shut. There was no lock. Shit.

"Ralph, stop! Come back here!" she called, trying to keep her voice low, but it was too late. He had slipped through the gate and disappeared into the murky depth of the building.

Shit, shit, shit. Ralph had always been game for anything, and he was right to say it was what she loved most about him—his endless passion, his ever-present optimism. But she was sure that, having spent time in an Indochinese prison, he would be more careful about putting himself at risk of getting arrested again.

Well, there was nothing to it. She slipped through the gate after him. If the lack of a lock was anything to judge by, the place was not very well guarded, being newly built and not yet inhabited. They may be lucky and not get discovered.

She caught up with Ralph, who was strolling down the covered walkway that connected the two wings of the building, looking for all the world like he was taking his constitutional along the Thames, despite his modern-day clothes. Apparently, one can take the boy out of London but cannot take London out of the boy.

"Get out of here before you get us into trouble!" she hissed.

"Relax," Ralph said. "There's nobody here."

"And there's no ghost either," Thu said, with more conviction than she actually felt.

It wasn't simply the fear of getting arrested that made Thu jumpy. She hated to admit it, but being in this building, knowing its history—or rather, future—made her hair stand on end. She didn't believe in ghosts, she told herself. But something about those cold, gray concrete walls, those dark, tunnel-like corridors, and the sheer emptiness of it felt like there was a razor pressed to the back of her neck, making her want to stand with her back against a solid wall. She fought the urge to take Ralph's hand. 

"So you have time-traveled, yet you don't believe in ghosts?" Ralph said.

"That's different," Thu muttered.

"How?"

They were now inside the main hall. The building must have its own generator—there was a naked light bulb on the ceiling, shedding its yellow light over a reception desk of cheap plywood and a floor that still hadn't been completely cleared of sand and mortar. They climbed the staircase leading to the first floor, where another bare bulb swung from the ceiling, bringing more shadows than light.

"Time travel is—is—science," Thu said lamely.

"Is that so? How does it work then?"

"It works by—by—I don't know, some wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff!"

Ralph looked blank. "What?"

Thu bit back a teasing smile. "You're probably the only Brit alive that doesn't know Doctor Who. If—when we get back to the present, we really need to sit down and watch it."

"To be fair, I was born ninety years ago—"

A heavy, drawn-out sigh echoed down the corridor, cutting him off. It was ringing clear, as though the person was standing right by them.

Ralph gripped Thu's wrist. "Did you hear that?"

"Oh, for Heaven's sake!" She shook Ralph's hand free and strode forward with long, decisive steps. "It's probably just the wind or something—"

She rounded a corner, and her heart stopped.

A figure wavered in the gloom at the end of the corridor.

Then the figure moved into the light, and Thu realized it was much, much worse than a ghost.

It was a middle-aged man, dressed like a security guard, wearing the green pith helmet of the Vietnamese army, with a baton in his hand and a startled expression on his face.

"Excuse me!" he exclaimed in Vietnamese. "Who the hell are you?"

Thu didn't know where she found the clarity of mind to stick out an arm and block Ralph, who was still hidden from view behind the corner. But block him she did, and she could hear him duck into an empty room, much to her relief.

"This is private property! It belongs to the government of Bulgaria!" the guard shouted, limping toward her. "What the hell do you think you're doing here?!"

"I'm so sorry, sir," Thu said, running up to the guard to prevent him from going further down the corridor and discovering Ralph. She decided the best course was to tell the truth—or a version of the truth anyway. "The gate was open, and I—my friends and I heard that the place is haunted, and they dared me to go inside..."

"Haunted?" The guard frowned. He had the yellow teeth and yellow fingertips of a chain smoker, and, as he got close enough to her, the breath to match as well. "I've worked here since they started constructing, never heard of no haunting."

"It's just what people say—isn't this place built on an old temple? Or was it a cemetery—"

The guard narrowed his eyes at her. "Aren't you a bit old to get up to such shenanigans?" he asked.

Thu was ready to get offended, but then she remembered that thirty years in the past, someone in her mid-twenties could very well be married and having kids already—her own parents were. "You're absolutely right, sir," she said. "I'm so sorry. I'm leaving now."

She turned to leave, but the guard put his baton up. "Hold on," he said. "Let me see your ID."

Thu's heart dropped. "I—I don't have it with me."

"Where do you live?"

"Just... down the street."

"Right, I'll go with you to get your ID then."

"No!" she exclaimed. Realizing she would not be helping her case by panicking, she tried to soften her voice. "Please. You'll get me in trouble with my parents. Please, sir. I haven't done anything. I just walked around—"

Her plea fell on deaf ears. The guard grabbed Thu's arm with vice-like fingers. "So you just admitted to trespassing. Come with me."

"Hey, you can't do this!" She tried to pull away, but his hold was too strong, despite his limp. "Do you even have the authority to detain me?"

"Ooh, like to use fancy words, don't we?" The guard's craggy face took on a harsh, unyielding look. "You're right. This is a police matter. I'm only detaining you until I can fetch them." Ignoring her protests, he dragged her down the corridor and threw her into a room at the very end. "And for your information, young lady, my authority is absolute here!" he said, before snapping shut the padlock at the door with a cruel click.

"Shit!" Thu said out loud. How could she have been so stupid? She should have dragged Ralph bodily out of here—no, she shouldn't have let him through the gate—no, she should never have agreed to come here in the first place!

When she first time-traveled, she had lived for six months in 1929 without any ID whatsoever, but things in 1991 were very different, and with the police getting involved, how was she going to explain herself? She could only pray that Ralph was smart enough to get out while the guard was preoccupied. She may be able to come up with some crazy story to the police to explain her lack of ID, but explaining the presence of a young Englishman who was actually born in 1904 was too much for her. She could see the headlines—"Mad Woman Claims to Come from the Future". "Mad Foreigner Claims to Come from the Past". Or worse, there would be no headlines at all. They would just get thrown into jail or a mental hospital and forgotten.

Thu looked over her jail cell, trying to figure out what to do. She was in a bathroom, lit by a bare light bulb as the rest of the building. The door was of sturdy wood, and the only window was a tiny square high up on the wall. Even if somehow she managed to wriggle through it, it was still a two-floor drop to the ground. No wind came through that window, and the room was boiling. Sticky sweat poured down her back.

A shadow passed by and stopped just outside the room, blocking out the narrow strip of light underneath the door. It was gone in an instant, followed by several more, rather like a group of children crowding each other to peer into a room. Thu pressed her ears to the door but heard nothing, no footsteps or even a rustling of clothes.

"Hello?" she whispered in Vietnamese. Receiving no answer, she switched to English. "Ralph? That you?" Still no answer, but there came that long, heavy sigh again, and the light went out.

The sweat on Thu's back turned to ice. She staggered away from the door, heart hammering, spine crawling, until she hit the wall with her back. The solid wall made her feel slightly better, though the tiles chilled her. She missed Ralph's warm arms.

She sat down on the toilet, trying to gather her wits. Some shadows, a noise, and a power cut were nothing to be so shaken up about. It was just Ralph's overactive imagination and those damned stories getting to her, that was all...

BANG!

She nearly jumped out of her skin, before realizing it was just a window on the ground floor. Probably just the wind. She took a deep breath—

BANG! BANG! BANG!

This time they came right above her, one after another, sounding too fast and uniformed to be caused by the wind. A quick glance out the window told her that the night was as still and muggy as ever.

The guard's voice came from somewhere in the bowels of the building, "Who goes there?" Thu heard a high, clear giggle, but it could be her imagination, or it could simply be from a kid playing in the street outside. This was followed by a long moment of silence, then a scream—more like a yelp, thin and far away, then silence again, ringing in her ears, endless, unbearable.

The silence was broken by running footsteps outside the corridor. Her heart in her throat, Thu cast wildly about for a weapon. She settled for the heavy porcelain cover of the toilet's water tank, though what good it would do against a ghost, she had no idea. But then again, ghosts wouldn't have footsteps, would they?

"Thu?" came Ralph's familiar voice, and the band squeezing her heart loosened, almost making her drop the cover on her foot. She scrambled to the door.

"Ralph! What happened?"

"The guard fell into the pool."

Shit. "What did you do?!"

"I didn't do anything!"

This was no time for more bickering. "He must have the keys on him," she told Ralph. "Find them and get me out of here!"

"OK. Hang on."

His footsteps receded. After what must be the longest five minutes of her life, he came back, the door was opened, and the next thing she knew, Ralph was pulling her into his arms. "Are you all right?" he asked. "I'm sorry, this was all my fault—"

Thu was so relieved she wasn't even angry with him anymore. After all, she had followed him into the building of her own volition.

"No time for apologies. Let's just get the hell out of here," she said.

Grabbing each other's hand, they ran down the corridor, down the stairs, and toward the back gate. As they passed the empty swimming pool, Thu glimpsed the dark shape of the guard lying in a heap at the bottom.

"Is he dead?" she asked, horrified.

"No. Just knocked out, I think," Ralph said. Seeing Thu slow down, he paused as well. "What are you thinking?"

Thu weighed the bunch of keys in her hand. "I have an idea," she said, motioning for Ralph to climb down into the pool with her.

They put the keys back into the guard's pocket and carried him into the bathroom where he'd locked Thu up. This way, Thu reasoned, when he woke up, the confusion would be enough to throw doubt over his story, and they would be off the hook.

"Are you still angry with me?" Ralph said as they made their way back to the apartment. "I won't do anything like that ever again, I promise."

"You better keep that promise," she grumbled, but when he tentatively reached for her hand, she didn't push him away.

***

For a few days afterward, Thu avoided going past the embassy, just in case the guard still remembered her face. One evening, she and Ralph were going to dinner when they found their path was taking them past the building again. There was a great bustle as workers went in and out, carrying furniture and cleaning up the leftover building material. Seeing a woman struggling with a heavy chair, Thu came over to help.

"Are the Bulgarians finally moving in?" she asked in Vietnamese.

"No," the woman replied shortly. "They're moving out."

It was then that Thu noticed the furniture was being loaded on carts and taken away. Did this have anything to do with their misadventure the other night?

"Why?" she asked the woman. 

"No one wants to work here," the woman said. "The locals say it's haunted."

Startled, Thu looked back at Ralph, whose eyes were open so wide they threatened to pop out of his face. He hadn't learned much Vietnamese, but he had certainly caught the word "haunted" and understood what it meant. Có ma. Inhabited by ghosts.

"What happened?" Thu asked the woman, trying to sound casually interested.

The woman cast a look around, before dropping her voice. "On Ghost Festival, a security guard was working there alone. He said some woman showed up, telling him the place is haunted. He thought she was a trespasser and locked her up to wait for the police. Did everything by the book, right? Only she vanished! And the guard found himself locked up instead! What do you make of that?"

Thankfully, Thu didn't have to answer that, because another worker was calling to the woman irritably, "Hey, move it! Some of us want to get out of here before it gets dark, you know!"

As the woman scurried back to her work, Thu gave Ralph a brief summary of what the woman had told her.

"I guess we were the ones that started that whole haunted rumor," she said ruefully.

"Well, at least now we know why it was abandoned," Ralph replied, cheerful as ever.

Thu shook her head at him, half exasperated, half affectionate. She should really stop letting him draw her into these harebrained adventures, but it was hard to say no to those puppy eyes.

"So tell me," she said, slipping her arm through Ralph's as they continued on their way, "what did you do to that poor security guard, exactly? How did you know where the breaker was?"

"The what?"

"The electricity. You turned it off to scare the guard, didn't you?"

"I thought that was another power cut?"

She slowed her steps, puzzled. "But you did slam the shutters, right?"

"Yes, the one on the ground floor. I thought it might make a good diversion."

"And the ones on the second floor too."

"No, I didn't go on the second floor."

"But I clearly heard three slams, right above me."

"I heard those too. I thought that was you!"

Did he think she was that gullible? "Come on, Ralph. You're messing with me."

"You're messing with me! How could I have gotten from the ground floor to the second floor so quickly?"

"Right, and next you're going to tell me you didn't make the guard fall into the pool either."

"I told you I didn't! He was already there when I found him!"

Thu finally stopped and looked straight at Ralph. "What are you saying?"

"I am telling you the truth," Ralph said slowly. "All I did was slam the shutters to draw the guard away. Then I hid. I didn't see anything. I only heard giggling and panting, and the guard's scream. When I found him, he was unconscious in the pool."

They stared at each other, neither uttering a word, minds running wild with all sorts of possibilities, while a strange, oppressive feeling—not quite fear, but a vague unease—clutched at their hearts. Thu could feel the razor on the nape of her neck again. As one, she and Ralph turned to look at the building. The workers had finished and left, and the building was deserted once more, looming gray and silent in the last rays of the sun.

"Perhaps the ghosts were helping us because you gave them some puffed rice," eventually Ralph said.

"I don't believe in ghosts," Thu snapped.

"Maybe you should," Ralph said. "They believe in you."

Thu looked over her shoulder again. It could be her imagination, or it could be a trick of the dying light, but the banyan tree looked like it was winking at them.

Definitely her imagination. Maybe.

"Don't say things like that," she said, trying to shake off the crawling sensation on her back. "It sounds so creepy!"

"Sorry."

She glared at Ralph. His eyes were full of earnest concern, with no hint of the twinkle he usually had when he was teasing her.

"You're lucky you're cute, you know that?" she said.

Face brightening up, he grinned back at her. "I know."

For all her bravado, Thu's grip on Ralph's hand was tighter than usual as they walked home in the gathering dusk. Then again, perhaps that was what he was aiming for, the cheeky tosser.

[capseycartwright]

✨🌊

thank you friend!!

✨ a move you like to rewatch?

at the moment it’s red white and royal blue sjsjsj but honestly any feel good romcom is top of my rewatch list - the proposal or set it up are my all time favs!

🌊 dream vacation

oh there’s so many! I’m trying to narrow down to just one as i am turning 30 next year and want to celebrate with a hol, but that will likely be more of a relaxing beach hol where i can rot and read my kindle and drink cocktails.

other than that, i would really like to visit the arctic, as i do a lot of work with folk from the arctic regions and i just love the idea of it. india is also high on the list, as is vietnam, and new zealand if we’re talking big dream trips far away from here. a little closer to home, i really would like to tick prague, krakow and talinn off my list soon!

but honestly i will go anywhere. i am the friend who’ll never say no to any sort of trip. the world is so big and i have not seen nearly enough of it!

ask me things

[generalsmemories]

Oh a fellow person who is scared of spiders! Naru, hi!

Like yeah, I agree with you, if there is spider in the room I'm out of there getting my sibling or mom to deal with it. I don't think I have had an event that made me scared of them, but God, I remember I was visiting my grandma in Vietnam, and then we decided to celebrate New Year at the Phu Quoc island, and the first thing I saw after the dinner was gigant spider, like it's legs were sooo long God... (like it was small but legs were long and thin)... I have never seen such spider back at home in Europe. I screamed so hard that my sibling ran from another floor to see what was happening, but then when my parents came, spider ran away. It was first and the last time I saw such big spider, but like, nah you know what NO MORE SPIDERS IN MY LIFE PLEASE

Sorry for rambling! Oh and may I ask, can I draw your OC? They look amazing, and I thought that if my OC met yours they would become friends

oH HELLO THERE FELLOW VIET LET'S SHAKE HANDS LMFAO-

I recently visisted Phu Quoc when I went to Vietnam to visit family back in June! Although we stayed at a pretty high end hotel and just visited the Phu Quoc jail before going to the amusement park there hehe (besides being dragged to some sort of beach club for my cousin to enjoy some laughing gas-)

Funnily enough, the most amount of insects I had to fight while in Vietnam wasn't the amount of geckos or spiders, rather it was the abnormally large fcking grasshoppers (or was it locusts-) BUT EITHER WAY THOSE WERE GIANT AND NOT A PLEASANT MEMORY

also don't be sorry for rambling! i love talking to ya'll hehe! but of course you can draw the lil pinkie, the fact you already want to draw them is already an honor tbh! while i don't have a coherent backstory for my oc i just know they showcase themselves as a very pleasant person so i bet those two would get along well if you want to tell me more about ur oc (─‿‿─)♡

[christinescupofcoffee]

❤️ how tall are you? 5’7” (if I wear my boots, I’m closer to 5’8”)

🧡 what is your sexuality? I really don’t know, I might be bi, I might be pan? I have ruminated over this more than I ever would have liked.

💛 what is your favorite feature on yourself? Probably my belly. It used to be so fat and now it’s just a little bit round. I never want to lose it. It’s also where I feel the most wounded (that, and my hair).

💚 where are you from? I was born in the L.A. area, spent my childhood in Carson City, grew up in the California desert, lived in southern Oregon for four years, and now I live in the California mountains, so the west coast.

🩵 do you have any pets? All the dogs, all the cats. Both are the loves of my life 🐾🐾

💙 do you have any siblings? Just my older brother and we’re not close at all (especially not after this year). I’ve felt like an only child since I was about ten.

💜 describe yourself in five words or less! Tender. Sensual. Well-rounded. Misunderstood.

🩷 dream job? Either owning a bakery that’s also an art gallery or working at Schat’s bakery up in Bishop.

🖤 favorite hobbies outside of your blog. Baking, cooking, drawing, painting, ceramics, reading, gardening, hiking, boxing, yoga, rowing, baseball, bike-riding, collecting rocks seashells books Legos and Funko pops, road trips, and crocheting

🎂 when is your birthday? April 15

🌙 your zodiac (Sun, Moon, Rising) wet n’ wild Aries sun, mad scientist Aquarius moon, and chubby comfy Cancer rising

💉do you have tattoos and/or piercings? I used to have ears pierced, but they’ve long closed up. My dream tattoo is a cardinal with a sunflower in its beak.

🚗 can you drive? yes!

✈️ favorite place you’ve traveled? Either Seattle or Atlanta.

🎤 have you been to a concert? oh, yes.

🎵 favorite artists? Chris Cornell, The Beatles, Green Day, Nine Inch Nails, Alice In Chains, Hole, Nirvana, Mother Love Bone, Stone Temple Pilots, Queens of the Stone Age, Deftones, Type O Negative, The Tragically Hip, Anthrax, Testament, Alex Skolnick Trio, Death Angel, In This Moment, Crypta, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Van Halen, Oasis, Blur, The Arctic Monkeys, The Cure, Syd Barrett, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Tom Waits, Lana Del Rey, Alanis Morissette, Mark Lanegan, Amy Winehouse, and PJ Harvey

🎧 last song you listened to? “I Don’t Know” by Paul McCartney

📺 last show you watched? Ink master

📝 last thing you wrote? New chapter of Quarter After Twelve.

🔐 something no one would guess about you? I helped build a formula car from the ground up. I’m half Belgian/French and I have roots in Portugal and the Baltics (I get mistaken for Hispanic and Native American all the time). I was almost homeless when I was 18.

🧟‍♀️ scariest thing that’s happened to you? I had a suicide attempt when I was 19. I was actually making the noose when I started thinking about my mom, how she would react if she found me.

🔥 craziest thing that’s ever happened to you? When Chris became my friend! 10 years later, it still feels surreal.

🍓 favorite food? A nice Reuben sandwich. I also love Mediterranean food (then again, I just love to eat).

🍅 least favorite food? Eggplant (the only time I actually like it is in ratatouille). I also never had good gumbo.

🍊 favorite season? Springtime

🍋 favorite genre to read / watch / write? To read: mysteries. To watch: cooking shows and British comedy. To write: science fiction and gothic literature.

🍐 if you could make one character real, who would it be? My boys Andy and Richie. Andy, because he’s sweet and vulnerable; Richie, because he’s sweet and in need of guidance.

🫐 some place you’d love to visit? Oh, so many. New York, New Orleans, New England, Chicago, Hershey (Pennsylvania), The Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, Glacier National Park, Canada, Hawaii, Costa Rica, Chile, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Israel (yes), Morocco, Cyprus, Greece, Slovenia, Hungary, Germany, Belgium, France, Portugal, The British Isles, The Baltic States, and Iceland.

🍇 a word your friends would use to describe you. Unpredictable?

🍒 what is your earliest memory? Watching Absolutely Fabulous with my mom, and also walking around the house with only my pants and boots on (just one of many scandalous things I did when I was little 😝)

🍌 what is one talent you wish you had. Sewing. My mom’s the seamstress of the family and I could just never do it.

💌 why did you start this blog? I need a place for *all* of my writing, fanfic and original works. I also need more excuses to stay away from the dashboard, which is nearly impossible to scroll down anymore.

✏️ when did you start writing fanfic? Believe it or not, when I was about 7 years old. I never wrote anything down (and if I did, I don’t remember it). I wouldn’t come back to it until I was about 14 with Formula 1 fanfic, and then again at 20 with grunge fanfic.

🖇️ what are your favorite asks to answer? All of them. I won’t always answer, but I do enjoy reading comments.

📚 how do you come up with the fics you write? I don’t really know, they sort of “come to me” as it were. If it’s an idea i’m really inflamed by, it hits like a lightning bolt, like i just have to write it.

📌 what is the fic you’re know for? I don’t really know? When I look at my ao3, I don’t really picture any of them being remembered. If anything, I’ll probably be remembered as that one writer who was “obsessive” and prolific.

🔍 what character do you enjoy writing for the most? Alex and Christine (seasons grey). Alex and Samantha, too (fever). Alex and Falk Maria, too (midnight oil). Richard and James. When I was little, I liked imagining the original Cartoon Cartoons as my imaginary friends. All my OCs, too, like it’s nice to make up my own rules again and not “abide by the fandom” (even though aside from Top Gear/Grand Tour and Metallica, I go more into smaller fandoms/fandoms that have long quieted down).

🖊️ what character do you not enjoy writing for? Probably James Hetfield, all because I just hate the fanon that surrounds him (just look at the sheer number of daddy kink/breeder kink fics with him involved and, I’m sorry, but I don’t find them arousing).

💔 is there a fic you wish you didn’t write? Black Diamonds, believe it or not. I actually got called disgusting for that (and from one of those people who goes on ad infinitum about “fandom etiquette” no less; ever since then, I find those posts extremely hypocritical, like they bring out the rule-breaker in me).

❤️‍🔥 what character do you simp for most often? Christine. “I am he, and he is me.”

🧚‍♀️ favorite characters of all time? Lisa Simpson, Tina Belcher, Chandler Bing (r.i.p. Matthew Perry 🕊️), Jennifer Check, Mia Wallace, Black Mamba (Kill Bill), Bilbo Baggins, Katniss Everdeen, Greg and Wirt, Sally Owens (Practical Magic), Doctor Who, Doctor Strange, Dwight Schrute, Oscar Martínez, Christine from Phantom of the Opera, and Elvira

🪐 favorite shows / series of all time? The Simpsons, Bob’s Burgers, the old Cartoon Cartoons, The Office, Parks and Rec, House, Doctor Who, Sherlock, Nip/Tuck, Sex and the City, Get Smart (we used to have TV Land and back in the 2000s, they showed things from the 60s all the time), Seinfeld, 3rd Rock from the Sun, 30 Rock, Top Gear/Grand Tour, Ab/Fab, Skins, Peep Show, Portlandia, Breaking Bad, Lost, Heroes, and Great British Baking Show

🌝 a show you would recommend to anyone? Peep Show. Funny as hell black comedy that actually does it right, like it’s not this painfully on-the-nose crap you see on the internet all the time.

🌚 a show you’d tell people to stay away from? Nothing I can think of. I say let people decide what they like and enjoy—I may not like it myself but that shouldn’t stop you.

🌹 favorite kinks to write for? belly kink, voice kink, lace leather and latex…. I have a huge laundry list of kinks behind me, and I mean huge and I know I’ll be here all night if I fire them off 😅

🥀 kinks you would never write for? cream pies, daddy kink, breeder kink. I’m not too keen about size kink, either.

🌊 a kink you would like to write but you think you’d be judged? I feel judged for all my kinks, tbh.

❄️ full fics, imagines or head canons? Full fics. I do like headcanons, though.

☂️ your favorite fanfic from another writer? Right now: “Dressed to Kill” from the Bob’s Burgers fandom. Can’t think of the author’s name at the moment but I reread it from my bookmarks yesterday and I forgot how much I loved it.

🍄 what is something that’s happened in your life that you wish you could go back and change? I wish I paid more attention to art when I was in high school because I kept being told that it’s not lucrative (and art classes back then were horribly underfunded, too, so I guess it’s good that I didn’t?).

⭐️ what is one of your biggest accomplishments? Why is it so important to you? When I won 1st place for my chocolate babka. I just kind of picked up baking last year, i wasn’t really expecting anything out of it!

🪻what is the toughest thing you had to go through, but can say you’ve successfully overcome? A lot of things. Systemic poverty. Sexism. Verbal and psychological abuse. Bullies. Sadist teachers. Near homelessness. Having my heart broken. Having friends die. Watching my stepdad drink himself to death. Realizing the love of my life lives thousands of miles away and he’s with someone who is slowly killing him. Eating disorders and mental illness. Being underweight. Being obese. Spending three days by myself after my mom was admitted to hospital. I’ve probably beaten some pretty scary inheritances as far as I know (breast cancer, diabetes, heart problems, colon problems…)

🌺 what is the best gift someone has ever given you and why is it so important? My best friend gave me this little figurine of Mickey Mouse with a clear rhinestone glued on his hand… when we were five years old. I still have it. I have it in my purse.

🍀 what is your comfort show/series and why is it your comfort show? How has it helped you? All the shows I mentioned above, but this year, the Top Gear/Grand Tour trio of Jeremy, James, and Richard have been my go-to. I pretty much grew up watching the three of them but they have given me the humor, the intellect, all of it, in a year that… I would much rather forget, if I’m honest.

Get to Know Me!

This is just a fun little thing I’ve been wanting to do since the dawn of time but could never find a post to reblog that satisfied what I wanted. So I made this, feel free to reblog and use it yourself!

❤️ how tall are you?

🧡 what is your sexuality?

💛 what is your favorite feature on yourself?

💚 where are you from?

🩵 do you have any pets?

💙 do you have any siblings?

💜 describe yourself in five words or less!

🩷 dream job?

🖤 favorite hobbies outside of your blog

🎂 when is your birthday?

🌙 your zodiac (Sun, Moon, Rising)

💉do you have tattoos and/or piercings

🚗 can you drive?

✈️ favorite place you’ve traveled

🎤 have you been to a concert

🎵 favorite artists

🎧 last song you listened too

📺 last show you watched

📝 last thing you wrote

🔐 something no one would guess about you

🧟‍♀️ scariest thing that’s happened to you

🔥 craziest thing that’s ever happened to you

🍓 favorite food

🍅 least favorite food

🍊 favorite season?

🍋 favorite genre to read / watch / write

🍐 if you could make one character real, who would it be

🫐 some place you’d love to visit

🍇 a word your friends would use to describe you

🍒 what is your earliest memory

🍌 what is one talent you wish you had

💌 why did you start this blog?

✏️ when did you start writing fanfic

🖇️ what are your favorite asks to answer

📚 how do you come up with the fics you write

📌 what is the fic you’re know for

🔍 what character do you enjoy writing for the most

🖊️ what character do you not enjoy writing for

💔 is there a fic you wish you didn’t write

❤️‍🔥 what character do you simp for most often

🧚‍♀️ favorite characters of all time

🪐 favorite shows / series of all time

🌝 a show you would recommend to anyone

🌚 a show you’d tell people to stay away from

🌹 favorite kinks to write for

🥀 kinks you would never write for

🌊 a kink you would like to write but you think you’d be judged

❄️ full fics, imagines or head canons

☂️ your favorite fanfic from another writer

A couple of in depth questions!

🍄 what is something that’s happened in your life that you wish you could go back and change?

⭐️ what is one of your biggest accomplishments? Why is it so important to you?

🪻what is the toughest thing you had to go through, but can say you’ve successfully overcome?

🌺 what is the best gift someone has ever given you and why is it so important

🍀 what is your comfort show/series and why is it your comfort show? How has it helped you?

[purplesurveys]

1900

What song do you want played at your wedding?  It always changes, but based on what I like at this point in my life, a slowed-down, piano version of either The Astronaut or Spring Day would be such perfect choices. I'm also debating if I should add Wild Flower to the shortlist, but idk if it'd suit a wedding haha.

List up to three things you own that have fringe on them.    Idk what that is and I don't really feel like looking it up. 

What is one thing you've been waiting patiently for for quite some time?    The fate of Paramore as a band. They're doing this independent branding thing and have cancelled all commitments save for Taylor's tour...so it's been quite vague the last 4-5 months or so. I'd love to see what they're cooking, or if there's even anything they're cooking.

When was the last time you sat in front of a bonfire? 🔥🪵    I can't remember when exactly that was but we were in Tanay for a weekend stay. Either December or last year or this January – we had a bonfire and roasted marshmallows in it :)

If you could meet any American Idol contestant (from any season), which one would you choose to meet?  Pia Toscano. She was one of the more excellent contestants who also got eliminated quite early on, so I still remember it being quite the shock among viewers. I'll think about her sometimes and still get mad on her behalf, lol.

If you could meet any American Idol judge (from any season), which one would you choose to meet?    Either Paula or Kara because they've always seemed to be such sweethearts.

If you had to choose between competing on American Idol or on Fear Factor, which one would you choose, and why?    Fear Factor. I want to push my limits in terms of what I find creepy or gross hahaha.

Which name do you like best for a girl: Harmony or Harvest?    Oh wow both of these are terrible.

What is your favorite type of oil?   Sesame.

Have you ever been anointed with oil?   I'm pretty sure a Christian baptism makes use of oil, so I'll go with yes.

Which do you like better: the smell of old books, or the smell of new books?  New. I find the old smell kind of icky.

Which smell do you like better: the smell of old books, or the smell of gasoline?  Gasoline.

When was the last time you had a deep conversation with someone?    Dev is increasingly becoming my partner-in-crime at work. My panicker self complements well with her nonchalant personality lol so I find myself confiding in her more and more whenever work sucks.

When was the last time you played with sparklers?  I've never touched them.

What are three of the most painful things you have ever stepped on?    Fortunately I've never stepped on anything that majorly hurt. The only thing I can think of is stepping on the rooftop floor barefoot in the middle of the day.

What is something you have recently realized?    I'm the type to find things to eat when I get depressed.

If you could study abroad for a year in a foreign country, which country do you think you would choose, and why?    Somewhere that won't be too much of a culture shock would be great. I'd rather stay within Southeast Asia – Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam... 

What are three little things in life that you enjoy?    Folding the last of your laundry pile; Hearing a song you particularly like from a coffee shop's playlist; That microsecond of excitement when you and someone say something at the exact same time.

If applicable, what song are you listening to right now?    Nothing, but my head's stuck in Welcome to the Show by DPR IAN.

When was the last time you wore your hair up in a bun?    April, I'm guessing? In the same month I had my hair cut to a near-bob and have been unable to tie it into a bun since. 

If you could choose three US states to visit, which three states would you pick? Illinois, Massachusetts, New York.

Do you think you express yourself better in writing or out loud?    Writing.

What's the most amazing miracle you've ever witnessed? ✨    I don't believe in miracles.

Do you enjoy being home alone?  Yeah. It happens SO rarely – once a year on a good year – so it's nice when it actually happens.

What is the most magical thing you've ever experienced? ✨    Not sure. I don't know if I've reached it yet!

What was the last hot beverage you drank? ☕️    That's a tough one; I don't usually have hot drinks.

What is your favorite season?    We have only two, so I'll go with wet. 

Do you think your hair looks better curly or straight?    Curly. It looks more unnatural but it's definitely better than how straight rebonded hair looks lie on me.

Have you ever donated blood? 🩸    No.

Would you rather eat at the Hard Rock Cafe or the Rainforest Cafe?  Hard Rock only because I have no idea what and where the other is.

Are you a good swimmer? 🩱     I know the basic strokes and some survival skills, but I've never done competitive swimming if that's what we quantify as 'good.'

Would you rather attend a yoga class or a Zumba class?    Neither.

Have you written anything down today? ✍️    No.

What color is your camera case (if you have one)?    I don't have one, but the closest kind I have – phone case – is purple.

What do you consider ideal weather for spring?    I don't know...

Have you experienced anything supernatural today? ✨    No.

What are three things you like that start with the same letter as your middle name?    Archives (of anything, really), arancini!!!, animals.

What year did you join Facebook?    Around 2012 or 2013.

Which do you use more: Facebook or Instagram?    These days, Instagram.

Would you say you've had a good week so far?    It's been sssshhhhhiiiiiittttttttt.

What are three of your favorite ways to enjoy spring? 🌸    I have no idea dude. We don't do spring...

Do you own a pair of pink pants? Nopes.

[amitapaul]

44/28

28/4/24

Format Final

#24gloponapowrimo #amitasinfinity

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#24GloPoWriMo

Prompt Dated : 2024 April 28

Response No : 1

Poem No: 44

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Prompt : Try your hand at writing a sijo. This is a traditional Korean verse form. A sijo has three lines of 14-16 syllables.

You could also write a sijo in six lines – at least when it comes to translating classical sijo into English, translators seem to have developed this habit.

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Featured Poem :

Today’s featured participant is MellowYellow, which brings us a driving, musical poem in response to Day 27’s American sonnet prompt

Glass Heart Sonnet

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

once you pity the fig tree because its roots

keep it moored in this unfortunate place

twice you are jealous when you know its branches

take joy in stroking strands of longhaired wind

she is a wild woman, cool and hip and tripping

on acid jazz, loose lipped and adlibbing, freestyle mix

just breathe he says, just drive he says to the fields

the painting is really bodily fluids, life of the artist

as is music and poetry, the amniotic, the vomit

lymph, blood and ejaculate of their spirit, such inspiration

can feel unpalatable, yet truth does not require your appetite

someone sings to the siren across the lake, it is France

birds be dub, be good to me and I won’t bend this heart

it’s made of glass, and facetted like freedom, and reflects

…

Saffron 2024

Prompt 27th April 2024

Write an “American sonnet.” What’s that? Well, it’s like a regular sonnet but . . . fewer rules? Like a traditional Spencerian or Shakespearean sonnet, an American sonnet is shortish (generally 14 lines, but not necessarily!), discursive, and tends to end with a bang, but there’s no need to have a rhyme scheme or even a specific meter.

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Poetry Resource :

Our featured resource for the day is Harriet Books, the Poetry Foundation’s online website devoted to poetry book reviews, poetry news, and poetry-themed blog poets.

FEATURED BLOGGER

The Turmeric Poets (Part III)

BY VI KHI NAO

For myself, I have yet to find an interpretation that speaks of a potent tender rawness of the bucolic, aurous, inviting texture of “Đây Thôn Vĩ Dạ.” The poem holds the lunular strand of my existence on the prismatic brink of sedated, gilded mahogany, that deliquesced beige, dust-like state between disintegrated mortal recoil of a verdant, ephemeral, cognitive afternoon and my muted, ratiocinative love for a distant Vietnam. Despite encountering what many would consider a noteworthy translation by N.T. Anh in Modern Poetry Translation, the translation struck me as incomplete, somehow lacking or overly sanitized. Motivated by this sense of dissatisfaction, a form of constructive discontent, I embarked on the daunting task of crafting my own translation, drawing on the most authentic vernacular of my lexical lineage.

“Đây Thôn Vĩ Dạ.”

Here in Georgic Vĩ Dạ, translated by Vi Khi Nao

Won't you come visit georgic Vĩ ?

And, gaze at rows of newly awakened light

mounted on the areca trees

In satiny garden verdant as jade

As bamboo foliage hyphenates

& shades the field

Wind bands with wind, cloud with cloud

The river glides sadly while the cornflowers sway

Whose boat perches on the moonlit river

Will it escort the moon back in time tonight?

Musing of faraway travelants,

faraway travelants

Oh darling, your blouse so insolently

white, so insolently disguised

Here the smoke-smeared fog blurs the sylph

Mine or yours – whose love has more umami, is more profound?

Đây Thôn Vĩ Dạ by Hàn Mặc Tử

Sao anh không về chơi thôn Vĩ?

Nhìn nắng hàng cau nắng mới lên.

Vườn ai mướt quá, xanh như ngọc

Lá trúc che ngang mặt chữ điền.

Gió theo lối gió, mây đường mây,

Dòng nước buồn thiu, hoa bắp lay...

Thuyền ai đậu bến sông trăng đó,

Có chở trăng về kịp tối nay?

Mơ khách đường xa, khách đường xa,

Áo em trắng quá nhìn không ra...

Ở đây sương khói mờ nhân ảnh,

Ai biết tình ai có đậm đà?

In the act of translating the text, my aim was not to westernize it, but rather to capture its intrinsic 'nghệness' or its 'yellow spice,' endeavoring to extract not just superficial hints but the tunic of turmeric. Unlike the culinary process of taste-testing a dish to ensure the right balance of salt, pepper, paprika, and turmeric, translation is more about the nuanced garment of soul and soil. It involves posing the correct questions for appraisal. I consistently interrogate myself: does this poetic re-concoction contain an adequate infusion of yellow? Does it bear (bà gánh) the right measure of 'nghệ' or 'duende'? Does it appropriately shoulder the precise weight of (xứ) nghệ?

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Prompt : Try your hand at writing a sijo. This is a traditional Korean verse form. A sijo has three lines of 14-16 syllables. The first line introduces the poem’s theme, the second discusses it, and the third line, which is divided into two sentences or clauses, ends the poem – usually with some kind of twist or surprise.

You could also write a sijo in six lines – at least when it comes to translating classical sijo into English, translators seem to have developed this habit, as you can see from these translations of poems by Jong Mong-Ju and U Tak.

The Faithful Heart

Jong Mong-Ju

1320 – 1392

Though this body die and die,

though it die a hundred times;

though these bones bleach and pulverize to dust;

whether my soul will be or will not be––

This heart was pledged to my lord:

how could it ever change?

Jong Mong-Ju, born in 1320, was an ambassador, and a poet. He was assassinated in Taejong in 1392.

****

2060

U Tak

1263 –1343

The spring breeze melted away the snow

on the hills and was quickly gone without a trace

Would that I borrowed it briefly

to blow through my hair;

I wish to blow away the ageing frost

thickening behind my ears.

This poem is in the public domain. Classical Korean Poetry: More Than 600 Verses since the 12th Century (Fremont, California: Asian Humanities Press, 1994).

U Tak, born in 1263, was a Korean philosopher of neo-Confucianism and poet. He died in 1343.

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Poem Title : Impotence

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Spring after spring has come and gone with its plum blossom promising

High hopes that rise like frothy waves towards the sky to pluck the moon

Branches bear fruit, waves fish and weed : hopes ebb, fade infertile.

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Poet : Amita Sarjit Ahluwalia

Poem 44 / Day 28

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Day 28

We’re in the home stretch now, with just three days left to go in this year’s Na/GloPoWriMo!

Today’s featured participant is MellowYellow, which brings us a driving, musical poem in response to Day 27’s American sonnet prompt.

Our featured resource for the day is Harriet Books, the Poetry Foundation’s online website devoted to poetry book reviews, poetry news, and poetry-themed blog poets.

Finally, our optional prompt for the day asks you to try your hand at writing a sijo. This is a traditional Korean verse form. A sijo has three lines of 14-16 syllables. The first line introduces the poem’s theme, the second discusses it, and the third line, which is divided into two sentences or clauses, ends the poem – usually with some kind of twist or surprise.

You could also write a sijo in six lines – at least when it comes to translating classical sijo into English, translators seem to have developed this habit, as you can see from these translations of poems by Jong Mong-Ju and U Tak.

Happy writing!

****

[mygainyear2024]

Day 13 And, I got on the wrong train 🥴

Today I organised a trip to Loulé by train to visit the Saturday artisan and fresh produce markets and, after googling what to do there, I decided to book myself into wine tasting at Quinta da Tôr.

The trains aren’t that frequent between villages and there was no local bus connection from the train station to the markets / old city.  The only bus was at 8pm!  I decided not to walk the 6.8kms as the guy in the office said it was just industrial!  

Luckily Bolt and Uber are both cheap here as I knew I’d need them to get to the Quinta (pronounced kinta, the Bolt driver told me the ‘u’ is silent).

The markets were much busier and bigger than the ones in Lagos.  Sadly the coffee roaster was closed for holidays! Many businesses do this before heading into peak season.

Google did steer me to the Folhado de Loulé (more pastry with custard in the centre) at Café Calcinha.  I got talking to the couple beside me who were originally from Amsterdam.  They told me a familiar story, much cheaper to live in Portugal and they said Amsterdam is not the same anymore “there’s Chinese names on every street now” (their words!) They did tell me golf is super expensive in the Algarve though, minimum €250 to play for the day plus lunch and drinks etc! 

I wandered around with no plan, saw people swarming at the honey stand so purchased some, perfect for a batch of granola I need to make.  

I stumbled into a fabulous art gallery.  Marilyn was fantastico, but at €50,000 she had to stay on the wall!  The shop assistant recommended sushi for lunch which I jumped at, it was €11.90 for all I could eat!

A bolt ride up to the Quinta for a tour of the vineyard and wine tasting with bread and their own olive oil.  The owners wanted to buy the land earlier than they did.  The owner wasn’t interested at the time, the land had been in his family since 1500! Then in 2011, out of the blue, the owner made contact and said he would sell but funds had to be paid the next day!

I thought the tour was very informative including little facts like the reason for the human made dirt mound around the winehouse (“adega”), to keep the building cooler in the heat. I also liked the little experiments they are doing, eg using American oak and seeing the labelling on their French oak barrels. There was mention of using egg whites to clean out the 600-1000 litre vats and this is why they cannot claim their wine is vegan! Everything is manual, including the labelling and the imprinting of any stamps they receive for medals on each label.  And the bottles I bought were only €8 and €6! The €6 bottle is an after dinner / dessert cab sav which was a mistake.  They are not sure why it ended up so sweet and when they tried to replicate it, they couldn’t! With limited bottles left and the cute label I couldn’t resist.  Amuado means sulky, a metaphor to what they imagine the wine decided to do in the vat!  The tasting and tour were €14 (depending on the wine varieties sampled) and if I wanted to I could have used the pool.  It was a lovely 3 hours.  

With the cheaper option of an Uber back to the station I made it in heaps of time.  I asked what platform, jumped on the train at the departure time, thought oh cool this is a newer train with wifi and settled in to researching my next holiday to Vietnam and then heard “last stop Faro”.  Ummmm, Faro is the wrong way! I got off with everyone else, then asked a passenger "where is this training going?", his response "Lisbon". I'm glad I got off when I did!

🤷‍♀️ I have no idea what happened, other than I got on the wrong train.  With a 90 minute wait for the next train I poked around the train station and then got back in enough time to double check I was on the right platform, on the right train! I managed to avoid having to pay again, I smiled at the ticket guy, did a Boris Johnson, laughed about how I ended up in Faro instead of Portimaõ (silly me!). I ended up back in Loulé 2 hours after I left it the first time! Yep, the trains aren’t very frequent.  Time to be bold and organise a hire car 😂

I ended up eating dinner (and opened a new bottle of wine) at a European hour!

[vivianhalestravel]

The best beach resorts in Vietnam that I want to suggest 

Hello everyone, I am back with a series of beach resorts that I have experienced in Vietnam and I would love to share it with everyone. I think this topic will be very interesting and I guess there will be many people who intend to vacation in Vietnam who will be very interested!

I have always been a lover and always wanted to experience luxury resorts. You know, Vietnam is famous for its beautiful beaches, and here are the top 3 most luxurious resorts in my opinion:

1. Four Season Resort The Nam Hai-Hoi An

It is not surprising that this is the top 1 resort in my heart. Four Season Resort The Nam Hai is truly a resort paradise with a luxury resort bordering the sea, a swimming pool adjacent to the sea, and extremely large. The hotel room system has nothing on the table, the hotel room is large with luxurious European style. The food here is also very good with a variety of Asian cuisine.

Since this hotel is near Hoi An old town just a few minutes away, you can have several activities such as visiting the old town, and I recommend you to join us for entertainment and learn more about food as a tourist. Take a cooking class in Hoi An. Hoi An Cooking Class

Rate: 4.9/5

2. JW Marriott Phu Quoc

This is my favorite resort when I have the opportunity to visit Phu Quoc during the holidays. JW Marriott Phu Quoc is always appreciated by international tourists with its luxurious and classy Indochinese style design. View of the bedroom overlooking the sea with extremely beautiful scenery. This is truly a resort for the elite and for those who love tranquility. In addition to the resort, you can participate in some activities such as Snorkeling at Phu Quoc. This snorkeling activity is quite gentle and anyone can participate. Oh, don't forget to drink cocktails at the bar at JW Marriott Phu Quoc, The view overlooking the sea is very romantic, and quite suitable for chilling.

Rate: 5/5

3. Intercontinental Da Nang Sun Peninsula Resort

I really love Da Nang and it has always been my favorite destination in Vietnam. Intercontinental Da Nang Sun Peninsula Resort is not located in the center and takes time to move because it is located on the mountain, but I found this to be an extremely worthy experience. The resort faces the sea and blends in with nature, mountains, and forests. I think the price of 1000 USD/night is really quite high, but the service and everything brought really make me satisfied.

Rating: 5/5

[lololollywrites]

OH. MY. GOD. Do NOT buy anything from limitlesswalls.com. It’s an “art” website. I was looking to fill some empty space on my wall, and since I lived in Vietnam for two years I thought some artwork inspired by the scenery or culture would be nice. 

I was already jaded because a few of the cityscape images I’d found on this particular website (I’d first searched for NYC, where I live now) were labeled “AI-generated”, and I will never, ever purchase something produced by AI. It’s sad - I’ve never before come across AI content on a website that claims to offer professional artwork and photographs. I was just about to click away when, on a whim, I decided to enter “Vietnam” as the search term and “illustrations” to see if any actual artists would be represented.

LOOK AT THIS SHIT. Napalm Girl??? This is a Sims-style, surely AI-generated, fucking insulting mockery of the original photograph from the Vietnam War depicting a very real, very traumatized little girl whose clothes had been burned away during a brutal napalm attack. She added a human face to the as-then-unknown “enemy”, surviving the ordeal and eventually becoming a UNESCO Goodwill ambassador. Her name is Phan Thi Kim Phúc, and she now lives in Canada. She’s only 60. This was NOT a long time ago.

AND THIS WEBSITE IS TRYING TO SELL THIS MONSTROSITY FOR PROFIT. I don’t imagine anyone ever buying it, obviously, but I am just so confused and horrified. The other AI “artwork” was at least visually appealing; my complaint was on principle alone. BUT THIS??? Is this website not run by humans? Even if it’s automatically adding results, who the fuck originally inputted this prompt to the image generator?? WHAT THE FUCK??

Excuse my outrage. I am not Vietnamese. I do not want to come across as one of those annoying Americans who goes on one trip and acts as though they know everything there is to know about that country. I don’t. Not at all. I’d LOVE for people from Vietnam to add their own input. I sincerely hope I’m not overreacting. I lived in Hanoi from 2019-2021, the former enemy of South Vietnam and of the United States. I’m going back next month because I made so many Vietnamese (and foreigner) friends and desperately miss almost everything about it. I went to the War Museum both there and in Saigon/HCM City and sat with war veterans from both sides who were visiting on a routine pilgrimage, some of whom explained the horrifying photos on the wall to me. Actual photographs, of course; not grotesque parodies.

At various points during the two years I spent in Hanoi and my various trips around the country, I spoke with Vietnamese survivors of the War. I cried over lunch as a tour guide in Hội An told me how he lost his aunt and uncle, lived below ground to escape bombings as a child, and how his son was born with cerebral palsy as a result of the lingering effects of Agent Orange. He smiled at me and said he was grateful that Vietnamese people and Americans could be friends now. He thanked me for coming on his tour. It was the Summer of 2020, during Covid, so the borders were closed; the only tourists were teachers and Vietnamese citizens, and he desperately missed sharing his culture. It had been two months since there’d been a visitor. It was just me and him that day. We still message on Instagram. It’s worth noting that I stayed in Vietnam during Covid because it was much, much safer there than it was back in the U.S. People cared about the safety of the larger community, so they therefore followed mask mandates and lockdown orders. Meaning lockdown was much, much shorter and was much more effective. Who knew? Anyway.

I once hugged a woman, the owner of one of the many hostels I stayed in on vacation, who spent a large portion of her childhood living in caves in Ha Long Bay; caves were the only safe place she and her family could retreat from airstrikes. She lost her father and uncles during the War. I did my best to educate myself and to apologize for the horrible influence of my country’s leaders at the time, despite her assurance that she and everyone else she knew saw the War as a government issue and not one to do with the people. I constantly wrestled with my right to be in Vietnam at all, let alone to teach at the school that employed me. I asked my students to teach me as much as I taught them. I came back home to the United States and did my best to discuss the truth about Vietnam at every turn; to dispel every stereotype American friends and family members may have had - because that’s the least I could do. I’ve done the same for China and Indonesia, where I also spent two years in total, but Vietnam holds an even more special place in my heart.

So seeing this has angered me so much. Not just for Phan Thi Kim Phúc and all other victims and survivors of the Vietnam War, but for real HUMAN artists and photographers. If this is part of the early impact of AI, I want absolutely nothing to do with it.

[theculturedmarxist]

I think it best that I begin with the end. On March 1, I and dozens of Dan’s friends and fellow activists received a two-page notice that he had been diagnosed with incurable pancreatic cancer and was refusing chemotherapy because the prognosis, even with chemo, was dire. He will be ninety-two in April.

Last November, over a Thanksgiving holiday spent with family in Berkeley, I drove a few miles to visit Dan at the home in neighboring Kensington he has shared for decades with his wife Patricia. My intent was to yack with him for a few hours about our mutual obsession, Vietnam. More than fifty years later, he was still pondering the war as a whole, and I was still trying to understand the My Lai massacre. I arrived at 10 am and we spoke without a break—no water, no coffee, no cookies—until my wife came to fetch me, and to say hello and visit with Dan and Patricia. She left, and I stayed a few more minutes with Dan, who wanted to show me his library of documents that could have gotten him a long prison term. Sometime around 6 pm—it was getting dark—Dan walked me to my car, and we continued to chat about the war and what he knew—oh, the things he knew—until I said I had to go and started the car. He then said, as he always did, “You know I love you, Sy.”

So this is a story about a tutelage that began in the summer of 1972, when Dan and I first connected. I have no memory of who called whom, but I was then at the New York Times and Dan had some inside information on White House horrors he wanted me to chase down—stuff that had not been in the Pentagon Papers. 

I was planning to write about my friendship with Dan after he passed away but last weekend my youngest son reminded me that he still had some of the magic trick materials that Dan had delighted him with in the mid-1980s, when Dan was crashing with our family, as he often did when visiting Washington. “Why not write about him now?” he asked. Why not? 

I first learned of Dan’s importance in the summer of 1971, when he was outed for delivering the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times a few weeks after the newspaper began a series of shattering stories about the disconnect between what we were told and what really had been going on. Those papers remain today the most vital discussion of a war from the inside. Even after the New York Times exposures, their seven thousand pages would be rarely read in full.

I was then working for the New Yorker on a Vietnam project and had learned that it was Dan who did the leaking a week or so before his name became public. His outing was inevitable, and on June 26, after hiding out in Cambridge, Dan strolled to the U.S Attorney’s office in Boston—there were scores of journalists waiting—and had a brief chat with the reporters before turning himself in for what all expected would be the trial of the decade. He told the crowd that he hoped that “the truth will free us of this war.” And then, as he fought his way to the courthouse steps, a reporter asked him how he felt about going to prison. His response struck me then and still makes me tingle: “Wouldn’t you go to prison to help end this war?”

I had done my bit in exposing the My Lai massacre and publishing a book about it in 1970. I was then in the process of writing a second book on the Army’s cover-up of the slaughter. “Hell, no,” I thought to myself, “No way I would go to jail—especially for telling an unwanted truth.” I followed Ellsberg’s subsequent trial in a Los Angeles federal court and even wrote about the wrongdoing of the White House creeps who broke into the office of Ellsberg’s psychoanalyst—at the request of President Nixon. (The government’s case was thrown out after the extent of the White House-ordered spying on Ellsberg became public.)

It was early in the election year summer of 1972 when Ellsberg and I got in touch with each other. I was banging away on the losing Vietnam war and CIA misdeeds for the Times. Nixon looked like a sure thing, despite continuing the hated war, because of stumble after stumble for the campaign of the Democratic nominee, Senator George McGovern. Dan had two stories that he thought could change the dynamics of the November election.

I liked him right off the bat. He was so earnest, so bright, as handsome as a movie star, and so full of the kind of inside information about the Vietnam War that few others had. And so willing to share them with no worry about the consequences. He understood that as the source of highly secret information and procedures he was taking all the risks and that as a reporter I was going to write stories that would get acclaim and put me at no risk. At some point in our chats, I brought him home for a good meal. His campaign against the Vietnam War was literally consuming him, and he immediately engaged with my wife and our two small children. He did magic tricks, he was marvelous on the piano—Dan could play the Beatles and Beethoven—and he connected with all of us. Our friendship was locked in—forever. I confess that late at night—we were both night owls—he and I would walk the dog and find time to sit on a curb somewhere and smoke a few Thai sticks. How Dan always managed to have a supply of these joints from Southeast Asia I chose not to ask. He would talk about all the sealed and locked secret files of the Vietnam War that he could recall, with his photographic memory, in near perfect detail.

In the early 1980s I was writing a long and very critical book about Henry Kissinger’s sordid days as Nixon’s national security adviser and secretary of State, with a focus on Vietnam. At one point, Dan spent more than a week in our home, rising at 6 am to read the 2,300 pages of typed manuscript. He understood that I did not want his analyses or disagreements with my conclusions, but only factual errors. One morning Dan told me I had misread a mid-1960s Washington Post piece on the war by Joe Kraft, whose column was then a must-read. I argued, and he was adamant. So I drove downtown to my office, dug through boxes of files and found the column. Dan had remembered the details of a two-decade-old column in a daily newspaper. His memory was scary.

There were two White House abuses he wanted me to expose before the presidential election in the fall of 1972. Dan told me that Nixon and Kissinger—for whom Dan had written an important early policy paper after he was appointed national security adviser—had been wiretapping aides and cabinet members. The second tip Dan had for me was that Kissinger had ordered some of his aides to produce a plan for using tactical nuclear weapons in South Vietnam, in case they were needed to end the war on American terms. If I could get one or two sources—by this time there were a number of former Kissinger aides who had quietly resigned over the Vietnam War—on the record, Dan said, it just might get the Democrats into office. It was the longest of long shots, but I tried like hell all summer to find someone who had firsthand information, as Dan did not, and who was willing to confirm Dan’s information, even if on background. Of course, it was understood I would have to tell Abe Rosenthal, executive editor of the Times, who my off-the-record source was.

It was a lousy summer for me, because there were a few former Kissinger aides who easily confirmed Dan’s information, but would not agree to my providing their names to the Times. In one case, with a very decent guy who very much hoped he would get a senior job in a future administration, I came close, aided by the fact that his wife—I always conducted such visits at night—said to her husband, “Oh, for God’s sakes just tell him the truth.” She said it over and over. Talk about a painful experience. Needless to say, their marriage did not last long. The wife’s anger that the truth was not being told helped me understand Dan’s obsession with a war whose worst elements were simply not known to the public. I wasn’t able to get any source on the record in time for the election, but in subsequent years I did get the stories. 

There was one story Dan told me in late 1993 that seemed to capture the secret life on the inside of a major war. He had gone back and forth on short missions to South Vietnam while working as a senior State Department official, but he jumped at a chance in mid-1965 to join a team in Saigon committed to pacification—winning hearts and minds—of the villagers in the South. Its leader was Ed Lansdale, a CIA hero of counterinsurgency for his earlier efforts in routing communist insurgents in the Philippines.

I always took good notes in my meetings with Dan, not because I planned to write about him at some point—I knew he would write his own memoirs—but because I was getting a seminar on how things really worked on the inside. Read his words, and you can judge for yourself how complicated life could be at the top.

“In 1965,” Dan began, “I had done a study of the Cuban missile crisis and I had four operational clearances above top secret, including U-2 clearances” and National Security Agency clearances. He had also interviewed Bobby Kennedy two times about his role in the crisis. Ellsberg’s clearances were so sacrosanct that he was supposed to register in a special office upon arrival in Saigon and from then on he would not be allowed to travel outside of Saigon without an armored car or in a two-engine airplane or better. He got around the system by not deigning to register, a rarity in a world of war where top secret clearances were seen by many as evidence of machismo.

And so Ellsberg went off to work in Saigon with Lansdale. “For one and one half years,” Ellsberg said, “I spent nearly every evening listening to Lansdale talk about his covert operations in the Philippines and earlier in North Vietnam in the 1950s. By this time I’d been working with secrets for years and thought I knew what kind of secrets could be kept from whom. I also thought Ed and I had a good working knowledge of each other and our secrets. Every piece of information was cataloged in your mind and you knew to whom you could say and what you could say. In all of this, Jack Kennedy was mentioned and so was Bobby, but there was no mention by Lansdale of Cuba and no mention that Lansdale had ever worked for Jack and Bobby Kennedy.” 

A decade later, after both Kennedy brothers had been assassinated, I wrote a series for the New York Times on the CIA’s spying on hundreds of thousands of American anti-Vietnam war protesters, members of Congress and reporters—all in direct violation of the agency’s 1947 charter barring any domestic activity. It led to the establishment of the Senate’s Church Committee in 1975. It was the most extensive Congressional inquiry into the activities of the CIA since the agency’s beginning. The committee exposed the assassination activities of the CIA, operations undertaken on orders that clearly came from Jack and Bobby Kennedy, although no direct link was published in the committee’s final report. But the committee reported extensively on a secret group authorized by Jack Kennedy and run by his brother Bobby to come up with options to terrorize Cuba and assassinate Fidel Castro. The covert operation had the code name Mongoose. And it was led, the committee reported, in 1961 and 1962 by Ed Lansdale.

Ellsberg told me he was flabbergasted. “When I heard about Lansdale and Mongoose,” he said, “it revealed to me an ability to keep secrets on an insider level that went far beyond what I had imagined. It was like discovering your next-door neighbor and your weekend fishing companion”—Ellsberg, it should be noted, never went fishing in his life—“and close, dear friend who, when he died, turned out to have been the secretary of State.

“It was astounding, because Mongoose was exactly the kind of operation I’d expected to hear about from Lansdale. He told about covert operations all the time. I think Ed had been told by President Kennedy to ‘keep his fucking mouth shut.’

“When you’ve been in a system with as high a level as possible of secrecy, you understand that things do get talked about. And you get a sense of what is usually held back. I was hearing all about other covert operations, but somebody—not Landsdale—had put a lid on Mongoose.”

After the assassination of Jack Kennedy, Ellsberg theorized, “any far reaching investigation into his death would have to lead to many covert operations.” His point was that there was no evidence that the Warren Commission set up to investigate the assassination had done so.

In all of Dan’s many hours of tutoring, as I understood years later, he understood and empathized with my eagerness—even my need—to learn all that I could about his world of secrets and lies, things said out loud and hidden in top-secret documents. And so he happily became my tutor and taught me where and how to look inside the recessed corners of the American intelligence community.

In return, I gave him my friendship and welcomed him into my family. He loved long talks with my wife, a doctor, teaching the kids magic tricks, and playing Billy Joel songs and similar stuff on the piano for them. We all sensed early on that there was a need for him to be an innocent kid, too, if only to serve as a brief respite from his constant anxiety and the guilt he carried in his soul about what his America had done to the Vietnamese people.

Dan was showing me an insider’s love, just as he and Patricia radiated love and acceptance to all their many friends and admirers who, like me, will never forget the lessons he taught us and what we learned. 

No way I’m going to wait for him to move along without saying what I want to say right now.

[elizainjapan]

June 12- Kiyomizudera and Gion

Ok, today was pretty epic. I know I clowned on temples yesterday, but the ones we saw today were actually super interesting. Our day started with the trip to Kiyomizudera that was supposed to be by bus, but the transportation is not very good here so we had to walk. It’s daijoubu though because we got to see a bunch of kimono rental places to try out on our free day. Once we got there, I was a little overwhelmed by how much there9 was to see. I kept getting lost between temples and finding my group way farther ahead or behind me. We also got to drink out of one of three streams that could give you either longevity, romance, or success, but you don’t know which is which. I’m pretty satisfied with my romantic life, and I hope to die by 78, so I’m banking on the success stream for sure. On our way out, I bought some postcards to decorate my apartment with. We started to walk down to the Ginza area and passed by the most delicious-smelling fried chicken. Once we broke for the day, the other girls made a bee-line to a ramen place, but I was still lingering on the fried chicken. I split with them to walk with the guys for a little before everyone went their own ways. I ended up finding Nico and Xander which happened to be the coolest little coincidence ever. At first it was a little stressful. All of us hate making decisions so we just wandered the area for a bit. One of the highlights of my day was stumbling upon an 8- foot Buddha statue that we originally thought was a nationalist monument to Japanese soldiers in WW2. Instead, it was a very moving memorial to all of those who had died in the war in the efforts to promote peace. One of the most special moments for me was seeing some of the D.C. Arlington soil in the memorial hall. My cousin was just buried in Arlington last year after serving as a Green Beret in Vietnam. The funeral service was absolutely incredible. Seeing the peace efforts in Japan totally shifted my outlook for the rest of the day. Anyways, Xander, Nico, and I wandered around some more until we found the river that ran through Gion. I decided to split once more to take a nice quiet stroll. The last part of the “academic” day was seeing skits of traditional Japanese performances, and there was this one family that would not stop taking photos oh my god. The gang got together to go to Rooftop Raj’s RB that was such a hit. I had such a great day, and I can’t wait to go to Universal tomorrow!

Academic Reflection:

The second reading about Geishas was the one that engaged me the most today. While I do love learning about the histories of the temples that we visit, there is something so inherently Japanese and beautiful about the Geisha culture. It is represented in hundreds of anime, so I was very curious to see how these depictions relate to reality. For example, I did not know that Geishas were still around today, and beyond that, I was not aware that they were called to perform art. In anime, the geisha could be synonymous with a prostitute, but that is almost the complete opposite, Geishas were elegant and creative women (or men) who were skilled in poetry, instruments, dancing, and other art forms. 

I was so lucky to have seen a Maiko perform today! In the reading, these were the attendants of the Geisha who were in their training periods. Maiko would accompany their Geisha to and from house and perform other dances. These attendants could be around the ages of 15-18 too.

[dearestones]

Yandere! Vietnam with Avoidant! Reader Headcanons

Warnings: Yandere character, yandere behavior.  

Anonymous Request: Hey, Could I get headcanons of Yandere Vietnam with an obsession that really doesn't like her back and tries to avoid her?

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Vietnam is a stoic, quiet person. Ideally, she wouldn’t have made her attention known, but now that you know… Won’t you return her feelings? Oh… Why are you walking away from her? Did you forget something? You’ll come back, right? Right?

Vietnam will never admit this and only a few of her close friends will ever know this, but she’s utterly heartbroken when she realizes that you don’t want anything to do with her. This Southeastern Asian Nation was content in watching you from afar, but because of unfortunate circumstances, wouldn’t it be better to talk things out? She would make you so happy! She’ll become more emotionally available for you. She’ll learn how to smile those cute smiles that always get adoring compliments from others. Just don’t turn your back on her. 

When Vietnam notices that not only will you not linger after meetings, but also never make eye contact with her or attend the same venues where Vietnam publicly announced that she would be there, she will be hurt. It’s a hurt that stings and slowly festers the more she thinks about it. How come any other Nation would be able to find themselves loved ones who could reciprocate? How come she could see you hanging around other Nations, even the rest of the ASEAN? Vietnam had been nothing but respectful of your boundaries up until this point, so why did you reject her so much? Didn’t she deserve happiness? Didn’t she deserve you? 

At first, Vietnam will give you the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps Vietnam needed to state her intentions directly. Maybe it wasn’t enough to merely know that Vietnam harbored feelings for you. What she needed to do was make sure that you knew Vietnam wanted to court you, to hold you in her arms, and to give and receive affection freely. 

It’s only because Vietnam’s face is naturally stoic and refined that you don’t realize that you broke her heart. She’ll try to brush off your rejection and leave you alone, but her resolution to do so doesn’t last long. In fact, it’s scarcely two weeks later that Vietnam can’t take it anymore. She wants you. She can have only you.

The more you run away from her, the more she wants to pursue. So, that’s what she’ll do. 

When she sees you leave in the middle of a meeting so you can visit the restroom, Vietnam is practically nipping at your heels. It doesn’t matter if she doesn’t belong in your designated restroom, she will be there and she will corner you at the sink. She’ll once again reveal her feelings and intentions. If you reject her again, the hard part happens. Instead of letting you go, Vietnam will grab you by the arms and look at you with a perfectly blank expression on her face. 

“If that’s how you feel at this moment, then I have no choice but to change your mind.”

She’ll let you go, but her plans have already formed. First, she’ll progress with gifts and letters of how much she adores you. It doesn’t matter if you reply or not, Vietnam has made sure to keep an eye on you when you receive them. Looking disgusted or frightened won’t deter her either. That just means that you feel something towards her and that’s what she wants. In a perfect world, you would look at her in happiness, but she’ll have to deal with your disgust for now. 

Later, she’ll send you messages to your personal number. This was a number that not many of your colleagues knew, so how did she…? You can try and block her number or get a new one, she will find you. She will continue to message you. She’ll greet you in the morning, text you the details of her day, and then wish you goodnight. The messages themselves are quiet and tame, but then—

Then you receive a text that tells you to get ready. 

You don’t know what that means, but that entire day, you’re on edge. You keep glancing behind your shoulder, always asking one of your friends to accompany you while you’re going to a restroom or back to your hotel room. Eventually, your fear starts to wane when you convince yourself that Vietnam isn’t going to try anything. After all, this is a national summit and contraband, weapons, etc. weren’t allowed. Everyone was screened for a reason so you should be fine.

Right?

Unfortunately, the second you step into your hotel room, alone, you realize that it is too late. 

Vietnam is seated in a chair and this is the first time that you see genuine emotion in her deep brown eyes. Sadness, but with a touch of regret in them.

“Why can’t you return my feelings? All I have ever done was love you!” 

Before you can even try to offer a rebuttal, Vietnam is already lunging from the chair and towards you, a white handkerchief in hand that swiftly finds its way into your mouth. 

You accidentally breathe in and all goes dark.

You can avoid her all you want, but in the end, you should have taken more precautionary measures. 

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DISCLAIMER: I do not condone yandere behavior outside of fictional settings. Please don’t mistake the actions of fictional characters displayed in works of fiction to be considered harmless in real life.

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