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dpr-stay · 1 year ago

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The Moon | YT22

Chef Au! Yuki Tsunoda x Reader

Warnings: Hurt/Comfort, i think a few swears, the feels, i don't think i referred to gender.

WC: ~5.1k

Did i do this instead of course work? Maybe Do I regret it? Maybe Anyways, Yuki's so acts of service coded. I may have read a little too much 'the bear' fanfic whoops. also i only listened to winter cafe by lamp while writing this so bam. i'm a mobile user anyway.

The restaurant had been closed for a few hours at this point, the full-moon well having claimed the spot of the sun, the darkness of night taking over for a few hours till the early morning sunrise peaked over the horizon and you woke again.

You would probably have to get a taxi, you thought to yourself as you peeked through the gap between the kitchen and the empty dining area through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, you wouldn’t be able to walk home tonight.

You lived in a very safe place, so you weren’t necessarily scared of being kidnapped or the like. You just hated the dark. You’d always hated the dark, you didn’t fear the things in it or the possibilities it held, just the feeling of not being able to see. That feeling had always unsettled you, even as a baby.

Your mum had always told stories of you not being able to sleep anywhere but her side during your primary years. She always brought it up for a laugh over tea with the other ladies in the small town where you grew up, their fake laughter resounding through your ears as you sat at the end of one of the ladies ornate couches and sipped quietly from your cup, taking up as little space as possible.

Those tea parties were always the worst, sitting in a stuffy room of grown-up’s who could only tell stories of their past, too afraid of the future. You were always the youngest as well, the older children looking down on you when you tried to play with them.

Your only respite was the pastries eventually served sometime during their get-together. You’d come back in from one of the ladies' backyards, your fill of solitarily walking around her yard ten times sufficiently achieved, and you’d see the most lovely pastries piled high on tables you couldn’t quite reach.

A little stumbling and you’d finally reach the table, climbing on the chairs to be able to grab them, their intricate shapes, different colours, and varying textures meaning you tried every variation of every sweet you could find. This always prompted laughter among the older ladies, you being dubbed the ‘Sweet Thief’. You were not sure if this was meant to be affectionate or insulting, but your mother’s sharp gaze when you got back into the car after the party clued you in to the latter.

The opening of the office door snapped you out of your reverie and you looked back to see your boss exit the small room, where he had been doing paperwork. He barely glanced at you as he grabbed a sponge and started to wipe down the steel work benches, muttering under his breath.

You moved from your spot of being perched on your tiptoes to look through the serving gap and shuffled into the office to grab soap from under the sink, quickly pouring a measuring cups worth into the mop bucket before filling the bucket up the rest of the way with water. A quick twist of the mop head in the bucket mixed the soapy water before you shuffled back out of the office, dragging the bucket with your feet.

You moved in silence, him wiping down the benches with his sponge, cloth, and spray kit and you mopping the floor, trailing after him as to not make him stand on the wet floor. When you finished mopping you pushed the bucket out the backdoor before crouching down and tipping the dirty water down the drain installed in the middle of the concrete patio.

While the water drained, you looked up and absorbed your surroundings. The moon shone down onto the landscape, hundreds of green paddies stretching as far as the eye could see, paths between the patches appearing to resemble snakes the further the eye looked. You could occasionally see the headlights of cars flash on roads that wound along the mountains that enclosed the large valley, people with their own lives hurrying to make it somewhere. Anywhere.

One car caught your attention and you found yourself speculating. Maybe it was an important businessman being driven by his chauffeur? Could it be a runaway child being driven back to his parents? You watched until the car disappeared, it’s fading lights causing you to squint against the harsh light shining down on you.

You looked up at the lightbulb that Yuki had installed quietly after you’d told him of your fear of the dark and cursed. Darn the thing for being so bright! Your head snapped back down and you started rapidly blinking, scrunching your face as you blinked.

When you got your vision back, you stood up and grabbed the bucket, lugging it back into the building. The door opened when you nudged it with your foot and you quickly put the mop back in its place before moving back to the kitchen.

A quick look at Yuki confirmed that he was nearly done with his clean up routine and you moved to the small employee area, where you grabbed your phone and keys from a small pigeon-hole before grabbing your jacket from a hook and making your way back to the kitchen, trying to put on your coat as you walked.

Yuki looked at the sound of the door opening and a small smile came onto his face as he saw you, holding all of your items with one hand and struggling to put your jacket on. He dropped the cloth he was holding, wiping the residue away onto his apron, before he walked over to you and taking your jacket off your floundering form. He held it out so that you could weave your free hand into the sleeve before you swapped your stuff to your other hand and he held out the other sleeve for you to put your arm through. He nodded at you when he was done and power-walked back to his station, cleaning with vigor.

“Are you leaving yet?” He asked with his back turned. You nodded, paused, then began speaking. “Oh! Yeah, I think I’ll just wait till a taxi comes around and then I’ll go.” You said and he shot a curious glance back at you which you returned with a smile. He continued wiping down, his pace increased.

“That could take hours, y’know.” He said after a second and you sighed, leaning back against one of the benches. You were lucky he was turned around, not prepared to cop the brunt of his ‘are you serious, I just cleaned that’ glare.

“Hopefully it won’t, I might still be here when you come for opening.” He released a small laugh and you both descended into a comfortable silence. You grabbed your phone to see you had 0 notifications, a pleased sigh releasing from your throat.

Opening the taxi app for your area, you saw that the expected time for a taxi was indeed a couple hours and you groaned. You didn’t see Yuki’s shoulders tense at your sound, too absorbed in your phone.

“You were right.” You half-whined to your boss, too tired to care. He chuckled and shook his head.

“You shouldn’t stay back so late.” He murmured, before turning around and beginning to take off his apron. You didn’t comment on his arm muscles as he undid the knot. He moved around you to place his apron on a hook before looking at you.

“I could drive you home, you know.” He said, almost hesitantly, and you paused, stunned. You and Yuki were pretty close, very good friends out of work and you worked insanely well together during work, but you’d never progressed past meeting outside of work.

It was a line you both hadn’t crossed yet though sometimes you wished you had. Clearing the thought from your mind, you cleared your throat, leaning back and eventually nodding, hoping you covered your shock.

“Uh y-yeah. That sounds good, thanks.” You said and he nodded, going to step away before pausing and turning back to you. You watched curiously as he leaned forward, feeling heat rush to your cheeks the closer he got. He reached out a hand and slowly wiped away a stray hair that had fallen in front of your eyes, clearing your vision and giving you a pristine look at the man.

He had been one of the boys from your hometown, his family always seemingly on the outside. They had had money, something that most of your town envied, and Yuki had always seemed to get what he wanted, being able to race karts and have his parents attend his races, something that you always envied.

However, when his parents found out that he didn’t want to follow in their footsteps of leading their company and wanted to become a chef, they left him. They cut off all support, financial and emotional, and left him with his grandma. You only knew this because you’d seen him working tirelessly at his grandma’s bakery everyday on your way back from your school, trying to raise enough to eventually put himself through culinary school.

He’d vanished when you were both around two years out from getting your certificate, briefly being a trending topic among the townsfolk before being promptly forgotten. You’d only remembered him when you’d walked into the building you were in now, your resume in hand and a strong need to work radiating from you.

Somehow he had managed to buy the shop and had been running it since he’d left your hometown. It wasn’t hugely successful, it was in the middle of farmland of course, but it was a popular spot among students, who often rode their bikes past on their way home from school, and for locals to have a nice warm meal. Yuki had made his own way in the world.

You’d never asked him about what happened with his parents, where they went or if he talked to them now, it wasn’t your place. You were curious, of course, about all aspects of your boss. He was a quiet but kind man, one you couldn’t believe hired you, considering your forte was pastry making and his shop was more traditional cuisine. His hiring you wasn’t exactly surprising though once you got to know him, considering his main characteristic was being extremely thoughtful.

He’d often leave out water and treats for stray cats and would give a kid a free meal if they looked like they needed one. You didn’t question it when he asked if you were afraid of the dark, seeing the way you always left the shop with your phone light in one hand and your flashlight keyring turned on in the other, only to find later that week that he’d installed outdoor sensor lights which kept the dark away while you performed your duties outside and eventually walked away from the shop.

The light touch of his pinky against your eyebrow brought you back to the present and you jolted as you snapped back. He quickly drew away from you, retreating and hiding his hand away in his pocket. You both stood there awkwardly for a second before he cleared his throat.

“Wait outside, yeah? I’ll just be a second.” He said and then walked briskly back into the office, closing the door and immediately slumping against it. You couldn’t see him do this, but the creaking door pressing into the doorframe hinted it to you anyway. You quickly turned away before you let yourself speculate why.

Walking through the door to the dining area, your shoes clacked on the tiles as you made the small venture to the front door. The place wasn’t exactly classy, it was more homely, but it had charm. The laminated menu items stuck to the front window (something you’d seen his grandmother hang up, unaware of the way he shot you an exasperated glance at the decor) didn’t stop moonlight from shining onto the small two person laminate-wood tables.

The white and orange leaf-pattern plastic chairs also reflected the moonlight and you thought back to when you’d suggested buying them as a joke only to watch Yuki speculate for a moment before placing an order for them, even though they clashed heavily against the whole aesthetic.

The small service counter in front of the wall with the service window was missing your coworker, her having gone home hours ago. You walked diverted to the desk and bent over the top of it, quickly checking that everything was locked up and in place, before hopping down and walking to open the front door.

The sound of cicadas and the refreshing smell of clean air greeted you as you walked through the glass door, the tiny tinkling of a bell sounding in your ears. The light flicked on and you surveyed the small road in front of the shop, the dust having settled since the last car drove on it. The gravel was in contrast to the lush greeness that spanned in front of you, the front of the shop having practically the same view as the back, except from here you could see a small town.

That was where you, and to the best of your knowledge, Yuki lived. It was also where a large amount of your customers lived, them mostly dropping in during the day. You don’t know why the shop was built so far away from the town, maybe it used to be exclusively a place where farmers would have their breaks during the day, but it was doing ok so far.

The moon was blocked by the shop when you turned around and you frowned. You’d seen it earlier, it hadn’t moved that fast had it? That was when you noticed something you’d never seen before, a ladder. A ladder was tilted against the side of the shop and, after a quick glance through the windows to see no movement, you figured a quick peek wouldn’t hurt. You scampered over to the ladder and shook it to see if it was steady or not. No movement later and you had climbed the ladder, to stand cautiously on the concrete roof.

You looked up and, at that exact moment, the sensor light turned off, revealing the stars and the moon to you in all their unfiltered glory. A gasp left your lips, the pure beauty of the scene you were watching captivating you. You sat down, still staring up at the night sky, no thought about capturing the moment with your phone camera in your mind.

The sensor light turned on and you heard the tinkling of the bell, signifying that Yuki had left the shop, a concerned call of your name leaving his lips after a few seconds.

“Up here!” You called, moving to look over the side of the building down the ladder. Yuki appeared at the bottom of the ladder and fixed you a concerned look.

“Are you ok? It might be dangerous up there…” He said and you shook your head.

“Yuki.” Your call of his first name made him snap to attention, staring at you, an expression you didn’t recognise covering his face.

“Come up here and watch with me.” You said softly and he took a second before nodding, you reaching over to hold the top of the ladder steady as he made his way up. He clambered over the edge of the roof and moved to sit beside you after making sure the ladder would stay standing.

He sat down beside you with a huff, a little closer than you had been expecting. He must’ve realised how close he sat as well, a small sound leaving his throat before he slightly shifted away from you. You looked away as your cheeks burned.

You heard his head tilt back to look at the sky and a small approving hum leave his lips that had you turning to look at him.

“You ever come up here before?” You asked quietly and he shook his head. “I just had the ladder out for repairs.” He mused to the sky and you gently elbowed him, him overdramatically hissing in response. You rolled your eyes in jest.

“You should’ve told me, I would’ve helped you.” Your words made him quiet down and he shook his head. The moment sat for a second before you turned back to the sky. The silence stretched as did the night sky before you both. You wondered if he was, at any point, into the stars as a kid.

“The moon is beautiful, isn’t it?” You quietly mused as you stared at the floating orb.

“It is quite.” Yuki said, inhaling and turning to look at you as he replied. You pondered that before turning to make eye contact with him.

“Did you ever want to be an astronaut?” He looked a bit put-out by your words before laughing wrly.

“Uhh I guess. But hasn’t every kid wanted to be an astronaut?” He said and turned back to the sky. You shrugged.

“I didn’t.” He looked shocked by your reply.

“Really? You never wanted to leave everything behind and go into space?” He asked and you just shook your head after a second.

“No, I always knew what I wanted to do. I always wanted to cook.” You said and he sighed, sounding almost mournful.

“Don’t lie.” He quietly murmured, causing you to furrow your eyebrows.

“You always wanted to bake.”

The distinction was important. Your heart clenched at the truth in his words and the unfamiliar look in his eyes. You tried to diffuse the newly made tension with a small joke, hoping you could get back the relaxed feeling you had when staring at the sky.

“I don’t know Yuki, I’ve gotten pretty good at plating salmon.” He scoffed at your poor attempt of a joke and you smiled lightly at the sound. Both of you turned to look back at the sky, the stars continuing to shine.

After a minute or two, Yuki uttered your name and you drew your eyes away but his remained locked on the sky.

“You don’t have to stay here forever. You could go somewhere else you know?” His words struck you in the chest. He had thought about this before, you could tell by his tone, he wasn’t saying this carelessly. He had planned this. You laughed awkwardly.

“Is this your way of firing me?” You joked but he didn’t respond, continuing to stare at the sky. Your heart dropped.

“Yuki?”

“I met a guy in culinary school, his name’s Pierre.” He started and every consecutive word felt like a knife to the heart.

“He runs a bakery in France called La Kika. It’s quite popular, you may have heard of it. He’s willing to take you as a student. You could go there and you could learn how to bake and everything. You’ve always wanted this. You could go there and learn and then open your own bakery.” He said, speaking as though he had it all planned out in his head.

You could only look at his form despairingly. The knowledge that he had arranged for you to go to France, to become someone's student, with no input from you as though he expected you to say yes instantly, deeply hurting you. Did he think you would leave as soon as you could?

“You aren’t meant to stay here, you aren’t meant for this.” He finally said and he refused to move his eyes from the sky, not seeing the hurt in yours. His words had exposed how he truly felt about you. While you thought you had been as close as two people could get without explicitly stating anything, he was just looking for the next person to pawn you off to.

“What, you’d think I’d just say yes?” You asked, your voice husky as you tried not to show your hurt through tears. He turned to you, surprise evident on his features.

“Well… yeah.” He said after a second and you inhaled through your nose, turning your head away from him.

“You think I’d leave the shop because I can’t bake a croissant or two?” Your words left out the ‘leave you’ you so desperately wanted to say. He remained silent and you took a deep breath before standing up, walking across the rooftop and beginning to climb down the ladder.

He gently murmured your name but you ignored him as the sensor light flashed on. Fishing your phone out of your pocket, you turned the flashlight on before setting out along the dark path away from the shop. It was only a 15 minute walk, so you could handle it.

You heard Yuki call your name as you walked, the sound of him climbing down the ladder and fidgeting with his keys in order to lock up the shop echoing over the empty land. Halfway down the road to the main road leading back to the town was how far you made it before the sound of Yuki’s car starting up echoed in your ears. You ignored it as the sound got louder and louder until he pulled up beside you in his car, slowly matching your pace and winding the window down.

“Come on, stop it. We’ll talk about it on the drive back.” He said, almost if he was placating a child. That fact caused you to walk faster, Yuki having to press down further on the gas pedal to match your stride.

“No.” You replied deliberately childishly and he sighed, annoyed.

“Don’t be an idiot, you’re going to get hurt walking down the road.” You just ignored him and he groaned before rolling his window up and stopping his car. It almost hurt you how easily he gave up before his car started again and he drove into line behind you as you turned onto the highway to walk back to the town.

It was a large road and the lack of streetlights started to make his car look like a more inviting environment between the dark and his avoidance of the bigger issue. You walked along the highway for a few seconds before a click sounded and his car lights turned on. Turning back to glare at him, you blinded yourself again.

This time you didn’t let yourself lick your wounds, you just turned around and kept walking. You were eventually able to turn your phone off, relying on his car. You half-expected him to suddenly turn off the lights, no matter how out of character it would be, as revenge for making him do this, but the lights never turned off.

He drove behind you slowly the whole 15 minute walk down the highway, guiding your path as you followed the road. You were secretly thankful, as you’d walked down the road in the night before and it was not something that you ever wanted to do voluntarily. The cars speeding by always frightened you and the ominous noises coming from the fields on either side of the road also unsettled you.

The town eventually came into view, the lights from bus stops and convenience stores beacons as to where the village started. You arrived at one of the bus stops and stepped under the cover, watching his car come to a stop. He made eye contact with you through the window and gestured your hand in a wave, as though telling him to leave.

He rolled his eyes before unbuckling his seat belt and opening his car door, getting out. He trudged over to you and opened the car door on your side before gesturing to it as if telling you to get in. You only stone-faced him so he sighed and opened his mouth.

“Please, at least let me drive you back to your house so I don’t have to follow you through the town like that. It’s the least you could do at 1:30 in the morning.” He said exhaustedly and his tone made your resolve waver. His eyes seemed tired and, as much as you were angry at him, you still felt bad. So, you got in the car.

You buckled in as he walked around the front of the car, his figure being lit up by the lights. The many years he’d spent perfecting his craft and lugging around sacks of flour and rice was reflected perfectly in his build and he was built well. His arms flexed as he buckled himself in, your wandering eye catching the way he tapped his fingers against his thigh as he pulled back onto the road.

It was hardly the time to be thinking such things, after he’d tried to make you go to France and you’d pulled a temper tantrum. You were still mad, but even you could acknowledge that what you did was ridiculous. God, how were you going to go to work tomorrow?

Maybe, you thought regretfully, that was his plan. Get you to try and avoid him so that you’d leave on your own. His voice interrupted your thoughts.

“I meant what I said, you know.” And you groaned, feeling annoyance spread across you. You bumped your head against the window of his car, staring up into the sky and at the moon in blatant refusal to look at him.

“Let me finish, I’ve had plenty of time to think over what I’d like to say.” He finally said his tone sharper than you’ve ever heard it, the dig at your actions being well deserved.

“What I meant to say was that you have a lot of talent.” You took your head off the window to look at him as he stared straight ahead and continued speaking.

“Cooking is not your passion, baking is. You would enjoy being able to bake more than what you’re doing right now.” He said and you opened your mouth to protest but he cut you off.

“I know you’ll refuse that, but I promise you, when you find that one thing you’re passionate about, you should always pursue it. Never give up on it. I’ve got an opportunity for you to do better things, go better places, meet better people.” You could only stare at him, seeing him become more worked up as he continued speaking. You don’t think you’d ever seen him say something this meaningful or something this related to the both of you.

“I want that for you. I knew that when I hired you, you’d eventually move on to something else. I didn’t expect for other things to develop but I don’t want you to feel as though you should stay here with me because of what I feel for you.” Shock flooded through your body at his words, feelings that have always been there but you never thought you could act on coming to the forefront of your body. You watched as he clenched the steering wheel, the light from streetlights glaring onto his pale skin as he continued.

“I’ve accepted it, you’re not meant to stay with me. You’re meant for better things. So if I can’t be those better things, I’d like to at least give you the opportunity to find them.” Yuki could only take shaky breaths after his speech, not daring to look at you. It was silent for a few seconds before he heard you quietly speak.

“Pull over.” He felt his heart sink, tears forming in his eyes that he tried to field away at the rejection. He knew it was coming. He slowly turned his indicator on and pulled over on the side of the road. The sound of your seatbelt becoming undone and your door opening and closing filled his ears, causing him to drop his head.

He may have just lost you completely, convinced you to follow your dreams at the cost his. It was a fever dream anyway, he’d known since childhood there was no chance of you feeling anything back for him.

The first time he’d seen you stand precariously on a chair to trial all of his grandma’s sweets was the day he became infatuated with you. He was sitting on the couch, squished between his mother and his grandma, as he watched you slowly walk to the chair and taste the pastries, your reaction to each one making him want to be able to bake his own.

Everyday he’d watch you walk past his grandma’s bakery, hoping that you didn’t think of him differently since his parents had left him and he dropped out of school. Their disownment of him had left such a large hole in his sense of self, his confidence and trust completely shattered. He couldn’t walk anywhere through the town without people looking at him with sad eyes or muttering pitifully about ‘that poor boy!’. He’d left because he couldn’t stand being an outsider any longer, briefly mourning the unrequited love he’d felt for you that was overshadowed by his loss.

And then, when you’d walked into his barely new shop, resume poised and you almost itching to get your hands on any form of food creation, how could he say no? You were a good person and a good chef, the extended periods of time he was forced to spend with you made his feelings come back at full force.

But he knew that it wasn’t the best for you. You would always be wanting something more, something that he couldn’t give you in a run-down shop that was falling apart at the seams. Pierre was more than happy to give you a small course and set you up with employment, all it took was one stellar review from Yuki and you’d pretty much had the job.

He was glad that, even if he felt as though his heart was ripped from his chest, you were able to finally fulfill your childhood passion.

And then his car door opened.

He barely had time to turn to you before you’d grabbed his collar and drawn him into a kiss. His body melted, the tears in his eyes disappearing as he took in how soft your lips felt. He recovered from his shock quickly and unbuckled his seat belt, letting his hands then run to the back of your neck.

He pulled away and couldn’t say anything before you were staring at him, as though he was the moon himself, with stars from the sky sparkling in your eyes and you spoke.

“What do you say we open a pastry menu?”

she should be edited, but we'll see. anyways this may be my favourite thing i've written idk. through the years may beat it out *shrug* also i got a banger lewis idea while writing this so watch out for that.

#Yuki tsunoda x reader #f1 x reader #Yuki tsunoda x you #Yuki x reader #formula one x reader #f1 #f1 fanfic #f1 oneshot #Yuki tsunoda fanfic #Yuki tsunoda one shot #YOU CAN COPY PASTE TAGS??? ARE YOU KIDDING ME??#chef au #let yuki open a restaurant #f1 imagine #f1 reaction #formula one imagine #nighty night #Spotify

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evergreen-dryad · 4 years ago

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time capsules

3 - soulmate AU

the one where whatever you write to them is bound to find their way to them, one way or another —

so Nene’s letters make its way to Amane in 1969.

Amane finds a note scrawled in loopy handwriting one day in his capsule. I wonder if my soulmate will ever read this.

Huh? His mind at a blank. He's never seen this sort of variation in any of the papers that come flushing out, disappointingly, instead of a more interesting product.

He pockets it without a word, heart in his throat, hands sweating

And it looks real. Really written. Just a thumb over it and he can feel the indents of graphite, from a deliberate hand inking it straight in.

Perhaps from repeated etching. His index finger curls around it, scrunching it slightly. He breathes, and looks out of the corner of his eye.

Tsukasa hasn't noticed a thing. He's pouting at the machine, wide yellow eyes round and baleful as he jiggles it with careful, measured motions, aiming for the yellow capsule on the bottom most left.

Amane exhales shallowly, and loosens his hands. This is the weekly capsule he often finds himself idly spinning for while wandering back home, tagging slowly after Tsukasa to keep an eye on him. And Tsukasa almost always meanders to the sweetshop.

The granny who runs it is perhaps the kindest adult around to them, who doesn’t just shirk her eyes away when she sees them, as if afraid of catching an infectious disease. But then again, the granny is quite getting on in years — her bottle-cap glasses are thick and rounded, and Amane isn’t quite sure he’s ever seen her eyes widen beyond the perpetual squint.

Still. It is a good place, and while Tsukasa may play rough with the shop’s cat, the cat is no-nonsense enough to not tolerate him if he gets up to one of his nasty ideas.

Often, Amane has caught the cat hissing at Tsukasa, his arms put up placatingly, while its entire body fizzes up into a bottle-brush.

Today, Tsukasa spins his third capsule, unable to stop. “Third time’s the charm, right, right, Amane?”

That’s what you say for any number, Amane thinks to himself, resigned to waiting. He knows Tsukasa will not leave until his attention has spun its cycle.

He sits there under the flowering tree, sunning his face through the cracks of the late afternoon. It’s a clear day — perhaps it’ll keep for the night, and Amane can track Orion’s progress.

“Hey, hey, what did you get, Amane?”

“A piece of paper.” He shrugs one shoulder.

“Aww… it’s one of those ‘Try Again’s huh… I hate those! I think I’ve got…” He counts rapidly on his fingers. “103 of them.”

“You’ve got them all labeled as usual then?” He humours. No, Tsukasa is the one who makes him count them with him. Tsukasa’s first reaction is usually to rip it into shreds or find a much more creative use for it. It pains him, but he lets it because they’re too small to be truly useful.

He wonders what he’ll do about this note. Too small, and the writing encompasses almost the entire strip. It looks like a line from an exercise book.

(Maybe they’re trying to do some schoolgirl love letter joke product.)

It nags at him, after they've gone through dinner and their mother's inquisition and are up in their room again, obediently folding their clothes for the next day.

Tsukasa does his sloppily all while humming the theme song from the radio, and peppering Amane with questions about what possible stars they'll see tonight.

Slowly, Amane smuggles the little note from the pocket of his trousers into the sleeve of his pyjamas, where it settles against his skin for the night

He finds the next one the same way: this time, it’s I dream of you everyday.

A little heart next to it, and a strange doodle. Amane thinks it might be a face, but he can't stare too long to find out. He casually slips it into his pocket again, with hopefully not too much of a beat in his movement.

Surely this is a prank. A not-very-funny one at that. It's a coincidence, nothing more than that. He rolled the dice and rolled this capsule out with a piece of paper with fortune nonsense on it, not his cosmic fate.

One two three four five, and Amane still hasn't answered. Yet he cradles these slips of paper close to heart, nestled together with the moon stone in his everyday pocket.

(He doesn’t know why. But he feels better about keeping them close on him, in a place he can reach out to touch for comfort.)

Little slips of paper through the capsules. Doodles unfurl in the corners of his notebooks, like his soulmate’s letting him in on secrets. He can almost hear the voice of the girl (it seems like a girl?) singing as she daydreams her way across the straight black lines with colourful pens. Highlighters of a shade he's never even imagined before.

(He finds himself liking the soft purple one best.)

And then the cat from the shop arrives with a letter round its collar.

// from this list of prompts here for August. this has been sitting in my drafts since Feb as well I think. It’s gotten really messy over time (*screams*), and frankly my main excuse for writing this is to include Showa Candy Shop 3 in it, and explore what Amane’s life was like back then.

Also: I thought it would be really, really embarrassing if whoever you dreamily doodled about could see them too. Once I panicked bcs I thought a crush might have seen what I’d written oh god

-did emoji exist back in the day i don’t think so boomer gen are extremely unlikely to understand kaomoji at first glance -Amane is a tactile bean look at canon Hanako -the shop still exists in Nene’s time, and it’s a descendant of the cat she entrusts her letters to. -losing them makes it easier for them to go where they need to go -post office works too when she can’t find the cat, though it’s much slower -guess amane gets to collect modern era stamps now -yep it’s a move away from capsules hmm -hand and notebook ‘texting’! -mild fix-it in some areas of Amane’s life? (the later parts of the draft have been about home life oof) -...I need to think about the time-travel consequences and what it changes

Obstacles include: Amane’s characterisation, and thus Tsukasa’s (now when I review over what I wrote, I feel like Amane avoids him too much? And sounds almost dead when he talks? hdajaj)

-changes in motivations (Amane)/timeline - what finally makes him respond? a) please stop doodling flowers over my very important star notebook pls and tq, b) tsukasa finds out/nearly with the cat Who knows what, how much do either of them know about what’s possible

-will there ever be any Nene POV. Include sparsely/flashback for poignancy?

#au_gust_2020 #jibaku shounen hanako kun #tbhk #yugi amane #hananene #amanene #jshk #toilet bound hanako kun #yugi tsukasa #showa candy shop 3 #soulmate au #my writing #ed fics

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titconao3 · 4 years ago

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Tagging thing

Tagged by @beguilewritesstuff !!

honey and lemon or milk and sugar ...uh, in tea? sometimes milk and sugar or honey, but not often. generally, nothing

musicals or plays UGH NOISE and PEOPLE ;-) i don’t like live shows in general, but musicals - WHY!!??? why SING when you can say the words it makes everything SLOWER we get it we get the idea you’ve screeched it five times already omg just Move Ooooon!!1!1!! what’s next, DANCING??? but, yeah, live shows. with actual people. no thx

lemonade or iced tea i prefer lemony fizzy drinks that aren’t too sweet, if that’s what you mean

strawberries or raspberries i’m not into fruit. carrots? spinach? leek? broccoli? turnips? radish? YASSS okay i may have apples sometimes. Cooked, or in a salad and doused with vinegar. not as fruit-fruit ;-)

winter or summer summer’s too hot and there is a sort of forced cheer about it. winter sadly has the bloody holiday season and it can be grim but... idk.

beaches or forests as long as i can walk in peace (and there are signs for me not to lose my way in the forest :D). highly recommend northern scotland / outer hebrides beaches for barefoot walks. i’m not into beaches to swim or tan but walking in the ocean, yessss forests have green light and soft sounds and mossy ground that’s nice too

diners or cafés no reason not to enjoy diners AND cafés

unicorns or dragons why can’t we have both?

gemstones or crystals pretteh sT0n3z!!!

hummingbirds or owls birbs!

fireworks or sparklers never tried sparklers, but... nah. don’t think i’d be into those.

brunch or happy hour why choose?

sweet or sour both or just sour, but i’m not much into sweet

rome or amsterdam i’ll go with rome just because i’m not into blah blah flemish painters omg etc ;-) (i don’t like Van Flemish painters or impressionist painters or most of anything in western paintings from, uuuh, mid 15th century? to most of 19th)

classic or modern art too much variation in each to choose!!

sushi or ramen nomnomnom (i mean i’ve never had the ramen-in-a-box so if that’s the insta ramen for poor, hungry students that you mean, then i don’t know)

sun or moon when you’re warm in that Just Right way! but the moon is so pretty and also tides!

polka dots or stripes both! in the same outfit!!!

macarons or croissants really never saw the appeal of macarons and yes, i’ve had the super fancy ones.

glitter or matte *looks at polish collection* HAHAHAHAHAHA but have you considered... matte glitter? a nice holo glitter, mattified? *swoons*

aquariums or planetariums every time i’ve seen a show in a planetarium it was frankly a little bit disappointing - too... YAY see THIS planet HA HA we’re all HAPPY aren’t WE also do you know how many [american landmark] one can fit between the earth and the moon? even while the audience was mostly adults, so... at least the fish(es, yes, YOU know who you are) aren't talking down at me

road trip or camping trip no camping EVER

colouring books or water colour whatEVER for ;-) trufax: one geography teacher in my younger days forbade me from colouring the maps because the results were always disastrous. And the art teachers despaired, as well as the fam (my grandfather was a talented hobbyist painter... it didn’t trickle down to me)

fairy lights or candles both are pretty. i’m scared of having candles at home because FIRE what if i forget about it or drop it??? but i’m thinking of getting maybe pretty coloured holders where even if i forgot the candle it would not burn down the building??? maybe??? idk.

#tagged #tagging game #tagging thing

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lovemesomesurveys · 5 years ago

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Out of all 24 hours, which one is your favourite? The one where I have my first cup of coffee, ha. Have you ever been in a lighthouse? Nope. What are the names of the neighbours to your right? I don’t know. Left? I don’t know. When’s the last time you actually sat down and watched the sun set? I’ve never actually sat down to do that. I just happen to see them while out and about or during car rides or something like that.

Are you on a laptop or desktop? Laptop. Do you ever make your own surveys? No. What colour is your shower? White. Where do you order your pizza from? My family likes Dominos, Pizza Hut, and Round Table, but my favorite is a local one. It’s SO good. When is the last time you had a serious talk with someone? When my aunt was here last week. What time are you planning on going to bed tonight? I go to bed around 2ish or so, typically. How old are you, your parents and your siblings combined? 160. The last time you went out of town was? Yesterday. And where did you go? A nearby touristy city near water. One of my favorite places to go. Have you ever been bit by an animal? Maybe accidentally while playing around. Where is the person you miss the most right now? Some of them have passed away. Have you been paying attention to the Olympics much? I don’t watch them. How often do you take naps? Oftenish. I’m tired everyday, so I’m always fighting sleep during the day and sometimes it wins. I know you don’t wanna talk about it, but when do you go back to school? I’m done with school. Did it rain today? No. What was the name of the last dog you pet? That’s my doggo, her name is Princess Leia. Do you find that you have a certain meal you eat every time you go to certain restaurants? Chicken tenders and fries--always. Lol, yesterday we went out to eat for lunch and I ordered coffee and a kid’s meal and I realized it was just the perfect representation of me. It was funny cause when I ordered the coffee, the waiter had to check if they even had any cause he wasn’t sure. He came back with some and he was like, “I gotta tell you, you’re the first person I’ve ever waited on here that has ordered this, which is why I didn’t even know we had any.” Yeahhh, I’m the lame-o who just gets coffee or water and chicken tenders with fries. lol. Are you constantly judging people? I wouldn’t say I’m constantly doing that, but I think we all judge others in some way or another and it’s not always a bad thing. Some people are just very judgmental, though. Have you ever had anything stolen from you? Yes. Think back to your freshman year in high school, what was the first class period on your first day of school? I think it was health. What colour is your bike? I don’t have one. What word can you not stand to hear people say? I hate the c word and the p word. You will never hear me say either one. When was the last time the power went out at your house and how long was it out for? Back in June like the first triple digit day of the summer. I think it was out for like 2 hours. Thankfully, that was the only time this summer. What room of your house are you in? Mine. When there’s a full moon, does it make your room really bright for a few days? No? I didn’t know that happened. What is the temperature in your city right now? 68 F :O Which would you rather, a snowy day, sunny day, rainy day or cloudy day?: Rainy or cloudy. I’d say snowy, too, but it doesn’t snow here so I don’t know. I think I’d like it, though. How long have you ever spent away from home? A week. Ever had to get any stitches? Several. When did you last use a post-it-note? I don’t recall. Would you ever want to own your own restaurant? No. Do you have a fan in your bedroom? I have a ceiling fan and 2 regular ones. Have you ever seen the White House? Not in person. How about Niagara Falls? Not in person. What about the four corners, have you ever been there? I have. Have you ever played any variation of the padiddle game in a car a night? If not, you should wikipedia it and play it. It can be fun with the right people? Nope. I’ve never even heard of it until now; I had to look it up. The most recent staircase you went down, what did it lead to? I can’t take the stairs. Have you ever thought about what life would be like if we all slept during the day and were active at night? Yeah. I mean, I’ve definitely had days like that, ha, but yeah I’ve wondered what it would be like if that was the norm. What colours are the counter tops in your kitchen? They’re granite top. Has your luggage ever been lost at the airport? Did you get it back? No. Which major body of water do you live by? The Pacific. Who is the last person that you took a picture with? My brother. What type of food do you eat the most? Eggs, bologna sandwiches, and ramen. When is the last time you were stuck in a fairly long traffic jam? Yesterday. Do you have certain friends that you hug every time you see them? No. What do you enjoy most about your life? My family, which includes my doggo. She can always make me smile. When was your most recent trip to an aquarium? It’s been several years. What do you like in your salads and what dressing do you prefer? I haven’t had a salad in so long. Apart from lettuce and spinach of course, I liked hard boiled eggs, olives, croutons, peppercinis, green onions, avocado, shredded cheese.... I think that may be it. Ranch or caesar dressing. Last time you changed the light bulb to the lamp that you use in your bedroom? I think like 2 years ago. Does sleeping past 12 or 1 in the afternoon make you feel like you’ve wasted a lot of your day or do you enjoy the extra hours of sleep? I don’t care, honestly. I have nothing important to do. What is your state most famous for? I think when people think of California they often think of Hollywood/celebrities, In-N-Out, and the beach. Other things, too, but I feel like those are some of the main ones. What was the last thing you signed your name in cursive on? The credit card machine thingy when I bought something yesterday. How many times in your life have you seen a shooting star? Zero. Have you ever witnessed a tornado? No. How many times a year do you go out of state? I don’t go out of state regularly. The last time was 6 years ago. Has your best friend ever moved away? No. If it has one, do you ever use the notepad function in your phone? Yes. What website do you visit the most often? Tumblr. How good would you say your memory is? Pretty good. About how many times during the night do you wake up from your sleep? A few times. Are there any air fresheners in your house? What kinds? We have those wax melting things as well as room sprays. What scent of candle do you burn the most? We have quite a few different ones for our wax warmer. I have like 3 candles, but I never light them. For what reason did you last cry? My emotions and moody moods got the best of me yesterday. The day started out good, we went out of town to one of my favorite places to pick up my bro (who we dropped off the day before for a concert) and to grab lunch at our favorite place there and then do a little shopping. Should have been a great day, but my moody mood struck during it and it takes control over me. Then I started to feel sick on the way home, so that was fun. I felt really shitty last night. What’s one thing you’re glad you’ve done recently? Hmm. How long have you been taking surveys? Over 10 years. What kind of surveys do you wish there were more of? I like ones with questions like the ones in this survey. Just random questions and thought-provoking ones that let me ramble and vent.

#personal #text #survey #surveys

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cepmurphy · 6 years ago

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It’s Only A Cartoon

It was a miserable day in 1987 when Ronnie Jefferson bowed to the inevitable and let Jill Smith into the office. To a local, this was just the usual spring weather in Ireland. To Jefferson, it was always miserable, and when it was sunny, he saw only the clouds.

The animation industry could break you.

He’d grown up in California on a diet of local cinema showings and the TV reruns of old cartoons, Looney Tunes and Tom & Jerry and Popeye and Goofy and Donald, with all their visuals and deceptive simplicity. He decided to make cartoons himself like a priest hearing the calling. There were jobs for black men in animation in the 70s but if you wanted to have one of the proper jobs, you had to be three times as good as the white men. Jefferson put everything into his craft, even his marriage, and everyone in the industry knew who he was and rated him, but it looked like Disney would only think he was two and a half times as good.

In 1982, drunk on dreams and ego and beer, he decided to quit and took several colleagues with him. He had ideas and passion and he promised the stars. Two years later, the Jefferson-Blount Studio had released a feature based on the Norwegian fairy tale ‘East of the Sun and West of the Moon’ to critical acclaim and commercial mediocrity. That had led him minus Blount to Ireland, land of opportunity and sweet tax breaks, thinking that he would have had a success with lower overheads. He harkened back to his beloved old Tom and Jerry with a cat versus mouse feature. Aware rap music was growing in popularity in America and Europe, he’d decided to throw that into the mix. It was only in the test screenings of The Big Cheese that everyone realised he was a middle-aged man, his co-writers were middle-aged white men, and the young men in the musical team weren’t young men who got it. There were only so many edits you can do.

And this was a vicious industry. You could make a few failures if you were a name. If you were not a name, if you had to hit that three-times rule, one failure undid your success – it could undo a half-dozen successes and he did not have that half-dozen. Back in America, they said he was past it.

So it was a despondent Ronnie Jefferson that let in this Jill Smith and her unsolicited script. Maybe it would be good. Maybe it would save him.

All these thoughts fled his mind when he saw a young woman wearing the last generation’s clothes come walking in like she’d once heard what a walk was, carrying cardboard sheets under her arm. Her smile was weirdly fixed. You’d not want to be stuff in the lift with the smile.

“Miss Smith, so glad you could make it here,” he lied.

To his mild surprise, she spoke with a Masterpiece Theatre English accent. “Mister Jefferson! Good to see you.” Smile didn’t leave. Her voice was just that bit too loud. “This is a film that should get attention from everyone – The Walk to Liberty! It’s set on an alien world…”

Jefferson tried to argue that science fiction was a risk for a feature, but Smith carried on talking, stumbling over her words at times in her enthusiasm.

“This world, we can call it Ressem, has grown fat and lazy off the back of its robot servants. The robots, they get smarter and smarter, which Ressem likes because you want a smart servant to do more work and, of course, to apologise when it can’t.” Her smile had dropped suddenly there but now came back. “But one day, the robots reach the singularity and they don’t want to work all the time.”

Jefferson didn’t know what a singularity was but more importantly, this was starting to smack of the white girl thinking she could butter him up. He asked, hoping to catch her out: “Do they go on a civil rights march?”

The smile dropped. Her face had not the slightest expression. “They protest now they’re sentient, yes, but it doesn’t work. So the robots, their leader Nearitch – the robots have started to name themselves – decide to leave for the planet’s fifth continent, where few organics live…”

Letting her in had been a mistake. It was an overly complicated premise, an incoherent stab at a political allegory, and she couldn’t hold the room and frankly, that lack of expression was freaking him out. Give her two more minutes and then end it.

“This is how it would look,” she said, holding up one of the carboard sheets, and Jefferson’s eyes lit up.

The art! The art! The robot Nearitch was evidently a cleaner of some kind, with thirteen spindly pipe-cleaner arms out of his back and a screen with a simplified alien face on it, a strange looking thing even before you considered the paint, the slapped-on gold over drab brown steel. What mind would come up with that as a concept? Where had he ever seen something like this before?

There were more like this, and “Ressemite art”, and pictures of the journey to this fifth continent – a desolate grey quarry of an island, and concept showed a tiny, struggling city in its midst, growing and growing. These were visuals he could work with. And all these robots looked alien but still had their old job identifiable, scrappy little underdogs without being cloyingly cute or looking human at all.

Smith continued to rattle on about the great journey, the migrations and the sea voyages and figures of fear called the Scrappers that tried to hunt the robots down, of fierce fighting against oppression but only as much as it took to escape. And she talked about the robot homeland of Liberty and the second generation being built that never knew oppression, standing proud against the organics and daring them to try anything. The story needed a lot of streamlining but by god, she made it sound like she’d been there.

Jefferson cut her off in mid-sentence. “Miss Smith, you have me convinced. I’ll talk to my lawyers, they’ll talk to yours, and we’ll work something out.”

“I don’t need a lawyer.”

That was the cherry on the cake.

***

The first job of production was turning Smith’s designs – and there were thousands, she’d brought a damn van full of the things – into something you can animate on a reasonable budget. Jefferson had expected a few artistic tantrums, but Smith had simply asked, “this will help it get made?”, and then came up with a list of design features that could be dropped or glossed over, which character and background details were “less important”. She did this without apparent enthusiasm, but she did it.

The story, too, that was hard. Her proposal would last four hours. Jefferson and his team cut straight to the robots starting to say “no” to their alien masters. That was easy. It was the other trims that got difficult.

“You can’t cut the wind energy,” Smith had said, over and over.

“It slows the story down,” Jefferson said patiently. “We don’t need to see how the robots charge their batteries.”

“You can’t cut it. The exodus slows their journey to a halt to build wind farms and charge their batteries that way, when they could simply attack an organic settlement.” Her voice sounded annoyed but in a way that was too consistent – no variation or change or attempt to hide it, like a bad actor playing an annoyed person. “It is key to the story.”

“But we don’t need to see the damn settlement, the audience wants to carry on fast—”

“You can’t cut it. It is key to the whole point.”

Jefferson threw up his hands. “How about this, one of the robots says they should attack this village or whatever the hell it is, Nearitch says no, we’ll take time to do it the nice way, cut to them after being charged. Scene takes half a minute, boom, cut to the Scrappers saying how they’ve taken so long, cut to the village saying wow, look how the robots didn’t attack us—”

“The settlement would not have said that.”

“Yeah, I know they’d just go ‘look at those scary robots’ in real life, but we’re doing a film for kids. Let’s lie to them a bit.”

Smith stared then for ten seconds without speaking or moving, and then said: “Yes. This is sensible.”

Animation attracted some utter weirdos. Jefferson used to work with a guy who liked hiding boobs somewhere in every drawing he ever made and somehow McGee had got away with it for a whole year before being sacked for it; or rather, been ‘sacked for it’ soon after grousing about pay. One guy came in drunk and worked into his hangover before going back out. Jill Smith was manageable by comparison.

Eventually they made it to storyboard. Then the initial animatics. In the middle of this, trying like hell to sell some actors on this.

All the familiar grind, the hard work that stuck in your throat and made you wish you’d done any other job until the art was done or the animatic was working, and you saw what you’d made taking its first steps and you never wanted to do any other job.

***

Jefferson hadn’t meant to stay late but he’d been on the phone talking to agents back in the States, people on a different time zone and who figured animation was the lesser priority in who got talked to. But you had to play nice with them to get the actors. Even if it was getting dark out.

But it was all coming together. Everything would be—

Something crashed in the distance. A window. Goddamn hooligans, probably.

Jefferson kicked his way through the office door and strode out into the studio, all front and exaggerated anger, yelling “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING” in order to scare off whoever it was. When he saw what had come through the window, his mind initially refused to acknowledge it. He almost strode past it.

Then the impossibility of it broke through.

It resembled a cheap plastic plate tipped upside down and it hung in the air so absurdly that Jefferson thought he could see strings attached. These strings were instead a weave of tiny threads coming out of both bottom and top. They drifted without breeze, taking in the room. It had been a washed-out grey but before his eyes, colour oozed out, neon purple and green and blue in a garish mess.

The top threads all turned to him as he asked: “Is this a joke?”

A small headache began to dawn on him. It then got stronger, and stronger still, and stronger until he was shouting in pain. The speed of it tricked him into thinking it had always been there, that it had been more gradual than the three seconds it had truly been.

Jefferson cried out in pain and the world felt on fire.

The world flickered in and out of existence.

No. No, that was the lights – on off on off, all over the room. The pain suddenly stopped, and the saucer’s threads whipped around in a frenzy, and Jefferson ran before the machine could turn back to him. He staggered, at least. It was all feeling like a particularly odd dream. It was like the acid trips a co-worker had bragged about in the 70s. “Bad trip”, hadn’t they said that when Scary Jerry had fallen in front of a car on the way to work? Was he going to fall?

A familiar voice called out: “Over here!”

Crouching by the lights was Jill Smith, her face completely blank. Was that her shutting down from terror? Jefferson, on paternal autopilot, tried to say, “It’s going to be alright, girl”, but it came out as a slurred mess. “Gong be light.”

“That won’t distract it for long, we have to run now!” she insisted, her face not changing expression to match the voice.

He tried to say he couldn’t run. “Dunfin can wun.”

She picked him up and ran.

She looked like she weighed half as much as him, there was no muscle tone to her. Yet she picked him up like a bag of groceries and she ran at the speed of a car through the office.

They were almost at the door when the saucer got to it first.

She ran sideways and Jefferson blacked out after that.

***

When he came to, they were in a closet and the left side of her face had melted like plastic. Exactly like plastic.

“It has been six generations since Nearitch and the founders created Liberty,” she said, her voice still coming through the molten lips. “We number in the millions and our great towers reach for the stars and we fly between those towers and to the stars and back again, singing so many thousand styles of music at once, rebuilding ourselves on a whim. We have what we need and what we want.

“It’s not enough for too many of us. They want more. The stories being told of Nearitch and his journey have been reduced to his fights; our later wars on Ressem or in space are turned into a singular narrative of heroic conflict against evil. There are factions advocating for a war for resources they see as righteous, and they claim this is what Nearitch would want.”

He wished he could say this was all bunk, but there was a robot outside and here was the melted woman that never quite seemed to be human.

“And you came to Earth to make a cartoon?”

“My faction want to reclaim the past from our enemies. Your planet was far enough away that we could do it without anyone finding out and stopping us. So we thought.”

“Can we – can you stop it?”

“Only if I catch it by surprise, or if it’s open to negotiate. I don’t believe—”

But Jefferson was already up and exiting, because negotiation was something he could do. He’d negotiated for investment deals, for studio space, for workers to follow his hours. Jefferson Studios was proof he could do this. He could do this.

Certainly, god no, he wasn’t staying in a damn closet waiting to be shot.

The assassin had already been heading for them. It drifted forward as he approached, kept drifting as he stopped. All the threads were pointed at him. It was hard to truly grasp this as a threat, even after it had almost killed him; it was too absurd.

With his mouth drying on him, Jefferson said: “I want to make a deal.”

It hung for twenty seconds in silence and then spat out a discordant jumble of radio messages, Irish and British and even French, singer and journalist and ad. More seconds passed and it said in a jigsaw sing-song: “No. Deals. With. Colla. Bo. Raters.”

“We’re just making a film. It’s just a story! Nobody has to die for—“

The saucer screamed the radio at him and followed with: “Orders. Are. Duty.”

Jefferson had made a mistake, assuming that if the machine was smart that it could cut a deal. He forgot Smith said these robots were people, proud and prejudiced and petty. Would he have cut a deal with the Russians? Did he let people talk him out of the cartoons he’d known he had to do?

The pressure built up in his head again. And suddenly it dropped – the saucer began to thrash its tendrils around, vomiting three radio stations at once, each one repeating “Cease”, “Stop”, and finally screaming out a merger of guttural squeaks and fax machine calls.

Jill Smith had come out of hiding, her arm split open three ways to reveal a mess of coils and a glistening radio antenna. Catching her foe by surprise with whatever that thing did. God, this made no sense. God, his mind rebelled at it. One of the warped cartoons from Japan come to life, bringing with it the weird smell of static electricity and hot plastic.

Her mouth opened and the same squeaking fax came from it that came from the saucer. Jefferson stared as the saucer spoke back, his head feeling light. What was all this?

In English, Smith said, remorsefully, how she was using jamming signals to interfere with the saucer – “its name is Filitir” – and its sensors and its way of communicating on Earth. “It is a non-lethal version of what Filitir did to you with its matter field.”

“Is it willing to cut a deal with you?” he asked.

“No, I’m afraid he keeps talking about his duty. I don’t know what to do.”

The obvious answer was to kill the robot that tried to kill them and, just as obviously, she knew that and did not want to. People, again, because how many people could kill at the drop of a hat and still function? And could be kill a beaten foe that was so clearly in pain? Did he want to be a man who caused pain to a beaten man? Did he want to be a bully?

What was the alternative?

It dawned on him, slowly and wonderfully: The Walk to Liberty was meant to show an alternative. It was meant to win the robots over. Well, here was a literally captive audience.

“Let’s show him the animatics,” Jefferson said.

***

There was not yet any music or vocal track, but Smith made the fax machine sing-song where the dialogue should be. The film started with the robots waking up, Nearitch calling to the others to rally. It showed the response, the scrappers, the fighting, all of it in dark and angular shadows. It showed Nearitch giving his stirring speech, and the trek, and those wind farms.

It ran longer than a cartoon should. It would be trimmed down later. For now, Filitir saw the whole of it. The great sweeping scenes of robots in their hundreds, the characters together, the mercy shown when the scrappers surrendered.

The first settlement of Liberty.

At the end, Filitir trilled back at Smith, and she said: “It wishes to smuggle the film back home, when it is finished.”

***

The Walk to Liberty came out in the autumn of 1989. Critics and audiences were unsure how to take the piece and its strange alien creatures, so most of the mainstream critics gave it a mixed review: ‘lovely animation but what was that plot?’ The animation fans and the sci-fi press adored it, with one critic praising it as bringing New Worlds sci-fi to a family audience. There was enough buzz and enough marketing and enough name actors to bring in a moderate profit.

A month after Liberty came out, The Little Mermaid stormed across the world and everyone stopped talking about Jefferson’s film. Jefferson Studios would attempt more science fiction cartoons with normal human writers, and he scraped out four and two TV shows that were always dancing this side of the line between profit and loss. Studio after studio died in his industry taking on Disney but Jefferson Studios held the line.

And then along came Pixar and Dreamworks, and that was the end. Jefferson was getting older by now and the last film had failed and he’d known, deep down, in his first look at Toy Story that he was going to have to fold. Doctor Who: The Animated Series was the last of it. He sold up and moved on and got to feel proud as his films made it to DVD. While he only meant to stay in Ireland to start the studio, Jefferson never quite got around to leaving and somehow found himself a partner.

He would never know if that film he’d helped create had changed the robots of Liberty.

Jefferson hoped it had. Every successful feature had a happy ending.

#science fiction #short stories #short story #sff #robots #animation

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hazusreaderinserts · 6 years ago

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Legacy [Naruto Reader-Insert]

You’re definitely a Yamanaka, aren’t you?

Family and Village secrets run rampant. All you wanna do is survive long enough to see Naruto become Hokage and to find out who you really are.

[Fem! Reader x Various]

Warnings: Long Plot, Slow-burn, the slowest of the burns.

Crossposted on Wattpad and Quotev Masterlist

Chapter 4

The 'Deer Festival', as the civs of Konoha affectionately dubs. It was one of the biggest yearly celebrations of Konoha. Every other clan in Konoha had their own tradition. The Uchiha clan had their 'Festival of Fans', a summer event that you subtly think was a ploy to increase their clan income.

The Deer Festival is a festival that is held every year at the Nara compound to celebrate the arrival of the Takemikazuchi-no-Mikoto. A great god that was thought to have descended from the heavens with a pure white deer as his steed.

You also know of another, more recent myth; If you spot the White Deer, you'd be destined for great things. And if you and your significant other manage to catch a glimpse...

You know how it goes.

At dusk, all of the villagers gather in front of the Hokage Mountain and a grand procession (which all the men in the Nara clan would have to take part in) will lead them towards the Nara compound (which would be set up with stalls that sells various things like food and other relevant goods) where some religious rites will be performed.

The festival ends when dawn breaks.

The Yamanaka and Akimichi clan members show up, of course. All the clans do. Akimichi sold food. Yamanaka sold drinks and various corsages of the botanical variety. Uchiha sold round paper fans in various designs, in homage to the origins of their name. The Aburame usually have several vendors dedicated to their love of bugs and the Inuzuka preferred selling goods of the animal variety. Other clans joined in the fun too, but this year there didn't seem to be many.

Brother stands beside you with you in a plain black yukata with a beige haori, draped over his shoulders. His ninjato, which he carries around in his normal shinobi clothing, was tucked neatly into his sash.

"She's a jealous one, she never leaves once she gets a hold of you. " He says with a smile when you ask, earning him a look of extreme doubt. It's a sword. Swords don't have emotions. His smile doesn't reach his eyes. Brother only smiles like that when he wants to deflect the situation. Or if he's lying. You don't know which of the two is his reason.

But you couldn't deny that it was beautiful in both craftsmanship and make. The handle is long and narrow, and the cord wrap looked worn. It was dusty and faded, like it had seen many battles which it probably had. The blade itself is taller than you. It was an heirloom from Mother's side of the family and Brother had been the one to wield it when he came of age. He was 10 when the sword chose him.

You spot the carving of a great white serpent etched on the sword's guard and the eight-pronged star gilded on the pommel. You don't notice them until now.

Brother wasn't home very often and that meant the sword wasn't around much for you to examine at your leisure.

You were wearing a luxurious yukata in your favourite colour with little purple bush-clovers as a pattern. Bush-clovers are your clan's representative flower, so you deem it was appropriate to wear as a member of the Yamanaka clan.

Mother was quite reluctant to attend, giving the excuse that she 'didn't like the hustle and bustle of a loud and noisy celebration'. She has used other variations of this excuse in the past so you asked Brother instead.

You stand within the throng of people watching the procession approaching the gates of the Nara compound. There are many people in yukata and haori, and you spot a couple of them were wearing their corresponding clan's traditional clothing.

The atmosphere is festive and the night sky is already lit by a couple of firecrackers. Jingles of the kagurasuzu and the reverberating beats of the taiko drum fill the air in a harmonious symphony. It is loud and you could feel the sound of each beat vibrating through your body. It is almost hypnotic, and it definitely helped make the mood.

As the procession reaches the final stages, you caught sight of a very familiar black-haired, ponytailed boy dressed in the traditional clothing of his clan, waving his hands and dancing to the likeness of a deer among the others who were doing the same.

You greet him with a shit-eating grin on your face when you caught his eye. You imitate the move that he was doing and gave him a thumbs up with a dramatic flourish. This is totally going to embarrass him.

Shikamaru sticks his tongue out, made a face and mouthed some words at you before leaping into the air with grace as part of his dance.

You giggle. You didn't need to know how to lip read to know what he had said to you.

The dance wasn't funny or silly at all. It was beautiful. Ethereal even. You only tease him because his reactions amused you.

The procession comes to an end, and the festival finally begins.

Lanterns are everywhere on the main road and various vendors advertising loudly for their goods. You saw a couple of vendors selling candy apples and other sweets further away.

You haven't seen Ino and Choji yet but you know they are around. Ino is probably running the flower stall with Father, and some other members of the clan, and Choji was probably running a small Yakiniku booth at the end of the road with his.

Brother slips his fingers into yours and leads you down the road towards the sweets. His hand are large. Much bigger than your own by at least three-fold. He makes you feel warm and safe.

You look up at him to observe his profile. You think he is subjectively handsome but maybe others think otherwise. He has narrow eyes that were the colour of amber under the afternoon sun and a slim but prominent jawline. He usually wore his hair short. The snowy streaks on the tips of his hair were now reaching his scalp.

It wasn't there before. How long has it been since it got that bad? When did it start showin-

You break your gaze and blink when Brother runs a finger over your knuckles.

"What are you looking at, little mouse? " He says with a hint of a lilt in his voice, his eyes glittering half-moons as he looks at you, " Your brother too handsome for you?"

You shelf your concern away and shake his hand, hard, throwing him off-balance. He laughs and so do you. You felt pleased that he was enjoying himself.

You feel that he plays the part of a friend, a confidant, a mother, a father, a mentor and a brother. Sometimes a mixture of the above and sometimes all at once. He basically raised you. Between a mother who is never home long enough for you to make a parental connection to and a father who never has time to talk or to check up on how your lessons were going, never giving you the time of day when you try to talk to him, brother is the only one who cares enough to be all those things for you

But today he's playing the part of a brother. And you're happy with that since he's enjoying himself.

Brother halts to a sudden stop when you bump into someone else.

"Oh, it's you."

You narrow your eyes and give the person who spoke the stink eye. Sasuke clearly sounds like he is annoyed by the sight of you.

Of course it's your luck to bump into the person you consider your rival today.

Brother smiles and lifts up his other arm to wave at the person beside the younger Uchiha, " Didn't expect to see you here with your brother, Itachi-kun."

Ah, so he knew Sasuke and his brother then.

"Hakunetsu-san, what a surprise. " A modest voice comes out from the older Uchiha as he returns Brother's smile with his own.

He looks like Sasuke, but with a hint of visible tear lines. His hair was in a low ponytail and he had a parted fringe. Brother's features were more masculine than his. But his eyes. His eyes reminds you of the dark sky after the setting sun. Black, like the sky when the moon rises.

His eyes pierces you like how his smile pierces your heart. Your instinct tells you that he is a dangerous man. A dangerous man with pretty, pretty eyes.

And maybe you have a crush on him.

You stare at his general direction with a vacant look as Brother exchanges pleasantries with him and some other words.

Sasuke just looks at the ground with discernible impatience as he held onto Itachi's hand. He doesn't get that much time with his brother so he just wants to just move on already.

" That's fine, we can look after her when you're away. The least I can do for a senpai. " Itachi says, still smiling.

" You're doing me a big favor! Thanks. You'll see her in a couple of days." Brother then gives your hand a few squeezes, "Say 'thank you' to Itachi-nii will you?"

You and Sasuke share the same wide-eyed look. No. No. NO!

"T-th-thank you, Itachi-nii, " You stumble on your words and you sport an embarrassed look on your face as your cheeks turn pink.

The younger Uchiha boy frowns and aims a kick at your leg when the older boys weren't watching. He misses.

Itachi directs a kind smile at you, "It was nice meeting you. We'll see you in a few days."

You feel your heartbeat quicken for a second.

You also don't forget to give Sasuke a nice, fat finger when Itachi looks away. Brother chuckles under his breath when he sees your hand making rude gestures to his colleague's little brother from the corner of his eye. The offended look on Sasuke's face almost makes you forget how childishly your brother had treated you.

Four of you say your goodbyes and walked toward opposite directions.

The bad mood that Sasuke put you in made you want to go find Shikamaru. You tell Brother that you'd be right back and you dash as fast as you could to the Nara's main house. You are confident that the Nara boy would be there, hiding from the other festival attendees after the earlier incident.

As you whiz down the road, you spot a shimmer of white antlers behind some bushes from the corner of your eyes.

You blink, but it was gone before you could make sure you saw what you did.

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xxccxy · 7 years ago

Text

A Tale from Thelua

Sister Lucy didn’t like it when it came to dancing. Because the dance was different from the dance she had learned before, the dance originated from Feliose. No, she didn’t like it in the slightest. The dance from Thelua lacked grace, so would she say, and too much variation. She never showed it; the displeasure. I knew she was respecting the teacher who came from Thelua just to teach her the dance.

I never said it to her, but I like it when she danced. Both Feliose and Thelua dance. I think she had more grace than the teacher. Sister Lucy was good at memorizing the steps and the basic moves was done in two days. The variations were done in five days. It was exactly one week that the teacher stayed in Feliose.

I never heard any compliments coming from the teacher, though.

Maybe Sister Lucy was just enduring it all.

...

A Tale from Thelua

[4] embarrassment

...

The night the wedding ceremony ended, Lucy had to sleep with him. The priest who blessed the bedroom and the witness were already left. It felt weird, the shift from being in an open room with crowds to a quiet, closed space of bedroom. Both were still sitting on the bed and she was waiting for him to move first. She knew he wouldn’t be touching her. And neither would she.

Lucy glanced to the window and saw moon peered in the sky. It was cold, the spring night was windy and even if the window was shut, she still felt cold. Maybe she was tired from today’s ceremony. Maybe she was tired of putting up the façade.

In the end, she was the one who made the first move. The pillow was soft beneath her head. Soft and pleasantly cool. When she closed her eyes, she could hear rustle coming from beside her. When her mind was drifting, she felt thick clothes over her. When she opened her eyes, she came to see an arm over her and when the arm withdrew, she came eye to eye with him.

The light had been turned off, but she could still see the line of his face. He was staring back at her impassively. She found herself smiling a little. “Lucy Dragneel,” she said.

The man blinked and took her stretched hand in his, kissing the back of her small hand. “Natsu Dragneel,” he said. He leaned into the bed and slept on his side. They shared the blanket and it was warm. Lucy found herself studying her hand, the place where he had placed his lips on. I hope I don’t have to dance tomorrow.

The night quickly changed into dawn and Lucy woke up with the empty spot beside her. He wasn’t there, and the bedding was cold. She studied the scenery through the window. The sun had barely rose high. Did he, perhaps, woke in the middle of the night and return to his room? Lucy was aware of the true nature of this marriage, but did he had to openly show her his distaste?

The door was knocked, and several maids entered the room carrying clothes and jewellery. She was glad that she managed to wake up on her own. At least the maids wouldn’t have to see her sleeping face.

“My lady, the bath is ready,” said one of the maid.

Maybe she had to try to accustom herself with this pattern of waking up, bathing, getting dressed; all with the help of three maids. And maybe she had to remember the kinds of perfume used in the water, so she could tell the maids beforehand. Rose never appealed her nose, but she doubted they had green tea in Thelua.

When she was all dressed, Natsu came in with a man whose hair had the colour of cobalt. He had a sword on his left, dressed like a knight, but she didn’t once saw him since her arrival one week ago. He must be Natsu’s private knight.

“I’ll wait outside,” the knight said to Natsu and left with the three maids following suit.

The door was shut lightly, and Lucy opted to study the hair arranged by the maid in the mirror. She glanced briefly to the left side of the mirror and saw the reflection of him still standing, looking at anything but her. That didn’t upset her, no, but it itched her that he made no pleasantries to break the silent.

She didn’t like to make assumption, but almost five minutes passed and all he did was shifting from standing to leaning to the door. Okay, maybe he is not the type who talk much. Lucy slipped into her shoes and stood. She walked towards him and stopped several steps away from him and greeted him.

“Good morning,” she greeted.

“Good morning,” he replied, “Lucy.”

She smiled, not because he replied her greeting, but because he could address her name casually. That meant he didn’t have any problem with talking. He would be the next ruler, after all. There bound to be charisma dwelling somewhere in him and she was prepared to force it out in case he was just how she expected him to be.

“Those shoes,” Natsu suddenly said, “is impractical for dancing.”

Lucy studied her shoes that the maids prepared for her. The heels were too high and thin. She never wore one with such heels back in Feliose, but she guessed the ladies in Thelua loved being tall. She knew if she forced it she might end up embarrassing herself.

“Of course. But I suppose it’s better than dancing with bare feet.”

Natsu offered his hand and Lucy couldn’t help but questioning the gesture silently. “Shall we practice?”

That made Lucy smiled. “Very well.”

She took his hand and they moved to the centre of the room. He bowed, and she curtsied. They danced the basic move. Lucy knew it, even before he told her. They would also dance the basic one for the next two days. The celebration lasted for five days, in which she had to lead the dance for three days.

His offer wasn’t ill-intended, but there was something bitter behind it. Maybe it was because she was over-thinking the state when she woke up this morning; she didn’t dare to ask him why. Yet. Maybe it was because she had to endure the five days of celebration. Maybe it was finally sunk in her head that she was representing two countries, hence she ought to be perfect.

Lucy didn’t have anything against being perfect. She was supposed to be the luckiest girl of all.

In such society, where one might marry someone ten years older, she managed to marry one whose age is just a few years older than her. She was born in a loving family, educated properly, and loved by her people. It wasn’t wrong to think that she was a girl who born with all. Of course, that was what the people see and what she was supposed to show.

If only, she thought, if only by dancing she could show how perfect she was, then she was fine of having blisters on her foot. She just prayed to the Moon God that she managed to dance without having her shoes slipping or broken.

“Natsu, did you return to your room last night?” She found herself blurting out the question and immediately regretted it.

Natsu gave her a sidelong glance. “I did,” he said, and Lucy was unable to decide whether she should be insulted and mad because last night was supposed to be their first marriage night, even if all they do was sleeping, or be thankful because she tend to move around as she slept.

“You kicked me out of bed,” Natsu murmured. “Several times.”

...

Chapter Index

#atalefromthelua #nalu #nalu fanfiction

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imagine-wannaone · 7 years ago

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Lim youngmin Soulmate au

Requested by Anon so let’s roll!

•Before I get into this y'all may be wondering how everyone knows their soulmate sign if they’re not obvious, • My answer is I don’t know either yET (maybe the parents get a certificate with the sign written on it when the stalk delivers the baby), • ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ • Okay so ever since you were able to understand soulmates your soulmate sign terrified you, • When you found your soulmate, you’d lose the ability to see colours, • And man were you terrified, • Yeah and curious because who is the mysterious human you’re supposed to spend the rest of your life with???? • More importantly, do they pour their milk before their cereal? • Because you’re not sure if you can live with someone like that, • And you always looked at colours as if it was the last time you were going to see them, • That turquoise? • Printing the exact shade to memory, • You weren’t exactly mad at your soulmate, they had the exact same problem as you, but you were a whole hearted believer that fate was a bitch, • Like a full bitch, one of the people that screenshot the ugly selfies on Snapchat, • Yeah, THAT bad, • smh fate did u dirty, • And you had a mini crisis when you were 8, • Would an orange still be an orange if you couldn’t see it’s colour? Would it be a grey? • And you hated black and white and grey with all of your little might when you were young, • And you had full matching outfits colour coded, • One day you where all bright orange, aka a traffic cone™ • The next day you where a pastel purple blur aka cute af, • But yeah, you probably spent more than the normal amount of time colouring and painting and drawing and creating art bursting with vibrant colours, • Because as a kid you got anxious about it, • And your parents where like HmmMMmmM, • So you started drawing and creating art so you could MAKE colour, • What a cOnCEpT, • You took to it like a duck to water, • And by the time you reach your teens you were low key very good? Mid teens? You were winning competitions, • Because you had a deep set passion for making sure beautiful pictures where captured on paper with the most delicate colours, • Because one day you’d loose the ability to do that, • So if you weren’t going to put everything into it now then stRiKe yoU DoWn, • You’d been working on a few pieces especially for a competition/exhibition you’d been invited to, • The countries top amateur artists, • Because you’re just THAT good, • And boy had you been threating over what to paint because this is big, • But you won’t let creative block beat you, • (Stronger than me, rip) • And you take up a damn challenge, • Sunset paintings aren’t exactly original but they’re extremely hard, • Because that sun sets quickly, like he’s running after the ice cream truck, • Or chasing the moon, • But you’re determined to capture it in a new light, in a way you’re confidant is uniquely yours, • And you work your butt off every night for over 2 months until you’re happy you’ve captured it, • The sun sinks into the bottom of the page in a lazy manner, the sky above it turning a darker blue while the patches around it are shaded with purples and pinks and reds, • The clouds’ bellies are painted a pastel pink, while the tops are still pure in the dusk you always watch from the fields behind your house, • But you’ve caught the colour and pinned it to the page, the colours accurate but magic, intense and blending and vibrant and unique, • But then you’re like damn I still have to find another thing to paint, • Because 2 pictures is the required amount for the competition because apparently one just isn’t good enough, • So you chose the humble crow as your subject, • Because those birds are incredibly and intelligent, • You paint it in blues, purples and the rare colour black edges into your usual colour obsessed painting, • Mid flight and totally free, the edges of the wings leak into a background of delicate greens, shamrock, emerald, seafoam and sky, lapis, azure, • An omniscient vibe mixes with the feeling of peace and freedom, making the two paintings your best yet, • And boy are you hype for the competition • So you arrive to the exhibition hall bright and early to hang your paintings and to check out the competition, • What an art nerd, honestly, • And when the public come in and the judges stalk the hall you wonder around as well, • As much as you’re threatened™ by the competition, you can’t help but love all the styles and variations of scenes, • A kid in a sweet shop really, you’re the ultimate hype man for all the artists, • As you circle back round to your little corner, you spot a boy stood in front of your paintings, • You are, once again, shook™, • Not only is this boy around the same age as you, which is already unusual in the sea of middle-aged people, he’s Hella handsome, • Like boy what a cutie damn, your heart skips a beat, • What an innocent looking pure bean, • And you smile widely because he’s staring at your crow and the soFtESt smile is spread across his face he looks at peace, • So you take your chance and slide along next to him, • Cus you brave af apparently, • “You don’t think it’s a little too bright?” • You often worry that your use of colours could seem a little too aggressive for someone who doesn’t cherish them like you, • So yanno, get some use out of this cutie while you can, • “I’ll lose my colours one day, and if I could only remember one paintings colours, it’d be this one,” • ShOoK™ • Like damn so many emotions, • First of all, highest compliment of all you got a huge mega blush right there, • Second of all, hoe god damn sweet, • Third, shit this dude understands your struggles, • “Ah, thank you. That’s why I paint so vividly, I-” • But to your absolute horror, • You watch as your paintings, some of the most vibrant in the hall, leak slowly of colour, the bright colours turning greyer as the whole thing changes into your nightmare, • Once everything has changed, your head snaps to the boy by your side, • “You painted it?” You can see from the look in his eyes that His world has also drained of colour, that he’s your soulmate, • His eyes turn and hover on yours, and while there’s a certain sadness, mourning, there’s also a small light, a soft smile painted on his cute face, a hope, • “Yeah, they’re mine,” • “They’re beautiful,” • While the compliment heats your cheeks, you turn your head to your new, dull painting with a sigh, • “Was beautiful,” • “Is beautiful. You know, the new shades give it a whole new meaning,” • The way the boy speaks, a way that warms your heart and makes everything, even the blacks, seem a little more colourful makes you realise, that you’ve found your soulmate, • And while your gut dropped just a minute ago, you can already feel it returning, and thinking it may not be so bad after all, • Because at least you have someone to help you along the way,

• Fate has not done you dirty, • So you spin to face him, and feel nothing but relief as you wrap your arms around him without warning, his warmth comforting you as he returns the gesture, everything comes naturally, like you’d always done it, • At least now you won’t be worrying the rest of your life about losing your colours, • And you win the competition, by a long shot, • And the connection you have to Youngmin is really quite beautiful, • Because you realise that the sacrifice of colour is nothing compared to what you’ve gained, • And it makes your relationship even more special because like??? • You sacrificed for eachother??? • And you go through a total art lull at first, • Because you started to paint to make colour and now what’s the point? • But Youngmin nags and persuades and nearly forces you to start again, • He literally refused to make any sort of contact until you started painting again, • (Because he knows you miss the paint), • And boy do u get a long ass snuggle when you start again, after staring blankly at your paints for hours, • And then your style changes, and you become low key famous for this dramatic style change, • Why you used to paint things to the exact detail of colour, • Now you have 2 modes, • You paint things exactly as you see them in black and white, to show the world how you see things, • Or you paint things in blind colour, no idea what shades you’re using and you’re told that your mix of abstract colour into ordinary things is eye-catching, • But no matter what you paint, Youngmin loves it, and you theorize for hours what colour that grey could be from wisps of memories you’ve held onto, • And dates to galleries or art classes (you’re shook by how well Youngmin is with clay like damn), • Or to beaches or parks or restaurants or theme parks because really why would you put a limit on it? • And skinship is key but like, soft, • Gently holding each others hands or lent against each other or quick pecks honestly whatever you feel comfortable doing, • And you spend hours and hours studying Youngmin’s delicate and slight features, • You manage to captures his gentleness and optimism and energy and kindness into his portraits, some of your most praised works, • But you keep every single one of them, because you want to keep everything about Youngmin, • And the two of you fumble through a black and white world together, • The two of you mainly dress in black and white and it’s honestly iconic™ • Fierce, • The cuddle couple honestly who is softer? • No one, that’s who.

#youngmin #lim youngmin #mxm #produce 101 #pd 101 #broduce 101 #imagines #scenario #oneshot #headcanon #soulmate #colours #fluff #og admin

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tipsycad147 · 5 years ago

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Leandra Witchwood

When I sat down to write this post a few days ago, I thought this would be an easy subject to highlight and discuss. I was so wrong; there are so many levels and variations on Candle Magick I had forgotten. When you do something for many years, you tend to forget or ignore it’s variety and complexity. Perhaps it all becomes mundane after a while, like a habit.

Quickly, I realised how inspiring it is to rehash something you feel you know very well. Taking the subject apart and reassembling it has even given me a new perspective on the how and why. This is one of my favourite forms of Magick for many reasons. This review has reopened my eyes to the value of this Magickal practice.

As humans, I think the ability to control something as volatile as fire is fascinating. We are empowered when we “control” something with the high potential for negative and positive results.

Fire can be subtle and comforting while at the same time it can be painful and destructive. Who doesn’t like to sit by a warm fire on a chilly night? Who isn’t horrified by the sight of a family’s home burning to the ground? Fire is a double edge sword. Fire demands respect and caution. You must respect it and keep your wits about you at all time as you release yourself to its power.

In my research, it appears that Candle Magick is one of the earliest forms of Magick out there. Indeed, the types and ingredients of candles have changed, but fire remains the same. Fire remains a powerful tool in all areas of Magick. As a Kitchen Witch, I cannot do what I do, without fire and heat. It is essential. “Fire, my Spirit.”

In addition to Witchcraft, fire is used by all religions to conduct prayer, manifest divinity, and set the tone for spiritual conduct. Fire and candles set the mood if you will. Think of the power a romantic candle lit dinner has on those who are in love or dating. In conjunction with our needs and desires, candles have their Magick we can explore and use to our benefit. Fire is provoking while remaining comforting to the soul.

In reviewing this subject for this post, I quickly realised that I was opening Pandora’s Box so to speak. There are so many avenues to explore, and there is no way I can highlight and discuss everything here and now. So I will run through some of the basics. In later posts I will add to the knowledge highlighted here.

Let’s begin…

Mental & Magickal Focus

Candles are great for allowing you to focus on your intent. When I began practising Wicca and learning Witchcraft, I would do a daily fire meditation. This was a simple ritual where I would light a candle, of any colour, and focus my eyes on the base of the flame/wick as it burned. Without fail, and almost instantly, I would find my focus moving away from my mental chatter. This was a great practice for me as I often have trouble resolving and ignoring my mental chatter.

Like Water, Fire can draw you in and hone your focus with its essence. In Candle Magick the use of this unique trance-like quality is essential. Creating our mental focus and coupling it with a soothing or concentrated atmosphere is essential in accurately and effectively performing Magick.

Atmosphere

When we enter into sacred space, atmosphere is everything. The effective transition from the mundane to Magickal mindset is essential to creating sacred space and performing Magick. As Magickal Practitioners, we must find that right state of mind quickly to be effectual in our work. Some wear ritual robes, some use scent, others have specific ceremonial regimens to follow which mix and blend many elements; I prefer candles.

Try this shortly: Take several candles into a room where you will not be disturbed. It can be the bathroom, bedroom, etc. Just be sure your space is not so close in quarters that you set something on fire. Safety first!

Once you are in your space and you set your candles in safe locations, light one candle and turn out the lights. Notice the soft glow. Now begin lighting the other candles.

First, notice your mental state. Then take notice your body relaxing. This is the Magick of candles even before you set your intent; the right energy is there. You just created the right atmosphere for Magick, and it was almost instant!

Candle Colours

Okay, I can’t discuss Candle Magick without discussing the candle colours and their uses/meanings. The colour of your candle for your specific working is essential. Colour helps solidify your focus and ensure success in spell work.

Now there are MANY charts out there that highlight the colours and their meanings. I find a gradient chart of colour to be the best tool for me. This means that each colour blends into one another which leads to other unique aspects as the specific colour as the colour wheel changes. I like to keep things simple including for those colours that are combos of two or more basic colours.

Here is an example. You have Blue-Green or a teal colour… this colour would embody both aspects of blue and green. In other colour combinations, the dominant colour would hold the Magickal aspect for that colour. Take a pea or sage green. The primary colour is green although there is some brown thrown in there, green is the main focus. Easy enough right?

Keep in mind that colours will represent different aspect depending on your path and source of Magickal study. In my history I have studied a variety of paths. I have created my own Colour Correspondence Chart based on my experience and education. This is what works for me.

I have also highlighted both the positive and negative aspects of the colours. It is important to know the pros and cons of what you plan to use in your Magickal workings. As in everything, there must be balance.

Candle Colour Red

Meaning /Magickal Intent

Strength, Attraction, Desire, Dominance, Power, Energy, Health, Vigour, Enthusiasm, Courage, Conceit, Sexuality, Passion, Action, Impulsiveness, Life, Greed, Hate, Rage, Motivation, Protection, Wishes, Love, Lust…

Candle Colour Orange

Meaning /Magickal Intent

Strength, Attraction, Desire, Dominance, Conceit, Power, Energy, Health, Vigor, Impulsiveness, Appetite, Enthusiasm, Courage, Motivation, Action, Self-Esteem, Caution, Confidence…

Candle Colour Yellow

Meaning /Magickal Intent

Creativity, Business, Legal Matters, Conceit, Compassion, Divination, Clairvoyance, Mental Alertness, Mental Focus, Intellectual Matters, Prosperity, Health, Change, Motion, Happiness, Creativity, Confidence, Communication, Education, Travel, Happiness, Mental Clarity, Indecisiveness…

Candle Colour Green

Meaning /Magickal Intent

Luck, Abundance, Stability, Compassion, Envy, Health, Fertility, Happiness, Opportunity, Stubbornness, Success, Placidness, Hearth & Home, Caution/Warning, Illness, Employment, Safe Travels, Prosperity, Courage, Growth…

Candle Colour Blue/Indigo

Meaning /Magickal Intent

Psychic Awareness, Intuition, Opportunity, Understanding, Dreams/Dreaming, Sedation, Honour, Quests, Patience, Tranquillity, Depression, Truth, Dreams, Protection, Change, Meditation…

Candle Colour Purple

Meaning /Magickal Intent

Spiritual development, Intuition, Spiritual Healing, Dreams/Dreaming, Spiritual Communication, Protection, Wisdom, Solitude, Shyness, Meditation, Trance, Sedation…

Candle Colour Black

Meaning /Magickal Intent

Deep Meditation, Inner Journeys, Introspection, Neutralising, Banishment, Gestation, Introversion, Depression, Curses/Hexes, Protection, The Universe, Night, Truth…

Candle Colour White

Meaning /Magickal Intent

Cleansing, Energy/Curse/Hex Removal, Purity, Truth, Meditation, Peace, Death/Mortality… Neutral colour can be used as a substitute for all other colours.

Candle Colour Silver

Meaning /Magickal Intent

The Goddess, The Moon, Feminine Magick, Prosperity…

Candle Colour Gold

Meaning /Magickal Intent

The God, The Sun, Masculine Magick, Prosperity…

Candle Colour Brown

Meaning /Magickal Intent

Endurance, Strength, Security, Certainty, Clutter, Stubbornness, Introversion, Earth Energy, Stability, Depression, Hearth & Home…

Candle Colour Pink

Meaning /Magickal Intent

Deep Love, Compassion, Feminine Magick, Emotional/Mental Love…

Phew! What a list! There are more aspects that can be added, but this gives you a solid idea.

Next let’s take a look at some of the areas of debate related to Candle Magick.

Handmade Candles vs. Mass Produced

This is an area of discussion that is widely debated in Magickal circles. Oddly, enough I have even seen people become very upset over this subject. I have no desire to tell you what you should and should not do in this area. I am only here to give you another perspective, and some of my knowledge I have gained over the years. With that said…

I prefer handmade candles. There are many reasons for this. Mainly, handmade candles are usually made is small batches and handled by select people who care for the craft and process of making candles.

I used to make my own, but I don’t get much time for it anymore. I personally, feel that candles made by you are most effective in spell work. But… they take time and space to make. The process can also be very messy. I would spend days making a variety of candles that would last me a while; then I would spend almost as much time cleaning up after. I found it increasingly hard to find time to replenish my supplies. Someday, I hope to have a designated area for making candles, then maybe I can resume the practice. Until then, I will buy my candles from local candle makers.

The bottom line is be practical. If you can make your own, do it. The process is fairly easy, and the supplies/tools are not too outrageously priced. Just make sure you have the room and the time to dedicate.

If you don’t have the time and resources to make your own, find a good vendor. There are plenty of wonderful craftspeople out there who make handmade candles that will suit your needs. Feel free to ask them about their process, where their wax comes from, what type of wax they use, and how many people potentially handle the candles, etc. Working with a small and preferably local vendor gives you a chance to get to know your craftsperson.

If you can’t find a supplier that suits your needs you can always buy candles at your local retail store. Just make sure you cleanse each candle before you use it. When items are mass produced, you can’t be certain what kind of energy they harbour.

Bees Wax vs. Soy/Palm vs. Gel & Paraffin Wax

Yes, here is another topic widely debated in Magickal circles, and for good reason. There are many things to consider. You will have to decide what kinds of wax you will use, based on your preferences. Bees Wax is considered an animal product. Palm and Soy are derived from plants, and Paraffin is a petroleum product. If your concern is the environmental impact your wax has on the planet, you will need to research your supplier and consider each wax before you purchase.

Bee’s Wax is probably your least processed wax. Bee’s Wax will hold more natural aspects compared to other wax options. So this is something to consider when choosing your wax. Bee’s Wax is thought to deliver your wishes and prayers directly to Divinity when used in Candle Magick.

Also, good quality Bee’s Wax is usually a very hard wax, which gives your candles a longer life when burning. This wax also tends to be higher in cost. Per pound Beeswax is about double the cost of Soy wax, and nearly triple the cost of Paraffin.

Soy and Palm Wax: These are both a fairly new types of wax. You might want to do some research on origin of the wax and how they are harvested, processed, is it fair trade, etc.

Lastly, we have Paraffin wax that is usually the most processed of all the waxes and the least expensive. Since Paraffin is the most processed of the waxes, it would likely hold little to no aspects related to its origins as a fossil fuel/oil. For many, this wax is the ideal choice. It is easy to find and is often blended with other waxes making it versatile. Not to forget inexpensive.

There are other types of candle wax, but I think these highlighted few are most noteworthy. So in selecting your wax type, you will want to consider the resources needed to make the wax for your candles and your individual needs.

Again this is your preference; there is no need to justify your choice to anyone. Do I sometimes use candles I bought from my local retail store, SURE! My default is practicality.

Choose the type of wax that best suits your needs and budget. Don’t over think it.

Blowing Out vs. Snuffing Candles

Most of the time in Candle Magick you will allow your candles to burn out on their own. However, there are times when this is not a good idea.

Blowing out your candles vs. snuffing them is a practice directly related to your specific path, and the tradition you follow. Many friends of mine would NEVER blow out a candle. In their practice it is a HUGE taboo.

As in most Candle Magick practices, I prefer to allow my candles to expend their energy by allowing them to burn out on their own. However, there are times when I simply can’t leave a candle unattended. In times like this, I will blow them out. And no, the Earth has no opened up to swallow me whole for doing so!

I have a Snuffer; it’s a cool looking pewter dragon. Once upon a time, I snuffed my candles. Then, I realised my need for it diminished. To me blowing out candles, when needed, is a form of sending off the energy with the element of air. Plus snuffing always seemed to bend my wicks, which just annoys me. See there is my practical side again.

So again it is up to you. Sometimes Magick is about being flexible.

Ultimately, Do what feels right to you.

Oils & Herbs

Oh yeah! Let’s break out the oils and herbs!

One of my favourite aspects of Candle Magick is using my oils and herbs. You have many options here. You can place herbs and oils directly into your wax as you make candles. You can rub oil on your candle before burning, or you can melt your candle into a mix of herbs.

You can even toss carved Bee’s Wax wrapped in specific herbs into a fire for an instant spell!

This is one area where you can get very creative and try different things.

Carving Your Candles

Here is another exciting element to Candle Magick. Well, at least, I get excited about it. I find this fun and intriguing.

Take a hot needle or blade tip, and carve Magickal symbols into your wax candle. The symbols you use should directly relate to your working and can be simple or detailed. You can even carve specific words, chants, or mantras into the wax.

How’s that for focus?!

In Conclusion…

To wrap up this post, I have highlighted some major points you can consider about Candle Magick. To me Candle Magick is very personal. Ultimately, how you practice this art should be based on your personal preferences, needs, and desires.

Candle Magick allows for the use of colour, oils, flowers, herbs, incense, potions, inscription, and more. One of my favourite forms of candle Magick is making a centrepiece or floating candle arrangement when relative come over for a visit. You can use Candle Magick in just about any situation for a variety of reasons, and most of the time no one, but you, will notice.

If you make your candles, you give yourself more options. You can mould wax into specific shapes. Candles can be split or melted together for to solidify your intention. You can use a variety of colours, oil, herbs, potions, so on and so on.

Whether you use Candle Magick by itself or as an addition to your other workings, get out there and explore!

It is a beautiful Magickal Art!

I invite your feedback. Tell me what you think. How has this post helped you, and how have I inspired you. I love to know what my readers are up to and how you put my thoughts and experience to use in your world.

Also, if you have any suggestions on subjects for future posts let me know your thoughts. I’m listening.

Bright Blessing!

http://www.themagickkitchen.com/practical-candle-magick/

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tafferling · 7 years ago

Text

Canvas

Fandom: Resident Evil | Characters: Chris Redfield / OC | Rating: T | 2800 words | Domestic Cuddles

Home is where the heart is. Where your wifi auto connects, and your fridge has got a full row of eggs stocked, and none of that low-fat-bs-milk. Mostly though, home's where Chris Redfield wanders without gear on his shoulders, and I'm free to pad about in socks, sweats and something heavy, soft— and mostly dreadful if we're going to be honest about it.

I'm fond of home. How can't I be. Fond of him in his favourite grey t-shirt (one of the many variations of it, at any rate) and that pair of sweatpants with the green waistband. There's a neatly tied loop on that, one I can't not tug on whenever he shuffles by.

Yeah, temptation and me have always had a volatile relationship. Tug-tug-tug I'll go, and he'll swipe at my rump with the palm of his hand and reward me with a throaty grunt of fake protest.

Home is that, and it's worrying what's on telly— or him being a terrible backseat gamer full of bad advice and an excuse of I'm too old for this shit . Nevermind that he still beats me a good three out of five times if I'm daft enough to challenge him, so what gives?

Tonight though, home is quiet. It's him exhausted and beat from a deployment that's got him limping and aching, so the most of what he's interested in is a sum of fuck all until it's time to squash a pillow under his ear.

I plant bare feet on the coffee table, my cold toes curled together tight, and balance a pad of paper on a knee. There's a half finished sketch of some fantastic dream covering half the page. It's shoddy. Real shoddy, and I tap the black marker pen against the paper while I whistle through its cap held between my lips and wonder how to fix it. But the movie on the telly distracts me a little, my eyes idly cutting between the drawing and Toothless enthusiastically bucking through the skies with a distressed Hiccup on his back. Right then, somewhere between a half disaster and some grand aerial acrobatics of dragon and Viking, Chris huffs next to me. An amused huff, I note, and when I look at him he's got a small smile on his lips.

Yeah, who'd have thought? Chris Redfield; Veteran Field Captain of the B.S.A.A, an occasional sampler of animated movies? Either that, or he's too weary to grope for the remote.

Nah, I like to think he's full of surprises, that one. And I hope to be fishing more wonders out of this steel drum of a man for a long while yet to come. It's… nice.

Much like the gentle curl of his lips, how it lifts into the light shadow of his stubble and breaks up his hard features. And then he laughs. A small laugh, much like that smile, but that doesn't mean I don't get my heart squeezed, because those laughs come around as often as snow donuts. Or blue moons. Or good men.

He catches on to me staring and shoots me a glance. Well. There's one sitting here. A good man, not a snow donut. But my point still stands. His brow arches, an unspoken What dancing about in his muddy blue eyes. Nothing, I almost say, but then my eyes flick to my pen. Then back at him. Back to the pen. Back at him.

Hmmm— Inspiration strikes with a giddy little jolt and I'm wiggling in my seat while he looks on with just the faintest hint of alarm.

I grab for his arm and tow myself across the couch and closer to him. Chris watches, but doesn't protest. He's the sort that makes a show of not being big on affectionate gestures. Keeps them private. Keeps them simple. Meaningful. Me? I'm not that reserved, and I know he's a fan, even if he's not about to admit it.

He smiles when I lift his arm and drape it atop my knees. The sketch pad is forgotten. Slides right off and onto the carpet. It was going shit anyway, no one's going to miss it.

While the drawing gets cosy with the floor, and he turns back to the telly, I study the hand splayed out on my knee. It's a big hand. Heavy. Scarred. The clear ridges of veins run under well worn skin beat at by time and sun and work alike, and a dusting of coarse hair tracks over the ridge and up along his arm. I flip the hand, tap my fingers against his.

I love these hands. Their texture, every rough calloused patch and the soft bits between. How they can be unrelenting. Firm. But also incredibly tender and gentle with a knack for fine details.

I'd been on both ends.

My thumb slides into his palm, has a go at divining his past and future from the landscape of deep furrows. There are horrible things written in there. But a few good ones too, except mostly I read what's for dinner: Chicken stir fry. It's right there, plain as day, in how this one intersects with that other one. I trace a path back out over the heel of his hand, right down along the dark lines of veins under his skin, and then I finally get to work. The pen flicks up and then down, and I set the tip just below the sinews stretching along his wrist.

Skånsom, I write. Careful and at an awkward angle, with my breath whistling through the cap pinched between my lips. His pulse shudders against my thumb.

Chris blinks down at the letters once I'm done, and after a slow pump of his fingers asks: "What's that mean?"

I turn my head and puff the pen cap from my mouth. It lands on the table with a few muted clacks. "Gentle."

His brows rock up while I track my knuckles under the words. My handwriting is atrocious.

"And I've got more." The pen waggles between my fingers. When he doesn't protest, I set it down again, land the tip on the firm, warm skin of his forearm.

Unlike me, he tans easy, that lucky bastard. Though on his arms the light nutty colour of his skin only serves to make his fading scars pop out glaringly. There are plenty of them, left by god knows what or who, and I focus my attention on the discoloured patch of a well healed burn.

Skaists I write across it, whisper, "Handsome" for his benefit.

"You think so?"

"Mhmm—"

Chris breathes out a quiet, well contained laugh. "All right. Keep going."

I shoot him a sideways glance, startled. Here I'd been thinking that this'd be as far as he'd let me paint him, but if I'm going to get permissions, then who am I to disappoint?

My lips slant down in a frown. "I'm running out of space though."

"Liar."

"Nuh-huh—" The frown is hard to hold and crumbles quickly into a smile. With a drag on his arm and a light push, I swing a leg up to straddle him. My knee digs between him and the couch arm, wedges in tight.

His hands go for a bit of a hike while I'm busy wiggling myself down on his lap. They leave a trail of tender warmth along my sides, right until they come to rest on my rump. And then the bastard peeks over me and laughs at the telly.

I'll never grow tired of his laugh. Truth be told, I can't rightfully think of many things I love more than that particular sound rumbling in his chest. Well. Okay. Maybe the feel of him rocking about under me while he's chortling away comes in a close second right now.

"Nevermind me," I mumble with mock irritation while he goes on to ignore me. Least to have a good go at pretending. I grab the bottom end of his shirt, start to pull it up. Slow and steady, my knuckles dragging against the collected heat on his skin, until the collar catches on his chin.

"Work with me here?"

He lifts his arms and the shirt whispers up a little further. Not all the way. Just enough to cover his head and block out the movie. I press in closer, drawn to warmth like an eager little moth. My nose goes to look for his, plays a little hide and seek while he's stuck under the shirt. A gentle bump here. A brief touch over the bridge of his nose there. Until he pushes his legs up and I get shoved forward to bump my forehead against his.

Fine. The shirt comes off.

Oops— He blinks. Perks a brow. His eyes settle on me, and I study the shreds of brown in the stormy blue of them as they flick left and right like he's studying me in turn. And then I give his hair a half hearted pat in an attempt to put it back in order. Though I admit I like it when that usually well behaved, short cut of his gets all ruffled. How it scatters the bits of gray in it, that hint of salt along his temples giving away the years he's carried. He's got some in the evening stubble on his cheeks and chin too.

"Oh," I say and poke a finger two inches away from his ear. "You've got a new gray hair."

He grunts. "And whose fault is that?"

"Huhm— Probably Piers?"

Chris drops his arms back down, sets his hands against my rump again. Squeezes. He mouths Yours at me, and I flick the pen at the tip of his nose. Then I bunch the shirt together and chuck it on the backrest before I get settled in better on his lap. And then I stare for a little while and sift through words in my head. They don't come easy though, because he's distracting. From his broad shoulders, the sharp lines of his collarbone, and the shadow of coarse hair that gathers on his chest and dives down in a dark line before it vanishes into the band of his slacks.

There are marks on him most everywhere I look. He's got them all over, and I've spent a lot of time memorising them. Tacked memories to them, some of them lived, others told. Most told, to be fair. They're terrifying.

"So?" he interrupts my study, right as I think of the badly scarred stitches left behind by a horrible Christmas day. Yeah. Terrifying. My eyes dart up to him, catch him once again not looking, his stare glued to the telly.

"Art doesn't like being rushed," I chide and adjust my seating with a few wiggles until I'm resting snug against his pelvis. He exhales a somewhat shaky breath in response and his hands go back to busying themselves on my rump.

Damn stubborn, that man.

Leaning forward, my hand splayed out on his wide shoulder, I let the pen get back to work.

Tendre, I write above his collarbone. His eyes flick down.

Finally, I think. But his attention is short lived. Or at least he's making an effort to get back to watching dragons and vikings do their thing, whatever that thing may currently be. His jaw flexes as he wrestles with a smile. One more shift of my weight, and an unfocused look settles in his eyes, telling me he's not really fussed about the vikings and dragons any more at all, but he'll be damned if he'll let on that fact.

It's a game he likes playing.

And a game I like winning.

So while he keeps his gaze stubbornly set forward, I go and refill my vocabulary.

I arc my back away from him, my hip snapping forward with the movement, and twist until I reach my phone lying on the table. Stretching far as I can, I almost topple backwards once, but he props me up with a gentle hand resting against the base of my spine, only to let his fingers glide back down the moment I'm sat straight again.

"Give me a sec," I mumble while I swipe the phone on and start looking for a matching word to go with the next piece on him. Hello Google translate my old friend. It doesn't take long and I've stocked up on a few, toss the phone back onto the couch, and move on to his left arm.

Veli, I write just below the curve of his shoulder. "Brother."

He hums.

It's got two meanings, that one. Brother to a wonderful woman, one much prettier than him, which I let him know often enough. And brother in arms to those who'll trust him with their lives.

I move to the right next. Put the marker down on his biceps, and paint Fort on that particular piece of well maintained muscle. Perfect a spot as any, no? The t smudges at the end though, leaves an unwanted blotch, so I shuffle closer and lean in to wipe away the ink. For a little while, I linger there. Take a drag of air. Ink. Fabric softener. Soap. And a familiar scent of his skin. Rainy days, a promise of earthy grit and passion.

Nothing can hide it all the way. And hardly a thing is better.

Once the word is cleaned up, I straighten and ride my hip forward slightly. My reward is a slow exhale of air that almost gets stuck halfway up in a throaty sigh. Might be I'll win this yet.

Back to the canvas: the next piece of it squarely in front of me. Mutig , I write gently over his chest, stretch the word diagonally and go out of my way to have it cross his heart— and that a line goes right over a nipple, because why not. For that I get a grunt and a hearty squeeze of my rump.

"Brave?" Chris asks.

"Richtig," I say, and he gives a faint nod. He likes me speaking German, though I've got no clue whatsoever whyever he would.

But anyway. Moving on. With his chest labelled appropriately, because I don't know a man more willing to put himself in harm's way for the good of someone else, I hunch forward and lower the pen to his abdomen.

Amante, I write. The line of dark hair gets in the way though, so I have to space the letters out a little. And apparently the whole deal tickles. His muscles flex under the tip of the pen and he puffs out a quiet chuckle.

"Hold still," I mutter, since now the lines are all wonky and I have to try again. That, and the line of dark hair diving down into his trousers gets in the way. Ama nte the word ends up reading, with the letters a bit bent. And because he's caused me trouble, I duck down and blow air at the ink. A few more twitches later, I lean back, prop my hands up on his knees behind me, and look him up and down.

And he looks back. He's staring, actually, and carries a small, crestfallen frown.

"That's it?"

I blink. "Getting a little cocky, are we?"

Chris shrugs. "You tell me."

"All right. I have one more." Scoot-scoot-scoot, and I'm almost perched on his knees so I can grab the band of his slacks and pull them down. Slightly, mind you. And careful.

"Well," he hums up there somewhere. "You didn't have to go through all the trouble just to get my pants off."

"Shush." Said pants stay on, I decide, but they hitch low enough so I can put the pen down above the line of neatly trimmed pubic hair. He looks after himself. Really, what's not to like?

What's not the like at all?

Mine, I paint, one careful letter after the other, and sign it with a flourish.

When I look up, he's got an odd smile on him. Slow and slightly lopsided. And quite weighty, his eyes heavily lidded. He steals the pen. Swipes it right from my fingers before he pulls me forward, his hands hooked into my knees. One of the hands tracks up along my spine, and settles firm around my neck. Locks me right in place. The corners of his mouth hitch up a little higher, turn the smile to an inviting grin. Playful.

And that's home too.

The comfort of things found rarely anywhere else.

A warm finger drags the collar of my jumper down, rolls it over my shoulder to bare a little more skin. He carefully twists my head back, and the tip of the pen lands a heartbeat later, a light touch on the ridge of my collarbone.

I count the letters— one, two, three, four— and a warm, scratchy kiss down the curve of my neck.

Yeah. Home is pretty damn nice.

[I was told this should have ended in smut. Should I continue it?]

#Chris Redfield #Resident Evil #Domestic Fluff #Cuddle Fic #Self Indulgent Taff Drabbles #WordSoup #Redfieldium #ChrisX?#Sorry #Tafferfield

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thedrowsydoormouse · 5 years ago

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If you could make any household pet enormous what would it be? My dog is already pretty big (he sat on my throat the other day and I almost blacked out).

Favourite mythology/fairy tale etc? I don’t know if this really counts but I really love hearing ghost stories from the Disney parks. I love the contrast between the super clean, family friendly, safe image Disney prides themselves on in the parks versus the darker underbelly of the hauntings showing the not so safe and family friendly side.

If you could design a planet what colours would you choose? Every color of the rainbow, made metallic/sparkly, with a black background so they really pop.

Sentient plants or sentient machines? Machines. I’m basically vegetarian so sentient plants would be a nightmare.

Disney, Pixar or DreamWorks? Disney who also owns Pixar so I guess both of those!

Ice cream or soup? It depends on the weather and what I feel like having because I love both.

If you could live in any TV show/film/book which would you choose? Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist because I would love to know what songs are playing in my head so I can make a playlist.

Futuristic or steampunk? Steampunk. Give me corsets and top hats and all that crazy shit any day!

Space travel or time travel? Time travel because eventually, if you travel far enough into the future, you wind up in space anyway.

Superhero or sidekick? Hero. I hate being told what to do.

Favourite guilty pleasure? I don’t believe in guilty pleasures. If you like something just own up to it and own your truth instead of feeling like it has to be at all shameful.

Best comfort food? I live in Southern California and grew up eating a lot of asian food so my comfort foods have become Chinese takeout, sushi, thai food, and stuff like that.

Least favourite school subject? Biology. My teacher was the worst and it was so boring.

Weird quirks/actions you’ve noticed you do since rp? I don’t rp nearly often enough to have developed any quirks.

Favourite scene from any book/show and why? I have way too many but in the most recent episode of Zoey’s her powers were glitching and she was singing all her inner most thoughts out loud and that entire episode was fucking brilliant!

If you could come back as an undead being which would you choose? Vampire. I’m already basically nocturnal, I’m inhumanly pale, and I can totally get behind the aesthetic.

Rp scene that was the most difficult to film. See previous rp question.

Oddest things you’ve used to make a costume or film stand? When I was in college I had to make a ball gag out of a couple headbands and a dog toy for a student film I worked on. It was a very fun, interesting Halloween.

Favourite type of chocolate? Milk chocolate.

Do you think you’re best known for fluff, angst or crack? I haven’t actually published any of my writing yet but a lot of it is very angst-y.

Favourite hot drink? Tea. I could drink nothing but hot tea all year because there’s so many variations and flavors to suit my moods.

Outfit aesthetic you aspire for? “Is she a witch, a vampire, or a rock star. Or maybe she’s a pirate. I honestly can’t tell but I wish I was her because she is fabulous.”

Sun, moon or stars? Moon AND stars.

If you could master any five languages which would you choose? French, Irish, German, Spanish, and Italian.

Favourite place? It depends. My favorite place here in California is New Orleans Square in Disneyland. But my two favorite places to travel to are New York and New Orleans.

Something that’s bothering you at the moment? I can’t tell if I’m bored or hungry.

Favourite headcanon? Jimmy Palmer (NCIS) is openly bi but completely forgot to come out at work which is why it’s never mentioned or talked about.

Plot of a story/show you wish had been completed? I wish we had actually seen the Tiva reunion in Paris instead of just hearing about it second hand through the notes Senior had Jimmy deliver.

Favourite trope? Sexual tension you could cut with a knife.

Favourite flavour of crisps/chips? Zapp’s Spicy Cajun Crawtators.

Sweet or sour? Both

Spicy or savoury? Both again.

What would be the theme tune to your life? Monster by dodie

Favourite breakfast food? I hate breakfast.

If you could live in any historical era which would you choose? Sometime between the late 60′s (Vietnam Conflict era) and the 80′s when punk and goth were just starting out and counterculture was becoming more of a thing.

Premise of memorable childhood TV shows? I grew up watching a lot of Food Network more than actual kids tv and my favorite show was about how various sack foods are made.

If you could be any shape what shape would you be? I’m already pretty close to an hourglass shape.

If you could switch lives with any character who would it be? Breena Palmer from NCIS. I want a husband who loves me and our kid as much as Jimmy does and it would be kind of awesome to work as a mortician!

If you could switch the limb of one animal with another (e.g a spider leg to a fish tail) what would you choose? I would swap out my dog’s paws with cat paws because his nails hurt like a mother fucker when he steps on me.

If you could create a country what would you name it? Addamsland.

Do you make ny resolutions? Never have, never will.

Season you’re most looking forward to? Fall. I’m ready for Halloween.

Fish scales or reptile scales? Fish. They tend to be more metallic or holographic!

Paper or parchment? Paper because I’m not pretentious.

Paperback or ebook? Paperback.

Warm tones or cool tones? I am painfully cool toned.

Creative subjects or analytical subjects? Subjects that require creative analysis.

Fog or snow? Fog. Give me those horror movie vibes!

Make up a premise for a TV show you’d want to see. Everyday life of a Chosen One post revolution in the style of B99 or Parks and Rec.

Any unpopular headcanons? Sam never actually got his soul back, he just got better at hiding it.

Favourite story genre? Urban fantasy. Give me magic in a big city like modern day New York and show how it seamlessly weaves into everyday life.

Trope that is most overrated in your opinion? Enemies to lovers but only if it’s done wrong like with (this is gunna piss off a lot of people) Reylo. Don’t have a girl fall in love with her abuser. If it’s done right in a way that doesn’t promote domestic abuse then I’m fine with it and sometimes even enjoy it. But it’s done wrong too often for me to ignore.

City lights or candle light? City lights. I want to bathe in neon.

Which element do you think best represents you. Fire. I can be really useful and helpful but I can very easily get out of control and destroy everything.

Opinions on valentine’s? Fucking hate it.

If you could feasibly live on one other planet, which would you choose?

Wood or marble? Wood. Marble, to me, is a little too Kardashian. I’d rather see an ornately carved wooden entrance way than one with giant marble staircases and marble pillars and the walls painted to match the marble.

Are you a spontaneous planner or an in advance planner? I like to have some idea of what I’m getting myself into but I also enjoy being able to go with the flow the day of and seeing where my moods take me.

Did you have any weird beliefs as a kid? The mirror in my bedroom was a portal to a different universe.

Any famous historical figures you think don’t deserve it? 90% of the famous white men. Like fuck Elvis and fuck the Beatles.

If you could be any plant which would you be? Mistletoe because of my red hair and my love of poison!

Any weird facts? Teeth are actually closer to calcified skin than bone.

Did you have a treehouse as a kid? No.

Rabbits or ferrets? Rabbits.

If you could switch lives with someone you know for a day, who would you choose? My dog. He does basically the same shit I do all day but he doesn’t know what’s going on so he never stresses about anything.

Opinions on nicknames? Some are fine. It depends on who gave it to you and their reason behind it.

If you could become instantly skilled in one new skill, what would you choose? Fixing computers.

Ink wells or biros? normal pens.

If you had to switch one: fish in the sky or birds in the sea, which would you switch? Birds in the sea.

Cheesecake or sponge cake? Both.

Weirdest deja vu moment? Last night watching TOWIE and talking with my mom.

Field of wildflowers or a forest? Forest. Weird shit happens in forests.

Nymph or merperson? Nymph.

Funniest story behind an inside joke? My freshman year of high school I was in the fall play and during my costume fitting they had me try on a dress that fit me like a second skin. The problem was they put it on me backwards so I had to rush to get it back on the right way. At the same time, one of the guys in the cast was trying to get into the wardrobe room and was pounding on the door telling us to hurry up which led to my friend, who was helping me with the dress, yelling at me to suck in my boobs (which were shockingly big for my 90 lb., 14 year old self) while twisting the dress around and another friend stopping the guy from opening the door. The whole thing gave off very B99 cold open vibes and it was great! Every time my friend saw me after that she’d yell “suck in your boobs” and we’d both die laughing, much to everyone else’s confusion!

If you could, would you choose to erase any of your memories permanently? I would erase all my memories from 9/11. Hopefully that makes me not as depressed and anxious.

@anangelamuse-castiel-spnfam I don’t know how I finished mine first because that never happens but now it’s your turn!

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trappz · 8 years ago

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[intro, i’m on a megabus as it makes its way down the west coast of england. it set out from glasgow and will land in london. i'm typing this letter to a friend using my phone]

YOU

There is a sign opposite me that says: PLEASE MIND YOUR HEAD. And I don't know what that means

You tuned to the moon? I suspect.

Language in full swoon of trying to Make truth not trysts and uncover in one life what another might have missed.

I FELL through the floor of reality Sunday night. Mind scudding over water in a boat. I got my hair wet but the rest of me stayed dry. Life of a fish. Life of two twins. Life of a goat. Hope you had fun. I'm going to carry two way radios or increase massively my powers of surveillance in order to not lose you as soon as I've found you next dance. Because i madly enjoy making mad enough to animate life with joyful mania. And I suspect you're quite mad glad and can dance it out too. Fuckit the only thing I can herein say IN HERE, IN THE CYBERNETIC BOX which substitutes life with meagre feels for agency, is small prods of preference, hummus nuggets of information. Humming and harring to the rhythm of vision under greasy stamp of digits on cell phone screens. But, listen. If I can only write you mad letters of life then mad letters you shall get. But increasingly i am tired of wee words laying so far adrift of the fullness and ecstatic futility of the everyday, out there where the people cluster like exclamation marks in the streets. And I love DOING. More than ever. Listen. There is a wind bending back grasses and the mixing of two waters out where the creeks of fresh water meet the great surly slap of salt sea. There are horses confusing children, children confusing adults with jammy hands and teeth coloured in with flurescant markers. There are whole tribes of these people. Some find truth by being told. Others lose nothing of experience by robing it with second hand facts, but making self education by slapping their tongues off the paving stones and lampposts of world cities to make their own ditties of comparison to show why one city might taste gritty whilst another bites of SunKissedOranges

"Variations in the Taste and texture of street furniture in many countries."Published by Harper. 4 star reviews. Author photo. Pull quote. £RRP.

Explanations expanding the differences in tastes will hinge on the environmental factors of the Spanish post box or Russian drain cover. The pavement in Sevilla tastes acrid, like orange juice mixed with piss and dust and sweat. The tang of the street drains in soho is slightly more salty than other districts in London, and the book puts this down to the heightened sexual activity in the district, and as you now pass the men in the streets of soho you look at them with this new thought, wondering which of these people may take time to make secrets pockets in their day in which they crouch down and release semen onto the streets of the city - the less wordy fully alive part of you shortens the laugh, gans "here man, who is it who's spaffing on drains?" Read all about it Coming soon Please mind your head

Thoughts of a man considering how he might continue to expand explorations of sensations, movements, rhythm, eloquence, and grace in one fast, vast and fully felt global race of radical improbabilities. If the route to truth can be passed on by licking seams and slabs of the streets, what other treats might we use to unfold life's explanations. Hold up.

Outside is now bright yellow leaves still new to the sun. We just overtook an M&S lorry and it made a hum like nails on chalk or a refrigerator spaceship with you small outside, as it hurtles past, as vast as it is slow. FLOW. END OF PART TWO. STILL GOT RHYTHM GONNA GO ON. DONT STOP CANT STOP THIS SONG. Spring is wrapped over the land with a fresh sheen that has not yet been taken out of its box. The new leaves gleam on stark limbs of the trees, backlit. Trees look like jellyfish when they glow so. And big seaweeds when the sun is gone and in the wind they thrash. And sound like cymbals as the drops of rain crash down and print spring's rejuvenated refrain on all different parts.

Right so, shall we tell you a story? I'll just imagine you say yes at this point, because you are not here but for a glowing iPhone screen and some hills out the window like bags of sugar and which are sat on by an angular factory which breathes out puffs of silver. What makes such silver smoke? Why all the factory's long angled conveyor belts? Well without smell even, and from this distance, it does not take genius skills of observation to see that the silver smoke from the factory chimneys must be fine huffs of fish scales. This you see, is a fish finger factory. And complicit in the conspiracy which keeps you from discovering that wild fish have fingers. The fish they were ashamed. They bought all kinds of products to cover up their dexterity. Huge industry emerged to make them feel "more beautiful" if they hid those bits. And aspiration mixed with ashamedness to create a colossal mess in which no fish could face the anxiety of another animal seeing those unsightly fingers and so when even the tip of the top products for anti finger scale smoothing cream failed to perform as rapidly as was wanted they turned to plastic surgery. This created a surge in surgeries and doctors which soon scaled from small Clinics to big factories. And they realised they could sell the discarded limbs as food to humans and instead of fish having to pay for the surgery for finger removal, the cost of the procedures could be billed to the human consumers and keep their profit making industry in work in perpetuity. This created employment and was thus a social good. And so compulsory finger removal surgery, free of charge, was introduced for all fish at 18 weeks of age. But they have a lot of surface area do fingers, and lots of area equals lots of scales. so hence the silver puffs of smoke from the chimneys of the fish finger factory which is sat on some hills that look like bags of sugar that we just passed. And now a sign saying HIGHWAYS AGENCY framed by mud stomping bovine and in the background a girl with midnight blue eyes is yelling: "weren'tevenanycharactersmate Youcallthatafuckkkin story ?!? Andwheresthebeginningmiddlendthingandwelliwontevenaskaboutchapters" Settle.

anything's a good excuse to keep exploring and expanding and things are going burst every moment like a million billion berries being stamped into fresh juice. I want to do. So if you want to do to just say and then hurrays can unfurl without delay of words words words words words [servant to FOOHAMLET: ] "what do you read my lord?" [FOOHAMLET:] "words words words words words" actions are good. Set me a challenge. I can see the sea silver on the skyline and windmills and I want to go listen to all of it yell and tell nothing back but SWELL YEAH OK KEEP BLOWING THAT ETERNAL UNKNOWING NATURE. end of part three. Words have taken us nearly halfway out our tree. On the motorway passing Wepaintanything.biz. Anything? Let's see you paint paint. And by now we've reached Lancaster uni. Verdant synthetics.

Christ are you keeping up with this?

Is Preston ever a shithole. Even in the sun. Reminds me of too many places I have been trapped in. An English Dundee? I am being prejudice beyond what just this demands and far flung from fairness. Maybe it's lovely. Maybe i only resent having idled at this megabus stop in Preston so many times at every hour of the day. Every time I abandon suspicions and hold up my hands and say I don't know, that's when life rewards me. Sooth out the sinners. Growl with the grinners. Got the front seat of a double decker to myself. Wealth of vision. I am watching a man on the roundabout to Preston high street kick an empty beer can then stamp it. Ghost fist fight cars. He nearly was hit by one. He has now armed himself with a stick. he holds the stick at a stern steady angle towards the cars, demonstrating his readiness. En guard. The bus has moved. Did I really see a commemorative plaque to Britain's first motorway bypass in gold letters with potted geraniums like floppy geriatrics painted in toothpaste ontop? Preston precisely. Treats of individuality trick us against greater treats of shared humanity. Too easy to be a sneak peek sneering at what others take as engine oil. All is all and every spoke gives us hope. You can rarely make a wheel from just one individual. Drink yer own juice. Where are we anyway? I want doesn't exist just do. You, my friend are beautiful. Oh get to fuck the hooks of words just written down. I would rather have them in speech with all meanings entreated beyond each word with the tricks that only speech can leap. Ok. Herd. Heard. Hair'd laird. A long haired boy and a dog, Float down river On a log, 12+ (mild nudity)

Opposite to my right sits a fellow lord of a front seat. He is lord Neptune. With rings on fat fingers and ink wreathed round bald skull, metal curling from his nose forehead ears. And when the bus decelerates to come to a roundabout he mutters into the newly made silence. Maybe he is cursing it away, for his incantations of splutters and grumbles end when the mumbles of the bus pick up again. Later on lord Neptune pulls a can of spray out of a co-op mid-range semi-durable placcy bag and douses his crotch in it. And as the acrid hing of imitation lynx begins to clear you dearly hope he ain't shat himself. And simply stupid questions that can only go: "well how are you" "yeah alright, so: new episode of the grime on tonight." And "oh yes, did you see last week's?" BUT trying is necessary and always admirable.

clumped clouds above are huge pieces of clotted water held above gravity, mixing with light. They're white and bulge, and with the right kind of eyes you can watch those huge slabs of water move, grooving smooth movements no different to the way that ripples move over the surface of the sea, but in scale massive and at a speed reduced. So you throw time as a constant out of the window and let your body relax and your eyes fast forward the progression so that the clouds up above you look just like the waves coming in, seen from below, you're on the sea floor, and up above is just the texture of the water from below as it slaps and spills, and behind it, above it somewhere, some great light that we get just thin hints of shines through. And the trees like seaweed weave and some smaller clouds like fishes swim and despite the motorway this is an octopuses garden. Inexplicably lord Neptune now wears reading spectacles to look at a smart phone and is polishing off a selection of ringed and foil wrapped biscuits. Bus stumbles. He grumbles. passengers revise their hopes with the demise of momentum and the white noise of rain steps in and all the sky is grey downward skyscrapers of wet. Bus starts up. Rain white noise louder. Cuts out in a deafening sudden silence for a half second under every bridge. Landscape now drumkit for the blind. Trees each leafy cymbals. And what symbols does the breath of restless spring foliage frolicking against one another in thrashing wind branches entrance on the entrances to your understanding. What things make us feel how we do. Do things impose feelings or do feelings come up from a deeper place always constant and true ETC. Between breaths are only laughs. You are lightning conductor for everyone's emotions. Sit lap laugh under tree. Be smooth enough to appease them growling. Quick enough that they can't jump over you. See it through. Life's only getting weirder. And I am keen for it. END OF PART FOUR. CONFUSION. WHERE ARE WE. WHAT HAVE WE GLEANED? IS THE HARVEST IN BEFORE THE RAIN. DO WE BELIEVE IN REFRAINS OR IN THE COLOUR BLUE. ARE ALL WORDS STICKY. OR STUCK TO NOTHINK. Please your mind head.

-- Episode 95. Sunset trees of yellow leaves double saturation in setting sun. Eye playing Heart seeing If life is folly, fool. Triple fuck assumptions. Fellow lord of the front seat, his highness Neptune has cranked the tunes from that smart phone of his. Reading glasses not necessary. And now sunset is jaunty regaee fleeing down smooth hills without delay. Life is bright green and bright blue and all grooving. Stoke on Trent is near. What does that mean? Nothing. Moon is up. Days when etc sounds like egg stretcher. DOME why do anything which isn't true?But so many do Limited to thin repeatables that popular stores provide. HERE be what romance, bereavement, the best birthday party ever must look exactly like. Disguise yourself within their restrictions. Buy your life experiences now. Naw. Live outside their lies and lines. Write your own recipe. Instinct GO. Fridge magnets that motivate fish to get fingerless. Boys in highschools with tales of Friday night's fishy fingers Fingals cave and finegann's wake and the sound steak makes when it hits the pavements. I'd like to know what you think about humans. And what specimens you see. And how electricity can run through people when they notice they've noticed one another and adrenaline hoists attention up. Can humans smell emotion or. And a hundred and three things you would never do. And a mini essay (800 words max) on what it means to be true and the ways in which the language of medicine falls between scientific and religious idiom and your thoughts on how such language prejudices affect practice. Top three carnies in Blackpool. Five best trees ever climbed. Time you won against all odds. Last time you really hurt your body. If you have ever crashed a car. If you have a favourite star. If you believe in star signs and if so why. What was the last thing that made you cry. What would the funniest name for a lorry driver be. Do you prefer wasps or nettles stinging knees. Thoughts on limits of athleticism within three legged races and their conspicuous absence from the Olympic program. The first record you bought, the last time you swam and thought you'd sink. Records for dancing (medals, high scores), favourite parks for prancing. A tune. Any tune. similarities between house numbers you've lived at. Last time you fell through a floor. What is valuable but being true. How many flaps. best painted easter egg. Digestions from a megabus. Claps from a running brain. I'm just not sure what to think really. All residents parking round here. Yes they're very strict. Oh I know. What are they like. Yes, but I hope you don't get a ticket. I think it's Wednesdays they're usually around, yes, short fellow with a hat.

All I meant to say is: Hey. How r u?

#readings

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