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justforbooks · 4 years ago

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The Lisa Computer System – Apple designs a new kind of machine

Gregg Williams Senior Editor

I had an interesting conversation with an engineer on a recent flight from San Francisco to New York. He knew only a little about microcomputers, but he was aware that their presence is slowly becoming more common in the workplace. “Sure, the industry is healthy, but it’s still only reaching a few people,” he said. “Most people won’t use computers they’re afraid of them, they don’t know what to use them for, or it’s too much trouble to use them. Before computers become really profitable, they’re going to have to be very easy to use. They have to be simpler. They’ve got to be useful in the office.”

He continued, “We’ve got to stop using paper which means the computer has to do word processing, filing, electronic mail, everything or it’ll be too much trouble having some things on the computer and others on paper. Then you’ve got to be able to talk to other computers other computers like yours and some big corporate computer that’s halfway across the country. Sure, it’s a lot of stuff, but when you get all that together, then you’ll see computers really take off.” What could I say? Not very much, for two reasons. First, he was absolutely right we need all that and more before computers become as commonplace as color TVs and electric typewriters. Second, I had agreed not to talk about a computer I had just seen that meets many of his points: Apple Computer’s highly secret Lisa computer (see photo 1).

The Lisa at Work

Before we take a detailed look at what the Lisa is and how it came about, let’s look at an example of what it can do. Suppose I’m writing a report for my boss and I want to prepare a chart to illustrate a certain point. With a few movements of the mouse (more on this pointing device later), I “tear off” a sheet of Lisa Graph “paper” (thus activating a program called Lisa Calc and displaying an empty grid on the screen) and give it the heading “Annual Sales.” I then type my numbers into the grid, name the graph and the x and y axes, and request a bar graph.

Voila: I get the bar graph (superimposed on top of the data) shown in photo 2a. At this point, I can simply print the graph or save it for inclusion with my report, but I’m not satisfied with the way it looks. I then use the mouse to “cut” the graph from the Lisa Graph paper and put it in a temporary storage place called the clipboard. I can then “throw away” the Lisa Graph “paper” I was using.

My next step is to “tear off” a sheet of Lisa Calc “paper” and paste my “Annual Sales” bar chart from the clipboard onto it. Photo 2b shows the result.

I want to make the bars darker, so I use the mouse to move the cursor (the arrow pointing diagonally up in photo 2b) onto the rectangle and tell the computer that I want to work on that bar by clicking the button on top of the mouse twice. (I could almost as easily have selected all four bars, but I’ll just do one here.) As a result, the bar is selected, as shown in photo 2c. (In the Lisa system, you first select what you want to work on, then you select the action you want performed.) The small black squares that appear on the edge of the object are called handles; not only do they show which object has been selected, they also serve as “handles” by which the cursor can move or alter a shape.

Now that the bar is selected, I move the cursor to one of the menu titles at the top of the screen (also shown in photo 2c). I see the menu of possible actions by pointing the cursor at the menu title and holding down the mouse button (photo 2d). Here, the menu is a grid of 36 varieties of shading that can be used to fill the selected area. When I move the cursor to the desired shade box and let up on the mouse button, the pop-up menu, as it is called, disappears and the shading fills the box (photo 2e).

It is equally simple to change the size, type style, and position of the title “Gross Sales.” By holding down the mouse button when the cursor points just to the left of the first letter and letting it up when the cursor points just past the last letter, I can select an area of text that the Lisa then puts in reverse video (photo 2f). When I select an option from the ‘Type Style” menu (photo 2g), the text is redisplayed in its new size and style (photo 2h). I then modify the title to an italic font in a similar way (photo 2i). Finally, I pick up the title with the cursor, “drag” it to a new location, and leave it there (photo 2j). Many other alterations are possible. When I’m satisfied with the graph, I can print it, save it, or do both.

This example conveys only a fraction of the speed and the ease of use associated with the Lisa computer and the programs that go with it. Now that we’ve seen the system at work, let’s take a look at what makes it so different.

Foundations of the Lisa Design

The design effort that resulted in the Lisa computer is remarkably innovative because the designers did what designers should do define the product’s prospective customers, determine their needs, and then design a product to meet those needs. Apple was also willing to give its designers enough time and money (with no marketing restrictions attached) to first design and then create a computer that redefines the expression “state of the art.” Granted, the Lisa’s designers drew heavily on previous work done at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center), but they refined several borrowed elements and combined them with numerous innovations. (For further information on the design process, see “An Interview with Wayne Rosing, Bruce Daniels, and Larry Tesler” on page 90.) Apple started this project with the intention of creating not only a product but the foundation for a whole new computer technology, one that would create computers literally anybody can use. The company’s first task was to devise a new user interface that is, a new and better way for humans to interact with the computer. The result was an internal (to Apple Computer Inc.) “User Interface Standards” document that describes how a user interacts with the Lisa system.

Although the Lisa design has several important elements, four stand out: the machine’s graphics-mouse orientation, the “desktop” and “data-as-concrete-object” metaphors, and the integrated design of the hardware and software. Let’s look at each of these in turn.

The graphics-mouse orientation: The traditional text display and keyboard input device make for a computer that is let’s face it not too easy to use. Apple decided that the graphics resolution of the machine had to be high enough to use pictures (often called icons by Apple) in place of text. (For example, see the icons on the right-hand side of photo 2a.) Pictures are more easily recognized and understood than text. Because of this, you can probably figure out that the garbage-can icon in photo 2a is used to throw something away.

Apple also knew that it needed a new, easier-to-use input device to move the frequently used arrow-shaped cursor. The designers passed over such devices as light pens and touch-sensitive video panels in favor of the mouse, a pointing device used in several Xerox PARC machines. The mouse, which is about the size of a pack of cigarettes, has a small bearing on the bottom and one or more buttons on the top (see photo 3). When you hold it in your hand and slide it across a flat surface, the mouse sends signals to the computer, which guide the video cursor in the direction that you’ve moved the mouse. The mouse Apple designed has only one button; Apple broke with the conventional wisdom of two- and three-button mice after user tests indicated that people aren’t always sure which button to push on a multiple-button mouse.

With graphics of sufficient quality and a mouse, the Lisa lets you get what you want by pointing at it. Because the video cursor moves in direct response to the way the hand moves the mouse, you feel as if you’re actually pointing at something on the screen. This has the positive psychological effect of making you feel in control.

The “desktop” metaphor: When you turn on the Lisa system, the screen is empty except for the presence of several icons. The Lisa computer depends on the metaphor that the video display is a desktop, while the icons are objects on the desktop. Each peripheral connected to the Lisa (floppy and hard disks, printers, and other peripherals connected by interface cards) is represented on the desktop by either an icon (if it is not in use) or a rectangular area called a window (if it is available for use). The Lisa computer normally replaces the conventional file directory with a collection of objects displayed in the window of the associated mass-storage device. Each file is represented by an object of some sort usually a report, a tool, or a document and objects can be grouped together in folders, which are also treated as objects. (Actually, the computer can give you a conventional directory on request, but only traditional computer users will ask for this option.) An example of the Lisa file system will illustrate how useful this metaphor is. From a cleaned-up desktop with nothing but icons on the right of the screen, I use the mouse to point to the Profile (hard disk) icon and click the mouse button twice; this has the effect of “opening” the Profile and displaying its contents. The Profile icon changes to a white silhouette and its original black-on-white shape expands to a window named “Profile.” ( Photo 4a was taken after three items shown as black icons had been selected for manipulation. When the Profile icon is first opened, all of the icons inside it are white that is, unselected.) To view and then work with the contents of the Tools folder, I put the cursor on the folder and click the mouse button twice. The icon expands, leaving a gray silhouette and a window named “Tools,” as shown in photo 4b. The window is just that a window into whatever the Tools folder contains. The symbols on the margin of each window are points from which the cursor can direct several operations on the window. For example, when the cursor points to the small folder icon in the upper left-hand corner of the Tools window and the mouse button is clicked twice, the folder “closes” and the video display reverts to the image it had before the folder was opened.

If the Tools folder contains more than the window can show, you can do one of two things to see the additional contents. First, you can scroll the window either horizontally or vertically. Second, you can put the cursor on the expand/contract icon (in the lower right-hand corner of the window), hold down the mouse button, and move the cursor. An outline of the window follows the cursor (photo 4c); when the mouse button is released, the window grows to its new size (photo 4d).

Once you’ve been shown the mechanics of manipulating objects and windows, you have a working knowledge of several essential operations of the Lisa file system (called the “Desktop Manager”). The desktop metaphor does two things for you. It helps you to remember certain operations because they make sense in the context of the object-related icons. Second, it draws on your general knowledge of office supplies and how they are used. These elements help Apple achieve its objective of creating a system that people can learn to use some aspect of in under 30 minutes.

The “data-as-concrete-object” metaphor: More than anything else, this metaphor is the foundation of the Lisa computer design and its probable success. As you can see from the example above, the Lisa file system makes you feel as if you are actually moving and changing objects, not merely manipulating abstract data. The Lisa Graph/Lisa Draw example shown in photos 2a through 2j creates the same illusion, as do all the other Lisa application programs.

The “data-as-concrete-object” metaphor depends on a condition most computer programs don’t fulfill: that intuitively reasonable operations can be performed on objects at any time. Most computer programs have modes that restrict your activities at any given time; for example, many word-processing programs don’t let you do numeric calculations and then incorporate them into the document you’re writing. With the Lisa application programs, however, you can switch your attention from a sheet of Lisa Write “paper” to a sheet of Lisa Calc “paper” and back with no problem, just as you could if they were two sheets of paper on your desk.

Because you deal with recognizable objects such as folders and reports, you feel secure in the knowledge that your data will not disappear. “After all,” it seems to be telling you, “computer files can mysteriously disappear, but folders, reports, and tools do not. If a file disappears, there’s a logical explanation â€” either you threw it away or you filed it elsewhere. In either case, the situation is still under your control.” In other words, the “data-as-concrete-object” metaphor demystifies the computer by transforming data into physical objects that behave in a predictable and reasonable way.

Integrated design: Not only is the Lisa computer the result of an integrated design, it is also the result of an iterated one. The Lisa hardware and software were designed only after Apple had identified the needs of its target users. Once a given version of the system was implemented, it was tested by the kind of people who would eventually be using it. The test findings dictated hardware and software changes, and Apple went through the design/test/revise cycle several times until everybody was satisfied with the result. This ensures that the Lisa does not fall prey to a problem common to microcomputers: being technologically sophisticated, but still hard or inconvenient to use.

During the iterations of the design process, the Apple design team looked for opportunities to have separate Lisa programs do their tasks in the same way. It then incorporated these common operating procedures into the Apple user-interface standard and tried to apply them to other Lisa programs. The result is a large amount of common behavior and structure among all the Lisa programs. For example, you enlarge or move a window the same way whether it is a Lisa Calc window or a Lisa Draw window. You also open, close, copy, and rename objects the same way throughout the system.

According to Apple, this attempt at standardization has two advantages. First, it shortens the time an average person takes to become comfortable with a system from a range of 20 to 40 hours (Apple’s estimate, based on tests it conducted) to several hours. Second, it lets you apply what you learn in one program to all other programs.

This commonality among Lisa programs is largely ‘ responsible for the ease with which beginners learn how to do something useful on the Lisa computer; it usually takes less than half an hour, even for people who have never sat in front of a computer before.

The Lisa Application Programs

The Lisa system will be offered with six application programs. Both new packages and improved versions of the first six programs will be offered at a later date, and in time third-party software developers working with cooperation from Apple will create additional programs. At this writing, no price had been set for the programs, but Apple expects them to cost between $300 and $500 each, a justifiable price for programs of this caliber.

I don’t have room here to describe all the features of each program. Instead, I will comment briefly on each one and say that, in general, all of them have more options and features than most people will use. (See photos in which popup menus are visible for an idea of some of the commands available.) One in particular deserves mention: the “Undo Last Change” command, which is available in every program. This wonderful command lets you undo the effects of the last one you issued. It’s a tremendous security blanket that enables you to experiment and work without worrying about making an irrevocable mistake.

Here are the six application programs (a telecommunications program, Lisa Terminal, is covered in the section on “Communications and Databases.”): Lisa Draw is easily the showpiece of the Lisa system. The example in photos 2b through 2j shows only a small part of what it can do. See photos 2d, 2g, and 5a through 5d for some of the pop-up menus. Lisa Draw enables you to draw lines, boxes, circles and * ellipses, arcs, and polygons all with the mouse. You can add text at any place in any of 11 typeface/size combinations. In addition, you can modify any typeface with any combination of underline, bold, italic, hollow, and shadow styles for a combination of 11 X 25 or 352 distinct kinds of type. Lisa Draw has grids and rulers that can be displayed to help make drawings neat. Shapes can be selected and centered by a given horizontal or vertical edge. You also put Lisa Draw in an “auto-grid” mode that causes lines and shapes to align themselves with the grid you have chosen. Drawings can cover as many as 25 pages; Lisa Draw prints them out a page at a time and you join the edges together to make a larger drawing a convenient feature if your drawing can’t fit on one page. This program is a joy to use.

Lisa Write is the best “what-you-see-is-what-you-get” word processor I’ve seen. Between the keyboard and the mouse, you can add, change, delete, and move text, change its appearance, reformat it, and do just about anything you’d want to in a word processor. Of course, you can see each page exactly as it will appear on paper (see photo 6). My only criticism of the program is that the version I saw paused a second or so between when I typed a phrase and when it appeared on the screen. The delay is due to the large amount of processing the machine has to do before it can display the new text (and perhaps scroll other text down), but the designers are aware of the problem and are working on minimizing the time delay in the final version.

Lisa Project is used to keep track of projects and personnel, and it does so using PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique), Gantt, and task charts. Using the mouse and the keyboard, you can add, delete, move, change, and label activity boxes. Each box contains the activity name and its personnel and time requirements. The Lisa Project program displays the PERT chart (see photo 7a), drawing a heavy outline around the activity boxes on the critical path (a path of activities for which delays will lengthen the duration of the project). The program can also optionally use such information as worker vacation times and the length of the work week to influence the final chart. You can also have the program show the early-start, early-finish, late-start, and late-finish dates associated with the PERT method. The Gantt chart (photo 7b) shows resource utilization over time, including unutilized resources (shown in gray). The task chart (not shown) displays tasks by their early-start date.

Like the rest of the Lisa system, Lisa Project gives you incredibly clear error messages. For example, when you try to take the “end” circle off the screen, you get the error shown in photo 7c, which must be answered before you can continue.

Lisa Calc is as sophisticated a spreadsheet program as any other on the market. In this instance, I don’t think the mouse improves on cursor keys because one hand has to alternate between the mouse (to move the spreadsheet cursor) and the keyboard (to enter data into the spreadsheet cells). In any case, most people who want a Lisa computer are interested in the kind of structured numeric recalculation that spreadsheets are good at, and Lisa Calc certainly fills this need. Of course, data can be traded between Lisa Calc and other Lisa programs without restriction, which means, for example, that you can “paste” a section of spreadsheet data into a document being prepared by Lisa Write. Photos 8a and 8b show the process of displaying the formula of each cell along with its value.

Lisa List, a single-user database that permits records of up to 100 fields totaling 1000 bytes, probably illustrates best the “data-as-concrete-object” metaphor. When you add, change, or search for records, you work directly on the list visible in the window, not on an auxiliary display (like a data-entry screen) that limits you to working on the current record only. Record fields are defined as being one of eight data types (text, number, date, money, time, social-security number, phone number, or zip code), and Lisa List does automatic type-checking during data entry. Photo 9 shows an example of a Lisa List window. One slight problem is that the social-security number, phone number, and zip code fields have fixed formats for example, zip codes are limited to five digits. You must revert to the general-purpose text format if you want to be able to convert to 9-digit zip codes or use foreign telephone numbers.

Lisa List has many attractive features. Of course, you can display or print parts of the list in many ways; you can sort the list in several ways or select records according to given criteria. You can move the cursor with either the mouse or the arrow keys. The contents of fields are stored internally in a compact form to increase the overall storage capacity of the program. In addition, Lisa List has two very useful features that every database should have: the ability to add fields to or change field widths in an existing file and the ability to put any amount of information in a field regardless of its stated width (field width influences only how much data is visible).

Lisa Graph is an application program that creates a bridge between the number-oriented Lisa Calc and the picture-oriented Lisa Draw. Lisa Graph takes a matrix of numbers (entered either by the user from Lisa Graph or transferred from another source) and creates virtually instantly a bar, line, mixed bar and line, scatter (x-y plot), or pie chart. Photo 2a shows a typical Lisa Graph window, and the sequence of photos 2a through 2j shows how Lisa Draw can customize a drawing from Lisa Graph.

Reliability

Computers are worthless if nobody uses them, and the i Lisa system has made great strides toward eliminating that possibility. Certainly, it has been designed to be easy to use. But the Lisa system will probably be used by computer novices because of its reliability, both in the physical and psychological sense.

Physical reliability is the kind that makes an engineer feel secure. Apple IIs, for instance, have a reputation for being very reliable, and I’m sure that the Lisa computer was engineered with even more care. (For example, the Lisa is constructed as a series of modules, any one of which you can pull out without tools. And despite its internal complexity, it was engineered to dissipate excess heat without a cooling fan that’s engineering!) I can’t say how reliable the Lisa is overall because I don’t have enough direct experience with it. But I do know that Apple has concentrated on improving the reliability of the source of a great many problems: the floppy disk. Despite the features of the Lisa disk drive that put it at the leading edge of disk technology (see the text box “The Lisa Hardware” for more details), Apple claims that the hardware (assisted by its sophisticated disk-accessing software) has an error rate so low that Apple couldn’t quantify it during tests. Apple said, however, that the hardware makes less than one error in one trillion (1012) operations.

Apple has also adopted a redundant data structure for information on the disk that lessens (or sometimes eliminates) the effect of losing a sector of information. This redundancy is on three levels blocks, files, and The Lisa Hardware.

Reporting on the technical specifications of a computer toward the end of an article is unusual for BYTE, but it emphasizes that the why of Lisa is more important than the what. For part of the market, at least, the Lisa computer will change the emphasis of microcomputing from “How much RAM does it have?” to “What can it do for me?” For example, it is almost misleading to say that the Lisa comes with one megabyte of RAM, even though the fact itself is true. That doesn’t mean that the Lisa is sixteen times better than machines that have 64K bytes of RAM. Nor does it necessarily mean that the Lisa can work on much larger data files than other computers; its application programs each take 200K to 300K bytes, which significantly reduces the memory available for data. It’s more instructive to say, for example, that the Lisa with one megabyte can hold a 100-row by 50-column spreadsheet (as its advertisements state). With this in mind, let’s take a look at the Lisa.

“Lisa” stands for Local Integrated Software Architecture, but it’s really just an excuse to retain Apple’s pet name for the project. The Lisa has a 68000 microprocessor, which is a true 16-bit microcomputer that has a 16-bit data bus, a 24-bit address bus (giving access to 16 megabytes of memory), and 32-bit-wide registers (all but the 16-bit status register). The 68000 in the Lisa runs at a frequency of 5 MHz. It can have up to 1 megabyte of memory with parity and comes standard with one megabyte (1024K bytes).

The video display is a 12-inch monochrome monitor (black and white, not tinted) with a resolution of 720 by 364 pixels. The interlaced image is refreshed at 60 Hz, which eliminates the possibility of eyestrain from subliminal flickering. The video display is completely generated by internal software, so the Lisa can use multiple character sizes and fonts without restriction. It also means that Apple is not restricted to any one style of video image; the designers can radically change the behavior of the system with a new release of software.

The Apple 871 disk drives design (called “twiggy drives” inside the company) are significantly different from conventional floppy-disk drives. Each one uses a 6504 microprocessor as a “smart” interface between it and the Lisa. The drives use special high-density, double-sided floppy disks that have two oval cutouts in the jacket (see photo below). These are essential because the two disk heads, in addition to being on opposite sides of the flat magnetic media, are not pointed at each other with the magnetic media between them, as is the case in all other double-sided floppy-disk drives. Instead, a pad presses the rotating magnetic media to the disk head on the opposite side of the media as is conventionally done with single-headed floppy disks.

Each formatted disk holds 860K bytes of information at a density of 62.5 tracks per inch; together the two drives (standard on the Lisa) hold 1.72 megabytes of data. Each drive also contains a mechanism that releases the disk for removal under program control, which prevents the user from removing a floppy disk prematurely. As with other Apple products, the floppy disks rotate only when the drives are reading or writing data, thus extending the lives of both the drives and the medium.

Apple has done several things to achieve its unusually high data density. The designers used an encoding scheme that keeps a constant data density of 10,000 bits per linear inch; this allows the outer floppy-disk tracks, which have a larger circumference, to store more data than the tracks nearest the center of the disk. In addition, the disk-access system software can move the disk heads in fractions of a track width to search for and find the middle of the track. That’s an important feature when you’re reading disks with small variations in track width.

In addition, the Lisa comes with one Profile (Apple’s 5-1/4-inch Winchester-type hard disk) to the Lisa through its parallel port. It adds 5 megabytes of magnetic storage to the Lisa system, and speeds up the overall operation of the system. Additional Profiles can be added via interface cards.

The Lisa computer is never really turned off. It stores “system preferences” (things like speaker volume and video contrast) and system-configuration information inside the computer. Even when it is turned “off,” it draws enough power to keep the clock/calendar and CMOS memory containing the above information working. When it’s unplugged (for example, when it’s being moved to another location), internal batteries preserve the clock/calendar status and CMOS memory for up to 20 hours.

The Lisa includes two programmable serial ports and one parallel port as well as three expansion-board slots, each of which connects directly to the system bus and has direct memory access (DMA) capabilities. Because none of these slots is filled in any “basic” configuration of the Lisa, they are available for future expansion (unlike the IBM Personal Computer’s five slots, most or all of which are used for much-needed video-display and memory cards). Other features include a built-in speaker and a real-time clock (which can be programmed to execute tasks or turn the computer itself on or off at a given time), a microprocessor-controlled detachable Selectric-style keyboard, and a mouse.

I must thank Apple for including something I’ve wanted to see for a long time: unique serial numbers encoded into memory. The Lisa has two of these: an actual serial number disks and a given level in error is correctable by data in the next lower level. On the block level, each 512-byte block of data has a 24-byte area of hint bytes. These identify the file to which the block belongs and its block number within the file. On the file level, each file contains a header that duplicates information in the disk catalog. On the disk level, each floppy disk keeps a file of information about the status of each file on the disk. The Lisa system software automatically tries to reconstruct information that is lost, so it recovers from errors that would halt other computers.

Psychological reliability is the kind that makes an office worker secure. The Lisa floppy-disk drive is unique in this respect. On the Lisa computer, you can’t yank your floppy disk out any time you want to (if you could, you might, for example, remove the disk before files on it are updated). Instead, you press the Disk Request button beside the disk-drive slot. The software in the Lisa computer checks your work space, closes any files belonging to that disk (thus updating the file), then ejects the floppy disk so you can remove it.

A similar thing happens when you turn the Lisa “off” (actually, it’s never completely off; it just goes into a low-power mode). In any case, when you hit Off button, system software automatically closes all open files, thus transferring the information in them to their respective floppy disks, and releases the disks from the Lisa disk drives. In addition, the software records the status of the “desktop” so that, when the computer is reactivated, Lisa automatically returns it to the appearance and state it was in when the Lisa was turned “off.” Although those who have worked with computers before will find these features hard to get used to, most newcomers will be reassured by them.

The design of the Lisa application programs (which are the only things most Lisa users will see) is another example of psychological reliability. Many people have vague fears of computer programs because they think they’ll do something wrong and cause a catastrophe that will make them look foolish. This won’t happen with the Lisa system for two reasons. First, the Lisa software is designed to be very understandable. The metaphors make people comfortable with the manipulation of data, error messages are both clear and complete and tell you what alternatives you have, and, in general, the programs let you know where you stand and the consequences of a given action. Second, the Lisa computer has the “Undo Last Change” command mentioned earlier. With this command, even the most uncertain users will not hesitate to act in a way they think is appropriate. The way Lisa programs work, the user probably is right, and if he isn’t, he knows he can undo whatever happens. People who won’t trust most computer programs will trust Lisa programs.

Communications and Databases

As the engineer I talked to pointed out, no computer is going to be the most important piece of equipment in an office unless it can easily interact with other computers. This need has been integrated into the design of the Lisa system in several ways.

First, a communications program called Lisa Terminal allows the Lisa computer to emulate several popular terminals (Digital Equipment Corporation’s VT52 and VT100 terminals and Teletype Corporation’s ASR-33). The Lisa Terminal program includes all the options that a given terminal allows, even down to simulated status lights. A future Apple terminal program will enable the Lisa to emulate the IBM 3270 family of terminals.

Second, Lisa computers can be connected together via a new local network called Apple Net, which Apple hopes to promote as an industry standard because it feels that other networks have major cost or performance problems. According to Apple, Apple Net meets four criteria that it thinks are important: it can be easily installed by the user, it is highly reliable, it is easily extendable to include more nodes or to interface with other networks (like Ethernet and other Apple Net networks), and it has a low per-node (under $500) cost. A-Net has a bandwidth of 1 megabit per second, can have up to 128 nodes, uses a shielded two-conductor wire for interconnecting nodes, and can have a maximum node-to-node distance of 2200 feet. Apple Net uses the same method as Ethernet to avoid message collisions (CSMA/CD carrier-sense, multiple access with collision detection) and is compatible with the Ethernet on the top five of the seven levels of communication protocol. For those who want it, though, Apple will also make Ethernet interfaces available at a cost of about $1500 per node.

Third, Apple has distant plans to make it possible for Lisa computers to talk to non-Lisa computers and to shared or remote databases. Although the people at Apple did not discuss specific products, they told me enough to assure me that they are planning extensions in this direction that will make it even more useful.

When these items are available for the Lisa, Apple will have overcome a very big problem: really integrating the computer into the full office environment. That usually includes both local and remote computers. Whatever the needs of a given office, the above products ensure that the Lisa computer will be as useful as any other “office automation” product available from other companies.

Service

The people I talked to at Apple made it clear that, with regard to Lisa, they were going to offer better service options than any other computer company, including IBM, DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation), and Wang. A diagnostic program called Lisa Test (supplied with the Lisa) enable it to isolate the computer failure to a single board or component; in the case of severe problems (when the disk drives aren’t working, for example), a built-in test program that runs whenever the Lisa is turned on will diagnose and report on the problem. As I mentioned before, the Lisa is designed so that you can take it apart without tools (a detailed manual explains how).

Apple offers several service options. If you have on-site service (available through a joint agreement with RCA), you simply call Apple and let a service person fix the problem. For large-quantity customers, Apple can provide training to teach employees how to do in-house repairs. For individuals, Apple Care Carry-In Service is available.

In addition, Apple is planning what it calls Direct Phone Support. For a yearly fee, the user will have access to a toll-free number that is answered by a highly trained support person. Apple has high standards for this service, and I’m sure that, once the service has started and is running smoothly, Apple will deliver what it promises. The company expects its representatives to answer 90 percent of the calls received; people whose problems cannot be answered immediately will be called back when the answer is found. If equipment needs to be repaired, the Direct Phone Support person will call the appropriate repair people and dispatch working modules, so that one call will usually solve the problem. Different support-option plans available will range from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekday service to 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week call-in support. Apple also plans to provide software revisions and support through this option, although details had not been decided on at this writing.

Documentation and Training

I have seen only drafts of miscellaneous pieces of Lisa documentation, but they indicate that the final documentation will be superb. Apple plans to provide the Lisa Guide, an interactive teaching program about the Lisa system, and reference books for each application package; each reference book will begin with a short tutorial section that will get users doing useful tasks in under half an hour. Other documentation may be included, but the information was not available at the time we went to press.

Even though the Lisa is meant to be a very easy product to use, Apple will provide training to make sure that people learn how to use it. As one Apple spokesperson put it, “Training is part of the Lisa product.” Apple will offer extensive training to all Apple dealers and to selected groups from companies that make large-volume Lisa purchases. Apple will also make training kits available to multiple-unit purchasers to help them train their employees. Individual Apple dealers may offer additional special training.

Future Plans

In the microcomputer industry, products are generally announced early (sometimes before they are designed) and released in preliminary versions before all the features have been integrated into them. Apple is to be commended for resisting this practice. In fact, the company seems to have released a more complete first version of the Lisa than most companies do with their products; the first Lisa sold will be a fine machine.

However, the ambitious and talented people who designed and implemented the Lisa computer have already envisioned and planned for quite a bit more than they can implement by release date. I’m sure they have some ideas they don’t want to publicize (and rightly so), but here are some things they were willing to talk about: By 1984, Apple plans to replace its 512K-byte memory card (two of which can be fitted into the Lisa computer) with 1-megabyte cards, thus increasing the memory capacity from 1 to 2 megabytes.

As soon as possible, Apple plans to introduce versions of BASIC, Pascal, and COBOL for the Lisa. The BASIC will be compatible with Digital Equipment Corporation’s BASIC Plus (unlike IBM Personal Computer BASIC, it will be able to use the extra memory above the first 64K bytes). The first releases of these languages will be “plain vanilla” versions that don’t interact with the computer’s special features (e.g., mouse control of the cursor, windows, the “desktop” metaphor), but later versions will probably integrate these languages into the Lisa system. Another language that will be available for the Lisa computer is Smalltalk. I was pleased to see Smalltalk working on a Lisa computer a year and a half has passed since our special Smalltalk issue in August 1981, and no commercially available computer to date has used it. Smalltalk on the Lisa computer will change that. It is a very “possessive” language that directly controls the machine it is implemented on, so it will probably never be integrated into the Lisa environment but then, it doesn’t need to be.

Smalltalk is just one example of a language/operating system that can occupy the Lisa machine. The Lisa will also support Digital Research’s CP/M family of operating systems and Microsoft’s Xenix (a licensed version of Unix that includes business-related extensions). Outside developers will be encouraged to carry operating systems acrossâ€”one such possibility is Softech Microsystems’ UCSD p-system.

Apple will be making enhancements to the existing Lisa application programs. On first release, the only limitation in sharing data among Lisa application programs is that you won’t be able to “paste” graphic images into a Lisa Word text document (you can, however, add text to a Lisa Draw drawing). Bruce Daniels, one of the Lisa designers, told me that the design allows for adding graphics to a text document but that they simply can’t implement the feature in time for the first software release. It will be added by the next release.

Apple is very conscious of the fact that the success of the Lisa will be heavily influenced by the availability of good third-party software. To encourage such software, the company will make available a “programmer’s toolkit” package of software and documentation sometime this year. This toolkit will give third-party programmers all the information they need to build on the considerable utility software (window-control, disk-accessing, intelligent graphic-redrawng, and memory-management routines, for example) already available in the Lisa operating system. (The operating system itself is about half a megabyte of code, though only 200K to 300K bytes of it are resident in memory at the same time.) In addition, the toolkit will list the user-interface conventions that were used to create the existing six application pack-ages and will strongly suggest that third-party software will be better received (by both Apple and the consumer) if it follows these conventions. The Apple-generated application programs are so wonderful that most programmers will consider it an achievement to create similar software.

Caveats

I wrote this article after working with a Lisa computer for several hours and studying various Lisa documents. The application packages were completely functional, but I was told changes were still being made to them. The released versions of software may be faster because debugging aids were probably slowing down the version I saw.

Performance

The Apple Lisa was faster than I remembered a similar machine being (an experimental Xerox machine running Smalltalk) and faster than I expected it to be. Granted, a 68000 microprocessor is in the computer, but it was being asked to do a lot including the manipulation of 32K bytes of video-display memory. Objectively, I must report some delays (30 seconds, maybe) when loading in files, but these were shorter than what I usually encounter using CP/M-based business programs. In any case, I didn’t notice any delays while actually using a given program, which is where you spend most of your time, anyway. I expect that the Lisa computer you’ll see in Apple showrooms will be slightly faster than the one I saw.

Conclusions

As you can tell, I am very impressed with the Lisa. I also admire Apple for deciding to make the system with-out being unduly influenced by cost or marketing constraints. The Lisa couldn’t have been developed without such a deep commitment, and no other company I can think of could afford such a project or would be interested in doing it this way (the Lisa project reportedly cost over $50 million and used more than 200 person-years of effort!). In terms of the actual, as opposed to symbolic, effect it will have on both the microcomputer and the larger-computer market, the Lisa system is the most important development in computers in the last five years, easily outplacing IBM’s introduction of the Personal Computer in August, 1981.

As this went to press, Apple announced that the Lisa will be sold in one configuration only: the computer with 1 megabyte of RAM, two floppy-disk drives, the Profile hard disk, the six application programs (Lisa Draw, Lisa Write, Lisa Project, Lisa Calc, Lisa List, and Lisa Graph), and Lisa Test diagnostic program; the price of this package is $9995; it will be available in the U.S. this spring, and modified foreign-language versions will be available this summer.

Fortunately for us, the history of computing does not stop with the Lisa. Technology, while expensive to create, is much cheaper to distribute. Apple knows this machine is expensive and is also not unaware that most people would be incredibly interested in a similar but less expensive machine. Well see what happens.

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

#JUST FOR BOOKS #Apple Lisa

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vipers-hat · 5 years ago

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73 Questions

Tagged by: @returnofthepd3 Tagging: All y’all

On a scale of 1-10, how excited are you about life right now? -10. I’ve got nothing to look forward to in life anymore and that’s finally starting to weigh on me.

Describe yourself in a hashtag? #CorgiMom

If you could do a love scene with anyone, who would it be? I’ll pass.

If your life was a musical, what would the marquee say? “Come see the Human Afterthought.”

What’s one thing people don’t know about you? I mean I’m lonely af and try to get friendship going with lots of people so I’m entirely open and will talk about anything, so nothing.

What’s your wakeup ritual? Currently roll out of bed at 10am-11am, tune out whatever nonsense my dad is spewing that afternoon, pack more boxes, fruitlessly apply to jobs, and play RDR2.

What’s your favorite time of day? 7PM-1AM. Blessed alone/unbothered time in this house.

Your go to for having a good laugh? Talking to my college friends and The One That Got Away

Dream country to visit? England

What’s the biggest surprise you’ve had? My parents finally caving and letting me get a dog after we lost our first corgi two years prior/they didn’t want to “do all the doghair” again.

Heels or flats/sneakers? Sneakers but not flats. I’m a toe-walker so flats are a nightmare. I have better luck in heels than flats, and I don’t mind heels, but they just feel too formal for me.

Who do you want to write your obituary? The One That Got Away. He’ll do me justice and not get too preachy. He’ll have fun with it.

Style icon? Becca in Pitch Perfect, Carrie Underwood when she/her stylist is pairing stuff with jeans

What are three things you can’t live without? My dog, creativity, art supplies

What’s one ingredient you put in everything? Lemon Pepper

What 3 people living or dead would you like to make dinner for? The One That Got Away, my first senior year roommate, and... my three college best friends. No, I won’t narrow it down to three.

What’s your biggest fear in life? At this point it’s about to come true, so moving away and not being able to find a job/carry on the exact same way I’m going now, so... yeah.

Window or aisle seat? Window

What’s your current TV obsession? I had to axe Hulu for a bit but when I still had it, it was Prodigal Son, Almost Family, Dollface, and Perfect Harmony (yeah the latter is fairly preachy and bad but it’s charming and funny in its own weird way). That reminds me I need to re-up Hulu.

Favorite app? Spotify, Choices: Stories You Play

Secret talent? Interior Design, Giving My All to Some People Who Just Won’t Bother to Do the Same For Me

Most adventurous thing you’ve done in your life? Digging in my heels when my parents were trying to deter me from going to a college seven hours away. I’m not adventurous and I hate it.

How would you define yourself in three words? empathetic, creative, A Pleasure to Have in Class

Favourite piece of clothing you own? My college hoodie. It’s mostly black, has my college logo but the neck/pullstrings are modelled after a hockey uniform’s. I’ve only gone without it the last three days during this whole lockdown and I miss it. The print is also crackling so I need to find another close thing to it.

Must have clothing item everyone should have? Slightly too-big hoodie.

Superpower you would want? Mind reading

What’s inspiring you in life right now? Nothing

Best piece of advice you’ve received? “Stop caving to your parents.”

Best advice you’d give your teenage self? Same as the last question, cut out [Toxic Ex Best Friend], be more aggressive pursuing The Guy it Turned Out We Both Had a Crush on, also be more aggressive pursuing The One That Got Away.

A book that everyone should read? Austenland by Shannon Hale if romantic comedies and/or Jane Austen is your thing.

What would you like to be remembered for? Loyalty.

How do you define beauty? Selflessness, put-togetherness

What do you love most about your body? If eyes count, my eyes. If not, lmao I hate my body, nothing.

Best way to take a rest/decompress? Mindlessly browse internet, play videogames.

Favourite place to view art? On here, tbh. Like, I could say the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the city, but... idk everything but the Egyptian Exhbit drains me in that place for some reason. I’m more of a Natural History Museum gal. Gimme the fun taxidermy and that giant whale sculpture in the food court any day.

If your life were a song, what would it be? Falling Apart - Matt Nathanson

My Name is Thunder by Jet and The Bloody Beetroots.

If you could master one instrument, what would it be? Baritone. I used to play it and then got snubbed from band in 7th grade and my skill with it tanked to nothing. Picking it up again would be nice.

If you had a tattoo, where would it be? Well, the plan before the lockdown was to get one in the middle of my inner forearm.

Dolphins or koalas? Dolphins

Best gift you’ve ever received? Our first corgi

Best gift you’ve ever given? When I was in college I made polymer clay ornaments for Christmas for my five housemates. They were all fairly terrible but I had fun and most of them apparently willingly enjoyed getting them/had a good laugh about it. One of them still sends me the photo of his whenever it’s on the tree.

What’s your favourite board game? Stratego but the version from the 1960s, Battleship from the 1980s. Yes the years are important, the modern ones are entirely different games and they’re Weird and I don't like ‘em.

What’s your favourite colour? Peacock blue

Least favourite colour? Yellow

Diamonds or pearls? Diamonds

Drugstore makeup or designer? Drugstore

Blow-dry or air-dry? Air dry. Fuck blow drying, I have too much hair and it puffs out if I blow dry. I call it “Hermione Grangering.”

Pilates or yoga? Neither

Coffee or tea? Both

What’s the weirdest word in the English language? Moist. Why does everybody hate it, idgi. Is it really just a mind in the gutter thing?

Dark chocolate or milk chocolate? Yes.

Stairs or elevator? Stylistically stairs, general preference: elevator.

Summer or winter? WINTER!!!! Summer is evil.

You are stuck on an island, you can pick one food to eat forever without getting tired of it, what would you eat? Mac and Cheese

A dessert you don’t like? No Dessert.

A skill you’re working on mastering? Digital coloring, figuring out what I want to do with my life without caving to my parents trying to gaslight me because they want me to be something I don’t want to be.

Best thing to happen to you today? lmao nothing. Since it’s been a rough few hours I’m waiting on The One That Got Away to sense my depression and text me because he’s just got that talent.

Best compliment you’ve ever received? My high school bus driver ran into me at the grocery store I worked at and introduced me to his partner as “the girl I told you about, the one that if we ever adopt a kid and they don’t end up exactly like her, I’m gonna be disappointed.” Also, because I need to put this one into writing somewhere, when my classmates and I were out on a college trip, our professor/advisor was with us and was a few drinks in, so she gave us all superlatives. I was “the smartest person in this entire group... .... .... but [ I ] had to come out of the closet ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... of smartness.” Cue everyone, including myself, looking from her, to each other, and then back to me, absolutely not sure how to process that. It was wild and confusing but because of that it still ranks on one of my best moments in college. And it was arguably a compliment.

Favourite smell? Vanilla, or baked goods.

Hugs or kisses? Hugs

If you made a documentary, what would it be about? Documentaries are garbage, I’d do a drama- movie or show.

Last piece of content you consumed that made you cry? RDR2 fic, post canon where John meets Albert and tells him A Thing and it killed me.

Lipstick or lip gloss Lipstick

Sweet or savory? Sweet

Girl crush? Alicia Vikander

How you know you’re in love? Undying loyalty to the person, lots of laughs and smiles.

Song you can listen to on repeat? Sinner - Andy Grammer

If you could switch lives with someone for a day who would it be? Anybody other than me lmao

What are you most excited about at this time in your life? Again, I’ve got nothing to look forward to in life anymore. So uuuhhhh... maybe having something to look forward to again? But there’s a minimal chance of that.

#long post #sorry for all the sads like I said it's been a bad last few hours #feeling unwanted and worthless and all that fun stuff

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ilovjeon · 6 years ago

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fill the void | chapter one.

pairing: jeongguk & jimin | namjoon & jin | yoongi & hoseok | taehyung & jimin

genre: zombie!au, angst, fluff, humour, a lot of death!

word count: 1.8k

summary: the zombie apocalypse seemed a lot easier to deal with on television, jeongguk found out.

The axe laid heavily in Jeongguk’s palm as if it were dumbbells from his school's gym. He could hear his coaches sighs, “I didn’t know that I had allowed a kindergartener onto the basketball team! Ten more reps, and if you can’t do that, I might have to make someone else captain.” And Jeongguk had done fifteen more instead. He had always been an overachiever.

He looked down at the dried blood and it looked like arts and craft paint, and maybe that’s what this was. Maybe this was all an elaborate school play that he didn’t know he had signed up for. Jeongguk might just be Troy Bolton, he hummed the tune of ‘Bet on It’ and Jimin’s eyebrows knitted together in confusion, “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Getting my head in the game.”

Jimin pointed his knife toward the gas station and slapped at Jeongguk’s knee, “Stop being corny for one second and help me take out the shriekers.”

The corner of Jeongguk’s lip tilted upward, mischevious, “Not until you admit you’re my Gabriella Montez.”

Jimin put on his best cheerleader smile, thrusting his combat knife in the air like a pom pom and said, “No.”

A pout in response and Jeongguk shouldered his axe and got up from his crouch. “Well, if I die in there, just know that I think we would have made for a great theatre duo.”

Jimin shrugs and rises too, prepared at the side of the door. “Maybe in another timeline, we would have. But I’d rather be Chad and Ryan.” He gestures toward the inside. “There’s three in there. One behind the counter. If we get inside we’ll take the three in the aisles first - you can take two, I know you love a good ego boost.”

A smile, “You know me too well.”

And Jeongguk opened the door, what he didn’t account for was the bell that welcomed him like Pavlov’s dog; except he was the meal. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

The sounds of the shriekers were exactly what they had been named for - wailing like a banshee and alerting probably other of their kind nearby. One kid and two men, one of them even wore a trucker hat which looked oddly comical on his decaying body. Even in a time like this, Jeongguk giggled.

Jeongguk led Jimin in, “You take the kid, it’ll be easy because she’s basically your height.” Jimin didn’t have time to shove Jeongguk but he knew that he would pay the price for it later.

Taking a left into the first aisle, Jeongguk eyes the man that is coming toward him. Possible cause of death being the complete right side of his neck being bitten off - he couldn’t be 100 per cent sure, of course. The skin of his cheek was hanging off of his face like grated cheese and Jeongguk gagged in his mouth. He should refer him to a decently priced moisturiser.

A squeal and the walking piece of mould staggered toward him, hands outreached and the skin around his nailbeds had shrunk, nails looking akin to Wolverine - this was a stretch, but Jeongguk couldn’t help but give his adventures a more cinematic appeal.

“Come on, kitty, come a bit closer,” and by the time the shrieker was on him, Jeongguk had raised the axe above his head and crashed it down onto the trucker hat that was now adorned in browned blood. The axe had sliced the shriekers head until the blade was just between his brows, the sound of squelches made Jeongguk’s stomach groan; or maybe he was just hungry.

He kicked in the shriekers leg until he was kneeling and Jeongguk rested his foot on the shoulder which, he would admit, wasn’t much of anything as the bone was completely dislocated from where it was supposed to be, pointing outward like a road sign saying “Go away! My shoulder is like this for a reason!” With as much force as he could muster, he managed to remove his axe that was lodged in this man’s brain; blood sprayed onto his jersey and he groaned - Jimin had just washed it for him down by the stream.

He called out for him, “Jimin, look, you’re going to be mad but I just want to let you know it was completely Redneck’s fault. I got blood on my jersey.”

Jimin groaned and Jeongguk heard a knife dislodge from a head. He should feel guilty for hearing the child die, but he doesn’t. He never understood why he never felt remorse. Maybe it was because they were already dead, maybe because he felt like he was inside a video game - his reality had become too unreal for him. “Jeongguk, I told you not to get it dirty.”

“I know, I know.” And with a faux sensual tone, “If I don’t die in here I’ll make it up to you.”

Jimin was breathless from his kill but managed a breathy sigh, “You aren’t coming next to me until we find a shower.”

Jeongguk couldn’t respond because he was face to face - or more, face to nipple - with a shrieker that stood as tall as what Jeongguk imagined Sun Mingming would. “Okay, Jimin let’s just leave. I think leaving sounds good.”

Jimin smiled and scooted around the cashier desk toward the last shrieker, “Sorry, I would help but I remember you saying I should take the shriekers close to my height; that it’d be easier that way.”

It was then that Jeongguk wished his fast tongue would lay flat in his mouth, this was a lesson in ‘shut your mouth’, he assumed. Backing up against the wall, “Yeah, that sounds good. Sounds great. Spectacular, even.”

He could hear Jimin’s moment of impact as the steel of his knife met the soft skin of the cashier’s scalp and Jeongguk thought this might just be the end - a face-off between him and a shrieker that he was sure was 6’7 when his spine was still working as it should in his body.

A deep groan emitting from the corpse nearing him with big steps, Jeongguk remembered that he was in a play, he was Troy Bolton and he would kill the flesh-eating colossus that stood in his way. After all, he didn’t even have any lines of dialogue.

Jeongguk sprung and his axe collided with the pulpy skin of his knee, disarming the man and getting him onto one knee. “I do,” and he swung the axe into the neck. Except, now the axe wasn’t moving, jammed in the cartilage and muscle surrounding it. The jaw of the shrieker crunched, too close to the skin of Jeongguk’s wrist. “Fuck, fuck.” Crashing into the row of ramen containers, all of them falling like a tasty kind of rain.

The shrieker began to rise and Jeongguk gripped onto the handle of his axe fiercely, wiggling it. But he knew it wouldn’t come undone, it was deep within the neck tissue and it would stay there. Backing up, Jeongguk’s mouth gave and distorted in a silent sob. This wasn’t how he was going to go. He didn’t even have a witty one-liner.

With one step, Jeongguk’s sneaker caved in on a package of ramen, his ankles buckled and caused him to fall on to his tailbone. Throbbing pain exploded from both his coccyx and foot, pressure feeling like a boulder resting on both of the affected areas. For a second, he forgot about the fact that he was indeed about to be eaten alive by a discount version of Seo Jang-hoon. How could something he had loved so much like ramen betray him like this?

The shrieker had already toppled on top of Jeongguk, a heavy strain across his body. He had never been this close to one; he could see the wrinkles of sunken skin, the eyes that were clouded and were flat in the sockets. He had forgotten that they were dead, it seems, because Jeongguk was surprised seeing the death in his eyes. He imagined Jimin. Jimin’s soft, kind ones. He never wanted to see death in its place.

Blackened goo falls from the cavity of the shriekers mouth onto Jeongguk’s chin and his mouth moves wildly, body fighting against Jeongguk’s arms that struggle to keep the man off of him. His fingers tear into the flesh surrounding the jaw; teeth so close to Jeongguk’s arm that he could feel the cold breath against it like winter air. His hair stood on end.

Just as Jeongguk’s muscle began to atrophy, the blade of a knife cut straight through the shriekers eye, inches from Jeongguk’s cheek. Dislodging, a cavity of rotting flesh was left in its place. Jimin pushed the body off of his friend and offered his hand, “I just wanted to make you sweat a little.”

Taking his bloodstained palm, “You’re a dick.”

“A little. But you didn’t think you would get away with the height slander, did you?”

Jeongguk laughed - not really a laugh, more forced and breathy. He could barely stand on his left foot. “I could have finished him myself. You know action sequences need to be lengthy in movies, I was just appealing to the audience.”

Jimin tucked his knife into his belt and made for the canned goods, “Oh, yeah, I’m sure. Is this movie you’re starring in a romance?”

Jeongguk limped over to him and picked up a can of kidney beans, raising an eyebrow at him. “It could be.”

“I’m covered in a lifetime’s worth of blood and gore, are you sure about that?”

He smiled and looked at his friend. Blonde hair almost black from the guts that have covered each strand, bloody palm prints on his face. Yet, despite the horror that occurs each day, the pain we have both become so accustomed to; he still wore a pretty smile. Not the kind you would see on daytime television, not the kind of smile he had while performing his cheer routines at school - one that looked kind, bright.

Jeongguk crossed the gas station aisles, ignoring the pain that sparked in both areas of his body and made his way to the packaged goods and picked up a chocolate bar. “It’s no bouquet of roses, but you always liked white chocolate.” Jimin took it with a groan and just about fell to his knees.

“I don’t care if this is expired, I don’t care if it’s melted. This is all I need to survive another year.”

Jeongguk, “Yeah, that shit has enough sugar to let you last a decade.”

He had barely finished his sentence by the time Jimin shoved the bar into his mouth, fists pumping at the ground at the sheer excellence of the taste. It was as if it was a gourmet filet mignon that had just left kitchen quarters. “I’ve never tasted anything like this.”

“It’s probably the mould.”

Jimin gave Jeongguk a look of disgust and got to his feet, brushing off the dust from his uniform as if it wasn’t caked in gore. “Time to hit the road again?”

Jeongguk should have told Jimin about the pain that flared in his ankle, but he didn’t. He just said, “Time to hit the road again.”

And left the gas station with one final ring of the bell.

#bts #bts scenarios #bts fanfic #bts jikook #jikook #zombie au

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nostalgic-blood · 6 years ago

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so i went to california a few weeks ago and...

No, I didn’t go ham. I had friends who were like “HERE HAVE THIS” and then I had this thing, and later went to a convention and THEN I went ham.

Also this was my first non-family trip so I sort of bought a souvenir anywhere I deemed important enough to do so... America, you took a lot of my money. Oh and Disneyland too.

...also I couldn’t fit some things and forgot others in that top pic.

this wall scroll my cat is trying to destroy

a backpack I bought solely so I was able to even bring all this back, and the posters/prints I STILL needed a friend to ship back anyway...

and this cute koishi i bought, all of three of which were from fanime, yes...

Disneyland souvenirs! A friend (Souless) bought the one of the left. You may have noticed Minnie Mouse ears on the first photo! I didn’t actually get them from Disneyland itself, t’was a gift from our Disneyland veteran who led us to many-a-ride and the least amount of waittime possible, Souless’ fiance Kat. :)

And yes Inside Out is my favourite Pixar movie. Watched Coco recently which was really good, but it’s only second to Inside Out. P:

Let’s start off with my ridiculous friends who decided I needed to own more merch:

All of this was bought by my friend Cannibalfood AKA Akira who went to cons and saw stuff I might like but never got around to actually shipping them to me.. and then, came with me to California and brought this stuff. This is why Negima is on there. It’s been that long.

Oh the non-weeb stuff is souvenirs I got with her while we were in San Fran, including Alcatraz touristy photos since we have few pictures together, a taxidermy place where we each got matching stingray barbs, how romantic. The rock was my very first souvenir. I wasn’t expecting on buying anything else in that shop, so it is the most boring thing here.

Here’s a look at the Touhou artbooks!

One of two CDs, this one with best 2hu on it. I recall from reading the back that one of these has some TAMUSIC on it, which has lovely classical pieces.

Here’s a semi-random page with some artwork. I recognize some of the artists!

The other one! I cannot read anything in these books, and yes there’s plenty of text as well as the art.

Some sample of the art! I’ll have to revisit these books later but from first glance I think I prefer the art of the first book? Idk.

Next is stuff given to me by various people. The gacha is from Magus, the guy who I stayed at for about half the trip and spent the entire trip WITH since he also went down to SLO and I also shared hotels with him for Fanime. Awesome host, will do again. 10/10. I have another button from someone else but I accidentally included it wit my fanime merch pile photos, so it’ll be along shortly.

The dreamcatcher was made by SlimeMush’s friend who I paid $10 for, and for some mysterious reason it kept being returned to him every time he tried to send it to me. I couldn’t get a good pic of it alone because my cat kept attacking the feathers. SlimeMush also gave me the Flareon button! Apparently all the Eeveelutions he had went to those whose favourite was so-and-so, and apparently there’s equal amounts of love for all of them except for the two he kept himself because he loved them the most. Yes. Flareon is my favourite. :D

The gacha is a ditto + a ditto version of Sableye.

This Monster Hunter blindbox was given to me by Wolfe, whom I’ve had a few MonHun merch exchanges with so far. I also gave him a MonHun figure from another line, which I’ll elaborate further (because I gave them all out similar to SlimeMush giving out the Eeveelution buttons) and kept whichever was left behind. This is Monoblos! I didn’t fight him all too often so I don’t have much impression of it as a monster, also I thought he was white but w/e, still very cool looking to add to my collection!

Now of all my loot THIS is the stuff I really could have done without in terms of when and where I spent my money. I bought that Incineroar evolution line figure sort of on a whim at a random city in the middle of nowhere, California while on the long drive down to SLO. The Touhou blindboxes, Digimon CD, and RWBY manga came from Kinokuniya in Japantown. Just wanted to buy them because. Even if the Tri series was mediocre in the end the nostalgia still has a strong grip on my heart, especially that music with Kouji Wada. ;_;

And the most touristy thing was buying this wind chime at a gift shop in a spa that I really didn’t need but it was pretty so w/e.

See? Pretty.

The results of the blindboxes. Not the luckiest result as I wanted other characters but you CANNOT SAY NO TO WEEB MERCH!

As much as I have been distancing myself from the show, RWBY’s manga has wondrous art. It also decided to focus on some random unknown side character named Ruby instead of the main characters, which I thought while was quite the bold move, was rather refreshing.

DELICIOUS WEISS BACKSTORY. I recall posting something about this particular chapter on here before. YEEEEE!

So yeah I went to the island prison in San Francisco where AAAAAALL the tourists go. In my defence I have a genuine interest in prisons. Just ask my 300k RWBY fanfiction in which the first quarter of it is set in a prison. It is also not my first prison fic. I put lots of research in that setting to write that kind of shit.

Also all the souvenirs were the most gimmicky things possible that I didn’t think I’d ever use or would just be paperweight. Except this bag! I may actually use this bag! I know!

And excluding the stuff that is too big or I forgot to take a pic of near the beginning of the post, THIS was the Fanime loot! Magus got me the Monokuma onesie which was extremely nice of him and now I am no longer perpetually cold. Ah yes the warmth of the hide of a psychotic bear. So good.

I could not believe the artist who made one of my favourite Aya pics EVER was at the artist alley. I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT. Obviously this was an instant purchase. This was my phone background for the longest of times. She had Touhou artbooks too but they sold in the first twenty minutes of the first day of the artist alley. Wow. My friend may try to snag me some at AX in July, so here’s hoping!

I didn’t see a lot of specifically Weiss prints there, and this was the best of the lot IMO. My only wish was that it was a brighter print, or that Weiss herself being so white would stand out more because it’s the least noticeable thing on my wall atm, which is a shame.

I say this when I saw precisely ONE Aya print (jackpot) and one of another coming up in this bombardment of pics.

THIS IS PERHAPS THE MOST PROVOCATIVE ONE HERE LOL. But it was the only Tenko, and DRV3 merch was the most difficult of everything I was looking for to find. Unlike 95% of Tenko art SHE ACTUALLY HAS VISIBLE ABS HERE, which according to the official artbooks she’s supposed to have, so bonus points for that. I had a brief discussion with the artist too and we both agreed Tenko was the best and Ouma was overrated. He has great taste.

Overwatch on the other hand was all over the place in this con, from merch to art, to cosplayers. There were so many cosplayers they didn’t even have enough time to run through half of the tanks and all the supports at the shoot! So sad, so sad. This piece of Widowmaker is beautiful though, so I had to have it.

I saw this online a while back and really loved this image of all the Overwatch ladies being formal. There was a suit-version too, but for whatever reason I preferred this one. Sadly this print is quite small, as it probably would have benefited the most in being larger what with the many characters and thus detail.

Out of all this mess the one thing I wanted the most and hunted for the most was charms. I found NO GOOD CHARMS that fitted my taste and interest, and the closest were these buttons. Oh, and I met my good friend Raphyninja at Fanime and he gave me EXCLUSIVE RAPHYNINA MERCH! Thus that button being here and not in the friendo pile. ANYWAY. There was a deal, 3 for 5, so aside from the obvious ones I grabbed Kork. I love Kork. I didn’t think I would for that type of character, but somehow DRV3 managed it. He will of course be very far away from Tenko and Himiko though. >_>

Here’s a page from one of the Touhou doujins I got, which in hindsight I maybe should not have got? Way too late I noticed that I recognized the seller who I think showed up on a Tumblr post warning of a creeper at the Touhou shoots. He’d try to take pics of cosplayers in a private hotel room at weird, uncomfortable angles as far as I remember, so uh, oops? I was just so excited at finding Touhou doujin for the first time ever that I paid zero attention to the person selling so hopefully I am wrong and they were just someone that resembled that person.

Also I recognized this artist for their cute Satori Koishi content, but could not find any of their Koishi doujins. Sadness.

I bought two Monster Hunter blindboxes at Fanime because CLEARLY I need more, right. I got a Nargacuga, including the box left remaining in the pile I gave away and the one I already have... I now have three Nargacugas. That’s quite a lot for something I never fought before...

I also got this tiny Zinogre. If we include my buttons I have FOUR Nargacugas now and FOUR Zinogres. The difference is I have fought Zinogre multiple times (I have no idea exactly because I have 600 hours in 4U >_>) and actually really like him! Sadly, in grand tradition like the last time I visited San Francisco (when I was five) I lost something, that being my favourite MonHun button, Zinogre. It is now in the wild with my teddy bear and my hat, forever gone in the California abyss. ):

I got this at the swap meet for 6 dollars. It may not have a stand and is rather dusty, but damn is that a bargain. My only regret is not having the GIGA DRILL BREAKAAAA model instead. I also got that Monokuma bag there too, but that was just because I went there and couldn’t find a single thing I wanted until I saw the bag, which I was on the fence on but wanted to buy SOMETHING from there and got it, thinking that was it ... but then this and the Touhou doujins showed up, soooooo...

Finally this other Nargacuga that was left behind became my monster in that line of figures, the rest in the hands of my friends. It’s actually cuter than I expected, and barely fit in this cheap crappy display case I bought at a Daiso. I moved my dresser a nudge and the Pokemon fell over, so yeah.

You may have noticed a drop in quality in the photos and that’s because I cannot be bothered to touch up such a gargantuan amount of images anymore, not with the time I have. Would be nice tho. SO, THAT IS THE GIANT POST OF SPOTTO’S MERCH, NOW WITH 100% MORE QUANTITY THAN BEFORE! I spent too much money so I might as well get something out of it by BRAGGING about it! Right?

Ye.

#spotto's merch #too much stuff to tag not even going to bother #not all of it can even fit in this one image too!#and I forgot stuff to include as well!

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supacutiepie · 7 years ago

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FAHC but they part time in the Arts

Some ideas about the crew but they also have their hands so heavily coated in art history they probably could out do the Louvre at this point..

Geoff is a professional restoration artist. He spends his money on tools and projects- taking old paintings and renewing them, buying old steamers and trunks at auctions and restoring them to their former glory. He works at the local museum in the back rooms, diligently working away to mend books and rebind them till they’re presentable for exhibition. The majority of his safe houses are just homes he bought on a whim and started renovating- going from the old 1920 speakeasy/barbershop that he just couldn’t abandon because “It’s like, a part of our history Jack! The precursor of crime!!”, to the small corner homes that don’t have walls or plumbing but demanded respect for their 180 years spent standing.

Ryan sews, knits, crochets, braids- and most importantly he can make Tapestries. His cool down time is him sitting in a quiet room and knitting/crocheting. When on stake outs he brings mending projects and some small knitting things. One time he made a full scarf and mitten set. One of his signatures is actually kinda terrifying- but when hes’s in charge of torture and questioning depending on how high profile the guy is, he has a very special method of questioning. Sometimes its in the palms, the soles of feet, across chests and sides. But Ryan will sew into his victim. On a particularly memorable occasion, when the guy responsible for putting on of the boys in the er, but he was too high profile and they couldn’t directly prove he was involved...ryan sews his mouth shut for good.

Jack is a carpenter/builder. Got degrees in architecture and historical buildings.That’s how Jack met Geoff, working as his contractor for an apartment complex Geoff was renovating into a non profit shelter of sorts. Jack helps out on the restorations on old furniture and also helps Ryan with mending. But when Jacks not working with wood, theres always old knick knacks and cars to be repaired and refurbished. Jack, Michael, and Geoff restore old cars on the weekends and sometimes go racing with them. Jack has a small shop that doubles as a restoration and auto museum its great. But then theres also the gardens- Professional gardens that win every award possibile. So help you if you step on own of those manicured lawns and trample through the flower beds...death is the kindest outcome.

Michael does restoration too, but specializes in painting and statues. He has some pretty dedicated degrees in chemistry and the Arts, which he also uses to make bombs and ammo. He likes the quiet on cleaning and touching up paintings, and the precision works well with his hands. He also helps to restore old marble statues and sculptures, using his money to buy his workplace some top of the line gear like the laser that wipes away dirt from marble and stone. When he’s not at work or with the crew, which is rare, he likes to work with clay and plaster. The penthouse may or may not have various clay dicks hidden around the place, in various sizes and colors.

Gavin works with photo restoration and preservation. He uses both physical means and digital to restore old photographs and some more modern ones if a client shows up with family photos they need fixed.He collects albums from all over the world and keeps them preserved carefully and diligently, while also finding old cameras and fixing them up as well. He also helps paint and does some printing/pressing when asked by geoff. On long distance trips he packs maybe three different cameras and goes trekking around cities, documenting old buildings and landmarks. He also designs some of their outfits, which then get passed over to ryan to create.

Jeremy gets old records and restores them. He finds old radios and Phonographs in junkyards that he polishes, shines, and moulds back to life.He uses digital equipment to clear up old scratched records and tapes, and then uses his own instruments and vocals to fill in the gaps. He also likes to collect old sports gear and renew it as well, he owns an truly antique boxing gym and it acts like a museum of sorts. His slightly off kilter hobby though is taking old weapons and restoring them. he gets help from some of the other guys on this one, because who doesn’t want a fully restored battle axe hanging in their living room?

Some of the stuff they work together on, like the theater geoff bought for Jack and Jeremy, which everyone pitched in to restore and find talent for. Gavin sometimes aslo acts on the stage which everyone delights in watching. Sometimes Ryan joins in and the whole place is left in awe filled silence during his soliloquies. But the whole project really took years and hard work and it’s one of many buildings they own and work with. one being their local bar that also sidelines as a safe house/ local shelter for those who need it, geoff original owned it but gave it to michael after his stopped drinking.

Geoff, Jack, and Michael all work on cars together. New and old alike they fix and refurbish whatever comes their way. For heist vehicles they normally plan out their own modifications and don’t give the job to strangers. They own a full dozen workshops and some warehouses where they store and refurbish their vehicles, often times either selling them to good owners, museums, or people who are in need of vehicles.

There was one occasion in which everyone got to witness the great death bringer, the one and only, Vagabond himself- break down int gentle crying and reverent praise. It was on the anniversary of Ryan joining the crew, Gavin had just come back from a surprise trip to Italy and had gifted the man with a plain looking wooden box. Everyone was on the edge of their seat as they watched Ryan pry off the lid and very cautiously peel away some tissue paper...and then immediately get choked up.

No one really expected it, because the fabric looked dull and old but nothing special. It was a dull brown and the designs seemed a little too rough to be machine grade so it was a handmade gift but why the fuss?

Because when Ryan so very tenderly lifted it up the light made the whole piece glitter and shimmer like fine gold, and the individual strands each reflected their own light so beautiful.

“One of a kind, something I help make even! At least a little bit. Would have been better if I could have gotten you into the lessons but you know, I only got this because I helped the seamstress out with some stuff..”

Ryan just shakes his head and puts the fabric back safely before standing and hugging the life out of Gavin, which probably shocks everyone more than the tears did.

One of the finest examples of history in tapestry, and it was such a simple thing to give. Sea Silk and a thoughtful gesture and that was all it took to break the vagabond. Ryan keeps the box under lock and key but regularly pulls it out and just stares at the sunlight on the fabric.

So far thats all I got but I like it so yeeeeeee boooooooooi

#FAHC #FAHC ARTS AU #Because I Can #fahc au #achievement hunter

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artificialqueens · 7 years ago

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I Look Spooky but I'm Really Nice; the Saga Continues (Vatya/Sashea)

AN: Thank you to @mistressaq for Betaing my smut, this is the first and probably the last smut I’ll write as it took me forever and isn’t even good so I do apologize for that! This ace mermaid just isn’t made to write smut but I have a HUGE amount of respect and admiration for those that do! Thank you to @artificialeevee for being my cheerleader and making me laugh and reminding me that my story could always be worse. Lol! If you want to read part one, which I suggest, you can find it here

Возлюбленная (Vozlyublennaya) means Sweetheart.

The Saga Continues Part I I gripped my phone so hard in my shaking hand that my knuckles were completely white. I broke out in a cold sweat, shivering and pulling the blanket tighter around me. I was terrified and then I got pissed. This had to be a joke. I jabbed in a response so viciously that I split my thumb nail. “FUCK!” At least it was the same one from last night. Me - Ok who is this? Pearl or Aja if this is one of you two…Keep in mind, I may be in a wheelchair but I can still kick your mother fucking ass! Unknown caller: living impaired 3a Living impaired? What the fuck did that mean? My head felt like it was going to split open as I tried to find deeper meaning in the cryptic text. I pulled myself onto my side and propped myself up on one elbow and rubbed my forehead. I grabbed the bottle of pain meds and shook out another one, it would make me foggy as hell but being unconscious seemed like a good option. My hands were shaking so badly I think I got more water on my bed than in my mouth but I managed to get enough to swallow the damn pill. A memory from last night floated into my head as I flopped back down. Didn’t I say something like “Listen Mr or Miss or whatever the gender neutral term is, listen ghost or spirit or living impaired, whatever you call yourself.” while I was freaking out and pacing circles across my floor? Didn’t see say she was stronger after 3. I might not need the ice by the time Katya got back, I felt like my blood had turned to ice. I bolted upright with a little panicked moan as I burst into terrified tears, throwing my phone across my bed like it would burn me if I held it a second longer, I was breathing in tight little gasps of air, my heart thundering in my chest. I needed to get out of here. The adrenaline rush I was experiencing in my panic made me careless as I frantically struggled out of the tangle of blankets and flipped myself into my chair. I pushed forward and heard a crunch. “Fuck!” My foot must have fallen off the footplate or it wasn’t on there right to begin with and I had jammed my foot between my chair and my bed. It didn’t matter, I’m sure it was fine. I pulled it back up and zoomed towards the door, opening it so hard I had to catch it so it didn’t smack me in the side of the head. I turned in my chair reached my hand out to snag my purse while I kept wheeling with the other hand. I was trying to stop hyperventilating but I was panicked with that totally unrealistic sense of impending doom like you get when you’re a kid and your cousin dares you to stay in the supposedly haunted closet at your Grandma’s house for a whole minute that feels like 5 years. I was barrelling through the doorway, not watching where I was going when I collided with another person. “Ohmigosh, I’m so sorry!!” my hands shot out as I steadied the petite, bald girl who was carrying an armload of books, some of which toppled to the ground. “I’m so sorry! Are you ok? I don’t think we’ve met yet. I’m Violet.” My manners took over but I reddened, realizing too late that I was a tear streaked hot mess in a zebra onesie who just almost killed someone in a panic to evade a fucking ghost. A shiver passed down my spine at the thought of the girl in the mirror. What had happened to her? Was she stuck in the mirror. Maybe she needed help or me to avenge her death like the cheesy episodes of the Ghost Whisperer with SJP. I wouldn’t mind being Sarah Jessica Parker but I wasn’t too keen on the ghost part of the situation. “Hey? Hello?” The person said, waving a hand in front of my face. I totally somehow missed that she had sat down cross-legged on the floor beside her mess of books. This way she wasn’t towering over me either, one of her hands resting on my knee which they removed quickly like she’d touched her hand to a flame. “Are you feeling ok? I only ask because you’ve kind of been staring into space for the past minute or two. I was trying to get your attention but I put my hand on your knee and it just occured to me that maybe you couldn’t feel that.” She babbled. “Could you? Oh wait, don’t answer that! that was an awfully personal question.” She smacked her open palm on her bald head with a THWAP! so loud that it made me jump. She muttered to herself, “God Sashinka, why must you be so awkward?” “No it’s ok, I mean I can’t but it’s ok, what I mean to say is that it’s ok to ask. If you want to, I mean if you have questions.” I babbled back like babbling was contagious then we looked at each other and both let out nervous little giggles. I took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly, “ok let’s start over and pretend I didn’t almost kill you.” I thrust my hand out, “hi, I’m Violet. Are you ok?” “Good idea! I’m totally fine! My name is Sashinka Velurovna but everyone just calls me Sasha Velour because that is too much of a mouthful for most.” She shook my hand with her delicate one and I noticed the paint flecks that spread halfway up her arms. “Hey, are you Russian by any chance? Are you in the art program?” “Yes to both? I mean my name kind of gives the first one away but how did you guess the art part?” “The paint gives that part away,” I smiled and pointed at the well manicured hand I was still holding before I let it go. “Oh yeah!” She smacked her hand on her head again. “Do you make a habit of hitting yourself over the head often Sashinka? You’re going to leave a mark!” “I do, my girlfriend always teases me about it! She says if I had hair, I’d pull it out with the amount of times I smack or rub my head in a day!” She turned serious as she checked her watch and once again smacked herself, albeit much gentler, “oh shit! My girlfriend! Let me just send her a text.” “Oh I don’t want to hold you up,” I backed up so I was halfway in my doorway again, I felt myself lean forward automatically so at least my body was still outside of my room. “There done!” She said triumphantly, putting her phone back in the pocket of her long flowing palazzo pants in a loud geometric print full of hues of red, rose, orange and yellow. If it were on anyone else, it would look hideous but on her spritely little frame, it seemed perfect somehow, paired with a simple red leather or pleather crop top. Oh shit, she was looking at me as I studied her, a small smile lifted one corner of her mouth. I felt my face flush as she turned serious. “So you looked pretty upset when we met.” “When I almost ran you over and made you a Sashinka pancake, you mean?” She threw her head back and laughed. “Yeah that. What happened? What can I do to help? You looked terrified! It’s nice to see some colour back in your beautiful face because you were white as a ghost when you came out of your room looking like some ax murderer was chasing after you.” I flinched at the word ghost and she peered past me into my room. She mouthed, brow furrowing, “is there someone in there? Are you safe?” “No there is no one in there.” right now anyway, I thought to myself and shifted my gaze from her concerned face. She looked up at my door and tsked. “Ahh I get it.” “Huh? What do you get?” “You’re in room 121. The mirror. I get why you are so freaked out.” My chin flopped open and I tried to think of a way to explain I wasn’t fleeing from text messages from a ghost. I sputtered and opened and closed my mouth a few times but no words would come out. “It’s ok, I don’t think you’re crazy! I believe in that stuff. I could bring my ouija board over if you want to borrow it, I’ve heard that she will talk with you.” “But…” I started but I saw Katya rounding the corner with her arms laden with food and 2 bags of ice. Sasha’s back was to her so I saw her first, then Sasha turned her head to see what I was looking at, in case maybe it was the ghost. Katya’s eyes went wide and she stared at Sasha as if they might be a ghost themselves. I thought she was going to drop everything in her hands so I grabbed the bags and food and put them on my lap. She looked down at Sasha in wonder. “Sashinka? Es that you?” A look of recognition flickered across her face and then Sasha’s smile was radiant as the sun as she jumped up like she was spring loaded and pulled Katya into a bear hug. They jumped up and down on the spot screaming and started talking in rapid-fire Russian, Sasha had very little accent when speaking English so I had just assumed that their family line was Russian and thus she was named the way she was. I was wrong. Katya holding her out at arm’s length and then pulling her in again. Happy tears streaming down both of their faces. I just sat and watched this happy reunion. After a few minutes of talking over each other, they both turned towards me smiling. “Why do I have the feeling you two know each other?” I asked sarcastically and couldn’t resist adding, “and that you were just talking about me.” They both laughed, they still had their arms around each other and were squished together like they were trying to meld into one person. I’m glad I wasn’t the jealous type…well much. When Katya spoke, she was breathless with glee, “dis es my friend Sashinka! Sasha’s family fleed away from Russia in night and ve never got to say goodbye and ve couldn’t write because the politsiya vanted to hurt Sashinka’s father who spoke out against government. I voke up one mornink and my best friend vas gone, vanished. Oh Sasha,” Katya pulled Sasha in again as she sobbed into their shoulder. “I never thought I vould see you again!” Sasha smiled through her own tears and corrected Katya, “your English is really good! I think you knew 20 words when we parted. Oh and the word is fled not fleed and they say Police here.” Katya nodded and muttered “fled, police, ok I got it! Thank you! I understand better than speak it! You almost haf no accent Sashinka! You haf been here in USA whole time? Are you steel in gymnastics?” Sasha’s face fell, when she spoke next I did pick up a faint Russian accent that had gotten a bit stronger, “No, I am not in gymnastics, I still practice but I wasn’t able to enroll anywhere because they were looking for us and we didn’t want me to be registered anywhere. We had friends who owned a gym and would let me practice there and my father continued to train me. I was homeschooled for the first 4 years after we moved, a lovely lady would come to our house and teach me english. My family was so scared. We moved to Canada! But we moved often, we would always keep in touch with the Russian communities in major cities and then it could make it easier to move. Father was so well known and respected but occasionally we would pick up and move if he thought bad people were getting close to catching us. I’ve not been able to say goodbye to a great many friends until we were able to use the internet. I looked for you! I swear I did! I watched you at World’s in the basement of a friends house but I couldn’t say that I knew you, I didn’t want to put you or your Mother in any danger. How is your Mama?” “She es better than she vas, still sick but ok!” Katya said excitedly, Katya rarely spoke about her Mother but I did know she had been sick a lot when Katya was growing up and Katya spent a lot of time going between the gym and caring for her mother. The pressure for her to win competitions to get the prize money as the sole bread winner of her house must have been an enormous weight to bear. She also was home schooled but mostly did it all herself online, that is why her english wasn’t as good as it could have been. She understood more than she spoke because she used to watch old english movies and shows her family had on VHS. I remembered nights of us snuggled up together watching Little House on the Prairie reruns and cracking jokes til our sides hurt. “I’m so glad that Violet and I met! I mean, I would have seen you eventually Yekaterina but the school is very big and it could have taken MONTHS to spot each other! Providence came in the form of a crying panicked girl barrelling out of her room at top speed. I have to go meet my girlfriend but if you could put your numbers in my phone, I’d love to catch up! Violet, I would love getting to better know you as well!” Sasha said as we passed our phones around so Sasha could put her number in. Once Katya put her’s in and handed me Sasha’s phone to do the same, she crouched down and picked up Sasha’s books for her, straightening them out. When we exchanged glances, she looked at me with worry clouding her eyes over for a moment. I smiled at her, hoping it might help. I think it did. Well I hope anyway! Cell phone numbers exchanged, Sasha surprised me by pulling me into a hug. “Thank you for making it possible for Yekaterina and I to reconnect. I can’t wait to tell my girlfriend!” Then she whispered, “if you want my ouija board, let me know. I can even come and show you how to use it since it’s not something you can use with one person.” “I’ll uh…think about it. Thanks.” Sasha swished away and Katya turned to me, her face still radiant with joy, the smile slid off her face when she looked at me. “Vait! Did Sasha say you vere upset? Vhy are you in hall in your Pyjama’s? I mean you look cute but vhat happened?” “I pretty much almost ran over her, I’m ok now. It’s nothing! Don’t worry my dear, I’m fine!” We were still both in the hallway. She leant over and gave me a kiss on my head. She still looked worried but I hoped she would drop it. “Should ve go back in room now? You look pale, are you sure you don’t need Doctor? Or Max?” She gently tucked a loose tendril of my hair behind my ear and studied my face. Going to the Dr or to Max’ office would mean I wouldn’t have to go back into my room. I chewed my bottom lip while I thought. “Violet?” Katya kneeled so her worried face was in front of me, her hands grabbed mine in my lap, “just tell me vhat happened? Please?” I sighed, wondering how I could bullshit myself out of this one. I looked down, I didn’t want Katya to laugh at me but I knew she was going to be persistent until I told her SOMETHING. I didn’t know if she would believe me. I couldn’t bear her thinking I was crazy. She cupped my face and made me look at her. “Tell me. Ve keep no secrets remember?” Shit, she had me there. We had poured our hearts out to each other on facetime while Katya was still in Russia. We both carried the heavy weight of many secrets and swore we would never keep anything from each other. That we both had one person who was safe to say anything to. I sighed and covered my face with my hands, peeking through my fingers at Katya like I was watching a cheesy slasher film, “but you are going to think I’m crazy though.” “You? Crazy? No!” She joked, pulling my hands away. “I feel like you don’t vant to go into your room, do you vant me to get you some clothes?” I nodded and added meekly, “and my cell phone please? It’s on my bed.” “Da, I vill be right back.” She caressed my shoulder comfortingly on her way past me. I took a deep breath and let it out. Katya returned momentarily with my backpack, handing me my phone and looping my bag on the back of my chair, she gathered up the bags on my lap. “I got you a pair of yoga pants, underthings, T-shirt, hoody because ve are just going to relax in my room today. Soon ve vill be starting our classes and you vill need to gather your strength after that nasty fall. I also got some things from bathroom and your medicine in case your head still hurts. You look like you need a nap Возлюбленная.” She was right, like I expected, taking extra meds was making my eyes droop. “Come. Do you vant me to push you?” I knew that if I said yes, that Katya would know how dizzy and tired I truly was. I HATED being pushed around. I was almost violently independent, when I was first injured I would snap at people who would try to help me up ramps but it was mostly because people wouldn’t ask, they would just grab my chair and steer me around while talking to me as if I was five years old. “Nope I’m ok.” “Ok, as long as you are sure. Come on.” Katya led the way to the elevator and up to her room on the Third floor and let us into her room. She stepped back and waved me in. Her roommate hadn’t arrived yet and all we knew was that her name was Trixie, what kind of name was Trixie? Hopefully she wasn’t a nightmare at least! For my Katya’s sake, she already had enough high maintenance in her life with me in it! “Ok, bed you! Do not pass go, do not collect 200$. ”I giggled, Katya was seriously obsessed with Monopoly. That’s why the board game cafe event today would have been perfect but I had fucked that plan up. Katya put the food in her tiny little fridge and surprised me by picking me up bridal style. I let out a surprised giggle. “Sorry, no grip bars in here, you just have a Katya in here.” I let myself relax in her arms, almost melting into her. “Fine by me. I like having a Katya.” I gushed sweetly, letting out a contented little sigh as she plopped me onto her bed. She went to move away and I grabbed her wrist, “would you lay down with me?” “Da, on two conditions.” She squared a look at me. “Anything.” I didn’t want to sleep alone in case I had nightmares. “That you will tell me vhat happened vhen ve vake up,” she grinned devilishly, “and I get to be the big fork.” I laughed, “I think you mean spoon although forking sounds like fun too.” I waggled my brows as we burst out laughing, then I let out a giant yawn. Well damn. “Let’s talk about forking later.” Katya reached over and pulled a drawer open, tugging out the first T-shirt she could find, wrapping the knotted plastic bag of ice into it. I curled up on my side as Katya climbed over me, hovering over me with an arm holding herself up over my body so she could cup my face and give me a deep, lingering kiss. I wrapped my arms around her neck and pulled my fingers through her silky, flaxen hair. When we pulled apart, we were both out of breath and I let out a plaintive little noise from the back of my throat. “Are you sure we can’t renegotiate the forking?” I whined as she climbed over me. I felt the vibration of her chuckle as she laid behind me, her breasts smushed against my back as she put the ice against the top of my head and pulled her thick duvet over us. Then she nibbled at the back of my neck while I squirmed. She scraped her teeth against me as she sucked small patches of skin low at the base of my neck, swirling her magical tongue along them. “You’re such a fucking tease woman.” I leaned back into her as she wrapped her arm protectively around me and pulled me even closer. I stifled a yawn but she saw or felt it. “Shhhh, go to sleep.” She reached up and pulled my hair elastic out so she could bury her face in my hair, inhaling deeply as she slowly ran her fingers through my freed locks. She softly exhaled a sigh by my ear, The bitch knew exactly how to get me, I stopped fighting and gave in to sleep, letting out a deep sigh of my own. I woke up and blinked blearily at the clock and was just about to close my eyes, just five more minutes, when I heard someone clear their throat. My eyes snapped open to be assaulted by pink. A girl with big, poofy light blonde hair was standing hesitantly in the doorway, shuffling from foot to foot, blushing and looking like she’d been caught in the act of doing something indecent. She was dressed in a short gossamer pink shift dress that almost looked like a nightgown with pink platform MaryJane shoes and a big pink bow headband. She looked like she had the whole makeup aisle from Sephora on her face. She was carrying an honest to God Barbie cosmetic train case and pulling two big Hello Kitty suitcases. “Hey, you must be Trixie. Come on in.” I whispered and reached behind me to poke Katya’s shoulder, “Kat, time to get up.” Trixie creeped quietly into the room enough to slide the door shut with a click behind her as Katya mumbled something in Russian, she did that a lot when she was half asleep. “Yekaterina Petrovna Zamolodchikova, your new roommate is here love. C'Mon now.” Katya’s head shot up and she smiled. “Hello there Trixie! I’m Katya.” Katya pulled back the covers and scrambled over me to pull one of Trixie’s bags out of her hand. and bring it over to her bed. Trixie noticed my chair and gave me a sad little look, I hated that look but I was just as guilty of giving it when I could walk so I forgave people for it. It was human nature. “Do you haf more bags Trixie? Vhere are you from?” Katya said, pulling Trixie’s ample cosmetics train case out of her hand and putting it in front of the little vanity mirror at the end of her bed. “No I don’t have anything else, this is basically it.” She shrugged. “I’m from Wisconsin?” Her voice inflected upwards as if she was asking or if she wasn’t sure where she was from. “What about you?” “I am from Russia and dis es my girlfriend Violet and she is from Atlanta. Ve didn’t know vhen you vere coming or ve vould not have been sleeping! Violet just had a bit of an accident and needed to rest.” Trixie’s hands flew up to her mouth, “ohmigod are you ok?” I pushed myself upright and waved her off. “I’m totally fine! She’s prone to exaggeration Trixie!” I joked, trying to put the poor girl at ease. She was really sweet and looked so concerned. “Kat, could you please push my chair over so it’s not in the middle of the room.” Katya trotted over, pushing my purple chair over and putting the brakes on for me. She knew exactly where to put it, her hand couldn’t help but shoot out when I transferred and overshot my seat. I felt my face go crimson with embarrassment, I probably looked like such an incompetent poor disabled girl that Katya had to wait on. Great first impression Violet, an unkempt, zebra onesied, helpless girl. Katya and I shared a look, she knew I was still so self conscious of this new body of mine, she smiled and me and pulled my hand up to kiss it and then leaned over to give me a quick kiss. Trixie just stared at us until she noticed we were looking back at her, she lowered her head with a shy smile as she turned a shade of beet red. “Sorry, I don’t mean to stare, I’ve just never seen…” She started sheepishly. “What? Someone in a wheelchair?” I snapped. Katya gave my hand a squeeze and put her other one on my shoulder as if to say calm down. “Oh no! No, no!” Trixie turned even redder, which I didn’t think was physiologically possible. “No I have a friend with cerebral palsy. I mean I’ve never seen…” She lowered her voice dramatically “…you know gay women…uh…lesbians. I mean, you’re both really pretty and I have always pictured the stereotypical butch femme. I’m sorry, I’m not good at this.” She babbled and looked miserable. Katya and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. “Awww she’s cute, can ve keep her?” Katya said as she plunked herself onto my lap and wrapped her arms around my neck. Trixie joined us in our mirth after a few minutes of stunned silence, relieved after looking like she was waiting for us to jump her. Her face transformed when she smiled, she was naive and full of hope and I hoped that no one broke her little heart. I felt oddly protective of the obviously sheltered girl. “We only dress butch on every alternate Tuesday and Saturday.” Katya deadpanned. “Really?” Trixie cocked her head to the side. This girl was too much. I smacked Katya on the back while she scream-laughed, “no Trixie! She’s just being a goof. You’ll learn quickly to not take everything she says seriously. Actually, anything she says really.” “Hey!” Katya exclaimed in mock outrage, swatting my shoulder, laughing. “She es the one not to pay any mind to!” I was feeling kinda flushed so I pulled the collar of my onesie in and out, enjoying the small gust of cooler air that fanned on my collarbones and chest. It was odd because I was generally a cold person, hence the fleece onesie at the end of August. Katya and Trixie were chatting amicably about something as I let myself fade out for a moment, the pain in my head screaming. “Violet? Are you ok?” Trixie asked, suddenly snapping me back into focus. I wiped a hand across my sweating forehead and gave a little nod, a wave of dizziness engulfed me for a moment until I stopped. “I’m fine! I just feel sticky and kinda gross.” “You need shower before you get changed?” I thought about going back to my room to use my accessible shower and shivered. Katya leant over and whispered, “if you don’t vant to go to room, I vill help you in bathroom down hall.” I loved that Katya knew me so well that she almost seemed like a mind reader some days. My brain fought with itself for a moment, my pride and how crappy I felt duking it out for control, my pride and independence won. I mean, I knew I’d have to face my room sooner or later. I sighed, “no it’s ok. I got it.” “I vill come vith you.” “No you don’t have to! Stay and chat with Trixie, I’ll be up again soon.” “But I vould like to keep you close, alvays but especially today.” Katya muttered worriedly as she tucked my hair behind my ear. I swear it was like a nervous tick of hers to play with MY hair. “Actually, don’t worry about me! I will be fine and I have to meet my friend Kim soon anyway so I’ll just nest a bit and unpack and be back later.” I was too tired to argue, I patted Katya’s hand, “ok whatever makes you happy love.” We exchanged numbers with Trixie, making plans to hopefully meet up for dinner tonight. Grabbing the second bag of ice and some of the food with us. My hands shook as I put my key into my lock, Katya swiped it from me and put it in the lock easily, giving it a twist. She walked in before me and looked around and waved me in. I headed in, turning to go to the bathroom and AWAY from the mirror but Katya held onto the back of my chair, “Oh no! You do not get avay dat easy.” She plopped down on the institutional-looking orange patent leather armchair that was beside my bookcase and pulled my hand into hers, leaning over so her elbows were on her on her knees. She rested her chin on her other hand and looked me straight in the eye. “First, tell me vhat happened. Please?” I sighed, I knew I couldn’t avoid the topic forever. “You know the urban legend that this room is haunted?” She nodded. “It’s not so much an urban legend as it is true. A girl appeared last night, she scared me and I jumped and that’s why I fell out of my chair.” “Vait! You actually SAW her? Did she talk vith you?” Katya said, a look of incredulity. “Are you sure you didn’t just fall and hit head and have nightmare Возлюбленная?” “No! I didn’t! She said boo but she texted me too!” I brandished my phone in her face, triumphant that I had proof. “Check it out, the unknown caller. That’s her. She even asks me not to get rid of her! Look!” She picked up my phone and scrolled, looking puzzled. She looked up at me, brows knitted and looked back down at my phone. She gave me a look that was a cross between confusion and pity. “Vi, Возлюбленная, someone is very much messing vith you my dear.” “That’s what I thought too but the whole ‘living impaired’ comment, it was something I said last night so short of someone bugging my room, NO ONE WOULD KNOW THAT!” I felt myself getting worked up but I couldn’t help it! I mean, I had proof! “So you ran into Sashinka because you vere trying to get avay from ghost?” I nodded as she handed my phone back, looking hurt, “vell then, you are trying to mess vith me and I don’t like it! No secrets, remember?” “Wha…” I sputtered, confused and indignant. “I’m not! I swear I’m not! You read them yourself!” “Violet, there is nothink there. Do not lie to me!” She barked rather sharply and then her voice softened and turned sombre as tears pooled in her eyes, “did somethink happen? Did someone attack you? Are you not safe?” I switched on my phone and frantically looked through my texts. There was nothing there! No texts from any unknown caller. “No, no, no!” I whined and burst into frustrated tears. Was I going crazy? “I SWEAR to you that it was there Katya! Do you believe me? Please tell me you believe me!” She pulled both of my hands into hers and took a deep breath. “I believe you,” I exhaled and relaxed until she added, “I believe that YOU believe it.” “No Kat…” I started. She stood and poked around the bump on my head before sitting down again and holding my shaky hand, “I think you hit head much harder than you thought. Maybe you should see Doctor? I’m vorried.” I felt so helpless and confused, maybe she was right? Not about going to the Doctor, my head hurt but I am sure that I didn’t do any type of damage. Perhaps I had dreamed it. I sagged in my chair, and rubbed my forehead. “Maybe you’re right but it felt so real Kat! Do you think I’m crazy?” I ran my hand through my hair, wincing when it ran over the tennis ball sized lump at the back of the top of my head. “No, I don’t think you are crazy at all my love! I know you vould not lie to me. Maybe you vill feel better after somethink to eat and a nice varm shower? Or vould you like me to tuck you into bed again?” She quickly added, with round eyes. “I vill stay vith you. I vill not leave your side, I promise!” I didn’t even know what to say or do. I was still in utter shock that I felt emotionally paralysed, unable to make any decision, to even speak. I felt like my brain was being traitorous IF I did dream it and if it really had happened, I was set against a very crafty entity that I was helpless against. For the second time today, Katya gently picked me up, pushing the bathroom door open wider with her knee. She set me down on the toilet, grabbed my onesie zipper, pausing to ask. “May I?” I nodded and she pulled it down, I shrugged the parting fabric off as she leaned over and kissed my shoulder and along my collarbone to the other side. I threw my head back to give her better access to my neck and jaw. My fingers played at the collar of her shirt, “Can I?” “God yes!” She whispered in my ear, sending goosebumps down my neck and chest as I peeled off her shirt and unclasped her bra, running my hands down her arms as I took it off and tossed them into the corner. I rested my hands on her waist and she hummed into my neck before I could even ask. I unbuttoned her skinny jeans and shimmied them down her hips. She wasn’t wearing underwear. “Naughty, naughty girl,” I purred. She grabbed at the fabric of my pyjamas as I kissed and sucked a line just below her belly button, marking her like she had me earlier. I nodded. She bent down and linked my fingers around her neck before plunging her hands into my pants, cupping my naked butt. I gasped. “Now who is naughty?” She chuckled. When she lifted me up, my onesie fell off at the same time she kicked off her pants. Katya held me against herself in a reverse piggy-back so my legs were straddling her above her hip bones, making them less likely to fall off. She stumbled and readjusted her grip, pulling me close protectively. Her velvet-skinned breasts pressed against mine, her nipples hard as she brought us into the large shower stall that was open on one side. A long shower bench sat under the showers spray. Katya reached over and pulled the lever, turning the shower on before sitting down on the bench. I was still spider monkeyed around Katya as I captured her mouth with my own, my hands roaming down her slick back and around to swirl my thumbs around her rock hard nipples. Her hands caressed my ass, knowing exactly where the feeling in my legs stopped and staying above it. Katya’s attention to detail and our open conversations about what felt good and what didn’t to each of us made her an attentive and passionate lover. Her lips left mine as she pressed open mouthed kisses on my collarbone and up my jaw, capturing my earlobe between her teeth and pulling gently before sucking on it. My eyes fluttered closed as I ground down on her. I massaged her breasts, alternating between giving her nipples a pinch or twisting them mildly. She moaned by my ear, sending a delicious shiver down my spine. She pivoted us and gently laid me down on the bench, stopping momentarily to just stare down at me while water bounced off me. She held eye contact with me as she knelt and pulled me so my legs dangled off the edge of the bench. She hovered over my body, her breath making the heat pooling in my belly intensify. I let out a needy whine. She moved deliberately slow, placing lingering kisses on my right hip bone and across my belly, stopping to swirl her tongue around my belly button. I grabbed her by the hair and guided her head in the direction I needed her to be before she could reach the other side. She chuckled, her breath tickled and I squirmed. “So impatient.” Before I could open my mouth to retort, she flattened her tongue and licked a wide stripe, causing me to curl my fingers around the edge of the bench to avoid falling off in surprise. She circled her tongue around my clit as my breath hitched, I held on to the bench with one hand as I slid the other up my side to play with my almost painfully erect nipples. Katya smacked my hand away as she pulled away long enough to say. “Shhh. I’ve got you.” While she sucked on my clit, she smoothed her palms up my abdomen and cupped my breasts, her thumbs toying with my nipple rings, occasionally tugging one. I moaned and writhed in ecstasy, one hand now tangled in her wet blonde hair. The hot water was running out so Katya slapped a hand at the knob. She crawled up my body, running her tongue along before circling my nipple, clenching the silver ring in her teeth and giving it a pleasantly painful tug as she inserted one and then two fingers, crooking them as she pumped them in and out. Her thumb circled my clit, sending me over the edge as I clung to the sides of the table while my back arched and the rest of my muscles spasmed. I’m sure my toes would have curled if they could as my whole body tensed and then released, my head falling back as I panted. Katya braced herself with one hand so her face was hovering above me; she was out of breath too. She slowly and deliberately brought her fingers up and sucked on them with a little satisfied, cocky grin. I was finally able to release my grip on the sides of the bench and brought my shaking hands to pull her face in so I could trail wet little kisses up her jaw and neck, her golden hair like a curtain around us. She moved my hair so she could put one elbow on either side of my head to brace herself so her whole weight wasn’t on me, I swear she thought she would crush me. I liked that she treated me like this precious, fragile ethereal creature when we were intimate. She pulled her fingers through my hair while we kissed until we were both breathless, our breasts pressed together as I cupped her ass so I could pull her in. She rutted against me, mashing our pubic bones together, trying to find some kind of friction. I pulled her face away from mine and whispered, “baby let me take care of you. Help me sit up?” She captured my lips in another deep kiss before climbing off of me. I held my hands out and she pulled me into a sitting position, I turned so I was sitting facing the wall as I forcefully pushed her up against it, grinning devilishly up at her as I slowly kissed one nipple, trailing between with kisses and then the other before nipping at them, making her breath catch. I put my hands on her waist, kissing her abdomen while she made a pitiful little noise like a cross between a moan and a whine. “Now who’s needy?” I teased as pulled her leg up and hitched it behind my shoulder, giving me full access. My fingers lightly trailed along her little tuft of blonde hair, my thumbs exploring along her folds before parting them to suddenly sweep my tongue across her vulva. Katya let out a huff of pleasure in response. I smiled before shifting my focus to her sensitive nub, alternating between applying pressure, soft laps and sucking gently. I wrapped my hands around her butt to pull her closer as she entwined her fingers in my hair. Katya rocked her hips into my face, throwing her head back as she moaned. I continued while pushing a finger inside her and then another, adding a third and bending them, enjoying the sounds of her falling apart reverberating off the bathroom walls. Her leg started to quake, she let go of my hair so she could reach behind and held onto the grip bar for support. Her face contorted, her mouth shaping into a sinful O, hot liquid squirted out past my hand and down her leg as she clenched around my fingers. I put my spare hand around her waist to keep her from toppling over. She relaxed her leg and wobbled to sit on my lap. She cradled my head against her chest as we both caught our breath and the pounding of her heart echoed in my brain. We were both completely spent as we put our arms around each other. “Holy fork!” Katya panted. “Yeah.” I let out a little giggle and she joined in. I nuzzled her neck and pulled her face to mine. I shivered against her and she stood up and turned the shower back on, hot water cascading down my back. Katya stood behind me and pulled my shampoo off the shelf, massaging some into my hair, being careful around the lump on my head. I am fiercely independent but having someone bathe you because they wanted to take care of you not because it was their job was intimate and freeing. I trusted Katya enough to give over control, I leaned back as her soapy hands roamed my body. I sighed contentedly as she wrapped me up in big fluffy pink towels. She threw my housecoat over her and then put my hands around her neck again so she could pick me up. “Chair or bed?” “Bed, definitely. You can be the big fork.” I teased with a little snort of laughter. “Goof.” She sniggered as she gently set me down on my bed. She backtracked to the fridge and pulled out our food she had bought earlier. She passed them to me and grabbed some bottled water. She grinned devilishly and dove at the bed as I let out a little squeal as she clamoured over me while I leaned back on my elbows. She turned back towards me, crossing her legs in front of me. I pulled myself up to sit facing her as well. Katya’s face fell. “What? What’s wrong?” I said, grabbing her hand. “Your foot. Violet, vhat happened to your foot?” I looked down and swore softly, the foot I had heard a crunch from earlier when I was evading what was probably a figment of my overtired, over active and over caffeinated brain was an angry, swollen and purple mess. “Shit!I thought I caught my foot on something earlier.” I yawned, “I’m sure it’s fine, just a sprain. It’ll be fine.” I didn’t want to explain what had happened because I didn’t want to think about it. I pulled the container of cheese and crackers over, hoping it would placate her if I ate something. She pursed her lips together but didn’t call me out. “Ve vill have to wrap it and keep an eye on it I think. You know you have to check these things Vi. It’s important to me that you are being careful. I don’t vant anything bad to happen to you.” She chastised gently as she pulled her own sandwich over. “I know, I know I should. You are totally right.” I yawned again, “I promise I’ll be more careful.” I pushed my half eaten food container onto my bedside table and chugged down some water. My eyelids felt like they were being weighed down by invisible sand bags. She tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and stroked the side of my face, “You must because I vould be lost and heartbroken if you got sick or hurt again. Now go to sleep.” She reached over me to put her empty container in the waste basket as I turned onto my side. She curled into me and draped her arm over me protectively. I didn’t have much of a chance to think about anything before sleep overtook me. I woke up to Katya trying to sneak off the end of the bed as her phone rang from the bathroom. I stirred and rolled over sleepily and she swore softly, “sorry I vas trying to get it before it voke you up. Go back to sleep love.” She disappeared into the bathroom, I heard her talking but didn’t know about what or who she was talking to. I put my head back on the pillow, shut my eyes and tried to go back to sleep but my brain was buzzing like there were bees in it. I looked at the clock, surprised we’d been asleep for 3 and a half hours. Katya poked her head back out and saw I was still awake. Frowning slightly, she pushed my chair over to the bed. Whoever was on the phone must have stepped away for a moment and was now back as she started talking in rapid Russian again. Probably her Mom. A few minutes later she pulled the phone away from her ear and covered the receiver with her other hand, “Trixie texted she can’t meet us for dinner, her friend isn’t meeting her til later so she’s gonna nap but Sashinka is vondering if you and I vant to go out vith her and her girlfriend Shea for dinner at the board game cafe! It’s ok if you aren’t feeling up to it, maybe we can reschedule for later this week.” “No, that sounds like fun to me! That’s perfect since we missed it this morning!” I propped myself up on my elbows, smiling at her look of happiness as she said goodbye to Sasha. I pulled myself up, only slightly dizzy this time and was about to swing my legs over the side of the bed when Katya’s hand shot out to stop me. “Let me look after your foot first.” She went over to her purse and pulled out a tensor wrap, I raised my eyebrow questioningly as if to say ‘do you always carry around first aid supplies?’ She shrugged and waved a hand at me, “Vhat? I’m a gymnast, I have all kinds of crap in here. You know the deal.” “Yep I do.” I had a whole variety of other supplies I carried around now, I thought somewhat morosely. “You ok?” Katya asked, cocking her head to the side. “Yep.” Katya felt around my foot and I grimaced, even though I couldn’t feel it. It just looked painful. “Does it hurt? You are making a face. Vhat is that face Violet?” “No, of course it doesn’t hurt but I remember breaking my foot during floor practice so it’s like my brain knows it’s supposed to hurt. I don’t know, it’s hard to explain.” Katya paused for a moment, “kind of makes sense. Your brain is still trying to connect with your spinal cord so it’s likely to misfire. I don’t think it’s broken but are you sure we shouldn’t–” “No I’m not going to the Doctor!” I interupted her before she could finish, she chuffed like a horse as she finished wrapping it up. “You are stubborn as a mule Violet. If it doesn’t look better or the swelling doesn’t go down in 48 hours, you are going to need to get it looked at even if I have to drag you there by the hair.” I chuckled and put my hands up, “ok! Ok! Geeze woman!” I reached my hand out to touch her arm. “I’ll be careful, ok? Thank you. You take such good care of me but you worry too much. I’m just fine.” ‘Aside from seeing things and a wicked headache, sure you’re fine Vi.’ I thought to myself. I got ready to go out, pulling out a pair of dark skinny jeans and a grey long sleeved T-shirt instead of the sweats Katya put in my bag. I could tell Katya wanted to change by the way she kept looking down at her faded and ripped jeans and wholey favourite sweater but that she didn’t want to leave me alone in my room. “Go ahead and change if you want to love,” I said, resolutely turning away from the long mirror and using my little vanity mirror across the room, opening the drawer and pulling out my foundation and a brush. The dark circles under my eyes had to go. I turned to flash her a smile, “I’m fine here.” “Are you sure?” “Yes, I insist. Go! Get! Should we meet in the quad in half an hour?” She smiled, “sounds good. Text or call me if you need me before then. I can be down here in a minute.” “I promise I will. Please don’t worry.” Katya was always interested or concerned with my welfare because she loved me but I hated the furrowed brow that had taken up residency on her face today. “Ok, I’ll see you soon.” She leaned over and gave me a quick peck and disappeared from the room. I let out a shaky breath, so the whole ghost thing must have happened in my head or from my fall but being in here alone was still kind of unnerving. I glanced quickly at the mirror through my reflection, nope, no booger monster in there. My head hurt, I shook a pain med out of my bag, downed it and went back to applying highlighter, contour and a quick smokey eye. I could swear I caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye but everytime I looked, nothing was there. After the fourth time, I chastised myself outloud in a whisper, “stop it Vi! You dreamt it up. You let all the stupid ghost stories and urban legends get in your head. You had a nightmare, it happens. But it wasn’t REAL! There were NO texts, you must have nodded off for a second and dreamt them. Katya is right, you whacked your head really hard.” I rubbed my temples and closed my eyes for a moment, “aaaand now you’re talking to yourself. Go you!” I added sarcastically, sighed and opened my eyes again to see my tired, stressed out looking reflection. I saw a flash of white across the room and spun around, but nothing was there. I slung my bag over my shoulder and pulled my favourite crimson leather jacket on. I tried to put on a pair of heels, since it was one of few wheelchair perks that I could wear them without getting sore feet (AN sorry about it lol) but I couldn’t fit my wrapped foot into it. I settled on a pair of Katya’s cute black knee-high boots that she had left here. Her feet were a size bigger than mine but it barely did up around my swollen foot. I left a light on and softly shut the door behind me, I would be early in the quad but at least I wouldn’t be here, freaking myself out. I wasn’t there long when Katya appeared, wearing a killer sleeveless scarlet dress that hugged her small but muscular frame and her shiny black high heels that we called her fuck me pumps. I was surprised she was actually wearing makeup, something she generally reserved for meets and then only because she had to, but tonight she had on winged eyeliner and a bright red lip. She made a passing comment of “nice boots” on the short walk to the cafe. I laughed and elbowed her in the side as we continued on. The cafe was crowded when Kat and I got there, the tables and booths crowded with students. The hostess at the door gave me a worried look after we said we had a reservation and gave Sasha’s name. She talked to another employee and then pulled us to the side, looking uncomfortable. “Sooo, I’m sorry you ladies will have to wait a few minutes, my manager said we just have to shuffle some people around because no one told us that you needed a table so we could pull out one of the chairs. We had you in a booth and there isn’t enough room to put your wheelchair at the end without it being a fire hazard Miss. I’ve been told to offer you a free game for your trouble. Again, I’m so sorry!” “It’s ok can go in a booth if you have a place out of the way to put my chair.” I offered, smiling at the nervous looking girl who was chewing on her lip ring. Her nameplate said Acid Betty and I wondered if it was a themey thing. She had an edgy look to her, but not gothy edgy since she was a riot of colour. Her tall multicoloured mohawk was seriously giving me Rainbow Dash from My Little Pony vibes and her bright makeup was on point. After a moment of scrutinizing her look, it dawned on me that she was a drag queen. I’ve always thought drag queens were so cool and admired their creativity, especially when I was heavily into gymnastics and not allowed to dye my hair, get piercings, tattoos or “alter our bodies in any way unbefitting to an athlete and more importantly a delegate of the United States of America.” It was pretty sad that I still remembered it word for word from the handbook and that I still hadn’t done any of those things now that I could. “I could put it in the staff room. It’s locked so no one will mess with it there. If that’s ok.” She offered, looking relieved. I nodded and she showed us over to a booth, thankfully they weren’t super high so I transferred rather easily, scooting in so Katya could sit on the outside. She handed us a free game voucher and games, drinks and food menus. “If you don’t see me when you want to leave, just ask for Acid and someone will come find me. I’m here til closing, is there anything I can get you before I leave and put your chair in the back?” “Do you have Monopoly?” Katya asked with a giant grin lighting up her face. Acid laughed, “we not only have Monopoly, we have a whole monopoly SECTION! We have pretty much every variation you can think of, the 80th anniversary collectors edition, Harry Potter, Dr Who, Star Wars, Disney, sports, Christmas, The Walking Dead to name a few. I think we even have a Canadian themed Monopoly around here somewhere.” “Ooooh goody!” Katya exclaimed and clapped her hands in glee, “be right back Возлюбленная!” I was left behind as I gazed around in wonder at the bookshelves lined with rows and rows of different board games, big and small. Some were so new, they weren’t even out of their plastic and some old well-loved ones that were battered at the corners. “Hey Violet!” Sashinka called, crossing the room hand in hand with a tall black woman with sleek black hair who was turning heads in a tight, sinfully short dress with an orange graphic print and a knee length bright orange faux fur coat. Sasha was wearing a red felt oddly taco-shaped hat that was definitely a statement piece and a white and black swirled dress. “Hey! Katya will be right back, she is looking at the Monopoly section.” Sasha rolled her eyes and chuckled, “it figures! She’s been obsessed with that game for as long as I remember. This is my girlfriend Shea, Shea this is Violet.” Shea slid into the booth opposite me and Sasha plunked down beside her. The Nubian queen offered her hand, “Shea Coulee, nice to meet you.” She had the cutest smile, her teeth weren’t straight at all but they were white and the exuberance with which she smiled was absolutely charming. “Violet, nice to meet you too.” Katya rushed up with the 80th anniversary edition of Monopoly clutched to her chest, sliding into the seat beside me. “I got one! Hi Sashinka! And you must be Shea! Nice to meet you!” Katya offered her hand and Shea offered her full name again. Sasha said something in Russian, the only word I caught was Monopoly, and Katya fired back at her laughing. Shea and I looked at each other, she cocked an eyebrow at me. “Do you speak Russian?” I shook my head, “nope, the only word I know is a few curses and the word sweetheart because Katya calls me it all the time. You?” She shook her head. “So are you a student at Stanford?” She nodded, “BA in fine arts, my major is fashion design with a minor in dance. You?” “Well I haven’t declared a major yet but I’m taking some Bachelor of Arts and Sciences courses. It’s a big decision.” Shea nodded and gave a laughing Sasha a little elbow. Sasha’s face fell and she covered her mouth. “Oh I’m sorry, we were being rude. English. I promise. Sorry Violet.” “Hey it’s ok, you both have so much catching up to do.” Katya put her hand over mine, “but ve can do that in English too.” Acid came back and took our drink and food orders as Katya giddily set up the Monopoly board in the middle of the table. I tried to order a salad but Katya gave me a look, I sighed and added half a wrap to my order which earned me a brilliant smile. She really was too good to me and worried way too much. I learned that Sashinka was also a fine arts major and that she spoke several languages besides Russian and English. That her and Shea had met the last time that Sasha and her family had moved when Shea had been doing an internship at a Toronto based fashion company. Their friend Trinity had introduced them about 9 months ago and they had hit it off immediately and have been dating ever since. After Katya won at Monopoly by owning at least half the board, we played Trivial Pursuit which Sasha kicked our asses at. Sasha and Katya quickly forgot that they should speak in English and there were little stretches of time where they would babble away in Russian, both tripping over each other’s words and laughing. Shea and I talked about our programs, classes we were looking forward to, dorm life expectations and dorm life reality. She was super friendly and easy to talk to. “Show off.” Shea teased. “Hey! Don’t be upset because I bitch slapped you with my intelligence dearest.” She joked back, throwing her head back in laughter and looking at Shea like she hung the moon. When we were ready to go, we decided we would walk back to the edge of campus together. Katya quickly excused herself to go find Acid and my chair after she insisted on paying for all of us. Sasha excused herself to go to the washroom. I scooted to the edge of the booth and swung my legs over the side. “You coming Violet?” Shea cocked her head to the side, offering her arm. Oh shit, she doesn’t know! This was the one drawback of transferring from my chair. “I…um…have to wait for Katya.” “I’m not gonna bite!” She laughed, “we can meet them outside. There’s a lineup of people waiting for a table.” Shea said coolly, giving me a look over her round orange glasses. She’d become somewhat gruff with me for the last hour or so and I wasn’t quite sure what I did to make her upset with me. “Um…Shea, I thought Sashinka would have told you…” I trailed off, if she was already mad at me, making her feel stupid was going to be the icing on the fucking cake. Shea crossed her arms and said sharply, “told me what?” “That I’m a paraplegic and I literally almost ran her over today. She didn’t mention it?” I had become used to being disabled as one of my identifiers. It wasn’t a bad thing, I was the queer, skinny, brunette girl in a wheelchair. “No she didn’t, so you can’t feel your legs at all?” She was grinning at me and I was more than a little creeped out. “Nope, that’s what paraplegic means.” I grumbled, “ok why are you looking at me like that?” She sat down again, still grinning, “Violet I’ve been flirting with you all night,” she laughed, “I’ve been playing footsie with you all night too! I just thought you weren’t a big fan of the chocolate.” She said cockily and raised her right eyebrow. I didn’t even know what to say. Thankfully Katya and Sasha were crossing the room again, Shea put a finger up to her lips and said shhhh. What a creeper! “You ok hun?” Katya inquired, parking my chair in front of me. I could feel Shea’s eyes on me as I moved into my chair, all of the hair on my neck and arms was standing up as I slid my jacket on. “Are you cold?” “Here, borrow my coat. I insist!” She said, pulling her coat off and making a scene of putting it over my shoulders. She whispered in my ear, “my number is in the pocket. Stash it before we get back to campus.” “Aww that’s so nice of you to lend her your coat Shea Shea,” Sasha gushed, pulling Shea’s hand into her own. Shea flipped her hair, “happy to help out.” The walk back to campus was filled with Sashinka and Katya jabbering on, sometimes in English and sometimes in Russian. Shea grabbed my chair at one point, “your arms must be tired. I don’t mind.” Sounding like she was doing me the world’s biggest favour. After telling her no nicely twice, I abruptly turned my wheels, breaking her grip. The stop caused the other two girls that were ahead of us to pause and Katya saw what Shea was trying to do. “Don’t Shea, Violet really doesn’t like people pushing her. She can do it herself. If she needed help, she’ll ask.” Katya said firmly, picking up on the tension between Shea and I. “Oh ok. I was just trying to be helpful. Sorry Vi.” She pouted. “It’s ok, I just really don’t like being pushed around.” I gave her a look as if to add that I wasn’t too fond of pushy people either. We reached the edge of campus where Sasha and Shea had to go the opposite way from Katya and my dorm. I peeled off Shea’s coat and handed it back to her. “Thanks for lending me your coat.” “You can keep it and give it back to me later. I don’t mind.” Shea said silkily. “Nah! Katya will keep me warm.” I retorted, Katya put her arm around my shoulders and nodded. “Ok fine. No worries.” She slipped the bright orange garment back on, putting her hands in the pockets and frowning. Probably because her number was still firmly in her pocket and not in mine! Sasha and Katya hugged while Katya marvelled “I still can’t believe it! After all these years Sashinka!” “I know!! Thank the Goddess that Violet almost ran me over!” Sasha joked, pulling me into a one armed hug while trying to keep her hat out of my face. Katya was hugging Shea, “it vas so good to meet you Shea! Ve vill all have to go out again soon so I can get to know you better since Sashinka and I did most of the talking tonight. Sorry about that.” “Violet and I had some interesting conversations, right Vi?” Shea teased. “Sure did! Yup! Nice to see you again Sashinka and nice to meet you Shae.” I said with a little yawn. It was a totally fake yawn but it had the desired effect of Katya saying goodnight so we could part ways with the other girls. Katya and I paused for a minute when we got into the building, unsure of whether to go to her dorm or mine. Katya’s phone rang, “Hello?” Katya paused for a moment, looking concerned. “Trixie is that you? Calm down, vhat are you saying? Vhere are you?” Katya frowned and paused again to listen and I mouthed ‘go get her’ to her. “I vill be right there. Stay put!” Katya hung up and gave me a peck on the cheek, “I vill message you as soon as I get Trixie ok?” She didn’t wait for an answer but ran out of the door. I hope Trixie was ok. I wondered what happened as I made my way to my room. I pondered all of the things that could happen to a newly transplanted country bumpkin and each idea was worse than the last. I pushed open my door, fumbling around in the dark to turn the light on, locking the door behind me and going directly to my PJ drawer and pulling out my snuggliest pair. I yawned widely and stretched my arms out, before changing and hopping into bed, I put my phone beside me for when Katya called and wrapped a blanket around myself as I cracked open my book. I woke up in darkness, I didn’t know where I was for a moment. My book had fallen over my face. I pulled it away and it was still dark. Ugh the bedside lamp liked to short out at the most inconvenient times, not that there was ever a good time for things to short out. I groped around in the dark for my phone but couldn’t find it. I could have sworn it was right beside me. I groped in the darkness for the lamp when my phone rang, making me jump. My phone wasn’t on my bed anywhere though. It lit up and was laying on the floor feet away. In front of the mirror. I must have knocked it off my bed. There was no way I could get to it in the dark though, I clicked the on/off switch on the lamp a few times but it wouldn’t work. I didn’t want to transfer to my chair in the dark to get my phone since I had managed to knock myself out and fuck up my foot already today, who knows what kind of trouble my currently accident prone body would get into in the dark. But I really needed to know that Trixie and Katya were ok and I knew Katya would worry if she didn’t hear from me after the day we had. My phone started ringing again. I grabbed my laptop and typed in a facebook message to Katya. Hey hun, my phone is on the fritz so I don’t know if you texted or called me, I kinda fell asleep for a little bit. Are you and Trixie ok? What happened? Message me back on here. I started scrolling through my facebook, smiling when I got a friend request from Sashinka Velurovna and then groaning when I got one from Shea Coulee. I would have to think about that one, I couldn’t very well accept Sasha’s friend request and not have her wonder why I didn’t accept her girlfriend’s. No, I would leave it for the moment. I needed to talk to someone about that whole situation but it couldn’t be Katya because she might tell Sashinka and she was so lovely, I didn’t want to be the one to break her heart with tales of her girlfriend’s treachery. As if by magic, Aja’s face popped up on the screen. I answered their facetime, pasting a smile on my own tired face. “Ayo Sis, what’s good?” Aja blurted and giggled. “Hey, on a scale from sober to falling off your chair, how drunk are you right now?” I inquired, wondering if I told them about the situation, if they were too wasted and would just fly off the handle in typical Aja fashion. “Well I’m still upright but definitely NOT sober sis!” They joked and then looked serious, “hey, what’s going on? It’s a Friday night before school starts Monday, you aren’t attached at the hip to a Russian blonde, you are in your fuzziest PJs AND you’ve been sleeping in your makeup.” Aja sat up straighter in their desk chair, “wait! Did you and Katya have a fight? Do you need me to shake–I mean talk–some sense into her? Because I can be at your place in 10 minutes.” I chuckled, Aja may not be Latinx by blood but they definitely carried the fiery personality inherited by their adopted family, “easy Cujo! Katya and I are fine. It’s this other girl.” “Uh oh.” I explained that Katya reunited with someone from her past and we went out and what Shea said. “What a fucking creep!” Aja smacked their hands on their desk, “and she tried to give you her jacket with her fuckin’ number in it after all of that?! How fucking bold is that!?” Aja crowed, you could almost measure Aja’s level of sobriety with the amount of times they said the word fuck or it’s variants in a sentence. They were pleasantly toasted but not sloppy drunk yet. “Ok you can tone down the awe and admiration a touch.” I added sarcastically, holding my hands out. She laughed, “sorry it’s just a bold fucking move. I mean, she was playing fucking footsie with you.” Aja snorted, “which is fucking hilarious Sis. I mean footsie with a paraplegic! I mean she didn’t know but still, the visual is amusing.” “Gee thanks. Why did I think you would be any help at all?” I laughed. “Hey, can’t blame a bitch for wanting to hit dat fine ass!” Aja leered at me and waggled her eyebrows at me. We both burst out laughing. “But it’s definitely an odd situation, are you going to tell Katya?” “I don’t know, she’s really excited to reconnect with her friend, I don’t want to create drama and make things awkward since we will probably be going out with them as a group again sometime.” “Maybe the girl will clue in that you aren’t interested and things will be chill next time?” Aja offered hopefully. She leaned her head to one side and studied me for a moment. “Are you ok girl? You look kinda pale and tired as fuck. Are you feeling ok?” I sighed, raking my hands down my face before rubbing my temples and reaching a hand back to gingerly feel around the top of my head at my scraped and raw scalp, the lump hadn’t gone down hardly at all. I winced, “I’m fine, just a bit of a headache, I’ve been a bit of a klutz in the past 24 hours and have fallen and knocked myself out cold last night and then this afternoon I kinda smashed my foot up.” “Jesus! Do we seriously need to bubblewrap you sis? Did you go to the Dr?” “What do you think the answer to that question is?” “I know! I know you hate them Violet.” Aja’s face got serious, “but maybe you SHOULD go? I mean, I know they’re a pain in the ass but you might have seriously hurt yourself this time.” “God did Katya call you to try and convince me to go?” A guilty expression flickered over their face for a fleeting moment. “Oh my God, she did, didn’t she? DIDN’T SHE?!” I put my hand over my eyes and then pinched the bridge of my nose, shaking my head. “Ok honestly, yes, Katya texted me. She seemed upset, said she found you passed out, that you had a nightmare or hallucination or something and said you didn’t seem like yourself. That you seemed scared. She worries about you, which I think is cute. She didn’t tell me to ask you to go to the Doctor, that was all me. Have you been eating?” “Yes! I had lunch AND supper today! And I ate yesterday too!” I added before she could ask. I sighed, feeling so tired, “Listen I know you guys worry about me and I appreciate it but I’m a big girl, I can make my own choices. I promise I’ll be careful. I have to go, my head is killing me but thanks for listening, enjoy whatever party you are going to tonight, stay safe. “Ok Sis, listen, don’t be mad at Kat, she just loves you a lot and wants to protect you.” “I know but I’m pretty good at protecting myself if you hadn’t noticed.” “I noticed, bye Sis, I’ll message you tomorrow.” “Bye Aj!” I waved and clicked the off button. I sighed and leaned back on my pillows. There was a ding and I sat up straight. Katya had finally responded. Katya - That sucks about your phone, I hope it can be fixed. Glad you got some rest, that is great! Trixie and I are fine, on our way back to the dorm. About a 20 minute walk away. Trixie got really lost and turned around when she went to meet her friend Kim and she said she thought some guy was following her. She went into a hotel and called her friend but she couldn’t get a hold of her and we are the only other people she knows here. The guy stopped walking for a minute when she went inside but then left. She sat with security until I could get there. Poor thing was shaking like a leaf so we stopped for coffee. I typed back; Geeze that’s scary, no wonder she was freaked! Wow 20 minutes walking? That is a lot of wrong turns! Hopefully the guy just thought she was someone else or it was a coincidence that he stopped. Make sure that she gets a whistle from the student centre just in case he comes back. Are you going to come over after you guys get back to your room? Katya - I think I should stay with Trix, she’s still pretty upset. Why don’t you come up to us, we can have a sleepover! It was tempting but I worried that if I kept running from my room at night that the nightmare that I had had would make it hard to sleep when I inevitably HAD to sleep in my room alone, like when Katya went to gymnastic meets. I knew I had to nip it in the bud. Me- I think I’m going to stay here, I honestly don’t think I will be able to stay awake for 20 more minutes! I’m so tired! Wanna meet in the quad at 8 to go for breakfast? Invite Trixie if she wants to come. Katya - switch that 8 to 9:30 and we have a deal! I haven’t slept in in forever! How is your head feeling? Me- sore but it’s totally fine! Nothing a little sleep and meds won’t cure. I’ll see you in the morning. Tell Trixie I’m glad she’s ok. Katya - I will, I love you, I hope you have a good sleep. Facetime me if you need anything. Restart your phone and see if it fixes the problem, it might just be a glitch. Me - I love you too! I will do that in the morning, I’m going to let it charge for the night first. Sleep well. Bye! Katya - bye love. I closed my laptop and put it beside my bed within reach. I rubbed my tired eyes, curling into a ball and felt the pull of sleep immediately tug me down. —————————————— Life completely got away from me for the next few weeks with the business of school starting, social events and sometimes watching Katya practice and giving critiques. I didn’t think of the dream very often. Occasionally I would wake up to find something that was beside my bed suddenly sitting in front of the mirror but I used to be a sleepwalker so maybe now I’m a sleeproller? I reasoned with myself. When I DID sleep in my room, I was so exhausted from classes that I generally immediately fell asleep as soon as I got in bed. Shea had backed off, she still flirted but not as aggressively. I still hadn’t told Katya, even with our no secrets rule. I started finding little reasons to cut my visit short when we would get together with both of them, I would always insist Kat stay if she wanted to, saying I needed time to study. The problem was that Sashinka was fast becoming a dear friend and invaluable person in my life and I felt bad for not saying anything to her about Shea. I mean, chances are if she was willing to sneak around or flirt with me, she was doing it with someone else who might actually take her up on her propositions and Sasha loved her so. Being around them both tied my stomach in knots for days leading up to and after the event. So with all the stress and studying, I hadn’t really thought much of the nightmare. Until I got the flu while Katya was away at a meet. I had slept in the afternoon but couldn’t manage to stop barfing long enough to sleep more than half an hour at a time that night. I would randomly fall asleep hugging a bucket and wake up to use it, burning with fever. It was a comedy of errors earlier in the day when Katya had sent Trixie check on me, she had at least brought me the bucket but within 5 minutes of her arrival, I had used said bucket and found out Trixie was a sympathetic puker. I sent her away when she emerged, green-faced, from my bathroom tearful and apologetic. I had my book beside me when I fell asleep but when I was jolted awake, it was half way across the room again. Maybe I threw it? I thought for moment before I buried my head in the bucket. “Ugh, fuck.” Dragging myself into my chair to empty the bucket in the washroom. I was wheeling sluggishly back to bed, feeling like my muscles were on fire, when the lights went out. There was light coming from my phone screen, reflecting off of the mirror. There was a face reflected in the mirror but it wasn’t mine. She was pale with a cloud of white hair. “Hello.” She said in a high voice that echoed slightly, “Don’t pass out this time, please. I’m not going to hurt you. Dawn is soon, I can’t talk once the sun comes up. The text thing was a one time deal unfortunately, I just didn’t want you to get rid of me.” My vision blurred and I closed my eyes against the spinning room. This wasn’t happening. She wasn’t real. “Don’t pass out, please don’t pass out Violet!” The girl begged in a whine. “I’m gonna get in bed now.” I muttered drowsily at myself, since I was most definitely alone. I clawed my way into bed, out of breath from even that small amount of exertion, curling in on the bucket. The mirror was humming a song I didn’t know. “I’ve been trying to talk to you for weeks. You’re never awake and you’re really hard to wake up!” I didn’t respond, trying to firmly stay in my denial that this was even happening. “I mean, I don’t even know if you know how hard it is for me to manifest my voice.” She complained. “I really wanted to talk to you. I’m real and I need your help.” I started throwing up again, eventually resurfacing and setting the bucket aside to run a hand through my sweat soaked hair. My heart pounding in my ears was almost deafening as I muttered “you’re not real Sharon,” before my eyes fluttered shut again. I woke up to a ray of blinding sun shining on my face, I let out a grunt at the pain in my head and squinted before I brought a hand up to shield my eyes. What a crazy fever dream I had last night, I remembered parts of it, the girls high pitched whine as she tried to convince me she was real, I think I remembered her begging me not to pass out. I pulled myself up to sitting and reached for my chair but it was across the room, parked facing the mirror with the brakes on. Scrawled on the mirror, in some dripping crimson liquid that looked like blood were the words I’M REAL! S. I started hyperventilating and crying. I couldn’t have wrote that on the mirror in my sleep because how would I have gotten back to bed? “Oh God, oh God, oh God!” I put a shaking hand over my eyes, my head was pounding and my stomach was churning and I felt like I was going to pass out. I sent Katya a message, trying to distract myself from my racing thoughts. Me - hey when do you get back? Katya sent back a message immediately. I had to blink my eyes a few times before I could read it, the words were swimming around and it was adding to my dizziness. Katya - We are on the bus back, going to stop for breakfast soon. How are you feeling my love? Me - ugh, fever’s bad, head hurts, dizzy, can’t move except to barf Katya - Oh my darling, I’ll be home soon to take care of you. Katya couldn’t come here! There was no way in my current state of weakness that I could drag myself across the floor to my chair and clean up the mirror! I couldn’t have her laughing at me again, thinking I was cracking up under the pressure. I felt like I wasn’t getting enough air as I fumbled to type in Me - NO! You can’t come here! You’ll get sick! And then the team will get sick and it will be all my fault! Please don’t! Katya was taking awhile to respond, they must have stopped for breakfast and she probably forgot her phone on the bus. I had slid back down, lying on my back in the bed with a frustrated sigh. I fell asleep and dropped my phone on my face a few times while I waited for her to respond. I rolled over onto my side with a little cry, “you’re such a fucking weakling Violet,” was the last thought I had before I lost consciousness. I woke to someone singing softly in Russian, there was a tinkle of water while she wrung out a cloth and pressed the cool material across my forehead. My eyelids were so heavy, I couldn’t open them. I sighed and tried to sit up while I croaked out, “Katya, I told you not to come.” I felt a hand push down on my chest, forcing me to lay back. Putting the cloth back on my forehead and smoothing back my hair. “Shhh, it’s not Katya. It’s Sasha. Just rest Vi.” “Oh Sasha, hi.” I said dumbly, finally gathering the strength to open my eyes to see Sasha’s concerned face over me. She chuckled, “hi yourself.” “Wait, how did you get in here?” I squeaked out. “Please tell me you didn’t tell Max I was sick, did you?” I added in a whine, trying to sit up again. “Would you just lay back down and rest kukolka! I didn’t tell Max, Katya called me in a panic when she couldn’t get in touch with you and asked me to get your key from her room to check on you. She said was going to be late getting home because the bus got in an accident.” “Oh my God, is she ok?!” I brought my hand up to my throbbing head, weirdly on the edge of tears. “Is she ok Sash?” “Shhhh! She’s okay! Katya is fine! It’s all going to be okay Violet, just rest dear kukolka.” Sasha frowned as she rinsed the cloth and returned it to my forehead. “You’re burning up. Maybe we should get you to the hospital?” I reached out and grabbed her hand, “no, please, no Sashinka,” I begged. My stomach rolled as I frantically looked for the bucket, Sasha pushed it into my hands and rubbed my back until I was done vomiting and feeling so spent I didn’t even have the energy to hold my head up anymore. Sasha started singing again and my eyes fluttered shut again. Later when I woke up, I opened my eyes to the most blindingly white sunlight. I groaned and shielded my eyes. I must have finally slept through the night or maybe I dreamt the whole waking up to a bloody mirror and then waking up to Sashinka taking care of me? “Violet? Oh thank Goddess!” Sasha exclaimed, she pulled my free hand into her own and patted it. “Just a second, let me turn down the light.” Turn down the sunlight? What? The light behind my eyes dimmed and I was able to blink open my eyes and lift my head to look around to see the white walls of the student clinic, an IV in the hand Sasha was patting again. I flopped my head back, “Sasha, you didn’t.” “I’m so sorry kukolka, so so sorry! I know you didn’t want this but your fever was so high and I couldn’t keep you awake.” I closed my eyes and groaned, imagining the fucking scene it would have caused to have an ambulance come screaming up to the dorm to take the poor disabled girl away. I opened my eyes and looked at Sasha’s remorseful tear stained face. “It’s ok Sasha, you were just doing what you thought was right. How long have we been here?” “Shea and I brought you here about 2 hours ago.” “You and Shea?” “Oh yeah, she told me to say she hopes you feel better soon, she wanted to stay but she had to work. She took the bus and left the car here so we can get back. Oh your chair is in the trunk! I’ll have to bring it in.” “Wait, we didn’t take an ambulance? How did you guys get me in here?” “You don’t remember?” I shook my head, “oh well, you woke up enough that we kept you upright and managed to wheel you out to Shea’s car but then you wouldn’t wake up when we got here and we were freaked out so we just,” she shrugged, “carried you in. How are you feeling? I was so scared! I have to let Katya know you’re awake, she’ll be so relieved! She was so worried!” “YOU TOLD KATYA?” I bellowed, much more furious about them freaking her out than being dragged here. “Violet, no! I HAD to call her, they were asking me questions like what your level of spinal cord injury is and when it happened? How long you’d been feeling sick? If you took any medication and I didn’t know the answer to any of them! They wanted to give you medication and I didn’t want them to give you something that was going to make you sicker if you were allergic or if it interacted with any medication you may be taking! Katya talked to the doctor herself. Please, please don’t be mad at me kukolka?” I sighed, “I’m not mad at you Sashinka. Where is Katya? And what do keep calling me?” “Katya will be here as soon as she can but when I talked to her, they still didn’t have a new bus and a few of the girls were still getting checked out. I don’t know when she will be home so you are totally stuck with me.” I was confused for a minute but then I remembered about the bus accident. “The accident! So some of the girls were actually hurt? How bad was it? Is everyone going to be ok?” “Katya said one of the girls broke her wrist and a few needed stitches but most of them just have bumps and bruises. However, one of the trainers was standing up when it happened and,” Sasha paused, furrowing her brow and chewing on her bottom lip, “I think she was really hurt though. Katya wasn’t sure how badly, maybe she’ll be able to give us an update?” “Yeah maybe.” I muttered noncommittally, “do you have my phone?” “No but you’re welcome to borrow mine, you can just hit redial she’s the last number I called.” Sasha said holding her phone out to me. “Do you want me to leave so you have some privacy?” “No no you’re fine Sashinka! So first I should probably ask you if the doctor said anything or have me meds because I guarantee you that’s going to be the first question that she’s going to ask me.” Sasha nodded, pulling out a piece of paper from her jacket pocket. “Yes I wrote it down kukolka, they gave you fluids and electrolytes, some nausea medication called Zofran, a medicine for fever and the same pain medication Katya said you take at home that I didn’t quite catch the name of. They said you were very dehydrated.” “I figured as much. I was trying to drink Gatorade but the more I drank, the more came back up so I finally just gave up trying. Hey Sasha?” “Yes, what is it?” “I have two questions. When can we get out of here? And what is a kukolka?” Sasha turned red, the blush spreading up her neck, sweeping across her face and over her bald head. “Oh that. Sorry it just slipped out, my Mama used to call me that as a term of endearment when I was sick as a girl, it’s probably a horribly patronizing thing to say to a grown woman!” “Why don’t you let me decide that, so what does it mean?” “Well it translates into little doll or dolly.” I grinned, “I like it.” “Good, I’m glad. Do you want me to go ask when we can go?” I nodded and she left the room as I dialed Katya’s number. Katya picked up on the first ring, rattling off a long trail of Russian that had my name in it. “Hey it’s me Kat. Are you ok? Did you get hurt in the bus accident? Sash said one of the trainers got hurt?” She let out a low little chuckle, “I should ask you how you are first.” “Too slow!” I teased, “no seriously, are you alright?” “I’m fine, I have a few stitches in the back of my head but it’s ok.” “No! That is most definitely NOT ok! My poor baby!” “No I’m really fine, Farrah broke her wrist and cut her knee up, she’s been crying ever since. I svear the Doctors vere going to give her an elephant dart to the neck at any minute but she fell asleep, probably from the pain meds. ”We both let out a little giggle, not that she was hurt but Farrah was a huge drama queen and the youngest person on the team. The bubble gum pink haired girl was always crying or moaning about something. “But the new coach Alaska was hurt the worst, she’s in surgery now. She was standing up facing the back when the bus was hit. She broke her leg in 2 places when she got it caught on the way down and she hit her head pretty hard and had to get some stitches.” I screwed up my face, “fuck ouch! Poor ‘Lasky! Is she going to be ok?” “Da, she vill probably not be able to work for a few veeks but I do have some more bad news on top of that.” “Oh no! What?” “Vell, ve haven’t been able to get a bus yet so it seems ve might have to stay here for the night. I am so sad because I vanted to be there to make sure you vere ok and to take care of you.” “I’m okay, I’m sorry you don’t get to come home tonight. I miss you. I am so glad that YOU are okay. That must have been so scary.” “I miss you too. So Sashinka said you vere really sick, I’m so glad I didn’t take your spare key vith me. I just had a bad feeling. Vhat happened?” “Well the day before you left, my stomach felt a little funny but when I woke up at dawn the yesterday I could not stop throwing up. I’m sure it’s the stomach flu, I thought it would be over by today but it just seemed to get worse. They gave me meds so I’m not throwing up anymore, well at least not right now. And they said I was dehydrated so they gave me fluids. I’m mostly just feeling weak and like I could sleep for the next 500 years so you aren’t missing much by not being back and maybe by the time you get home I’ll be feeling better.” “I hope so,” I hated hearing the worry that tinged her voice. There was a clatter and Farrah let out a moan and whined out Katya’s name. She started sobbing loudly. “I think that’s your cue you have to go. Text me later and if I’m not asleep, I’ll message you back. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. I’m a tough cookie.” “Shhh Farrah I’m right here,” I heard Katya whisper and then in a regular voice, “I vill text you later my love. Feel better and take good care of yourself. Thank Sashinka for me.” “I love you too, don’t forget to put some ice on your head.” We disconnected the call and I let my head flop back, closing my eyes for a minute. When I woke up again, Sasha was back in the room and she had brought my wheelchair. Her face was serene as she read a book named Maidenhair by Mikhail Shishkin. She looked up and smiled sweetly. “Hey, welcome to the land of consciousness again! How are you feeling?” I rubbed my eyes, “how long have I been asleep?” “Oh about an hour.” “An HOUR! Why didn’t you wake me? When can we get out of here?” My stomach lurched and I swallowed thickly. I wanted to go home so I was NOT going to bring up that I was feeling nauseous again. “They said to let them know when you woke up,” she gave me a knowing look, “maybe you should ask for a prescription for nausea meds to get you through.” “You are freakishly intuitive girl.” “And you are freakishly green, you look like Alphaba.” She teased as she swished out of the room. It was dusk by the time we were finally freed from the clinic, clutching a prescription for 2 antinausea meds and a strong recommendation to put some type of food or drink in my system. After stopping at the pharmacy, Sasha said she just had to pick up a few things from her and Shea’s place before we could go back to my own. I sat in the car for a minute and fought with myself for a few minutes before texting Sasha. Me - hey Sash, would you mind grabbing your Ouija board, you know, in case we get bored. She texted back one word. Sashinka - sure! She came out shortly after with the old-looking box under one arm and a small duffle in the other. When we got to the dorm, I was having a hard time transferring from the low car, my shaking arm muscles felt like jelly and there was nothing to grab onto. Sasha hovered for a few minutes, before gently asking if I needed help, I put my head down and sighed before nodding. Sasha pulled me into a hug and stood up, pivoting to set me softly in my chair. I was surprised at her strength despite her wispy frame. We got to my room and I opened the door, noticing immediately that the mirror was clean. Maybe I had dreamt it in my fever induced state. Sasha saw me staring, “I cleaned the mirror off. I figured you wouldn’t want to see that when you woke up.” “So it was really there?” She nodded. “So I’m not going crazy.” “No, I feel it. There is a trace here.” I cocked my head in confusion. She took a deep breath and sunk into the orange chair, “I am a sensitive. I can talk to them, ghosts that is. I’ve been able to do it since I was around 7 when I drowned in a lake, thankfully they were able to revive me but I’ve been able to see and hear people who are dead ever since. I also can sometimes sense other people’s emotions if they are strong enough. I know it sounds surreal and trust me, it feels surreal too but it’s the truth. I’m able to control it now but when it first happened, it was scary and overwhelming.” “I can imagine! Dying is scary enough! I can not imagine going through that as a child!” “So you’ve died too?” She looked at me, wonder and curiosity on her face. “Uh-” I probably should have worded that differently, “yes, I did. After my accident, I remember landing and then I couldn’t breathe. At first I thought that I just knocked the wind out of myself but then I couldn’t move and things went fuzzy. Then I was looking down at myself and I freaked out, I saw one of the trainers come up and yell for help but it felt like every minute I watched, the more detached I became from what was happening that by the time I was being brought back, I wasn’t really scared anymore.” Sasha nodded. My eyes were getting droopy again from the IV meds they gave me before it was removed. Sasha was suddenly beside me, her long fingers gently resting on my shoulders. “You need to go to bed dear Kukolka,” I opened my mouth, “no, no, no, don’t even start. I’m staying and it’s absolutely no bother. I can read here as well as I can at home. I’m not going to leave a friend in need just so I can sit at home and read.” She chastised firmly, giving me a no nonsense look. “What a crazy day! If I fall asleep, will you wake me up if Katya updates us about how the new coach Alaska is doing once she gets out of surgery? I hope she’s gonna be ok!” I fretted. I let her steer me to my bed, she kept a steadying hand on my back while I got in and then pulled the blankets over me. Sasha left and returned with a cool cloth which she placed over my eyes, I sighed as she sat on the side of the bed and smoothed my hair back as if I was a young child. “I promise I will wake you with news kukolka.” She started singing the same Russian song as before, my limbs felt like lead as I relaxed into my mattress and tripped into sleep. I woke up to knocking on the glass, an incessant tap, tap, tap. I blearily looked at my alarm clock. It was 4:24 am, across the room Sasha was fast asleep, mouth wide open with her tiny frame draped across the arms of the chair. I had to pee so bad my bladder hurt, one of the hazards of IV fluids. I propped myself up on my arms and that is when I noticed my chair was halfway across the room again, brakes on and in the same position facing the mirror as before. The ouija board box on the seat. Sasha must have put them there for some odd reason. Maybe she had little Russian idiosyncrasies like Katya did, like always putting empty bottles on the floor, not kissing or shaking hands in doorways or making sure if I got her flowers that there was an odd number. Tap, tap, tap. Sasha stirred, sitting up and rolling her neck with a pained look on her face. She looked puzzled as she gazed at my chair and then she noticed I was awake. “Hey, how did you move your chair?” I looked at her in shock, I mean how could I have moved it? “I thought you did.” I muttered but Sasha was no longer looking in my direction, her vision firmly fixed upon the mirror, head cocked to one side as if she was listening to someone or something. I hesitantly turned to look, expecting to see the white haired girl but there was no one in the mirror. “Sasha?” “Hmmm?” She looked over at me with a dreamy expression. “Can you uh bring my chair over? I really gotta pee.” I let out a little giggle. She shook herself and pushed my chair over, she was preoccupied and kept looking towards the mirror. We both jumped at the next tap, tap, tap and I expectantly looked at the mirror, frowning when she wasn’t there. “Should I get that?” Sasha asked once I was in my chair and halfway to the washroom. “Huh?” “I think someone is knocking on your window dear.” “Oh that! Yeah, it’s probably someone who forgot their key!” I said as I slammed the bathroom door shut in my haste. I was surprised to come out of the bathroom to find Sasha sitting on my bed cross-legged, there was another person facing her with their back to me until they turned towards me. “Ayo Sis!!” Aja announced with a giggle, they were definitely drunk. “Aja? What are you doing here?!” “Pearl kind of kicked me out. She had someone over and needed the room to themselves if you know what I mean. So you were the only person whose room I knew I could get into at 4 in the morning and who hopefully wouldn’t be too pissed that I woke them up at 4 in the morning?” There was another tap, tap, tap and I went to go over to the window to pull the curtain up, “did you bring friends with you or what?” “Or what.” Sasha said in a whisper, staring at the mirror. The girl was there. “Well hooooly shiiit!” Aja said as they fell off the bed. Tap, tap, tap. Sharon looked at us and then at the dusty Ouija board. “Oh I think she wants us to play!” Sasha exclaimed as if it were the most normal thing in the world to want to talk with a spiritual entity that’s trapped in your mirror. Sasha pulled my side table out to the middle of the room, dragged the orange chair over. Sasha looked at Aja who was still staring at the mirror, open mouthed and sprawled out on the floor. “You in?” “Fuck yeah! Of course I’m fuckin’ in!” Aja scrambled up and pulled over a folding chair from the corner. Sasha pulled out the board and a small white candle, lighting it and turning off the overhead light. She swirled the planchette around in a figure 8 a few times while Aja and I joined her at the table. We added our fingers to the board as Sasha said, “we invite communication from the spirit world, specifically from the girl in the mirror of room 121.” The heart shaped hunk of wood under our fingertips jumped. “You’re moving it!” Aja accused me until they saw how round my eyes had gone but I still shook my head for good measure. Sasha started spelling out letters and stringing together words. “S…H…A…R…O…N, oh your name is Sharon?” Sasha looked up at the girl in the mirror who nodded frantically. “Oh look she’s spelling something else! H…E…L…P. Oh no! She needs help! How can we help? What happened to you?” Sasha had tears in her eyes, “you’re so sad, I can feel it. You’re poor heart!” Sasha finished on a little sob as the tears overflowed down her face. “I D…O…don’t H…A…have. M…U…much T…I…time. She said she doesn’t have much time!” “Yeah she told me she can’t communicate after sunlight.” I blurted, the other two just stared at me in shock. “What? She told me last night.” “She can talk?” Aja sputtered and glared at Sharon, “why are we doing all this bullshit then?” “Because I guess it takes her a lot of energy to manifest her voice?” I looked up at Sharon to see her look of delighted surprise that I actually took in what she said. “She spelled out the words long story, not enough time, tomorrow? But I can…” Sasha paused, thinking as she bit her lip. “You can what? Spit it out sis!” Aja commanded impatiently. I let out a little chuckle. “Well I can try to channel her. I did it for my aunt once when I was 17.” “Are you sure that’s a good idea Sash?” I asked. “I have to try!! I mean I can feel her heart just breaking, I can’t wait a whole day to hear what happened! You can get the story and tell me when I get back.” “When you get back?” “It’s hard to explain. I’ll just center myself and let her speak through me.” Sasha withdrew her hands from the board and took some deep breaths and lowered her chin to her chest. At first I thought it hadn’t worked. Sasha was still, it looked like she wasn’t breathing. “Sashinka?” I said in barely a whisper, my voice shaking. I was about to take my hand of the planchette and reach for her when she sucked in a big breath of air, her head still down. When she looked up, her face was almost unrecognizable as it transformed into a malevolent grin. The harsh change in Sasha’s features made me gasp. “Hey, thanks for the ride.” She laughed, it was high pitched and evil sounding, devoid of any actual mirth. She was feeling her body as if to confirm she was real. “So what happened to you?” “I’ll ask the questions.” Sharon barked, the sneer marring Sasha’s face was so uncharacteristic that it made all of my hair stand on end. She turned her cold eyes on me, “where is Alaska?” “Alaska?” I asked, perplexed as to what Sharon would want with Alaska, maybe they were friends? I knew Alaska had been a student here before she came back as a coach. She had blanched after she found out which dorm and room I was in. “You said she was hurt. Where is she?” “I don’t know! At a hospital somewhere between here and San Francisco. What do you want with Alaska? What is she to you?” “She is my destiny.” Sharon said cryptically as she abruptly stood up, grabbing Sasha’s phone, purse and keys. Aja and I both sprang into action. I wheeled to the door, blocking the exit while Aja approached Sharon. “Listen sis, this isn’t cool. Why don’t you tell us your story and then give us Sasha back and we’ll bring Alaska to you when she gets back to town?” Aja said in a calm voice. Sharon moved so quickly, Aja didn’t have time to scream when Sharon picked them up by the neck, her strength clearly superhuman and spat through gritted teeth, “I am NOT your Sis! And I am NOT waiting.” She threw Aja across the room, they landed on my bed first which broke their fall a but before bouncing off and crumpling to the floor where they lay unmoving. I wanted to go to them but I was frozen by fear. Sharon turned her cold glare on me, “get out of my way Violet.” She commanded in a cold dull voice. “I don’t want to hurt you but I will if I have to.” “No! I’m not going to let you do this! Give us Sasha back!” I crossed my arms and sat back in my chair. “We will help you get a message to Alaska but this isn’t the way.” “It is the ONLY way!” Sharon exploded at me, “don’t be stupid Vi, STEP ASIDE!” “NO! I’m not going to let you do this!!” “You don’t understand,” Sharon said in a softer voice, sadness crossing her face. “You can’t possibly. I need to see her!” “I can’t let you go Sharon.” “You have no choice!” Sasha’s face contorted with rage as she backhanded me across the face with such force that I was knocked from my chair as I landed with an oof, putting a hand to my throbbing cheek. Sharon looked at me in disdain as she left, taking my wheelchair with her. She stopped for a moment to announce, “you’ll get this back. This is so you can’t follow me. You can’t stop me, I’m unstoppable!” She laughed as she slammed the door behind her.

#I look spooky but I’m really nice #violet chachki #katya zamolodchikova #vatya #sharon needles #sasha velour #shea coulee #aja #farrah moan #pearl liaison #alaska thunderfuck #sashea #acid betty #lesbian au #horror #rpdr fanfiction #submission #remény

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bearly-dressed · 7 years ago

Photo

Forgot to show the stuff I got from Rose City Comic Con and to really talk about it. Definitely a humble haul for me, considering I spent most of my money to get autographs, haha. (Honestly, if you’re going to artists alley, you def need like 1000 dollars just to get everything you have your sights set on, cos there is a LOTTA great artists that turn out for these bigger conventions).

My friends got me some gifts along the way too, cos they're sweet. Total of three buttons: an Aizawa, a Reinhardt, and a Psyduck. (I had the RWBY ones already and put them on the hat for the con ‘cos I’m a filthy Bumbleby shipper), 5 prints (2 of my own) and one mini-print (someone at artist's alley gave me a cheap price for the Dragon Age print 'cos it was their display version and a little messed up, but eh). @cryingmanlytears got me the gengar hat before the con, and I love it a lot. I put my pin of Reinhardt on there. ;u;

I managed to get autographs from all the main ladies of RWBY, and I printed and brought in those two art pieces of my own for Arryn Zech and Barbara Dunkelman to sign and then gave copies for them for them to keep for themselves. They were all super duper sweet people and I got a lotta hugs and kind words from them. I started tearing up initially cos I have been a huge fan of RWBY since the show began (hell, I’ve been a huge fan of Monty’s since he made Haloid), and I’m a big supporter of the other work the crew does at Rooster Teeth as well, especially getting to see Lindsay on Achievement Hunter and Barbara’s “Always Open”.

Lindsay saw I was getting a bit choked up and was basically like “I WILL HUG THE TEARS AWAY.” I honestly didn’t think she was stepping around her table for the hug at first cos I thought she was going to take a selfie with the person behind me. Lindsay Jones gives some fuckin’ A+ hugs everyone. Like a mama bear. She even said “I love you, Talena! We appreciate you so much!” in Ruby’s voice. Hearing your own name in your fave character’s voice is SO COOL. Then, just when I was about to move on for Kara to sign something, she was like “ONE FOR THE ROAD.” and called me back for another hug. As someone with little physical contact on the day-to-day, getting back to back hugs made me feel so warm and loved. I cannot thank that woman enough for being so welcoming.

Moving on, Kara Eberle IS A PRECIOUS CINNAMON ROLL. I have a lot of anxiety and certain vocal tones really pull anxiety out of me and calm me down, and her voice was definitely one of those kinds of voices. She speaks and it exudes “I care”. Needless to say, whatever tears I had going on, stopped instantly. She saw my ax necklace was horribly askew and even took the time to reach out to fix it for me. I jested that she was having a hard time fixing it cos I was sweaty and it probably fused to my neck, but she was like “You’re FINE.” and I flash-backed to Weiss saying that to Ruby and a little fangirl inside of me probably squealed and then died.

Arryn complemented my gengar hat and was like “My boyfriend wears the same one!” and I honestly wanted to make a “same hat!” meme joke but wasn’t sure she’d get it and didn’t end up saying it, haha. Arryn took the time to stop and read the Bumbleby comic I handed her to sign and I think she might have been trying to hide her shipper feels and stay lowkey, cos she went from a neutral face to having the biggest grin sneak up on her. I think she really did like the comic though, because she asked me if she could put it up on her table for other people to see as they walked by, and I heartily agreed.

Then came Barb. Holy hell, that woman radiates like a goddamn sun in real life. It’s honestly no surprise why she was cast as Yang, because she just IS Yang. There is no doubt. When I handed her the Bumbleby comic to also sign, as well as the print of Yang by herself, Barb was like “HOLY COW, YOU DREW THIS? You’re super talented!” Both Arryn and Barb were happy to get gifts. I saw someone hand Lindsay a gift too and she was thrilled. Dudes, if anyone goes to see these ladies at some point, give them stuff. Even if you think it’s silly. They fucking adore gifts from fans. They’re so wholesome.

Anyway, the whole experience was very surreal. I love these people, and I don’t even know them in real life, but despite that, I know enough and can read a person’s energy enough to know they are good fuckin’ people, and are worth appreciating. It’s such a nice feeling that people you consider role models turn out to be just as nice as you imagine them to be.

In conclusion to this rambling, I was pretty damn starstruck, haha. And thankful. So very thankful. See, I was in serious depression before I made the trip to Portland, and just making the time to go on this trip to visit my friends and see my role models made my depression completely disappear. If only for a moment, but still. The feeling is great.

#personal #RWBY #rose city comic con #bear rambles

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enzelffxiv · 5 years ago

Text

Something short and self-indulgent.

~1,430 words, end of Shadowbringers MSQ spoilers, Dark Knight quests spoilers, Ardbert being a good big bro

She'd seated herself on a low wall outside the building, and was staring into the distance at the softly lit spires, holding on to something that hung from a chain around her neck.

"Imry," Ardbert said after a moment, as gently as he could. "Your friends--they're waiting for you."

What he didn't say aloud, didn't need to: there's no telling how much time you have left.

She didn't look at him right away. He moved closer, and her expression would have made his stomach drop, had he still possessed one. She looked--blank, almost, her eyes glassy and unfocused. For a moment he thought the transformation must have started, and the back of his neck went cold.

"Oh--" she said, and suddenly she was there again, present, brow furrowed slightly from the pain. She let go of what she was holding, and it fell to rest against her chest: a crystal, perhaps the size of a large coin. Not her Crystal of Light, which he remembered was a clear, icy blue. This one was a deep crimson, almost black, edges carved into smooth, sharp points. A symbol was etched into the surface, but he couldn't make it out.

"Are you all right?" he asked, knowing the answer anyway.

"I can't hear her anymore." She sounded so tired.

"Who? ...Hydaelyn?" When she didn't reply, he looked to the crystal, then back to her face. She was staring at the smoothly paved stone beneath their feet. "...what is that?"

"Ah...this? A soul crystal…it isn't really mine, but I've been looking after it."

"Looking after it?"

"Well, the person it belonged to...is gone," she said quietly.

"Then it sounds like it belongs to you now."

Imry's eyes widened very slightly, though she still refused to make eye contact. It was hard to tell if she was nervous or simply lost in thought.

It wouldn't do for her to stay here, but he could hardly go off and lead her companions back to her…

"Who can't you hear?" he asked, hoping he could at least get her talking again. "The person who owned it?"

She shook her head slightly. "No...I mean...perhaps a--a little? But it's mostly me…"

Was she far gone enough to be speaking nonsense already? He tried not to wince. "Imry...who were you listening for?"

She straightened a bit, finally looking at him, nervous realization dawning on her face.

"Oh...oh. You probably think I've gone mad."

What could he even say to that--

"Remember, you're speaking to a ghost." Ardbert was unable to keep the dryness out of his voice. Her cheeks actually colored at that. He decided that was a good sign.

"I-it's hard to explain," Imry stammered. "But ever since the first Lightwarden, I...I mean, I used to be able to use magic. The magic that I learned from this…" She fiddled with the crystal. "It's darkness-aspected. You, uh...you might remember."

"Right," he said slowly. "Is that what you hit me in the face with back then? Other than your shield."

"I'm sorry…"

"Don't be. You were defending yourself. I'm hardly going to hold a grudge about that. But...used to? You can't anymore?"

She nodded. "It got harder and harder…and...after Amh Araeng, I wasn't able to use it at all...I guess it makes sense, if I have too much Light." She looked down at her lap. "But...it's more than that. It's just...it's a long story, and it's absurd and--"

Her voice cracked, and she pressed her palms to her face. It was difficult to wipe away tears with gauntleted hands, but she made a valiant effort anyway. Ardbert looked away, embarrassed that he couldn't even comfort her.

To hells with it--she certainly wasn't in a state to fight an Ascian like this, let alone the corruption…

"Long story or no...I'll listen," he said.

It came haltingly at first, but she managed...a tale of a dead man with unfinished business. Of the shade conjured by her guilt and her grief, by all the things she buried deep inside herself. Her shadow that walked in her footsteps. The one who steadied her hand. The one who kept walking when she was too weary to take another step.

The beast her enemy called upon when her own strength and will failed to entertain him.

How along with the arts she'd learned from the soul crystal, that strength and the shadow's voice had faded the longer she spent on the First…

"Your companions...the Scions," Ardbert said carefully. "Do they know?" Imry was honest to a fault, after all. Surely…

She shook her head. "I've never...when it first happened...they were all. Gone. Away. I was--well, just with Alphinaud...I never really told him either...I...I couldn't. If they noticed that I fought differently, sometimes...they've never said a word. Only Sid and Rielle--because…w-well, they of all people deserved to know."

As much as he felt for her uncertainty, her fear, all he could think was--

Why now?

As if he'd spoken aloud, she answered.

"As I am, I don't know if I'm enough."

He took a deep breath, out of habit, though he hadn't needed air for a century.

"You know you're not…"

"A-alone, yes--but--"

Hands trembling, she held something out to him. It was the form the Amaurotine at the Bureau of Administration had given her. It was printed in fine, even letters that he didn't recognize.

"All of this is--so much. This city and--it makes me--I feel sick. I know it somehow, but I've never been here before--I didn't--"

He'd felt it, too. Like in a dream where everything looked unfamiliar, wholly unlike any place you knew, yet it was permeated by a profound nostalgia.

"What that person said--about me--about us--"

She looked terrified and guilty all at once.

"I can't be...I don't want to be anyone else. Warrior of Light...Warrior of Darkness...none of it fits. I'm just--I'm just a sailing merchant's girl! I wanted to help people! I just wanted…"

We were just adventurers trying to make our way in the world--

"Everyone wishes I were someone else. Even...him."

Emet-Selch.

"Now I know...this whole time, he wanted me to be...them. And at every turn, I disappointed him. After all, I'm just." She straightened her back and swallowed hard. "A foolish, wretched girl. Useless. Empty-headed. A mere shadow of--"

"Stop it," Ardbert said firmly.

Imry looked at him in surprise, falling silent.

"While I have to admit your Ascian impression is...impressive, I'll eat my axe before I agree with anything one of those bastards says. So don't expect it." He folded his arms, frowning at her. "Besides, think about what being useful to one of them means--me and mine certainly were, and you see how that turned out. You don't want that."

She said nothing for a long moment, staring at her knees.

"If anything, there's too much going on in your head," Ardbert said finally. "You're overthinking it all. It's clouding your judgment."

"What am I supposed to think about?" Imry asked miserably. "It turns out I'm just a piece of someone else...and also there's a piece of me missing and I don't know if I'll ever get her back--"

Come to think of it, Ardbert wasn't certain why he himself was so calm about it all. Lifetimes ago, he might have reacted the same as she did now, albeit with more cursing. Perhaps it was the lack of adrenaline. Perhaps it was just...that he'd had a feeling. For a while now. All the past few bells had done had put words to it.

"You miss her," he said, as if it had just occurred to him. It looked like it had just occurred to Imry as well.

"I miss her," she said quietly. "She's...rude and always angry and...she looks out for me. She just wants to protect me."

"Listen," he said carefully. "I'm hardly an arcane expert, but...the crystal is intact, right? It's not damaged?"

Imry nodded.

"So have one of your mage friends take a look at it, once this is over. I'm sure they'll be able to figure it out. If you need something to focus on--sometimes the world is just too big. Sometimes--you just need to think about one thing. Someone you want to see again."

The look she gave him then was...too knowing. He had to look away.

"That's enough. That's--allowed to be enough."

"...Thank you."

When he looked back she was rubbing her face again, perhaps trying to obscure the evidence that she'd been crying.

"It's nothing. You did your best to cheer me up whenever I got depressing on you, didn't you? It's about time I returned the favor. Just...try to get moving before the others start to worry. All right?"

#imry ceigwardwyn #shb spoilers #shadowbringers spoilers #i forget my writing tag i will add it later #also this is lone wol imry verse ftr #enzel writes stuff

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nagittos · 7 years ago

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AX Haul 2017

Alternatively titled:

Mari’s weekend of regrets

So many Kacchan keychains

Why do I suddenly have a Todoroki pillow

tfw you think you’re losing weight but it’s just your wallet getting emptier

So first up we have this Todoroki pillow that I got, which was actually pretty useful on the plane ride back. It was 100% an impulse buy though. The seller was like “This is the last one!” and suddenly my brain was like MUST BUY.

y u sad, todo ;A;

He totally looks like a pokeball from the back though.

Also, here’s the creator’s card, if you want it!

Next up we have some prints that were a pain to bring back. Thank god they weren’t bent on the trip. I had to roll them up carefully and stuff them in my bag.

(have you ever seen a boy this beautiful)

I’m sure you’ve seen this artist’s art style around. Looks very official but isn’t. This one isn’t actually for me. My friend asked me to buy it for her but it looks super nice. There was also another one with Hinata, Ushijima, Tendou etc. in kimonos as well as the captains in uniform ;)

Got this one for free at the Funimation booth after running around trying to find where to get the free bnha pin (which I later gave away because it said class on 2017 on it, which I’m not >.>)

Speaking of free stuff...

Got these two for free at the two Danganronpa V3 panels that I went to. Not going to lie, when they asked everyone to put on their Monokuma masks, I had flashbacks to Another Episode lol.

I went to a Localization panel and a VA panel. Localization was meh; all the steps were kind of self explanatory and they indirectly spoiled something small, though I’m sure they didn’t mean to. VA panel was super cool though! (Although they also spoiled something small as well). It was Kaede’s, Maki’s, Himiko’s and Kiibo’s VAs and they acted out their characters which was super cool. Someone cosplaying as Ouma asked Kiibo’s VA if robots had dicks during the Q&A which was amazing.

Speaking of Ouma:

Look at this cutie. I actually only saw like one booth with any ndrv3 merch.

Anyway, AX is divided into Exhibit Hall, which is for official merch, and Artist Alley, which is for fanartists and stuff. I only bought a couple things from the Exhibit Hall because those were more expensive.

These things were sold at like 5 booths and they were always at different prices smh.

I went to a Taiwan con once and let me tell you, Gintama is soooo much more popular in Asia than the US. But anyway, here’s Kamui, still in his wrap because he’s supposed to be a bday gift.

And here we have Chuuya! Unfortunately Dazai was sold out so I couldn’t go soukoku.

Anyway that’s all the official stuff I got lol. Back to fanart stuff.

I really liked how they did their cards here hehe.

More Fire Emblem stuff:

These were sharp and pointy and kind of hurt just like Kacchan but I really like them and the artist has a lot of different options, so check it out! Also Zeno’s there as well.

More Kacchan...

Back is covered in some sort of film that I haven’t taken off yet, but I’m such a sucker for Kacchan in his hero costume lol. I love the design.

Oh and since we’re here, I went to two more panels. The Funimation one in general and the bnha Funimation one.

Only thing really notable for me in the regular Funimation one is snk season 3 confirmed for spring 2018!!

bnha Funimation one was kind of a bummer. They didn’t really talk about the show very much. It was the Japanese character designer and All Might’s English VA. I did really like the moment when they showed the ending of All Might vs. Noumu. When the whole room shouted “PLUS ULTRA” with All Might it legit gave me chills.

Anyway, back to Kacchan:

And finally, the OT3!!

THEY’RE SO CUTE.

Unfortunately I didn’t buy like any Deku stuff because for some reason the art of him always looked a little off to me, idk why.

And that’s all I got, I think! AX is so long though I think I’m going to take a break from anime for awhile (and by awhile, I mean until the new bnha episode airs on Saturday).

#boku no hero academia #fire emblem #anime expo #ax #bnha

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blissful-thinker · 7 years ago

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“I may have underestimated how much stuff I got at Anime Expo in general until I finally got a picture of the overrall haul this year: a summary.”

So after a few days of rest I finally got around to doing the usual masterpost of what is now my third year at AX. SO AFTER PROCRASTINATING FOR A WHOLE MONTH AFTER THE CON IS OVER I’M FINALLY POSTING THE MASTERPOST OF WHAT WAS MY THIRD YEAR OF AX CAUSE THIS ACCIDENTALLY GOT BURIED UNDER VARIOUS DRAFTS. WHOOPS MY BAD BUT ANYWAYS...

It was my first time going all 4 days with nothing stopping me and I think that might be why my haul is bigger than expected and why the read more is gonna be very, very long this time (which is why it took me like a fuckin week to do it.) So feel free to read on if or don’t cause this year was something else to the point where I ended up organizing the highlights by day.

The cosplays this year fricking amazing and cool to see again!! There were many, many cosplay I wanted to take pictures of (but so little storage space in my phone or I was going one way and the cosplayers was going the other way. That latter happened a lot.) Will probably post the photos I managed to take once I get those sorted out.

NOW LET’S GET TO THE PART WHERE I TRY TO REMEMBER WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED THIS WEEKEND CAUSE IT WAS A LOT TO TAKE IN:

Day 1: -Gets to the con at 7:30am with friends to pick up badges; end up in badge pickup limbo for about an hour. Ended up seeing a guy inflate his Pikachu cosplay up at the parking area and also talking to a guy who was the expanding brain meme and the salt bae meme. Only when the line moved did I realize I forgot to ask for a photo ;__; -Got our badges around 8:45am-ish and ended up in LineCon2k17 to get into the convention itself. I think it might have been due to them upping the security measures so honestly I’m not complaining too much (It did go faster for the remainder of the con.) Okay maybe I was kinda anxious that day to get in cause I needed to get to a certain booth quickly that day. Anyways it took like 1 1/2 hours to get in cause by the time they opened a few more doors, it was already 10:15am and then me and my friends were kinda walking fast and quickly going over meet up plans before we split to do our own business. -RAN MY ASS TO THE GOODSMILE BOOTH TO GET ONE OF THE LAST QUEUE TICKETS OF THE DAY FOR 3:30 (Aftermath: Came back around 3:30 and managed to get one Free Skate Yuuri Katsuki Nendoroid which I am thankful did not sell out until the next day. Might’ve been because the autograph signing and the panel for Sayo-kun and Kubo [YOI creators] were that day. I’m kinda thankful I’m not too interested in autographs or panels to go. Dude at the GS booth was surprised Yuuri didn’t sell out yet and I explained it might’ve been cause of that. He did get sold out the next day so yeah. But also I hope everyone had a good time at that panel!!!) -Explored Exhibit Hall while waiting for a friend who was at the Atlus booth. I swear there were more vendors this year. -SO MUCH GREAT ART IN ARTIST ALLEY, SO LITTLE TIME TO APPRECIATE IT ALL CAUSE EVERYONE IS SO GOOD THERE (repeats this for 3 more days cause it’s true) -some guy cosplayed as Symmetra's photon projector beam.... I realized hours after leaving it’s the same guy who cosplays as Deadpool every year ACTUALLY RAN INTO AN OLD HIGH SCHOOL CLASSMATE WHO WAS TABLING IN AA. IT WAS REALLY NICE TO SEE THEM AGAIN HONESTLY. -somewhere along the late afternoon me and my friend managed to find the Crunchyroll foyer. may have taken a picture with the yoi kiss and cry set up there. itwasboundtohappen -they changed up the layout of the entertainment hall so much. i actually prefer it it’s so nice :D -ran my ass to the blizzard booth when I got inside the entertainment hall. that was also bound to happen eventually -played arms with friend at the ninendo switch area. got thrust into a sudden game of mario kart 8 with someone else cause the person in front thought the controller stopped working. i’ve never been more panicked in my life than in mk8 -chilled out behind the blizzard booth at the overwatch rest area for the rest of the day. got to watch the trivia go down for an hour until going back home regretsididntdotrviaatallisworeiwasgonnadoitbutichickenednout -saw lucio’s VA while resting at the booth ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

DAY 2 -got there early and linecon was over (mostly) so waited around for the opening and took cosplay pictures. (note: if you saw some weirdo eating a to-go bowl with their fingers, that was me. i didn’t have breakfast that morning) -hung around exhibit hall properly this time while looking for certain booths since the “definitely need to get now” priority rush was over -me at the two people at arunning a certain booth as my other friend decides what to get from there “I’m just watching this unfold my dudes, I’m just the bystander here.” (not gonna specify anymore than this. the people at the booth were pretty chill though) -that psycho pass prop gun demostration was 10/10 holy shit -AA part 2: the “less hectic but still hectic version and still deciding what to get” feelings -my friend tempting me to get a pillowcase of the legendary birds with him...I was pretty close to actually get it (he got it regardless and honestly it is the softest of pillowcases) -”Alright I think I got everything i needed from ___ fandom- sHIT WAIT I KINDA WANT THAT” -me, who has never played persona 5 in her life but knows enough about it, getting more prints and charms than my other friend, who has played over 150+ hours on that game alone and got like 2 prints from it -hanging around the entertainment hall again before leaving early that day. probably best I left early cause I was deadass tired. for the first time in years I slept before midnight cause AX

Day 3: -okay honestly the only thing I remember this day was that my friend and I were at the Blizzard booth resting and waiting for triva to start and Symmetra’s VA was hanging around the booth. So when trivia was gonna start, the top prize for winning the trivia current triva round was a Symmetra funko pop signed by Anjali. As soon as that was said, Anjali suddenly appeared out of nowhere grabbed the funko pop from one of the guys leading the triva rounds, tried to make her escape by carefully manuvering around the beanbags and then trying to roll away.... only for her to kinda trip during her roll from my friend’s foot and then landed right next to me and my friend before recovering and then running away from the booth (and then returned after a few minutes). Honestly it’s been 3 weeks a month at this point and I’m still shook as fuck -also she asked some of the trivia questions as Symmetra. that was also really cool

Day 4: -since it was the final day, it was just making sure of last minute gets at AA -”I got a charm at AA of Yurio yesterday and somehow he detached from my badge today but I’m not even fucking upset I lost him or surprised cause he was dangling along with charms of Yuuri and Viktor and he honestly fucking would straight up ditch them at some point in a day in the life of Yuri[o] Plitsetsky”: a thrilling one shot of the morning. I managed to get another one before I forgot to and Yurio2 was grounded to my bag until I was home -an interesting shirt hunt up in exhibit hall for my friend requested from his friend. it was... quite the shirt to get and probably the strangest thing to get for him and it wasn’t even for him Honestly the only way I can I summarize this year was that is was heck a lot of fun and hopefully will go next year. Maybe if I’m not that lazy and able to I’ll cosplay next year too. Will I actually put up the masterpost of the merch I got- honestly probably not cause I have no idea where I put my merch pictures.

#anime expo 2017 #ax 17 #bliss rambles #my photos #PROCRASTINATION AND FORGETFULLNESS AT ITS PEAK EVERYONE

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doomedandstoned · 6 years ago

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SUCK: The Untold Story of South Africa’s Pioneering Heavy Metal Band

~By Tim Harbour~

Steve Gilroy was raised in Liverpool and educated in London. Gil was the firebrand guitarist of the Johannesburg band SUCK between late-1970 and early-1971. This iconic heavy metal band started up in the same year Black Sabbath released their seminal album Paranoid and rose quickly to fame, then suddenly disappeared -- all within the span of a single year. But, what a year it was!

Suck changed the face of South African music. The outrageous antics of the band won them notoriety throughout the land. They chopped up pianos, set fire to stages, used colourful language on stage, and smashed up everything and anything around them. They were wild and they were banned from playing in every South African city and major town. They were evicted from what was then known as Rhodesia and escorted to the border by the police. Their only album, ‘Time to Suck’ (1970), recorded in less than a dozen hours at EMI Studios in Joburg, was banned from the South African Broadcasting Company and shunned by many radio stations. Every newspaper carried stories about their wiles, however, for if there was one thing that Suck made sure of, it was that they were being sufficiently noticed.

Suck specialized in an infectious style of acid-soaked hard rock and proto-metal, brought to life its four original members:

Andrew "Andy" Ioannides (vocals, flute)

Stephen "Gil" Gilroy (guitar)

Louis "Moose" Forer (bass)

Savario "Savvy" Grande (drums)

Now, nearly fifty years later, Suck are finally being recognised for their music and the one vinyl album to their name is currently being sold for about R 18,000 (approximately $1,279 USD). The album was pirated in Europe and Japan with a purple record sleeve and many of these still exist. Not until 2009 was it officially released in the United States, two years after Suck's mention in the Classic Rock article, 'The Lost Pioneers of Heavy Metal.'

This is their story as best remembered by Gil, whose recollections are being shared for the very first time in the pages of Doomed & Stoned.

Two Rabbits Runnin' In A Ditch

"I came to South Africa in April 1970 by invitation of the South African Government as a mechanical engineer. The day I landed, I phoned Eddie Eckstein who was the drummer with the Bats. I met Eddie in England when the Bats were touring there and we played on the same gig. We drank a few beers together and he said, 'Wow, man, you’ve got to come to South Africa. It's great!' When I called him he said, 'Shit, you’re really here. Did you bring your guitar? Let’s go jamming!'

The 1974 Publications Control Act was written for me the bastards.

"That night he took me to some of the big clubs in Joburg: Club Tomorrow, the Black Out, Ciros, and The Underground. I jammed with the top bands, drank a lot of beer, and had fun. I remember Eddie grabbing a bass guitar -- a brand new Fender -- off a bass player and performing an incredible head-first roll across the stage. The bass player nearly passed out! It was a night to remember, but how it finished I have no recollection.

"About a week later, when the word had spread one of the bands introduced me to ‘Moose’ Forer. He was a really good, aggressive bass player. We had a few beers together and went to jam with a band. We clicked and blew that club away. Clive Calder and Ralph Simon had just started Sagittarius Promotions. They had heard about Moose and I and they saw an opportunity to do something big."

Season of the Witch

"Savvy (Savario Pasquale Maria Grande) came up from Cape Town and we played together. Shit! What a drummer. We were blown away! Every number we played was a perfectly timed drum solo from start to finish. Savvy was like Keith Moon of The Who, but Savvy was far better. He was a big part of Suck’s big sound. We had the musos, now we needed a vocalist, a real screamer. Andy Ionidies was a real screamer! Now we had a band.

"Before we even started to play together, Clive Calder organised a record deal. We had just three weeks to get material together for an album. There was no time to write new material so we listened to music we liked and gave it the Suck treatment. Moose and I did write ‘The Whip’ during a lunch break and that was the only original number. When we played it live, I had a cat o’ nine tails and whipped Andy while he was singing. The audience went into spasm!

"We recorded the entire album and a few extras in nine hours. Four hours on one late afternoon and five hours the following morning. That was it, most of the album was recorded in one take and then onto the next song. Everything was on a budget – that’s how we did it in those days. None of this 'We’ve spent six months in the studio' bullshit."

C'mon and Save Me

"It was the same story with the poster shoot. We had a photographer booked for three hours one afternoon. We were taken to an old, falling apart house with an upstairs fireplace jutting out of a half-demolished wall. Rick Alexander, the photographer, said, 'That would make a great shot. Can you get up there?' I went up to see if it was safe and the floor collapsed! I fell through the floor, hit the ground floor, went through that and ended up in the cellar. Moose dug me out of the rubble. We did the shoot, blood running down my chest, my carefully combed hair a disaster and Andy holding me up. In those days you just did it.

I fell through the floor, hit the ground floor, went through that and ended up in the cellar. Moose dug me out of the rubble.

"The band took me to Joburg General Hospital and a very Afrikaans matron took one look and told me to come back if I started coughing blood. I said, 'If I start coughing blood I’ll be dying.' She casually looked over her shoulder and sneered, 'Well, you had better hurry then.' The guys took me back to the flat, leaned me against the wall, knocked on the door and ran like hell. Lin put me in a bath full of Dettol and started cleaning wounds. It was a big job and involved a lot of alcohol one way or another."

Hear Me Talkin' Baby

"Suck never really gigged, we went straight into playing packed stadiums and theatres. There was a huge amount of hype around Suck, but the band was plenty good enough to pull it off. Moose and I perfected the art of smoking huge amounts of grass, drinking insane amounts of beer and throwing up out of lots of windows and all whilst playing never-ending chess games.

"Travelling around was hell. Clive found an old Volkswagen panel van that the Singer Sewing Machine company had put out to pasture. Three guys in the front, and two Marshall stacks, a PA system, a drum kit, and one guy squeezing in between the equipment and the roof. We kept the Singer signs on the van because it was much safer than Suck. South Africa was by most standards a very conservative country and Suck came as a bit of a shock to most. There were quite a few confrontations -- a typical example was Pietersburg.

About 40 or 50 guys popped into town to inform us that they had come to f*ck us up.

"I think there was an Air Force base there and, while we were unloading the van at the hall, about 40 or 50 guys popped into town to inform us that they had come to ‘f*ck us up.’ We got used to this and the usual procedure was to face them off. My weapon of choice was a heavy claw hammer. Moose had an insane f*ck off sized Bowie knife, Andy had a mike stand with a cast iron base, and Savvy would get hold of anything handy. On this occasion it was a fire axe. We would just stand in a line our backs to a wall, cracking jokes between ourselves, and looking tough. It was obvious that our opponents would suffer casualties and sooner or later our aggressors would chicken out and walk away shouting, 'Fok jou.' It worked every time, I’m delighted to say"

So Many People I Can Be

"The road was hard and shows were always a long way apart. Sagittarius gave us an allowance of R1.00 per day. That was it! We played to big crowds. I seem to remember at Kingsmead Stadium we pulled about 12,000 people, and we lived on R1 per day. It was enough for Viennas, chips, and a slice of bread. We lived on that.

"Clive Calder learned a lot from Suck. We were his first big band and he went on to the USA to produce some of the world’s biggest bands. Suck was promised an American tour, money and more albums, when suddenly nothing happened! We got to the top in South Africa and there was nothing there. It wasn’t going anywhere. I lost interest in music and went back to engineering for a while.

"I started Mame Enterprises -- South Africa’s first nudie photo company. All tastefully presented as an aide to budding artists, complete with drawing instructions. We were banned (I was used to getting banned) and we took the case to the Rand Supreme Court and won. So, the government changed the law and, about a year later, a court case in Pretoria resulted in being banned again, this time for all future publications. The 1974 Publications Control Act was written for me, the bastards.

"Later, I started a small printing company that developed into a pharmaceutical printing business and then I decided to follow my passion: beer! In late 2008 Gilroy’s Brewery, Restaurant and Pub opened in Muldersdrift where my band plays Jazz and Blues on most Friday afternoons.

"Sadly, Andy passed away from a gun accident and Moose was taken by cancer. I’ve heard that Savvy is building racing cars in the Cape and I’m at Gilroy’s having a great time. In the old days Moose and I would play for beer -- it seems that I’m still doing that but this time it’s Gilroy Beer!

"It was tough but I’m really glad that I did it. That feeling of being on stage playing with top-end musicians to a raving crowd -- there is no feeling quite like it."

#D&S Interviews #SUCK #Johannesburg #South Africa #Doom #Metal #Doom Metal #Retro #Classic Rock #Tim Harbour #Doomed & Stoned

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milady-milord-lj · 8 years ago

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Community Re-Watch Season 1: Advanced Criminal Law and Social Psychology

Community Re-Watch: Season 1 Hello everyone! Once again, watching in intended order. Which means this week we've got "Advanced Criminal Law" and "Social Psychology" (yes in that order). Advanced Criminal Law

Commentary by Dan Harmon, Joel McHale, Gillian Jacobs, and Andrew Guest (co-writer with Dan)

Dan says the script for this episode was pretty much written on-set. Andrew confirms that the script went through a lot of changes. There was originally a secondary story involving Professor Duncan. According to Dan, Duncan just had a paper published called “Born to Leave,” which was about why women always leave men. Andrew clarifies that the comedy about the paper was that it was clearly Duncan publicly grinding an axe.

Dan says that a lot of people didn’t get the exchange between Jeff and Duncan where they talk “in code” using sitcom titles. Joel is kind of shocked by that statement.

Dan admits that Abed is loosely based on a friend of his (side note: original Abed did make an appearance as one of the custodians during S5 in “Analysis of Cork-based Networking). He said Original Abed (the guy’s name is actually Abed) is incredulous. That was the basis of the Abed-Troy storyline in this episode. Joel points out that Original Abed actually read for the part of Fictional Abed.

Starburns’s first line in the entire series is said in Spanish class. It’s, “My name is Alex, dude.” According to Dan, this exchange was originally longer and descended into a huge argument between Chan and Starburns. Unfortunately, NBC hated the argument and it got cut as a result.

Gillian said during the day they were shooting in the Spanish class, Ken Jeong was doing a lot of Andrew Dice Clay impressions.

Joel actually doesn’t remember which episode he’s commenting on. He sheepishly admits that during the break when no one is talking he was quickly looking up on his phone to see which episode it was.

Dan once again repeats that this is one of the episodes where Jeff gets his one-on-one with each character in the study group. This episode is meant to be Jeff’s one-on-one with Britta. This is the episode where we discover that Britta is a character who cuts and runs “because she’s a skank.” Gillian cheerfully agrees that Britta is a skank-y, cheating, ‘ho, “which is what the people want.” Dan assures Gillian that she is selling herself short, and that he is in negotiations about that stuff with “the people.”

Dan says there were multiple re-shot scenes between Pierce and Annie at the piano while Pierce is trying to write a school song for Greendale. He mentions that some of the scenes will be included in the DVD extras. The point was to say something about Pierce (not Annie, apparently). Dan repeats that Pierce is Dan’s avatar representing him as an artist. Namely, that he’ll shut himself up in a room and procrastinate, then go around and lie about what a genius he is.

Joel notes that Alison’s neck is bright red in the scene where Chang threatens to flunk the class unless the cheater comes forward. Gillian points out that it’s because Alison just screamed. Joel asks Gillian if the same thing happens to her, and Gillian confirms that it does. She adds that she bruises very easily.

Gillian says that during the scene where the class throws balled up paper at her, some of the extras in the scene whipped the balls at her pretty hard. Dan admits that he ended up debating the scene with Joe Russo during editing. Joe wanted a beat before people starting flinging paper at her, and Dan wanted it to happen right away. Dan won.

Joel calls the scene where Jeff approaches Britta in the Cafetorium as “the battle of the awesome coats.”

Dan asks if Joel was the one who ad-libbed the line that a dirty bum is higher on the totem pole than Britta. Joel and Gillian say that the line was actually in the script.

Dan says that Jeff is based on a combination of his friends. In addition, Jeff Winger is both the voice of “the dorky writer who created him” and Joel McHale. He credits McHale with really highlighting Jeff’s “pomposity, narcissism, and shallowness.” (Umm, compliment? I guess?)

Dan says the dirty bum line to Britta was the point at which he realized that they had managed to successfully create a very flawed character as their Jeff protagonist and they had to commit to it.

Andrew says that there are a couple of different versions of the Jeff-Britta conversation that were put into the script, but that writer Neil Goldman was the one who locked it down to its current form.

Andrew also says that writer Hillary Winston came up with Britta storyline, and that she came into the writers’ room with the plot almost fully formed before they even wrote the script. Dan confirmed the storyline was Hillary’s. Although he adds that he always had the idea in his head that he wanted to do a trial storyline where the trial takes place next to a swimming pool. He notes that if the idea had come from Joe Russo, it might get shot down as being too expensive. But because Dan wanted to do it, people were willing to make it happen.

The pool-side trial was apparently a long day of filming. Gillian points out that on that day, Alison was on-set for 16 hours, and only worked for a half-hour. Turns out, Alison had a scene as a witness at the trial, and she ended up being cut from the final version of the script/episode.

Dan says that part of it was that when he went down to the set, he thought the pool-side trial scenes weren’t working. So he and Andrew basically sat on the bleachers and re-wrote the trial scenes. Then they were printing out the re-written pages to give to the actors, while they were still shooting the original script. Andrew jokes, “It’s really not the way you want to work.”

Gillian points out the guy diving into the pool in the background at the end of the first pool-trial scene made that dive 30 times.

Dan says the scenes between Annie and Pierce were originally much darker in tone. All of the scenes had to be reshot because NBC because they felt the scenes were too dark. Dan admits that NBC may have had a valid point. However, he says that the whole point of the Annie-Pierce storyline was to “find the Pierce character” that both Dan and Chevy would be happy with.

Dan goes off on a tangent and says that Chevy basically wanted to be Fletch. Dan’s argument was that Pierce wasn’t Fletch, he was meant to be a buffoon and that Chevy had been warned that Pierce was the target of jokes. But Chevy insisted that he wanted to be “Fletch-y and sexy.” So the Pierce-Annie storyline was Dan’s attempt at finding a happy medium. Pierce was written to be an angry character because he’s not getting what he wants in life.

Dan says in the original scenes between Pierce and Annie, Pierce is very abusive towards Annie throughout their storyline. In the final piano room scene between the two of them, Annie snaps and dresses down Pierce. Actual Dan quote describing the original scene where Annie finally confronts Pierce: “You know why you have seven wives? Because everyone who gets close to you, you shit on them. Now I’m one of one of those people, and I accidentally thought you were a decent guy. Now I’m out of here too, and that’s just the way it is.” As Dan put it, Annie was supposed to be Pierce’s first real friend. Dan admits that the storyline was inspired by Malcolm in the Middle.

Back at poolside again, Gillian says she got great joy out of the seeing posters of the Human Being in his swimming form. Andrew adds that the art department did an amazing job on the set. Both Joel and Gillian pipe up and say that the set was infested by very large cockroaches.

Gillian says that it was her idea to crawl up onto the platform to give Britta’s testimony. Joel says he thought it was kind of adorable.

Dan says that he had a real problem with Gillian’s boots. Gillian adds that he seemed upset that she was wearing heels. Dan counters that he has a problem with dishonesty, and it seems to him that if someone is short they should own it. He had a hard time wrapping his head around why someone like Britta would wear high-heeled boots, because Britta was supposed to be a character that represented practicality and honesty. So, why is Britta stumbling around on stilts? Gillian interrupts and says it’s because she’s not very good at walking in heels.

Andrew points out that this is the first episode where the writers actually address Britta’s character. Gillian agrees that this is the first episode where you see Britta is flawed (Ummm, did we forget Britta admitting to being a hypocrite in “Spanish 101?”).

Dan says that this episode is one of his favorite episodes, however, it’s also an episode that had a huge number of problems during production and post-production. There was “political” pressure on him, plus a lot of second-guessing and over-correction. For example, a lot of the act breaks got shuffled around in the edit bay to improve the flow of the episode, so as a result none of the act breaks we see are the original act breaks in the script, which seems to drive him crazy. In short, filming and putting this episode was, in Dan’s word, “a mess.” Plus he was in the middle of the learning curve of learning to work with his team and the network. There was not enough confidence on his part.

Gillian says that both she and Joel got to really enjoy watching Jim Rash, John Oliver, and Ken do improve during the poolside-trial scenes. She says that it was like being at a comedy show that never ended.

Joel says the shower scene between Chang and Duncan and Jeff and Britta was shot about 20 minutes before they were about to be thrown out of the pool. Gillian says that both scenes were shot very quickly, with only two takes for each scene.

Dan calls Gillian’s acting in the scene between her and Jeff “brilliant.”Dan thinks that looking back at the Jeff-Britta scene after 25 episodes of pounding on Britta by pointing out that she’s humorless and joyless, you realize in this scene that Britta is “a crazy person.” He says that Gillian’s performance informs that realization, because it’s “so real.” Britta is the character on Gilligan’s Island who sticks out because she’s different from “all these sitcom characters.”

Andrew says that the Jeff-Britta scene was shot at the end of a 16-hour day and Joe basically had to tell Gillian, “Okay, this is your big scene!” Gillian repeats that they had to do the scene in two takes.

Dan’s still complaining about act breaks.

First appearance of Leonard (By the fabulous Richard Erdman! I recommend you see him in one of his most famous roles in Stalag 17. Great movie! Somehow it served as the inspiration of Hogan’s Heroes. If you squint, you can kind of see it.).

Everyone talks about how Dan almost drowned Richard. Gillian says it was fascinating to see two people swim out with Richard to guide him to his mark and then he’d sink about five inches down the second they let him go. Dan says “the legend” is that Richard had to do 20 takes of his “Busted!” line, but the thing is, he nailed it on his first take while Dan was in the bathroom. And then when Dan came back, he kept asking for more takes. Eventually, the first assistant director took Dan aside and said, “He’s going to drown!” Dan admits that the ended up using his first take. Gillian starts laughing that Richard is basically “eating water” during his scene.

Dan starts singing Richard’s praises and urges people to look him up on IMDb to see what he’s acted in and what he’s directed. He’s basically a museum of early television and a living legend. Gillian says that Richard was Marlon Brando’s roommate at one point when they were both starting out in Hollywood. Dan says everyone on the set should salute Richard when he comes on set. Gillian says he’s always in a good mood, and is always happy to be there.

Gillian says that she loved watching Danny shoot his scene where he’s pretending to be an alien communicating with his home world. She says that for the “alien twin,” Danny insisted that make-up draw in his eyebrows really heavy so he’d have a more alien look.

Dan says the scene between where Troy confronts Abed about trying to fool him into thinking he is an alien was re-shot as well. Originally Troy bought it, but Dan thought it was too implausible that Troy would think Abed was an alien. Andrew jokes that now the writers know Troy well enough that they’d probably go for the original storyline.

Dan says that in the first season of any freshman show, everyone involved has the correct feeling that it’s their job to save the show. This sometimes leads to the equivalent of a car crash at a four-waystop. But the thing is, everyone is right because it is everyone’s job to save the show. So everyone has to learn to work together. Eventually people learn over time. But early on “you think you’re writing the Constitution and everyone if Thomas Jefferson.”

Gillian says that Chevy loves playing the piano. Joel adds that he’s actually very good at it.

Dan clearly isn’t feeling the scenes between Annie and Pierce and calls them “watered-down.” However, he adds that writer Liz Cackowski did a good job re-writing the scenes between the two characters. Turns out that Annie’s final speech to Pierce about being a cheerleader is actually taken from a combination of Hillary’s and Liz’s real lives.

Dan says he actually loves Annie’s cheerleader story because it’s so specific of a backstory and it allowed them to learn stuff.

Andrew says adapting the Bruce Hornsby song “The Way It Is,” came about because someone in the writers’ room thought the name of the song was “That’s the Way It Goes.” And they got to talking about what if Pierce thought that was the name of the song.

Dan says they tried to get Bruce Hornsby and The Range to play the closing song of the episode, but was turned down. Dan adds that he hopes to get Bruce on the show at some point.

Gillian says that Luis Guzman posed for the Luis Guzman statue.

Dan thanks Luis. He adds that he originally asked Mark Hamill to pose for it. Although Mark said no, Dan still got an awesome letter in response to his request. Dan said it actually made him love Mark, because he he’s one of the few people who can say “no” without coming off like a dick. He said Mark came across as fairly reasonable in his rejection.

Social Psychology

Commentary by Dan Harmon, Joel McHale, Yvette Nicole Brown, and Anthony Russo. Danny Pudi watched them do commentary from outside the recording booth.

Anthony states that the episode was aired out of order. It was moved up, which resulted in a rushed post-production.

Dan says that Liz Cackowski wrote the draft. It was apparently a big milestone for Dan. He felt that this was the first script that was just “ready to go” and he felt from the start that they could actually do this story.

First appearance of Vaughn (Erik Christian Olsen). Yvette notes that he’s (as of when they were recording the commentaries) a full-time cast member of one of the NCIS shows. Yvette says he was a great guy.

Anthony says that commentaries were recorded out of order from when the episodes aired. Apparently they had just finished commenting on later episodes and this was a return to the earlier episodes for them. Antony says that part of the fun of the early episodes is that you’re getting to know the characters, and in this case, exploring the relationship between Jeff and Shirley. He adds that another part of the fun is finding characters outside your core cast. Some of those characters wound up having “lives” in the first season, despite the fact they were originally cast as a one-shot guest.

Everyone loved the character of Vaughn, and they’re kind of sorry they didn’t get to explore him more. Dan mentions about making Vaughn a musical rival to Pierce (which only sort of happened).

Yvette says the nice thing about this episode is that she got to spend time with Joel. She says that just as Shirley and Jeff were getting to know each other, she and Joel were getting to know each other at the same time.

Dan credits Liz for coming up with the idea that the basis of the friendship between Jeff and Shirley is their mutual love of gossip, specifically talking smack behind people's backs.

Dan repeats that this is part of the series where “in the first six episodes” (umm, it took longer than six episodes for Annie,just sayin’), where Jeff would interact with each member of the study group and become inextricably tangled in each character’s life. This was the Jeff-Shirley episode. The problem they were trying to overcome was how to make that happen with Jeff and Shirley. That’s why they leaned into the whole thing where Jeff says at the open of the episode that he hates walking with Shirley and making small talk with her. However, he likes the fact that Shirley is the first to really bond with Jeff.

Yvette points out that Jeff and Shirley are really toxic together, so does that mean that they shouldn’t be together in future episodes? Dan disagrees, since the whole point is for “the family” to grow together so much that, if they want, Shirley moves up from being Jeff’s “least favorite family member” to someone he likes more.

Joel points out that the name of the coffee shop is Hot and Brown. Dan says it was tough coming up with a new coffee shop name after going through 15 names of coffee shops used on other sitcoms. Yvette jokes that she thought it was in homage to her. Dan points out that it’s racist. Yvette asks how it’s racist. Dan says, “It’s not racist if you say it.”

Yvette says that John Oliver has the cutest dimples ever. Joel adds that comedy just flows out of John and Jim Rash like a broken Roman fountain. Dan says that both John and Jim are amazing in different ways. He calls Jim “a machine” who hits every mark in exactly the same way if you want him to, which makes it easy to edit his scenes. John does a different thing every time and it’s amazing every single time.

According to Dan, there were a lot of shots (that were cut) where Duncan was leering at Annie, and it just made him feel very uncomfortable. He is very protective of the idea that Annie was an innocent little girl.

Yvette says that during this episode, a writer from Entertainment Weekly was on the set.

During S1, the exterior shots were shot at LA Community College. They also did outdoor shots on the Paramount lot. The Paramount lot was dressed to mimic the exterior of LA Community College. In this episode, they were shooting on the Paramount lot.

Joel points out that during his and Yvette’s first walk-and-talk scene, they were walking across the street from the office of the President of Paramount.

First official onscreen appearance of Garrett (Erik Charles Nielsen) is in Duncan’s group of lab rats for the Duncan Principle! (Although, he does also appear in “Advanced Criminal Law,” but from an airing order perspective, this episode is his first appearance.) Dan admits that in this episode, Garrett didn’t have a name. He was just a background character in the scene. Dan says Erik is “a darling of the underground stand-up comedy scene in LA.”

Troy’s meltdown was completely improvised by Donald Glover, to the point that the script only said "Troy melts down." Everyone on the commentary track just bursts into laughter. Yvette says that Troy's meltdown just makes her happy.

Dan notes that this episode runs longer than all the other episodes in S1, because NBC let them “super-size” the episode. Anthony says that even with the super-sizing, this episode was eight minutes too long. NBC waived the length requirements on the episode because this episode got moved up in the airing order, which meant they had a very short post-production window. So NBC took pity on them. Anthony says the version on the DVD is the as-aired longer NBC version. However, on streaming sites, they use the chopped-down syndicated version that’s only 22 minutes.

Yvette is convinced that Jeff is in love with Britta.

Dan feels this episode has a weird effect. He notes that the critics had a weird reaction as well, because they commented that suddenly Jeff Winger is Jim Halpert from The Office, and it’s now a rom-com and Jeff is so devastated because some girl he likes is making out with another guy.

Dan feels that Jeff is very, very inexperienced when it comes to feeling anything genuine about women. He’s had a crass, collector mentality when it comes to women. That as soon as he gets what he wants from them (he calls it “validation”), they become disgusting to him and he moves on. However, Britta, for whatever reason is different. He’s got a big crush on Britta, he likes her, he’s attracted to her “dirtiness,” and the eclecticness of her. In short, (and this is Dan’s actual words) Jeff “believes Britta is the girl he’s supposed to be with.”

Joel asks Dan if he thinks Jeff leaning his forehead against the vending machine was over the top. Dan admits they cut it down, but that he likes the fact that privately, Jeff is bummed out that Britta is “the one that got away.”

Joel says that when he read the script he was heartbroken in a “how could she” kind of way.

Dan says that Britta reminds him of so many of his ex-girlfriends. That one of things he finds attractive is that Britta is that tough girl you can throw into a suitcase and bring with you around the world. Then she turns out to be a mattress full of bed bugs and gives you ringworm. (This is greeted by groans and admonishment from Yvette.)

Dan admits that Duncan’s breakdown is him doing a "take that" against doctors and therapists because he hates people in white coats.

Yvette said she was very nervous about making Shirley making fun of Vaughn because she’s not really a physical comedian and she had to physically make fun of him.

Erik (Vaughn) was wearing tiny fake nipples. Anthony said that they weren’t actually prosthetic nipples. It was actually a trick of the make-up because they couldn't really afford the prosthetics.

Dan really likes the scene of Jeff and Britta sitting on the couch together. Dan mentions that the focus groups had a really simplistic view of Britta and the Jeff-Britta relationship. Focus groups felt that Britta was “the normal one” in the ensemble. Also, they really weren’t on board with the will-the-won’t-they between Jeff and Britta, but they liked the sibling vibe when they hatched schemes together and hung out as friends.

(Dan is obviously unhappy with that feedback as he stumbles a little bit over his explanation over whether or not to pay attention to the feedback. On whether or not Dan really wanted to know what the focus groups said, and he admits that early on he did. He kind of closes the discussion with “to me, you could get good feedback form a fire hydrant.” Anthony adds that NBC never “misused” the focus group information. They only shared the feedback.)

In the scene where the study group reassembles in the study room and the shit hits the fan, Joel jokes about Alison’s costuming by saying that she walked onto the set directly from her audition for Dukes of Hazard II. Dan adds that it’s subtitled, The Prep-ening.

Dan says that the study room scene is the first time they had a “shit hit the fan” scenario, and he now considers it a Community staple. Dan and Yvette said they both felt bad during this scene. Dan points out that in this scene, Vaughn becomes the most likeable character. Dan says it was also part of his “beating up on Britta to make her more likeable” campaign so she'd become the group Charlie Brown. It’s also the point where you realize the Study Group is made up of bad people.

Yvette says the scene following the Britta-Vaughn break-up scene was hard to do with Joel. However, it was due to behind-the-scenes reasons. Joel was being a sarcastic ass, and Yvette thought he was being mean to her. (She stresses that at this point they didn’t know each other very well.) Joel admits that he makes jokes and is sarcastic with people he doesn’t know people all that well. Dan points out that Joel just admitted that his defense mechanism is to be an ass.

Dan comments that Joel and Yvette have good chemistry. Yvette jokes with Joel and asks when she’s going to be getting a kiss.

Dan says that the scene between Annie and Abed where she gives him the apology DVD set was longer. In the cut scene, Duncan comes back and tells Annie that she’s brilliant and wants her to come with him to help him continue his work. Annie turns him down because she decides that she’d rather watch the DVDs with Abed. Anthony says that the point of the scene was to show that Duncan realized his meltdown actually confirmed the Duncan Principle. By cutting it, the storyline didn’t get paid off. Plus, Anthony adds, it was one of the funniest scenes that John Oliver had ever done. Dan says that this was part of the learning curve of learning how long a script needed to be to essentially make a 20-minute movie. The tragedy was they had to “kill their children” early on, the children in this case being scenes and jokes.

Dan says that a lot of the cool songs in the show comes from Joe Russo’s Ipod.

The tag between Troy and Abed was shot at 4 a.m. Joel says he had to leave directly from the shoot to catch a flight to New York.

Anthony said the episode needed to be locked two days later on a Saturday at 9 p.m., so he was up for 36 hours straight in editing to make the deadline.

#jeff x annie

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