#update: I lied actually (aka was wrong) it was my right leg | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

peachymess · 7 years ago

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Hey, just dropping by to ask how life has been lately -- how are you holding up? It seems like you've been kinda better nowadays but I wanna make sure. So how have you been? Is there anything special you wanna talk about, whether it's good or not?

You know... anon. This is probably one of the more heartwarming asks I’ve gotten in a while. Unprovoked, earnest want to hear how the person behind the blog - past SNK - is doing. Like a request to hear more of the “personal” tagged posts I make. That’s just so touching to me. I have the feeling that people who are interested in me, are so at least partially because I have a connection to SNK; that if I dropped out of the fandom, I’d be an instant unfollow (not that there’s anything wrong with that - but there’s something special about feeling like someone cares past their own interests - “forget about SNK, I just wanna hear how you’re doing” JPHA anyone?) So thank you. When I saw this yesterday, I had the instant thought that it was probably from my best friend, and the only reason I cast that idea aside, is because he could just ask me on messenger haha. Anyways! Anon, I will tell you how I’ve been doing! Someone asks me “how are you”, and I’m just jumping right in and replying honestly, haha! (Under the cut, because this will be long; life updates are usually long, ya know)↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓

You’re right, I’m really good! This time, last year, I had just made a suicide pact with myself; I was so exhausted I was done fighting for myself. I said “someone’s gotta help me. But if nobody does, or nothing has changed within the time SNK is over, I’m calling it quits and offing myself”. And I meant it. I’ve had so many hard periods like that, and I’m running out of lives. I thought “next time will be game over”. That pact does NOT still stand. But it did for the better part of 2017. I can’t remember when it changed. Oh, wait, I do: the moment I gave myself the out, I felt so much relief washing over me. Not having to worry about the pathetic failure future I had ahead of me, not having to worry about the education I was too sick to complete, having to acquire a house without the means somehow... All worries about the future were lifted off me. And I had an out. It probably sounds really strange, but as soon as I’d decided to die (unless life worked itself out, aka win-win/good life - escape from bad life), life felt more bearable. I was still having a bad depressive period, so I was still not good, but I guess the pact nullified all the stress and anxiety connected to the future. When I accepted having none at all, anything else started feeling like a pluss once I decided not to die after all. The problem with “someone else has to fight for me”, though, is that apart from my parents (who can’t really do much since this is internal and they aren’t professionals - although boy did they try, bless) nobody did. I mean, I have you guys to love me, but in my every day life, who could fix me? Coincidentally, in this very same time frame, I was suddenly rejected further help from the mental health organ and I just... had no choice but to fight harder than ever just to get the amount of help I’d gotten before. It’s a big messy ordeal that took almost a year to fix. Complaints to file, waiting, more waiting, more stops to visit, etc... Basically, my notion of “being too exhausted to lift another finger for myself” was tested, and thanks to pure outrage, I was able to fight to win my right to help back. I’ve talked about it before so I won’t repeat that stuff. But the fact is, once the heaviest darkness lifted (I have recurring depression, so it just comes and goes in waves) towards the end of 2017, I carried with me an exercised ability to fight that I didn’t have going into the year. And at some point,... I don’t know how, but I was just so strongly set on fighting, fighting, fighting. I think about Armin and how he never stopped moving. He had his moments of weakness, where he thought he had no more to give, but at the end of the day, he’d be further along than when the sun rose. And I was doing the same. Because my roomie was moving at the start of 2018, I had to start thinking of how to move forward as well. I’d grown complacent in the apartment we rented together, but with him, it was too comfortable just to stay in that place mentally and in life. Just in time, I had a rude awakening to the fact that I also depended too much on other people. They were my pillars, and if they crumbled, I didn’t hold on my own. *sigh* Basically, I learned a lot in 2017, and grew a lot. At the very end - thankfully after the depression was over - I had to do a sudden crash course in how to find my own legs to stand on again, and how to close off my heart so it wasn’t so vulnerable. I went through the ice king stage of thinking I’d never let myself care about anyone else again, but I’ve found a good middle ground where I’m able to care about others but also not needing them to care about me back. This is all a long story that I don’t care to tell because it’s trivial, but also still affects me actually. But I grew a lot on it, so I’m thankful for the experience.

The TL;DR of 2017 is that after deciding I was too exhausted to fight anymore, fate forced me to fight harder than ever, and I learned a lot thanks to perfectly timed challenges, ultimately allowing me to enter 2018 a stronger person. The turning point was still the 7th of December: my tattoo. It’s of Armin’s name, for those that didn’t know (I posted it here so just search “tattoo” on my blog if you wanna see). I’d wanted to tattoo his name on my arm for quite some time, but I was scared. Because I knew that if I had his name on my arm, I could never dishonor him by killing myself. Having the tattoo would thus be my official declaration of giving up suicide as an option (ever!). Now, that’s a scary thought to someone who lives off the relief that having an opt out gives... But as time went on, and the warrior spirit had found a home in my heart, I slowly turned from fearing it, to needing it. Eventually, I called my dad and basically said “I need an appointment asap”, and he hooked me up with his tattoo artist friend. The idea came to me when I realized that despite any kind of depression, whenever I thought about Armin, any other feeling would be forgotten for a moment, as I was reminded of the love I feel for him, the motivation he gives me, and so many more good feelings. Thinking about him basically causes an explosion of warm complex joy within my chest. It spreads through my body and I always smile. So my thesis was that if I tattooed his name on my arm, and I hold my phone in my hand 24/7, I’d see his name all throughout the day, every day, and thus my depression would be repelled by this overwrite happiness all! the! time! And, anon? Thesis turned law; it works! It’s gonna be 4 months since the tattoo now, and I’ve only felt suicidal 3 days since then - and although I cal tell my body is ready to head into another depressive period, I’e managed to fight it back 4 times (4 attacks that all lasted about a week, but in the end, I managed to fight it off). It’s like I’m a werewolf, and every once in a while, the full moon is back and I struggle to stay human - and I’m managing, much thanks to a new sigil on my skin, keeping the beast caged.

Now, it would be a lie to say that the tattoo is the only reason, though: in wake of my change, and with this new intense fighting spirit, I also made a resolution to try something new: refuse to be sad. You know how people say smiling will trick the brain to think you’re happy? It sounds stupid as hell, but I finally decided that you know what?, it doesn't hurt to try. I’m gonna insist that I’m happy, even if my brain says otherwise. Fake it till you make it. And it’s working - a little wavering included, but who isn’t sad from time to time? Because my capacity to do things has been gravely weakened, though, I’m on semi-welfare now, though. It’s a kind of welfare where they haven’t accepted your application for welfare yet and you get like a tiny allowance every other week to live off of instead (not meant for a permanent basis, as it’s not nearly enough - usually given to people who are between jobs for a month or two, just to get by). I don’t have the money to buy a house, but I’ve been moving for so many consecutive years that it’s jeopardizing my mental health so I’m trying something new: I moved back with my parents, and I’m currently trying to figure out what the next step is. I want to get a house somehow, so I have a permanent base to grow off of. I know that will take a lot stress off me to focus my tiny quota of strength on something else (like figuring out what to do about education/work). But since I don’t have the means, I can’t get a regular type of loan. There is a special kind you can get if you’re on welfare, so I’m currently applying for welfare, but to apply, I need to do a lot of tests to show where my ability level lies, but I’m not able to do them so I need to get papers from doctors to confirm that. I had already “proven myself” but then I lost my psychologist, case worker and house doctor all at once, so I have to spend about a year extra to re-prove myself. And then I can apply if they say I can apply, and then I have to wait for a yes or a no, and then work from there... So you see, right now, my fate is in others’ hands. I’m basically in a limbo of waiting, then doing some sort of meeting, then waiting for it to process, so I can meet someone else and wait again. I’m currently waiting for my caseworker to answer to request to meet her so I can ask how my case is coming alone since i haven’t heard from them in over a month... It’s quite... frustrating. But I’m a professional when it comes to dealing with these things, since I’m over a decade deep in this sh-.

In the meantime, though! I am working hard to keep my mental stability in check! And I’m doing that by setting monthly goals, and starting every day with breakfast and writing down daily goals! It helps me structure my days and I’ve gotten so much done this way! It’s helping me in all sorts of ways! And although I don’t have a lot of material things to boast with, I feel more successful now than I ever have, because I’ve done another huge leap in personal growth and I’m growing more and more apt to tackle life. Just wait. I might not have a lot now, but when we do tally in twenty years from now, I’ll have the earthly goods that my peers have, and a more developed psyche on top of that! I’m on the path to finding true happiness, and that’s so much more important than following the highway to wealth.

Ah, sorry for how long this got... But yeah... I have a lot of small joys every day that I’d like to share. My journey is really making me happy. But I’m afraid I’m just boring or annoying people. I get the occasional “write what you want” ask, but I can’t shake the feeling anyways. I’m working on getting better at sharing, though. Thank you for giving me the push to write this. Take care, anon!

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solivar · 8 years ago

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WIP: Ghost Stories On Route 66

aka the one where Hanzo Shimada is an expatriate art student, Jesse McCree is an NPS ranger, both are more than they appear, weird stuff is going down in the New Mexican desert, and their lives collide in the middle of it.

Depending on how much I get written tomorrow, this might be the last update before the full chapter goes live. Unfortunately, this also means that Great Grandmother Sumiko schooling Genji’s disrespectful young ass is probably going to end up in the Graveyard of Cut Scenes because, hilarious as it would be, the flow just isn’t right to include it.

My family tells an ancient legend of two dragon brothers: Minamikaze, the Dragon of the South Wind, and Kitakaze, the Dragon of the North Wind. Together they ruled the skies with might and wisdom, governed the courts of the seasons, and upheld balance and harmony in the heavens.

But they were also brothers and, as all brothers do, sometimes they squabbled about matters both great and petty. Minamikaze was strong and wise and proud of his many gifts and virtues, the beauty of his palace in the heavens, the quality of his courtiers and the elegance of his concubines. Kitakaze was fierce and cunning and proud of his many skills and his independence, of the wild beauty of the mountains where he rested his heavy coils, of the equally wild spirits who worshipped him as he deemed fit. From time to time, Kitakaze would call upon his brother in his high palace among the clouds and, whenever he came, Minamikaze’s many courtiers would flutter through the halls in his wake, whisper and hiss behind their fans that they could hardly believe such a crude and unrefined being could truly be the brother of their master much less a rightful ruler of the heavens. From time to time, Minamikaze would call upon his brother among the mountains he called home and, whenever he came, the spirits who served Kitakaze would whisper and hiss through the branches of the trees that they could hardly believe such an arrogant and waspish creature could truly be the brother of their master much less a rightful ruler of the heavens. Thusly did many years pass, with each brother ruling his half of their kingdom while those closest to them dripped poison into their ears.

Even our clan does not preserve how the worst and final quarrel between them began, but we do know its cause: which of them could better rule over their land, a kingdom whole and undivided. No one knows who struck the first blow but we do know this: their resentment of one another turned to murderous rage and their violent struggle darkened the skies. Typhoons lashed the seas and flooded the shores, capsizing boats and drowning fishermen, starving those who waited for their return. Blizzards howled among the mountains, burying villages in avalanche and withering crops in unseasonable cold, so that famine stalked all the land. Lightning fell upon temples and shrines, palaces and farmhouses, and the fires that followed added to the woes of those suffering in the shadow of the raging brothers. In the end, the Dragon of the South Wind struck down his brother, who fell to the tortured Earth, shattering the land in the throes of his death.

Minamikaze had triumphed but, as time passed, he realized the extent of his folly and the sweetness of victory turned to ash. The obsequies of his courtiers, no matter how delicious, could not take the place of his brother’s openhearted companionship. He knew too late that his heart had been poisoned by their lies and their slander and had only his own hand to blame for the murder of the one who had always known and loved him best. Burning with shame, he fled his palace in the heavens and wandered aimlessly in bitterness and sorrow, his grief throwing the whole of the world into discord.

One day a stranger, clad in the cloak of a wandering monk, called up to him as he wept in the skies above the mountain-cradled lake his brother called home and asked, “Dragon lord, why are you so distraught?”

And Minamikaze replied, “Seeking power, I killed my brother -- but, without him, I am lost.”

The stranger replied, his voice gentle with compassion and soft with comfort, “You have inflicted wounds upon yourself, but now you must heal. Walk the Earth on two feet, as I do. Find value in humility and in humanity, and then you will find peace.”

Minamikaze heard the kindness and the wisdom in the stranger’s words, and knelt upon the ground at his feet. For the first time, he was able to clearly see the world around him, the consequences of his own actions, and seeing he knew what he must do: he became human. The stranger revealed himself as Kitakaze, fallen no longer and healed of many wounds, the most terrible of which was the loss of his brother’s love, made whole by the hand that inflicted it. Reunited, the two set out to rebuild what they had once destroyed, make right what they had once put wrong.

“And to make a much longer story filled with an absolutely incredible number of begats short,” Genji interjected, “about the time Minamikaze and Kitakaze started tooling around on two legs, they also came to the realization that there was a lot to be said for engaging in semi-divine-being with benefits relationships.”

“Genji.” Hanzo growled in what he hoped was a properly quelling tone.

“Which is, in fact, how they came to be married to the shaman sisters who had scraped Kitakaze out of the crater he’d made on impact and stitched him back together again.” Genji continued, not obviously quelled at all, and it was all Hanzo could do not to put him in a headlock until someone could get a roll of duct tape. “Nature took its course and, well.”

“The children of Minamikaze and Sakuya, Kitakaze and Tsuya, were the founders of our clan, born of the union between two worlds.” Hanzo grabbed his brother’s knee under the table, found the pressure points, and applied a judicious amount of force; Genji’s mouth, finally getting the hint, snapped shut. “They were...not entirely human themselves, being able to walk between the courts of the spirit world and the realms of men, the better to carry out their parents’ will. The brothers had inflicted great harm on all the worlds in their violence but they were wise enough to know that undoing all that they had done was not only their own task but the work of generations yet to be born. Minamikaze and Kitakaze lived long lives but their human shells were still mortal and when they passed from it within hours of each other, they were born again into their true kingdom as the dragon princes they were. Thus did they give their children, and their grandchildren, and all who would come into the world bearing the humble name they chose for themselves a mighty gift to aid them in their struggles -- not only the blood of dragons in their veins, but a companion of the spirit to protect and counsel them.”

The ranger’s grip on his hand tightened a fraction; he could only imagine how badly he was failing to control his expression because, when he spoke, his tone was surpassingly gentle. “That’s what this was supposed to be.”

It took Hanzo a moment to force his tongue to move. “Yes.”

“Wait.” Hana said at the same moment Lucio whispered, “Holy mother of no way.”

Genji sighed and nodded. “Yeah, it’s exactly what you’re thinking.”

“That tattoo. On your back. Is an actual dragon.” Lucio sounded as though he were saying the words aloud in a desperate, doomed effort to make himself not believe them.

“Yep.” Genji replied. “You can let go of my leg now, Hanzo.”

He did so, and wrapped the liberated arm around his slowly churning stomach.

“I’d say no freaking way but I’m afraid we’ve left that pretty far behind.” Lucio admitted. “Can we see it?”

“...Maybe?” Genji flicked a look at him out of the corner of his eye. “Later. Definitely later.”

“So,” Terrifying Smoke Monster Dad asked, because of course he did, “why don’t you have one?”

“Gabe.” Ranger McCree growled in a near-duplicate of his own quelling tone; Genji just growled.

“No. He has a salient point. I was vulnerable because there was no bond, though I was prepared -- “ Hanzo stopped, considered, started again. “For hundreds of years, our family followed the command of our ancestors and carried out the task of repairing the harm they had done. Using the gifts at our command, we advised and counseled rulers and warlords, we kept the shrines of our ancestors and those gods and spirits who acted in accord with them, we fought the monsters and demons their violence had permitted entry into the world, and we gave peace and rest to the anguished ghosts of those who perished during the dark and troubled years. Our family was respected and honored for our work, and for our skills, and for our gifts. But things, as they always do, changed.”

“More specifically, the arts our family practiced were outlawed as superstition and banned under threat of a number of unpleasant punishments. When given the choice between sinking into genteel poverty and irrelevance and outlawry our several-times-great-grandparents chose outlawry. They might have been a tiny bit bitter.” Genji’s tone was decidedly wry. “Unfortunately, transitioning from well-respected clan of craftspeople, to use the local term, to a greatly feared clan of organized criminals had a rather significant side-effect. We fell out of favor with our own ancestors.”

“For nearly three centuries our dragon-kin would not answer us. They refused our prayers, turned away our offerings, ignored our pleas. We still etched an open bond into our skin in the hope that it would one day be fulfilled, but it never was. Parts of the family ceased to believe that we had ever been dragons at all while others used the tales for intimidation and threat.” Hanzo fixed his gaze at a point on the far wall, letting his eyes trace the pattern of the hanging, not wishing to meet the ranger’s eyes and see what was written there. “This might have gone on until the last of the dragon’s blood drained from us entirely, had it not been for our grandfather and his brother. Uncle Toshiro was of a scholarly and spiritual nature, and when he asked his brother our grandfather to release him from his obligations to the clan that he might pursue a sacred calling, he was permitted to go. Kijuro, our grandfather, knew he would never be happy otherwise and he loved his brother enough to grant him his freedom. Toshiro withdrew into the mountains near Hanamura, the city our clan called home, and rediscovered the ways we had lost in the shrine that had once been ours, at the knee of the hermit shaman who tended it. And he was the first to receive an answer from our ancestors in generations. The message he received was this: the world was breaking again and it would need dragons, as well, to protect and restore it.”

“Our grandfather wasn’t what you could call overly well-supplied with imagination but he knew what that meant well enough: our ancestors wanted us to go straight. Fortunately for them, Grandpa Kijuro pretty much wanted to get out of the organized crime business while the getting was good, too, and he went about the task of sweet-talking the elder siblings and the heads of the sub-families and figuring out which assets to convert to legitimate businesses and which to sell off and to whom and who to put in charge of what. It was pretty much the work of his most vigorous years, it wasn’t easy or smooth or completely without pain and violence, but he inculcated the necessity of it in all his potential heirs and into his only child, our mother.” Genji said our mother like some people might say Satan himself but Hanzo elected to let it ride unremarked. “He was practically on his deathbed when Toshiro sent word that the ancestors had accepted his efforts and that his daughter was even then carrying the child who would bring the dragons back to the Shimada clan.”

“You?” Ana asked.

“Him.”

“Our grandfather died four years after I was born. Genji was only a baby at the time.” Hanzo’s gaze did another circuit of the pattern, seeking calm, emptiness, emotional distance. “Uncle Toshiro came down from the mountains for the funeral and to take me in hand, to begin training me in the arts I would need to master. He was younger than our grandfather by some years but was an old man himself, and I think he knew even then that I would be his last student. I could already perceive the world beyond the world -- the spirit of Shimada Castle was a sad and beautiful woman who would sit by me at night and sing me to sleep when I was restless, the gardens and the city were alive with things only I could see or touch. What I had been given as a gift, he had gained through study and discipline, which he shared with me.”

“Which is to say when he wasn’t studying a rigorous schedule of way-above-average academics with the best private tutors our mother could find, he was studying weirdass magical and religious esoterica with our ancient, crusty great-uncle. When he wasn’t practicing the sword -- with actual swords, mind you, not kendo -- was practicing the bow, and when he wasn’t practicing either of those two things he was working on his calligraphy or how to make six dozen different kinds of demon-chasing charms or learning how to paint sumi-e well enough to get into art college or how to sing troubled spirits to rest or approximately six million other things that he was expected to know how to do perfectly before he could approach the dragon brothers’ shrine and beg their forgiveness and ask them to come back.” Genji made no effort to keep either the exasperation or the bitterness out of his tone. “I was thoroughly convinced for at least a couple years that he was actually a vampire because I almost never saw his face in broad daylight and I thought our parents were keeping the terrible truth from me until I was old enough to deal with it.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hana opening her mouth. “For the record: I am also not a vampire. I am...not anything.”

“That seems kinda unlikely, darlin’.” The ranger’s tone was gentle.

“And yet it is the truth.” He was mildly astonished that his voice wavered only slightly. “Uncle Toshiro was very, very old when he passed -- I was twenty-one. Shortly after his funeral, I received word from the keeper of the dragon brothers’ shrine that everyone enclosed there had dreamed of our coming…”

They were not quite fifty yards from the parking lot at the base of the mountain when Genji started complaining.

“How could you do this to me, Hanzo?” He asked in the plaintive tones of a man most cruelly and brutally wronged by one held dear to his heart. “How?”

“You’ll survive the cardio.” Hanzo replied, utterly without mercy, as he started up the next flight of steps on the long climb to the shrine. “You should probably also save your breath. The air is going to be a bit thin where we’re going.”

“Heartless,” Genji whined. “Absolutely heartless. Do you have any idea where I could be right now?”

“No,” Hanzo lied and lengthened his stride slightly. “ Though I’m certain you’re going to tell me.”

“I could be on a yacht in the middle of the wine-dark Adriatic Sea -- “ Genji began in tones of high melodrama.

“Aegean. I’m reasonably certain it’s the Aegean that all the Greek poets describe as ‘wine-dark’.” Hanzo observed meditatively because he, at least, hadn’t slept through either World Cultures or Advanced Poetic Forms In World Literature.

“Whatever. And not just any yacht, the world’s largest, most expensive yacht -- the yacht has its own private plane, Hanzo. It’s practically an aircraft carrier upholstered in nudity and excess. And do you know to whom that yacht belongs, oh my dearest brother?” He could nearly hear the gesticulations accompanying the recitation, though he didn’t look back to witness them.

He also knew the answer that question. “Oh your only brother. And, no, I do not.”

“Kyrion and Konstancia Nagata, that’s who!” Genji howled, his despair echoing down the valley. “Who are turning eighteen this weekend! I could be the meat in a kinky Nagata twin sandwich right now!”

“Genji,” Hanzo replied, repressively, because otherwise he was going to start laughing and that would completely ruin any attempt at wise brotherly counsel, “Kyrion Nagata is completely not your type -- “

“Maybe not but his sister is!” Genji wailed again, the ancient, weathered torii lining the ancient, weathered stone stairs catching his voice and amplifying it. “Have you ever even seen her on the dance floor? She moves like bones and ligaments are completely optional flexion devices and those legs Hanzo those legs and how do you even know Kyrion Nagata?”

“I actually read the briefings the security office puts out.” Hanzo rolled his eyes heavenward. “Which is how I know that their father is balls deep in the Russian mafia and underwater in debt to a number of mainland Chinese smuggling operations and that is likely why either or both of his children are attempting to ensnare one or more heirs to a family-run zaibatsu -- because we wouldn’t let our in-laws be murdered by testy smugglers who want their investments back.”

“Oh, sure, take all the fun out of the idea of a threesome with unnaturally flexible twins.” Genji sulked in a transport of despond. “I handle my own contraceptives and prophylactics, you know.”

“I’m reasonably certain a very polite and well-mannered kidnapping for ransom would also not be beyond the bounds of possibility, particularly if they spend the the entire duration of it fucking your brains out.” Hanzo replied, tartly. “Oh, and for the record: mother asked me not to leave you alone with either of them for longer than fifteen seconds if it was within my power to do so and look! It was totally within my power this weekend.”

“Dammit, Hanzo!”

They walked in silence for some time after that, partly because Genji, resentfully fuming, refused to allow himself to be baited into further conversation, partly because the trail itself became genuinely steep enough to constitute a vigorous cardio workout. The steps were genuinely old beyond the telling of it, carved out of the bones of the mountain, worn as much by time as the passage of feet, crumbling in some places and slick with moss in others. They both had to apply some concentration to their footing lest they enjoy a far less controlled descent and by the time they reached the point where the trail widened out along the brow of the mountainside, both were more than a little ready for a rest stop.

“You’ll survive the cardio, huh?” Genji asked, half-mocking, as they both shucked off their packs and slumped down in the lee of an enormous boulder, fighting to catch their collective breath.

“I’m reasonably sure that was why Uncle Toshiro decided to just stay in Hanamura.” Hanzo admitted, rolling the tension out of his shoulders as he set down his pack. “Here, lay out the blanket…”

Genji, for a pleasant change, did as he was asked without argument, spreading out the plastic-lined picnic blanket liberated from the cherry blossom viewing party supplies on the flattest part of the trail and then flopping dramatically down on it. Hanzo extracted the food he’d packed for the hike, deposited Genji’s share on his chest, and settled down at his knee. “Let me have your legs.”

Genji looked up from the contents of his lunch box but didn’t argue, particularly once Hanzo was massaging the lactic acid buildup out of his calves. “Ohhhhh, I knew there was a reason I still liked you even though you do stuff like this to me.”

“You used to enjoy doing stuff like this with me.” He switched legs and rolled his eyes a little at his brother’s orgiastic moaning.

“Yeah, when I was twelve and you were only allowed outside if you were doing something that involved hopping one legged across the obstacle course or walking blindfolded through a forest with only a water bottle and a knife or hiking up the side of a mountain without any marked trails and an eighty pound backpack.” Genji replied around a mouthful of onigiri. “I’m not twelve anymore, Hanzo.”

“Clearly.” Hanzo replied dryly and poured himself a cup of tea from the thermos. “You’re attracting curious spirits with the power of your abs, by the way, close your shirt.”

“Let them get an eyeful, it’s a glory they’ll never see again once this weekend is over.” Genji propped himself up on his elbows and accepted the cup handed to him. “You could have had any dozen or two of our ass-sucking relatives up here with you right now, you know.”

“I know.” Hanzo contemplated the contents of his own box, all of which had seemed quite appetizing only a handful of hours before. “And if I’d wanted my ass sucked all the way there and back again, I would have asked one of them.”

“Of course it’s much more enjoyable to torture me.” Genji tossed off his tea and lay back again, twitching his legs out of his lap.

Hanzo discovered his appetite taking an abrupt and total leave, and closed his box. “You could have said no, and I would have respected that.”

“But mother wouldn’t have and, honestly, even dragging myself up the side of a mountain and spending the weekend in a place without wifi or running water is preferable to putting up with her in full blown passive-aggressive dragon-mama mode.” Genji pulled out his phone. “Holy shit, I’ve still got connection. Who would’ve guessed?”

“I’m reasonably certain they’ve got running water now.” Hanzo replied, carefully stretching his own legs before the post-exertion cramps could set in.

Genji snorted and looked up from the screen. “Good, because standing under a waterfall is absolutely not going to cut it when it comes to bathing tonight. Why did you even ask me, you knew I was going to hate everything about this. Honestly, Hanzo.”

Hanzo stretched the length of his left leg and addressed his words to the blanket. “Because you’re my brother and, no matter what happens in the next few days, after this everything is going to be different, one way or another.”

Genji was silent for a long, long moment. Hanzo closed his eyes and concentrated on the sensation of his muscles loosening, the birds twittering among the trees, the rustle of small forest creatures in the undergrowth beyond the trail, the spirits singing their wordless songs on the breeze as it curled around the shoulder of the mountain. Then, in a tone positively freighted with malicious glee, Genji whispered, “You’re afraid.”

Hanzo sat up so quickly his hamstrings complained. “Really?”

Genji pointed at him and outright cackled in perfectly spiteful amusement. “You are. Hanzo Perfect In Every Way Shimada is fucking scared. I never thought I would live to see this day, never in a million years, hold still, I need to commemorate this moment -- “

Hanzo lunged at him but, as it turned out, Genji was just a hair faster and more flexible and rolled easily out of reach and to his feet.

“Dammit, Genji.” Hanzo growled and his brother laughed again, not even pretending to hide the mocking edge to it.

“Now that sounds familiar.” Genji snapped off at least a few pictures and tucked his phone away, eyes alight with venomous cheer. “Now I will always remember the day my excellent-in-all-things elder brother displayed a fleeting trace element of imperfection. My life is complete.” His grin slipped back a notch from punchable to merely annoying. “Okay, aniki, that was the best laugh I’ve had in ages so when this whole thing turns out to be the longest long con Uncle Toshiro and Grandpa ever ran, I promise I won’t make fun of you too hard, okay?”

Hanzo closed his eyes, breathed in peace, breathed out the desire to shove his complete asshole little brother off the side of the scenic overlook, and said, “We should go. We have a few more hours of walking left and I would like to be at the shrine well before nightfall.”

“But of course.”

Genji went to collect his pack and remained in an obnoxiously cheerful good mood for the remainder of the hike, undimmed by the sudden summer squall that came pouring down the valley that soaked them both before they could reach the travelers’ shelter at the base of the final rise, or the steep final climb itself. Hanzo chose to regard that as a blessing instead of a harbinger of worse to come primarily because his digestive tract had already tied itself into an impressively complex knotwork sequence and he rather doubted he could survive his circulatory system getting into the act. The sun was a handspan above the western mountains by the time they reached the last set of stairs cut into the edge of the wooded plateau holding the dragon brothers’ shrine and found the priestess-shaman that kept it waiting for them at the top, beneath the torii that marked the boundary between the world as they knew it and the world that was yet to come.

She was almost impossibly tiny, her hair pure white and knotted into a bun at the base of her skull, her back deeply bowed and her face deeply lined with age, but the eyes that looked out at them were bright, a shade of brown so pale they were nearly golden, like those of their mother and late grandfather, sharp and knowing. She bowed in greeting as they came to the top of the steps, the westering sunlight gilding her hair, the sculpted wooden cap of the staff she leaned on, the almost impossibly snowy whiteness of her robe and shawl. “Welcome, young masters. It has been many years since the heirs of my clan have made this pilgrimage. We are pleased to receive you.”

Hanzo stopped on the topmost step and bowed deeply over his hands. “It was our honor to make this journey and our honor to pass the gate of the gods, to return the service of the clan to our ancestors.” He rose, and smiled. “It is good to finally meet you, great-grandmother.”

“Ah, child.” She reached up and cupped his cheek, the skin of her palm paper-fine. “Let me look at you. Toshiro told me a great deal about you -- “ The tip of her staff came around and struck Genji’s shins with serpentine speed; he yelped and almost tumbled back down the stairs and Hanzo just barely managed to swallow a laugh, “and also about you, Genji. Come, the girl who helps me will be making supper soon and you two should settle in…”

She set off on the path that led along the perimeter fence, away from the central lane to the shrine itself. There, tucked away in a corner and screened from view by its own fence and a thin stand of bamboo, was her elegant little house and garden, the stone path leading to the covered verandah passing through it. As the approached, the door slid open and their grandmother’s attendant -- a woman likely old enough to be their mother -- greeted them with a bow and helped her inside. “Girl, show my grandsons to their room and to the bathhouse. Grandsons, bathe. You smell like you just climbed a mountain. Then come talk to me and we will eat.”

The walls in the northern all-purpose room had already been arranged to make two bedrooms -- the “girl,” who quietly gave her name as Miss Hayata, showed them to the western-facing room, its outer shoji open to allow the storm-cooled, rain-and-forest scented breeze entry, the spring fed pond and the surrounding water garden perfectly framed between them. Two futons were laid out next to one another; a set of shelves and hooks for personal belongings and a small chabudai and a selection of cushions occupied the remaining space. Genji glanced around, dumped his pack, and asked, “Mind if I call dibs on the bath?”

“Not at all.” Hanzo rather felt he could use a few minutes to unpack, dispose of his uneaten lunch before it began to smell, and have a minor panic attack before sitting down to eat dinner with the teacher of his teacher. Fortunately, there were jewel-bright fish in the pond willing to help with at least part of the disposal and he strongly suspected the squirrels would take care of the rest. He hung his ritual garments to air, selected a fresh change of clothes, extracted the scroll case he had carried with him from the kamidana in Shimada Castle from its waterproof covering, and stashed the rest of his belongings on his half of the shelves. The panic attack, however, refused to unknot itself from the inner workings of his entrails and he resigned himself to politely picking at dinner.

Genji, miraculously, didn’t take forever in the bath and hadn’t used all the towels. By the time Hanzo himself emerged, dinner was definitely perfuming the air.

“Be calm,” murmured the voice of reason as he hurried in the direction from whence those delicious smells were emanating, “be calm. If she didn’t think you were ready, if she hadn’t received a sign you were ready, if you were not ready, she would not have summoned you. Be calm. Or, if you can’t be calm, at least don’t throw up, because there’s no way that’s not an inauspicious omen.”

The dining room was in the furthest southern end of the house, to take advantage of the last of the light lingering in the heavens, supplemented by small lamps situated in each corner and one in the center of the much larger chabudai. Only three places were laid and Miss Hayata was already bringing out the first tray -- tiny, elegantly composed bowls of hiyashi chuka -- so Hanzo hurriedly seated himself.

Grandmother Sumiko clucked her tongue at him. “Tardy.” Genji snickered. “Put away that phone or I will put it away for you and stop laughing at your brother’s misfortune.”

“Just a moment, grandmother, I’m -- “ Hanzo did not actually see Grandmother Sumiko pick up her chopsticks but he did have the opportunity to appreciate the speed with which she used them to snatch the phone out of Genji’s hands. “Hey.”

Grandmother Sumiko scrutinized whatever was going on with a certain critical eye and Genji, for the first time in years, actually, visibly blushed. “That is an extraordinarily flexible young woman who is wasting her kami-given talents on amateur softcorn porn. If she ever wishes to fulfill her potential, do send her to me.” Then she powered the device down and slid it into the depths of her robes. “You can have that back when you’re ready to leave, Genji-kun.”

Genji turned the full force of his best this-is-all-your-fault glare on him and mouthed I hate you with elaborate accompanying body language. Since neither of those things were new, Hanzo shrugged insouciantly and mouthed back sorry as insincerely as the situation allowed. If Grandmother Sumiko noticed the exchange, she mercifully forebore to comment on it, and Miss Hayata returned bearing the libations, which turned out to be wonderfully chilled umeshu. That, at least, put Genji in a somewhat better mood almost instantly.

“Tell me of yourself, Genji-kun,” Grandmother Sumiko said, once they had had an opportunity to sample the provender.

“I thought we came here for you to talk to him.” It was not quite a question, or an accusation, but partook of the most potentially insulting aspects of both and it was all Hanzo could do not to throw his still mostly-full appetizer plate across the table at him.

“If I have a question to ask of Hanzo, I assure you I will do so.” Grandmother Sumiko replied, holding her chopsticks in a manner that suggested potential violence in the offing. “Now, tell me about yourself or I’ll unscrew your head and dip it out with a soup ladle.”

Genji, unexpectedly, grinned his most winning grin. “I think I’m beginning to like you, Grandmother.”

Miss Hayata arrived to take away the appetizer plates and bring new ones, periodically refreshing the umeshu, and Genji and their grandmother chattered back and forth through grilled tofu with vinegared vegetables, a perfectly outstanding miso soup, fried eggplant swimming in a coolly refreshing marinade, and chazuke with umeboshi, a circumstance that allowed Hanzo to eat almost nothing and avoid a lecture at the same time, for which he was profoundly grateful. Dessert was an artfully arranged fan of sliced peaches and watermelon that evoked the image of a bird in flight served with cold sencha flavored with peach and cucumber slices. Miss Hayata shot him a worried look as she took away his last, virtually untouched plate.

“Very well, Genji, you have amused me much more than I suspected you would this evening.” Grandmother Sumiko reached into her robe and tossed his phone back. “Don’t make me regret giving you this, and by regret I mean I don’t want to hear any questionable noises coming from your bedroom after you think everyone else is asleep. I’m an old woman and these walls are thin. Shoo.”

“Thank you, Grandmother.” He offered her a perfectly correct bow, possibly just to prove he could do it, and then dropped a kiss on her cheek, eyes twinkling impishly. “I promise I won’t terrorize your household in the night.”

“Good boy.” He fled and Grandmother Sumiko pinned Hanzo back to his cushions without even looking at him. “Not you. Sit. Have some more of that excellent sencha if you’re not going to eat.”

Chastened, Hanzo sipped his tea and attempted to avoid his grandmother’s eyes as she turned her full attention to him for the first time. He did not entirely succeed and once she caught him, she declined to let him go. “That one is...angry.”

“Yes.” Hanzo agreed, the knots in his stomach reconfiguring themselves slightly.

“At you?” Grandmother Sumiko asked, regarding him steadily.

“At everything.” Hanzo replied, and sat his cup down, regretting everything he’d put in his mouth all evening. “Myself and the situation included.”

“And yet you brought him with you.” She sipped from her own cup and, mercifully, looked away.

“My options were limited. Given the choice between the brother who hates me and the relatives who only bother because they want something from me, at least the hate is honest.” He blinked until his eyes stopped stinging and looked out into the garden, where the solar-powered tōrō were coming to life in the deep blue twilight.

“You could have come alone.” Gently.

“I didn’t want to.” He laced his fingers together to give his hands something to do. “Did you?”

“No.” Grandmother Sumiko admitted, after a moment. “Worried?”

“Oh, yes.” Hanzo took a sip of tea and forced himself to swallow.

“Good. If you weren’t I’d be worried.” With a certain dry amusement. “Ready?”

No. “I must be.” The tea was definitely a mistake. “When do we begin?”

“Tomorrow at first light.” He glanced at her, surprised. “Don’t look at me like that, this isn’t the masochism tango. You climbed a mountain today and you haven’t eaten enough to keep a bird alive. The purpose of the endeavor is to succeed at it, not collapse from physical and mental exhaustion halfway through. Tonight you do nothing but rest.”

“Thank you, Grandmother.” He found a genuine enough smile to offer her. “May I go?”

She waved him off. “Go. Make sure your angry idiot brother shuts down at a decent hour, too, because I genuinely don’t care if he’s not a morning person.”

“I will.” He rose, bowed, and made his way back to the bedroom, thinking fixedly about nothing.

Genji had rearranged the room somewhat in his absence, moving the futon he’d chosen to the opposite side and putting the table between them, along with a barrier consisting of the contents of his pack, most of which were portable forms of electronic entertainment. Hanzo heroically resisted the temptation to step on a few of the more delicate-seeming ones as he slipped in and slid the shoji door closed behind him. His brother did not look up from the device in his hands or otherwise deign to acknowledge his existence as he prepared for bed, earbuds firmly in place, not even when Hanzo turned out the lamp on his side of the room. He simply reached out and thumbed off his own light, plunging the room into sickly electronic screen lit semi-darkness.

Hanzo wondered, as he tried to find a comfortable position to sleep in, what would happen if he threw a pillow at Genji’s head and asked to talk. Brutal realism forced him to conclude nothing good given the single-minded intensity of focus his brother was giving to ignoring him. An argument, in all likelihood, of the kind that Genji could bring when he was of a mind to use any possible vulnerability against him, his words placed with delicate precision to cut deep. Thus it was that he rolled to the side facing the wall and whispered, “You were right. I am afraid. I wish I could tell you.”

He did not, despite the exertions of the day, sleep particularly well. He had spent cumulative years of his life training in the wild places still to be found in Japan, had slept in tents and under the stars and, on at least one occasion notable for its unpleasantness, hanging on the side of a cliff strapped to a nylon-and-aluminum base platform, but for some reason he could not make himself relax in the freshly laundered bedding on the sweet-smelling tatami while safe under the roof of his grandmother’s house. He couldn’t even blame it on Genji: he had shut whatever he’d been doing down well before midnight, rolled over, and gone directly to sleep. He wasn’t even snoring. Neither were the night noises so disturbingly different as to be a reason for his restlessness: the spirits sang to him no matter where he was, city, castle, or country and, under normal circumstances, and they were enough to soothe him no matter how deep his physical discomfort or mental disquiet. The bath had actually assuaged the majority of the bodily aches occasioned by the hike and his body was, in fact, completely and utterly prepared to rest.

His mind, however, was skittering around like a howler monkey that had stumbled into a meth lab and refused to obey either the demands of physical exertion or silent pleas for mercy because it was late and he had to get up early and he already seriously doubted his ability to settle a bitter family quarrel three centuries in the cherishing without trying to do so on twenty minutes of sleep. In fact, his tweaker brain was taking positive delight in going over and over and over all the possible ways this could go wrong, every conceivable misstep, every way in which he could fail. And there were, in fact, multiple potential points of failure, each and every one of which could be laid at his feet. Would be laid at his feet.

You have been preparing to do this thing for nearly your entire life, the voice of reason finally hissed, sounding exasperated almost beyond its own nature. You LITERALLY CANNOT POSSIBLY be more ready. GO THE FUCK TO SLEEP.

That is what I’m afraid of, he replied but he did, in end, sleep for at least a few hours. He snapped instantly awake at the gentle hiss of the shoji sliding open and Miss Hayate’s soft voice whispering, “Young master?”

“I am awake,” He whispered in reply and reached for his yukata. “If my brother can sleep, it is best to let him.”

“As you wish,” Miss Hayate whispered and withdrew while he dressed.

The sky outside was growing pale with false dawn as she led him out into the garden, along the path that led down the side of the plateau, the steps narrow and somewhat treacherous with dew. Somewhere in the distance he heard the sound of rushing water and was not surprised when, a few moments later, the trees thinned on the bank of swift-moving stream, itself flowing forth from a deep green pool at the base of of a silver thread of waterfall. Grandmother Sumiko waited just outside the edge of the waterfall’s spray on the bank, a single enormous water-cut slab of stone, smoothed by centuries, holding a lantern on a pole to light his way.

And now there was no more time in which to harbor fear, or doubt.

#WIP Ghost Stories On Route 66 #Granny Sumiko is a menace #So is Genji #Hanzo could really use a hug and also horse tranquilizers

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romancevsreality-blog · 7 years ago

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vanderpump rules, season six, episode eighteen: nothing is more boring to me than tom tom

Oh god, we’re STILL in Mexico?!

I mean, we didn’t leave Mexico last episode, so I don’t know why I’m surprised. We enter back at the end of James and Kristen’s fight, and we see Lala and James get angry at Stassi for her defending James. Everyone can say what’s true - Kristen needs to be the center of attention, and that’s draining. They barely even had actual dinner. Lala is livid because she’s covered in margarita, and Lala and Stassi shouldn’t be arguing about this. The guys misinterpreted what James said, and neither Lala and Stassi were witnesses. They don’t have a leg to stand on in the slightest. Stassi keeps trying to get Lala to calm down, but she’s upset.

James is crying on the phone to Raquel about what happened, and Sandoval comes over to stick his nose into things again. Tom basically is like, “this is what it LOOKS like,” and James tells him everything he remembers that night. And much like the nightmare interrogator he would be, Sandoval asks James if there’s anything he could possibly just have not remembered? There’s two hours that no one can account for their actions, and James really doesn’t have a reason to lie. Sure, saying “Why would I lie when I have a girlfriend” instead of “Why would I like about something that isn’t true”, but... you know.

I’m good at this shit.

Stassi orders a caesar salad, a margherita pizza, and a side of balsamic vinegar. Stassi is the kind of person who needs a ton of condiments, a trait I have always found odd in people1. On their last night in Mexico, Jax doesn’t understand the difference between “turning up” and getting “turnt”, and again. He’s 1000 years old. James and Lala unpack what went down with Kristen and exactly how uncool it was for her to do that. Lala says if Kristen does anything to James she’ll light Kristen’s house down. And there’s a gross conversation wherein which two white people call themselves gangsta while one of them drinks out of a literal baby’s bottle, and I am not comfortable???

Kristen arrives to throw herself a pity party with Stassi and Katie, and Katie isn’t having any of it. I hate Katie I hate Katie I hate Katie but daaaaamn, she’s right here. Kristen is wasted and Katie’s telling her she’s only making things worse for herself with her behavior. Kristen tries to get Katie to empathize with her because she should know how she feels, but Katie just thinks she’s lost the plot. Katie, who last season refuses to talk to anyone about anything or deal with her feelings in a rational manner, tells Kristen that she would have been better off just keeping a level head and talking to James instead of throwing a margarita in his face. Kristen is like, “oh, you’re mad at me for throwing a drink?”

No, Kristen, they’re mad at you because it’s hard to defend you when you act like this and even harder when you’re not justified in your behavior!!!!!!

Katie’s not going to lie to Kristen that she’s right and it hurts her to see Kristen self-sabotage. Kristen says Katie is being an asshole, and Kristen doesn’t know anything. This is entirely Kristen’s fault.

Back in West Hollywood, we’re with Lisa Vanderpump and Ken at TomTom, where they’re done putting in the foundation and now they’re putting in electric, and about six weeks away from putting in kitchen equipment. Sandoval is calling Lisa with whatever stupid idea he has today. It’s 11:32 AM, and Tom Sandoval pretends he came to Mexico to do research on mezcal. He’s also hoping that The Gang will be able to come over to see what’s happening with TomTom with a “Progress Party”. Lisa doesn’t care if she doesn’t have to work. He tells Lisa about James and Kristen possibly hooking up, and even Lisa’s like “oh, dear god, no.”

Jax calls the only woman who’s ever paid any attention to him because he’s paying her to, Kelsey, his reiki master. He ships Brittany off to do her makeup in another room, which is literally the most suspect. Boy, what kind of conversation are you having that you need me to pack up my entire battle station and go to my friend’s room to get ready?! There’s the very end of that story, in my humble opinion. Brittany doesn’t know what reiki is and basically is like “What can she do that weed can’t?”

Brittany, if you have to ask, you definitely already know the answer.

Kelsey wants to make sure that Jax is taking moments for himself, but he isn’t. He feels personally attacked by all of this. Kelsey does give the advice that “if I react, that means that I believe a part of what they’re saying is true.” Damn, Kelsey. You read Jax to filth. She wants him to focus on the good and tells him to be Nelson Mandela, someone Jax pretends to know. Nelson Mandela is from “Africa”, according to Jax Taylor, who literally used to walk across Pangea. Jax tells Kelsey he loves her(?????) and they hang up.

I’m barfing, oh my god.

They’re all packing and ready to leave Mexico, and Kristen’s mostly upset she can’t leave it all in Mexico and has to bring it back home with her. What a struggle, Kristen.

She goes with Carter, a human pair of manicured eyebrows, to dinner and talk about the Mexico trip. Kristen’s glad she went even though it was just “fine”. She tells Carter about the “rumor” James “created”, trickle-truthing the story the entire way through. Kristen apologizes because she knows being alone with James is a problem for her - she already cheated on Carter with him when they first started dating. For her to put herself in that scenario is stupid. She’s stupid for that. She’ll never live down fucking James on top of her Beemer, and no one will let her live that down. Her credibility is shot, and she understands that.

Everyone’s back at work! Scheana, Lala, and Ariana are back at Sexy Unique Restaurant, and Lisa Vanderpump has arrived in her piratey best to berate Lala for over inflating her lips with that Kylie Jenner lip sucker thing that was all the rage last summer. Lisa asks Lala how Mexico was, and Lala makes a running list of who got yelled at - Jax, Sandoval, Schwartz, Kristen, James. Lisa can’t believe they’ve all discovered that Jax is a piece of shit, and she really can’t believe that Jax is trying to whisk Brittany away after everything he’s done. Lisa’s thrilled by the idea of Jax leaving but also thinks it’s a load of shit, because Jax is a liar.

James is bringing all of his See You Next Turn Up Tuesday (SYNTUT) equipment in and somehow Raquel is carrying something despite her arms being made of blown-up plastic. James hopes no one is going to fuck with him that night, and has come to the full conclusion that whatever happened in Mexico with the boys was a dumb joke that didn’t need to be escalated to the level it was. Raquel just stands there and James talks at her about what’s true and what’s not true with James.

Meanwhile, Jax and Brittany are heading back to Sexy Unique Restaurant in the car drove when Jax was 16 and just learning to drive. Jax can’t not think about “the job” in Florida, and Brittany begs him to think about her and how this will effect her. She wants him to think everything through and he keeps being like “this is a great opportunity.” In their silences and pauses they’re both asking each other for what they want. She’s been there two years and moved there for him and she’s not sure if she just wants to uproot her life once she’s just getting comfortable. He passively aggressively asks if Brittany’s boyfriend Daddy Bae Adam is going to be there, and Brittany just wants him to get over it. He’s a nice guy. I’m biased because he’s Daddy Bae and and Jax is Daddy Bone, aka a skeleton who should be dead underground. She is happy that Jax sounds jealous2, which means Scheana’s plan worked. She didn’t want to break Jax and Brittany up, she just wanted to rattle him a bit.

Scheana, coming in with the low-key brilliance3.

Katie and Tom are standing in their tiny kitchen and Tom’s trying to decide what to eat. Stassi’s on her way over wearing a white tube top, and Katie’s planning her relaunch of her blog party. She wants to cater to influencers, or whatever it is for a blog that hasn’t been updated in over a year. They bring up Kristen, and everyone acknowledges that Kristen blew it all out of proportion. Tom thinks it was a “just the tip” scenario, and let’s be completely honest:

DJ James Kennedy, Esq. definitely has his own personal struggles with whiskey dick, am I wrong or am I right? And if he was drinking as heavily as they portray it, there ain’t no way anything happened between Kristen and James, because there’s no way it could have happened. I had enough frat boy sex in college to know this to be true.

Stassi almost thinks it happened with James and Kristen because of how hard Kristen is denying any of this happened. Stassi then tells us what she would do if Patrick cheated on her, and it reminds me so clearly of why she and I are the same person, and why I get so disappointed by her:

If she caught Patrick in Mexico with an ex-girlfriend, she would start planning a murder that would happen two years from now so she wouldn’t get caught

She would get some tinfoil and would make a little cone, put water in it, freeze it, make an ice pick, stab both of them, then let it melt, crinkle up the tinfoil, throw it away, and no one would ever be the wiser.

These. Are Two Things. I Have Said. Aloud. To Other People. About How I Like To Commit Revenge4.

At Sexy Unique Restaurant, Lisa Vanderpump immediately enters the bar like, “Where’s the Vanderpump Rose?” She has to shill whenever possible, even in her own god damn restaurant. Scheana’s celebrating her divorce and she and Rob are even considering buying a house together! She definitely knows he’s secure because she talked at him about the idea of having children. She’s been divorced six days, so he better get TO IT.

She tells Lisa about her plan to fuck with Jax, and Lisa’s glad that at least Scheana admitted she wanted to fuck with Jax. Lisa tells her that’s not the wisest path to go, but Scheana is very biblical and believes in an eye-for-an-eye. It’ll go well for her.

Montage of our beloved cast pretending they actually work at this restaurant ensues.

Lala took the early cut and gave up on money just to hang out at See You Next Turn Up Tuesday with James. Daddy Bae Adam arrives, wearing a Daddy Bae Outfit5, and Bloated Corpse That Inspired Daniel Radcliffe In That Movie Where He Had To Portray A Bloated Corpse Jax Taylor goes to confront him about something Adam really was barely involved in. Jax, who definitely shows up to work when he’s not scheduled to work for free drinks, doesn’t understand why Adam is there when he’s not scheduled to be. Jax is like, “oh, you have a crush on my girlfriend?”

Jax is so coked out, it’s amazing. Adam flat out denies having a crush on Brittany, just that Scheana invited him out when Adam was hanging out with Jax at his apartment. So Adam left Jax and his friends to go hang out with Scheana, NBD. Jax tries to pull the “you’re in my home, you’re a friend, you should have told me.” Adam’s literally like “I’m not getting in the middl-” and Jax is like “SCHEANA’S A MESS, RIGHT? Divorced, pissing on dudes who don’t want hers’ legs’, what a disaster.”

At least Jax apologizes for this nothing burger of an argument. Adam is not who his anger should be towards. It should be inward.

At See You Next Turn Up Tuesday, Ariana is fully prepared to The Bartender Hustle. She’s up on the bar, pouring shots into people’s mouths, looking snatched as hell, ready to get enough money to Indecent Proposal herself. I hope to one day have enough physical cash to roll around in a bed of it. Tom is DTF, and I don’t… blame… him. I am devastatingly homosexual. Scheana, Katie, and Brittany are off the clock, and they’re taking shots at the bar. Jax tells Brittany about Scheana trying to hook Adam up with Brittany, and Brittany’s like, “okay, she shouldn’t have done that,” and Jax is mostly upset that she doesn’t care. “Like, is that okay? She’s trying to set you up with someone else while that person is in my house?”

It’s not a big deal, Jax. Nothing happened, so it’s not like it matters. Brittany keeps reminding him that they work there, he needs to calm down, and she didn’t do anything. Jax expects Brittany to say something to Scheana about it, and Brittany refuses because - yeah, it’s not her problem.

Ariana sits with James and asks him about the Mysterious Pillow Arrangement that Jax considers the smoking gun in the The Case Of Banging The DJ. James insists that it’s nothing - he asked Jax for pillows so he could sleep next to the pool. I can’t imagine being drunk enough that I would want to risk passing out and rolling into a pool, but these people are not Einsteins. The story from Jax is completely different than the one told by James - according to James, Kristen was on her phone, listening to Fleetwood Mac, and Schwartz was being a drunk babbler. I mean, this sounds more accurate, and something I can actually visualize. James still maintains that this was Jax’s attempt to defect from his own behavior. I’m not sure if I buy into that entire theory, but it has more weight than Jax’s does, for sure.

Jax comes to join them and sits down with Scheana. He tries for five seconds to pretend to be nice, but immediately is like “you’re my friend, you brought him into my home, and you tried to set her up with him?” Scheana continues to be like “It wasn’t a set up.”6 Scheana wanted to boost Brittany’s confidence and even give a look into the life she could have without him. Everyone tells Jax he fucked up and he doesn’t have an argument here.

Isn’t Jax on the clock? Find me a bar that would let a bartender leave for this long on a busy Tuesday night.

Jax comes over to James and compliments him on the night, and James isn’t having any of it. Meanwhile, Lala’s literally just standing there making the “make it rain” motion, and I’m crying laughing at Lala. James is mad that Jax perpetuated the rumor with Kristen, and Jax keeps being like, “Oh, can I talk about the people I fucked and then be like, oh, I was drunk!” You do that, Jax. You actually do that. Lala keeps interjecting because Jax really ain’t shit for this one.

Jax is mad this all turning around on him, but that’s the way it should be. Ken and Lisa come in and Jax is so coked-out and so laser-focused, he doesn’t even see his bosses enter. Lala refuses to continue the argument while Ken and Lisa are around, and Lisa is like, “Jax, you haven’t even acknowledged me.”

It’s like the etiquette classes Jax took in 1875 meant nothing.

As soon as Lisa does this, Jax flips out. He’s tired of everyone holding him accountable, or what he calls “flipping the script”. He’s mad his plans to deflect away from his behavior aren’t working this season, and that’s massively unacceptable to him. He gives a double-middle-finger fuck you to all of the Sexy Unique Restaurant staff, and flips out to Lisa’s face because of what happened. In front of the bar. Where he works.

Again, why does Jax have a job?! He’s screaming at his boss about his own behavior in front of the bar where he is a bartender!!!!! Ken rightfully steps up and tells him no, he can’t talk to Lisa alone, because Jax is screaming and Ken doesn’t want him screaming at his wife. Lisa has no interest in what Jax has to tell her. And in response, Jax stands at the host podium with his middle finger up. Lisa calls him arrogant and says he’s acting like a baby.

Jax: “You’re not listening to me.” Lisa: “I am listening, I just don’t like what I’m hearing.”

Lisa. Vanderpump. Won. This. Argument. I’m saving this line in my back pocket.

Lisa tells Jax to leave, and he refuses to leave. He says its unfair, and even with Sandoval steps in, Jax still doesn’t understand… well, Jax isn’t making any kind of sense.

Jax storms off because for once he can’t charm his way out of a scenario - he’s outnumbered on everything he tries to start. Jax throws his mic on the ground, looks directly at the camera, and throws a tantrum on the streets of West Hollywood. He looked directly at the camera in that way that says “oh my god, my narrative isn’t working the way I wanted it to.” Or even, “oh my god, you guys SAID I would be the hero this season.” This is anger that’s projected elsewhere.

Next Time: Katie’s... Pamper and Potty party? Lala loves balls in her mouth, so does Raquel. James is so proud Raquel can fit both of his balls in her mouth like that isn’t an indicator of a small appendage. Carter’s pissed at Jax and Tom Sandoval, and Sandoval still thinks something happened. Brittany tells Jax his behavior wasn’t okay, and Jax still is determined to defend himself. Stassi feels (correctly) that Brittany is wasting her best years on Jax, but Brittany’s still optimistic, so that’s why Jax is going to try to get Brittany to break up with him.

Random Assessments from the Desk of Amanda: - Conspiracy: Kristen and Schwartz hooked up. - Holy shit, Lisa’s face when Lala told Brittany about Jax’s “job”. She was actually horrified at the entire notion. - Jax trying to assert his masculinity to be taller than Adam and having it backfire on him will sustain me for the rest of time. - Jax hates himself, hates this show, hates Brittany, hates Sexy Unique Restaurant, hates his entire life, and he knew what his edit would be this season, hence his coked-out tantrum in this episode. - I miss Suck A Dick Diana. - Lala, don’t use “Ghetto” as an insult while you’re calling yourself Tupac come back from the grave. Systemic and casual racism is real. - Katie is being so calculated with her behavior this season. She really got fucked up from last season.

Then again if you forget my honey mustard, barbecue, and ranch with my chicken tenders I will rip your head off. ↩︎

Imagine your boyfriend showing you absolutely no kind of emotion to the point where you’re happy he’s jealous. Imagine. Rachel Bloom got it right when she talked about love kernels]. ↩︎

Like, the lowest key. Of all the low keys. We’re talking 16.5 Hz. ↩︎

Being a Cancer is so fucking real, I cannot. ↩︎

Seriously - a guy in a backwards cap and a denim jacket does it for ya girl. Daddy Baaaae. ↩︎

I love that Jax is like, “Scheana can’t tell me what to do in relationships, she’s divorced.” It doesn’t take a relationship expert to know that you’re a disaster in relationships, and honestly, yeah - a divorced person SHOULD know what relationship behaviors aren’t okay, because they’re divorced. He thinks he’s so smart. ↩︎

#vanderpump rules #vanderpump rules recap #what have you done for me lately vanderpump rules

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