#which is strange because all i have been doing is babysitting 5 kids under 6

[justabunchofdragons]

my head hurts (potentially on account of the psychic damage) (potentially on account of being hit with metaphorical hammers) (potentially because of. the autism)

[badatjokezz]

Haikyuu!! Rare Pair Fic Recs

i’ve been so hype about some Hq rarepairs lately now imma list some of my fav fanfics, mostly OiSuga mwehehe.... 

(probably gonna add some more in the future)

Oisuga (Oikawa x Sugawara)

1. Stuck in the Middle With You by overlymetaromantic

It's not the kind of blossoming relationship either of them would expect, but maybe, just maybe, it could lead to something good.

1. In which Suga and Oikawa run into each other on a late night convenience store run.

2. In which Suga and Oikawa inadvertently switch bags and end up with the other’s uniform.

3. In which Suga gives Oikawa the lecture he doesn't want but probably needs, and Oikawa might accidentally be a little in love.

4. In which Oikawa won't shut up about Suga, and Iwaizumi plays matchmaker just to make him stop.

5. In which there is not a date, and Suga likes spicy things much more than sweet.

6. In which Karasuno and Aobajousai hold training camps in the same neck of the woods, and the trip back proves to be more revealing than it probably should.

7. In which there might just be a future to this after all.

(Dis is so fluffy i might die)

2. moving on (growing up) by _helios (neocitz)

‘I’ll do it,’ Suga says, walking into their prep school and dropping his bag on the floor next to Oikawa. He shoves the melon bun and drink forward into Oikawa’s hands, and stands there looking down at him because he knows that he needs to not chicken out.

‘You’ll do what?’ Oikawa looks up through his glasses, eyes wide and confused as the other students stream in around them.

‘The fake dating thing, I’ll do it.’

‘Fuck. Yes.’ Oikawa says with a fist pump.

(It’s been AGES since i read Fake/Pretend Relationship fic, this one is goood)

3. how strange, to be remembered by venusintwelfthFandoms

"He is not formed of the type of dust that makes up stars. Suga is not the type of person that stays in the mind of one like Oikawa Tooru, ten years later. He is formed of the type of dust you shake off, the type that settles into the ground."

Ten years after Suga last steps off a high-school court, Oikawa recollects a "Mr. Refreshing" in a post-game interview, and Suga is left scrambling.

(Cute one-shot, Oikawa still remember Mr. Refreshing from Karasuno)

4. all the small things by Authoress for lemedy

Sugawara Koushi.

Oikawa’s brain supplies the name of the person standing at the other end of the aisle before Oikawa can even register him, attuned to spitting out facts about other volleyball players on a second’s notice, even after all these years. Karasuno High vice-captain. 174 cm…no, more like 176 now. Skilled at raising morale and bringing an element of surprise to their strategy. Troublesome. Refreshing. Setter.

The enemy.

(Single Dad! Oikawa, cuuutee ugh)

5. Win Some by kingdra (aroceu) for Icie

Tooru does not have a problem, its name is certainly not Sugawara Koushi, and he is not going to the Karasuno practices just to watch him. Regardless of whatever Iwa-chan says.

(High school romane~)

6. Even as bright as you are? by BKAKCANON

That night when he goes to sleep, he includes "the safety of fairies" on his prayers, making a promise to whoever was listening him, that he'd protect all the fairies and keep their secret safe forever.

[Where Oikawa meets Suga when they are kids and Oikawa believes Suga is secretly a fairy and decides he has to protect his secret all costs.]

(This is basically matches my headcanon)

7. getting to know you by oisugasuga

Suga feels like he’s back on the court then, his heart thudding hard in his ears… so hard he almost misses what Oikawa says. Unfortunately, though, he doesn’t.

"My, my. What a surprise," Oikawa Tooru says. And then… "Hello, Mr. Refreshing."

(Haven’t finished yet but DAMN I LOVE OIKAWA AND SUGA IN HERE, single dad! oikawa, and Suga babysitting oikawa’s kid, def slow burn. Imma follow this fic till death)

8. Dear Reader by hyirule

No one seems to read the paper anymore. But Oikawa likes to for the sports section. One day he finds himself reading a section called "Dear Reader" and finds a submission he can relate to.

Basically messages sent through a page on a newspaper brings to unlikely souls together, who maybe have more in common than they first thought.

(Cannon compliant, simple and... refreshing(?))

9. rest by shicchaan

Tooru looks at the sleeping person beside him as he waits for the lights change into green. The growing fringe of his husband started to cover his eyes but he can still see the beautiful birthmark under the silver haired's left eye.

(Established relationship, fluff fluff!!!)

10. long is the road (that leads me home) by ichweissnichtauch

He thinks about himself, deleting contacts from his phone and throwing coffee cups away without even looking at the string of numbers scrawled in Sharpie ink underneath, and he’s tired of hiding, tired of carefully treading the lines he’d drawn for himself all those years ago.

Just this once, Tooru wants— he thinks he wants to be brave.

Oikawa Tooru is not a stranger to wanting.

(like... 20% Oisuga but i like the way this story follows the Cannon till he get to Argentina)

11. It's Always Been About You by mintycarrots

Every time Tooru had envisioned meeting his soulmate, it was a confession of love, filled with tears of happiness and a lot of making out. It would be a faceless petite girl that would support Tooru in whatever he chose to pursue and would understand when Tooru prioritized volleyball over all else.

It was never a boy on the rival team.

(Soulmate AU)

12. a play in three acts by venusintwelfth

"The first time Sugawara Koushi sees Oikawa Tooru play, he thinks that if he wasn’t so set on volleyball, he’d do well in theater."

the first seijoh x karasuno match through the eyes of suga.

(Kinda poetic i guess, well written af)

13. colors by dazeful

Sugawara Koushi's colorful life as an archer.

(this is like the perfect oisuga one shot ive ever read)

___

IwaSuga (Iwaizumi x Sugawara)

1. And so the moon cried by iwriteinpenFandoms:

The hillocks are the domain of unearthly creatures. Creatures of rot and fog, of music and dance. Like ghosts in the night they travel without leaving footprints, they disappear in a flurry of long dresses and pale hair. Those who are fated to see them risk curses far worse than death. You may hear them, a giggle in the wind. You may smell them, the smell of the fog rolling in through the trees. You should pray you never see them. Iwaizumi Hajime is a simple man. He works a simple farm job and enjoys simple things. After one morning where he woke next to a perfect circle of death and only the memory of brown eyes and cold hands, he finds himself inexplicably drawn to the forest. Will the tales of his childhood play out with him at the center or will he have to disregard all reason?

(Danish Folklore AU)

2. Cry Just A Little by DreadfulMind

Suga was whistling a tune to himself as he opened the door to the bathroom, so he didn't hear the muffled crying through the door. But he could hear it clearly once he was inside. He heard the sharp sob of someone trying to stop.

"Iwaizumi?" He asked, "are you sure you're alright?"

(Simple but c u t e)

3. Generations by Karasuno Volleygays (ToBeOrNotToBeAGryffindor), mozaikmage

Professional sports blogger Sugawara Koushi writes an article about a volleyball match that bears special meaning to him and his former kouhai: a showdown between Kitagawa Daiichi and Yukigaoka Middle School, ten years after the teams faced off for the first time. He doesn't plan on capturing the attention of the world of sports journalism, and he certainly doesn't expect himself to end up having a thing for one of the coaches involved, one Iwaizumi Hajime.

(Time-Skip, I loved it)

___

KuroTsuki (Kuroo x Tsukishima)

1. Invictus by Chiru

Kuroo T. » So let me get this straight (gay?) Kuroo T. » You want me to pretend to be your perfect and fabulous boyfriend, so that your little freckled friend will stop trying to set you up with cute little highschool girls? Tsukishima Kei » yes Kuroo T. » Aha. Tsukishima Kei » you'll do it? Kuroo T. » I don't know. I missed the part where I get something out of it. Tsukishima Kei » you get to annoy me. Unfortunately Kuroo T. » Tempting, Tsukki, very tempting indeed.

(Fake/Pretend Relationship, some fluff, some angst, i read this in the middle of the night and cried, fortunately happy ending)

2. hold onto hope if you got it by nekolyssi

"Now, in the beginning of their third year of high school, the obnoxious hollering and incessant spirit of his teammates became normalcy to Kei. And now, normalcy is this. Weekly psych meetings. Pharmacy waiting rooms. Prescriptions. Refusal of prescriptions. More prescriptions."

(Not finished yet but yep prolly gonna put this one to one of those best haikyuu fics ive ever read. I wasnt so interested at first but i really like the idea of mental ilness etc, this is g o o d!!)

3. [KuroTsuki Fest Week 2017] Traces by Heartythrills 

Kuroo’s disappeared for a little over a week now, and suddenly a 4 year old who looks like him appears before Tsukishima’s apartment.

(Age regression, fluff)

4. I swear by xArtemisx

Like the shadow that's by your side I'll be there

"What are you doing here, Tetsu? It's cold." Kei asked softly. Tetsurou smiled. Hearing his name came out of Kei's lips is always music to his ears.

"Nothing. I just came to think that whatever memory we make, may it be happy or sad memories, the bright moon and the starry night sky is always there to be the witness. Did you notice?" The alpha answered and Kei nodded. He also noticed it.

"Yes, I did noticed it."

(I love agony and sad ending....)

5. Honeybee by ClosetGoblin

Tsukishima has trouble sleeping one night during a Third Gym Camping Trip. So, he takes his acoustic guitar and passes the time with some music, and gets a visitor. Maybe he doesn't mind Kuroo's voice as he does the screeching that Lev and Hinata call singing.

(Simple but sweet)

6. Say You Like Me by the_madame21

It's been three months. And Tsukishima Kei is going to see Kuroo Tetsurou.

(light angst and.. s m u t. Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamic)

7. trying to get to you by mytsukkishine

Everything came crashing down on Kuroo when Kei had left him alone with nothing but the moon shining down on him.

Wherein, Kuroo was struggling to move on and decided that he wouldn't mind being with Kei again.

(sad beginning? yes. sad ending? y e s. you’re a masochist? come get your juice)

8. Please Hold by ThemooncatFandoms

Kei was expecting Kuroo to do one of two things; Send a text to the office saying that they will have to call back another time and continue what they started, or excuse himself from Kei to answer the call, which was most likely. He shouldn’t have been surprised when Kuroo does neither of those things.

(short but hot. what’s hotter than quiet sex?)

___

Ushijima x Oikawa

1. This Insignificant Pride and Prejudice by Mysecretfanmoments, Pouler (poulerslashes)

Oikawa Tooru graduated high school with the burning desire to succeed in his college career. He'd hoped that might include taking down his arch-nemesis along the way, but when he finds that his college team hosts an offensively familiar face, he can't help but think that the universe might be conspiring against him. After all, what could be worse than playing on the same team as Ushijima?

(It was funny for me reading oikawa/ushijima fic with that “you should’ve come to Shiratorizawa” joke at first but somehow i found this one... endearing :3, cute poor ushiwaka)

___

Atsumu x Nishinoya

1. All the things I love about Yuu by KilluCoulomb

Atsumu Miya is fixated in Nishinoya. The way the boy acts, talks, plays. He Carefully observes from afar, but he slowly warms up to the Libero. Friendship becomes more and more intimate. Atsumu realizes Nishinoya is not that simple guy he met three years ago. And he loves it.

(pro volleyball players AU)

2. i'll see you then by noyabeans (snowdrops)

Nishinoya Yuu and Miya Atsumu build a rivalry and something more.

“Oh, it's Karasuno’s libero,” he says, mildly surprised to see Nishinoya’s face staring back at him from the brochure, grinning wide with his arms folded over his chest.

Contains spoilers for the current manga arc, up to chapter 380.

[mae-gi-writes]

Deobi Playlist (EP 5) | The Boyz Imagine

Ep 5: in which Kevin says it’s okay to be different 

The Boyz x Hospital Playlist inspired drabble series.

Main Characters: Hyunjae, Juyeon, Kevin and OC (Mae)

Sides: the rest of The Boyz.

Genre: fluff, slice of life, comedy, BROMANCE BRUH

EP 1 | EP 2 | EP 3 | EP 4 | EP 5 | EP 6 | EP 7 | EP 8 | EP 9 | EP 10 | EP 11

----------

“I managed to take out his tumour, but I’ll need him to stay for a few days just so that he can recover fully. He’s under anesthesia for now but he should be up soon,” Kevin flips through his newest patient’s medical file and scans the page for his details. His name is Yeon Hanjo, eight years old, who had suddenly collapsed to the ground a week ago with no indication of an illness whatsoever. An MRI scan of his head and body had shown that the small child had been keeping a tumour hidden within the side of his skull for some time and after some thorough deliberating and research about the best methods to go about the operation, Kevin had managed to successfully draw the tumour out without any mishaps or complications. 

Mrs. Yeon bows before Kevin once more with barely restrained tears coating her eyes. She holds a tissue in her hand, which seems already wet and crumpled into a ball, and Kevin reaches out with another tissue that she takes gratefully. 

Mr. Yeon is at her side, one hand on his wife’s shoulder to provide her comfort, “Thank you, thank you so much Dr. Moon. We--We don’t know what we would’ve done without you.”

Kevin lets out a small, genuine smile, “it’s my duty. Hanjo’s life is just as important as anybody else’s, if not more.”

A few hours after the parents have left and Kevin has done his rounds as he is supposed to, he makes way to Hanjo’s room with a box of chocolate in hand. 

Hanjo is already awake, blinking at the night sky from his hospital bed. The child turns his attention towards the door when Kevin pokes his head in with a smile, “hello Hanjo. How are you feeling?” 

The child shrugs, and looks away. 

Being familiar with the way children react when they are forced into an unfamiliar setting where strangers prevail, Kevin steps in, closes the door behind him and takes a seat at Hanjo’s bed. The child is still not looking at him, chin adamantly pointed towards the outside world. 

“I bought something for you,” Kevin opens up his box of chocolates and offers him the box. Hanjo peeks into it for a few seconds of silence, looks up at his face, then pushes the box away.

While Kevin isn’t used to children not wanting any chocolate, that doesn’t dissuade him from trying. He closes the box and sets it on Hanjo’s bedside table. 

“In a few days, you can go back home. Aren’t you glad?” Kevin chats on despite the reluctance in Hanjo’s body behaviour, “what’s the first thing you want to do when you go back, Hanjo?” 

Still, the child stays silent. Kevin sees his lower lip tremble but decides it is better off not to mention it. He takes it as a fact that Hanjo might be shy, unwilling to converse because he’s a stranger. The only solution to that though is for Kevin to keep trying, which he does day after day. Every time he’d bring something different -- a different candy, or toy that boys his age would’ve liked -- but Hanjo refuses every single item without delay. 

When the date of Hanjo’s discharge looms closer and closer, Kevin can’t help himself but urge him to speak by prompting the child with good news, “you must be excited, only three days left!” he grins at the child in hopes of getting a smile back, at least. 

Hanjo, on the other hand, merely blinks. Then, a fat tear rolls down his cheek before he bursts into tears.

“Hanjo,” Kevin’s demeanor softens then, gently tugging the said child in his arms and scooping him close against his chest. The child keeps on crying, his face now red and tears cascading down his cheeks, staining Kevin’s white coat. His parents, having heard the commotion from outside, quickly slip in with mirroring expressions of worry and take the child from Kevin’s arms, who is left confused and slightly concerned at the child’s suddenly sad countenance. He cannot, for the life of him, understand how Hanjo’s mind works. Kids like him shouldn’t be crying like their world is tearing apart, shouldn’t be subdued and silent and just afraid of everything. 

No, there’s something that’s bothering Hanjo. And Kevin finds his answer a few hours later. 

“Hanjo spent most of his life in Florida, where he was born,” Mrs. Yeon says to him. After Hanjo had fallen asleep, she had ushered to buy Kevin a coffee at the cafeteria. She now sits opposite him, coffee cup clasped between frail fingers with skin wrinkled and saggy from years of work, eyes rimmed with blue aprons and mouth tugged down in a tense, awkward line, smeared with a pale chalky lipstick.

“We moved here just a few months ago. He hasn’t told me anything, but his teacher tells me that he hasn’t been very...interactive with the other kids,” she purses her lips as if in discontentment, “he barely talks, not because he doesn't understand. We talk to him in Korean all the time at home. Somehow though, he barely says a word here. It’s like he doesn’t want to make even the slightest bit of effort.”

“Have you tried talking to him about it?” Kevin asks with furrowed eyebrows. 

She shakes her head, “no, well. We’ve tried asking him about school and stuff, maybe mentioned his teacher’s comments once or twice but that was it. We don’t want to push him either.”

He can’t help but feel a pang of sympathy for the said young boy, knowing all too well how strange it is to move oneself to another country altogether, a country where the language is different, the people are different, and how it feels like your entire life has just turned upside down because of that mere fact. 

“Oh that’s just like little Kevin when he just moved here,” Hyunjae can’t help but snigger, prompting Mae to whack him across the back of his head.

“Ouch!” Hyunjae throws her a scowl, “why are you even a doctor? You should just become part of the mafia. Seriously! That hurt--”

She proceeds to shove a piece of lettuce in his mouth to muffle his protests. Juyeon and Kevin exchange knowing glances, before shrugging. 

“You should talk to him,” Mae suggests, and though she’s trying very hard to act normal, Kevin can feel the unease rolling off her, how she’s not looking at him and permanently fixating her gaze on her platter of food. He makes a mental note to ask Juyeon about it later.

For now, he replies, “yeah I should. It’s just a saddening thought. Children shouldn’t have so much trouble earlier on in their lives.” 

“Hey touff, we all haff prwabems,” Hyunjae attempts to say with his mouth still full. He swallows before gulping down some water. Slamming his cup down, he jabs a finger in Mae’s direction, “you and I have a problem.” 

“The only problem that I’ll have with you is killing you by asphyxiation, and before you ask, there is food involved,” Mae cooes. 

Hyunjae shivers, “psychopath.” 

“Nu-uh, Sociopath? Probably. But psychopath?” she scrunches her face up as though contemplating the thought, “nah, I’m too kind.” 

“You flatter yourself too much,” Juyeon rolls his eyes.

“Can we focus on the problem at hand?” Kevin waves his chopsticks around dramatically, ignoring Hyunjae stealing his piece of chicken and replacing it with some ginger instead. 

“Kevin, we all know that you’re the wondrous child talker here,” Hyunjae says, “we’re all counting on you to babysit our kids one day.” 

“Excuse me? Is there kindergarten written on my forehead?” 

“You mean, there isn’t kindergarten written on your forehead?” Hyunjae gasps dramatically, “here, let me--” 

“Don’t you dare, Lee Jaehyun.” 

Kevin waits until Hanjo’s parents leave with promises that they’ll be here to watch over him tomorrow morning, before slithering inside the children’s ward. Hanjo spots him, but doesn’t say anything as the said doctor sidles up to his bed and takes a seat on the abandoned chair next to him.

“I’ve got a surprise for you,” Kevin murmurs. The child watches as he pulls out a box of pocky sticks. His mother had stated that Pocky is the only asian snack he eats. Surely enough, Hanjo doesn’t hesitate to grab it with his little chubby fingers and Kevin gazes down at him with a fond sympathy gripping his chest.

But then, Hanjo glances up at him uncertainly. Kevin puts a finger to his mouth, “can you keep a secret?” 

Hanjo pauses, contemplates him for a moment. Then, he nods. 

“Cool, because I can’t actually sneak in any outside snacks,” Kevin whispers with a soft chuckle at the alarm washing over Hanjo’s face, “it’s okay, don’t worry. This is between you and me, alright?” 

It takes a few seconds for the child to decide that Kevin’s intentions aren’t all that bad, before he slowly pries open the packet and digs into the snack with barely restrained excitement. Kevin just watches him with fondness, glad that for once it seems like he’s done something for Hanjo, when the child suddenly sticks out the packet, urging him to take some. 

“Oh,” Kevin blinks in surprise, before drawing a pocky stick, “thanks, Hanjo. That’s so nice of you.”

Hanjo just nods, before returning his attention to the said chocolate covered sticks. As his mother had stated, it is indeed his favourite snack. 

“Do you often eat pocky, Hanjo?” Kevin asks. 

The child shrugs, urging Kevin to ask, “do any of your friends eat pocky?” 

At this, Hanjo’s mouth pauses as if in contemplation and Kevin knows that he has hit a nerve. Not just any, but a sensitive one. He hurries to continue talking for fear that he might lose momentum, “you know, I never really had any friends when I first moved here. I used to eat pocky because it reminded me of the snacks my mom used to buy for me, back when we were still in Canada.” 

He can practically see the cogs turning inside Hanjo’s brain as he mulls over the newly acquired information. 

“I was shy back then. I didn’t know how to approach people. They all spoke Korean, I understood them. But I was so scared that they couldn’t understand me for some reason. After all, I never spoke Korean back when I was in Canada, just with my parents.” 

Kevin let the information sink in for the child who was now gazing up at him with newfound interest alight in his big brown eyes and it takes everything inside the said doctor not to squeal at how adorable he looks. Instead, he pauses and waits, waits with the hope that Hanjo will react to this, however he wants. 

“How?”

Kevin blinks. Hanjo’s mouth is open, curiosity filling his features as he continues hesitantly, “how...did you...make friends?” 

While Kevin wants nothing more than to punch the air in success, he decides that this is not the right moment to be celebrating that fact. Instead, he clears his throat and allows his arm to rest on the side of the child’s bed. 

“Actually, the pocky sticks helped me. The kids at my school always brought the same type of pocky sticks and then one day, when one of the girls in my class didn’t have any snacks, I offered her one,” Kevin smiles at the memory flashing before his eyes, “I thought she’d laugh at me when she started talking to me because of my accent. I wasn’t completely fluent. Surprisingly though, she was very interested to know what I had to say, despite the fact that I was so scared she’d just turn away from me.” 

“What was her name?” Hanjo asks.

“Her name?” Kevin tilts his head, “actually, she works here too. Her name’s Mae, she’s a doctor from the Cancer department.” 

Hanjo pauses for a few seconds, before he looks down at the box of pocky in his hand, “I don’t like talking in Korean,” his voice is small, barely a whisper, “I don’t like it here. Everything is different. Everyone is different.” 

“You know, Korean is one of the hardest languages to learn. And you know English. Do you know how amazing that is?” Kevin smiles down, one of his hands going to pat his head, “I know how it feels. It doesn’t feel like home, because home is far far away. But it will get better, Hanjo. It’s okay that you’re not fluent in Korean. You’ll get there, eventually. Look at doctor Kevin, see?” he motions towards his own chest, “I was in the exact same position as you were, once. But it really gets better, trust me.” 

Hanjo is frowning at the snack in his hands now, as though there are different thoughts flying about in his brain, thoughts too complicated for him to explain. But he surprises Kevin when he suddenly looks up and holds out his pinky. 

“Promise?” Hanjo asks, “promise it gets better?” 

“I promise,” Kevin hooks his finger with the child’s, “and you know what? You made your first friend right here,” and he pats his own chest with an amused smile. Hanjo’s lips tilt up in a mirroring expression, albeit hesitant, and Kevin’s heart melted right then and there in a puddle of Hanjo goo.

-----------

Knock knock. 

Kevin blinks away the drowsiness as he raises his head from his desk where he’d been napping just a few seconds ago. Rubbing the sleep away from his eyes, he spots Hyunjae and lets out a groan at the mischievous smirk on the latter’s lips. 

Whenever Hyunjae’s in a mood, he’ll have some kind of face that warns people about it. 

“Get lost, Hyunjae. Not in the mood,” Kevin groans while his friend saunters in as though he hasn’t been straight out rejected. Kevin buries his face back into his arms and Hyunjae quickly lays his head just beside him. 

“What?” Kevin asks with his eyes still closed.

Hyunjae merely giggles, before blowing softly on his face. 

Kevin whips his head around, “you’re so annoying. Get lost.” 

“But Kebiiin,” the taller man whines and nestles his face even closer so that Kevin’s soft hair tickles the bridge of his nose, “I have important news!” 

“What news?” comes Kevin’s mumble.

“I’m getting married.”

“To who?” 

“To you.” 

“No you’re not.”

“Okay fine, to Juyeon.” 

“No you’re not.” 

“Okay fine, to Mae then.” 

“Do you know,” Kevin asks slowly, “why is she acting so weird?” 

“Weird?” Hyunjae snuggles even closer, breathes in Kevin’s soft vanilla scent, “like usual Mae kind of weird or weirder than weird?” 

“No, she hasn’t been talking to herself. But she has been avoiding me.” “Oh.” 

“Oh?” Kevin whips around to look at him in alarm. 

Hyunjae draws back to stand, leaning against the opposite doctor’s empty chair as Kevin straightens to look at him with growing concern, “what do you mean by ‘oh’?” 

“She did ask me something weird the other day.” 

“About?” 

“About who you were crushing on.” 

“WHAT?” Kevin’s eyes grow wide, “what did you tell her?!” 

“That I had no clue.” 

“Oh thank god,” Kevin visibly slouches in relief. Then, his eyes grow wide, “wait--Does she know then?! That I--” All it takes is for Hyunjae’s face to take on a suspicious air for Kevin to realize that he is not out of dangerous waters yet.  He scrambles up and holds onto Hyunjae’s sleeve, “what?” Kevin demands like it’s a life or death situation. Which it is to him, “why do have that look on your face?” 

“Look Kev, mate, I definitely did not do anything.” 

“But?” 

“I never said there was a but.” 

“You implied it!” 

“Okay fine,” Hyunjae huffs, “but, someone seems to have leaked this information to her, like it or not--” 

“What?!” 

“--and we all suspect that it’s the Neurosurgery resident, the one that comes from Toronto--”

Kevin sucks in a sharp breath, “Jacob Bae?” 

“If anyone asks, this did not come out of my mouth,” Hyunjae is quick to defend while raising his arms in the air in mock surrender, but Kevin is too preoccupied at the thought that his secret is now out in the open for everyone to dissect and digest. How in the world does Jacob know about this? He barely even talks to him! 

Unless...unless it’s that obvious? 

His head snaps up so suddenly, eyes dark and so vividly intense on Hyunjae’s that the latter can’t help but yelp in return, “Hyunjae,” Kevin says slowly, “you’re sure...you’re sure you didn’t say anything?” 

“Are you implying that I lied to you?!” Hyunjae gasps mockingly, “Kevin, I’m--”

“Shut up and be serious for one second.” 

“Of course I didn’t! Who do you take me for?!” 

“Shit,” is the only thing that Kevin has to say, “Shit. Shit.” 

[crispyliza]

Spamano multi-chapter fanfiction recommendation masterlist!

For all you home-quarantined people that have nothing to do and also because I’ve been meaning on making one of these since 2015 (took a global pandemic to get me started lol) 

These fanfics are all with multiple chapters and listed in no particular order. Of course some are better than others, but every single one has its charms! I added only a few with 3 or 4 chapters because i liked them too much not to whereas the rest of the fanfics have at least 5+ chapters. So without further ado, here they are:

Una Notte A Napoli “One night in Naples, by the moon and sea, my heart was stolen by an angel who had forgotten how to fly.” (completed)

Per Sempre Tuo “Lovino Vargas, better known as Romano, is a famous TV actor. He has everything anyone could ever want. The only problem is that the thing he wants, over-night singing sensation Antonio Fernandez, is married.” (completed)

HOVA “The Nova Sagittarius was a ship that would take myself and countless other passengers on a one month trip around our solar system. But things went wrong; the ship changed and just like that, we were stranded. We got to know each other but more than that, we got to know ourselves.” (completed)

What We’d Do Without Gravity  “While lost in a hospital Antonio comes across young terminally ill patient, Lovino Vargas. With Lovino left only six months to live it’s an awful time a romance to blossom between the ill fated pair, but with a bucket list to race through as the clock ticks down, the two find that love is very hard to avoid.” (completed)

Numbered Lithograph “When Lovino starts attending art school with his brother he finds his most important lesson doesn’t come from his professors, but from a culinary student at a sister school: sometimes the flaws hold the beauty.” (completed)

Tienimi Streto “Lovino Vargas is a detective with a poor attitude and a dark past, driven to the side of law by pain and revenge. After his partner quits, he is paired with specially recruited Antonio Carriedo, who becomes something more than just a co-worker. When deaths linked to the Italian start popping up over the city, Lovino begins to question everything he thought he knew.” (on-going)

More than attraction “Antonio says he met his love’s eyes over the bin of tomatoes. Lovino says he was stalked relentlessly until he was forced to give in.” (completed)

Credo “AU, 1502. Fueled by revenge, Lovino Vargas hasn’t failed an assassination job yet - but when a new Spanish captain comes to Rome, killing the unorthodox Antonio Carriedo might just be the death of him.” (completed)

Secret Tunnels from Madrid to Sicily “When Antonio Fernández Carriedo begins work as a professor at a prestigious university in Britain, one of his students, a Sicilian boy who goes by the name Romano, immediately catches his eye. He is a clearly gifted writer, who closes himself off in the wake of a dark and painful history. Even wrapped in his darkness, pushing everyone away, Toni finds himself determined to bring out the potential within Romano…They drag each other into a passionate, inevitable affair–doomed, they know, to end in flames.” (completed)

Why Did it Have to be You? “Lovino’s parents are tired of his horrible behavior, and hire Antonio to babysit him. But time is a cruel mistress, and in absence the heart grows fonder. These are just some of the things Antonio and Lovino will learn.” (completed)

And the Birds Sing No More “Don’t ever leave me.” Lovino said nothing. He allowed the tense heaviness to settle among his shoulders, tighten his lungs, and spread between the space from where he stood to where Antonio was seated lethargically. Antonio’s gaze sharpened. Lovino, inclining his head slightly, whispered, “I won’t.” (completed)

A Dancing Star “Antonio is the easy-going, life-loving art professor and Lovino is the Italian exchange student who walks into his art studio. When Antonio falls in love he thought he only had his job to worry about, but maybe it’s Lovino’s dark secret that’ll push him away. Trigger warning for self-harm and dark themes.” (completed)

Kismet “Lovino learns the hard way that things change and that they can change quickly. The necklace fell and now he’s in a strange land far from home. Will he ever see his brother again? Will he find his way home? Or will he discover home is where the heart is? Fate is a strange woman and can work in mysterious ways.” (completed)

Let that be enough “Lovino had given up hoping for someone who’d care about him. Antonio never expected to fall for the most tormented guy in town. But dark secrets and hidden dangers threatens their blooming relationship. Is it over before it even begun..?” (completed)

Child services “Romano and Feliciano Vargas have just lost their parents. Romano, who is 22, must care for his 6 year old little brother. Enter Antonio Carreido, the agent from Child Services who must record his progress, however, it’s hard for the cheerful Spaniard to keep from falling in love with this little broken down family and with Romano.” (on-going)

Loving a Stranger “You don’t remember, but I know you. We were- I don’t even know how to describe our relationship. That sounds bad, I know. I think you might have been in love with me, although I cannot see why. That’s just what I’ve been told. I acted as though I hated you, but I never did. I was afraid, because you were kind to me. I didn’t know I loved you until you forgot me…“ (completed)

The Many Personalities of Spain “England casts a spell to rid himself of Spain. As expected it goes wrong; leaving Romano to deal with the many personalities of Spain. That sounds like a normal day for Romano, right? It would be if the personalities not had their own personifications.” (on-going)

Daisy Genocide “My name is Lovino Vargas but that’s not who I actually am. I’m my brother. They put his DNA into a little ball of jello and grew me like a house plant. To say it blatantly, I’m a clone and I’m in a disturbing amount of trouble. I’m about to tell the story of my fight to preserve my humanity followed by a vicious history of crime but it’s a secret. Nobody has to know.” (completed)

More Than Meets The Eye “Striving to find approval and meaning, Antonio throws himself into the world of art determined to come out on top. Yet, in all of his searching, burning, and pain, he never thought that a single culinary student could ever manage to tear down his walls and make him face his biggest fear; himself.” (on-going)  

Cryonic “After suffering a fatal attack from an unknown illness, Lovino Vargas underwent cryopreservation, leaving behind his only family, his boyfriend, and a blooming company. Years later the effects are only just coming into play causing more problems than his preservation was supposed to solve. Human AU; T for language; pre-established Spamano.” (on-going)

All of Our Flaws “Antonio is a man whose world revolves around anyone but himself. Lovino is a man with dreams bigger than a job behind a drugstore counter. Antonio is broken; Lovino is incomplete. Will a chance meeting lead them to mending their cracks and finding their missing pieces? Human AU, trigger warning for self-harm.” (on-going)

Truly an artist “Having already completed college, Lovino Vargas lives in Madrid as an artist suffering from severe artist’s block. In one of his visits to his old school he runs into a new teacher, Antonio Fernández Carriedo, who decides he’ll be the one to help Lovino in his endeavor to find himself. However cheerful and optimistic, Lovino still feels there’s more to Antonio than he’s letting on.” (completed)

The Heartbreaker “Sometimes the best things happen unexpectedly. Certainly this is Antonio’s opinion at the moment. The handsome stranger he met upon moving to a new town in Italy seems to be able to do almost no wrong. Until he digs a little deeper below the surface and begins to discover an unsettling reputation. And if the rumours are true, is it wise to trust a man known as ‘The Heartbreaker?” (completed)

We sing, We dance, We eat tomatoes “When Lovino Vargas takes in a starving guitar player called the Curbside Prophet from the streets of Philadelphia, he isn’t expecting the man to tolerate him for more than a couple weeks, much less fall in love with him. Based on the the music by Jason Mraz.” (on-going)

Underwater Land “Antonio was a merman. Lovino hated water. It was truly a match made in heaven.” (completed)

Flashlight “If I throw a tomato at you, vampire bastard, will you still sparkle under the sauce?” Twilight parody. (completed)

Catch you, Catch me “Clumsy, clueless detective Romano is on the trail of the infamous handsome and charming thief El Apasionado Caballero. But there’s more to this, what seems like a simple game of cat and mouse, than meets the eye.” (completed)

Blackbird “Antonio walks into a small coffee joint, hoping for just some caffeine to take the edge off of late-night studying for midterms, and gets a whole lot more than he bargained for in the form of a snarky, foulmouthed, Italian barista.” (on-going)

Counting Stars “Antonio, failed writer and journalist, thinks things are finally going his way when he lands an interview with actor Lovino Vargas. But it’s only the start of a long line of problems… the biggest of which may be Vargas himself.” (on-going)

Cosa Nostra “Based on the historical background of the Sicilian Mafia during the First Mafia War starring Mafia!Romano.” (completed)

Tight Rope “Rich, spoiled kid Lovino Vargas hates pirates. Pirate captain Antonio Carriedo hates rich, spoiled kids. None of them ever thought they could feel something different from hatred towards one another. However, Fate seems to have different plans for them, and twists their lives in unexpected ways.” (on-going)

When You Recover “Nurse Lovino Vargas has to take care of brain damaged patient Antonio Carriedo, who seems to have a strange affection towards him. N-not that Lovino likes it! The Italian is determined to make the man recover, no matter what it takes. What will little Lovino get himself into with this patient?” (on-going)

Like All Things, It Ends “Lovino doesn’t want his family to know how much his childhood trauma still affects him and he does a good job at hiding it. That is, until he moves to a new town and meets Antonio, someone he is unable to hide anything from. (Warnings for PTSD, Depression, harmful thinking of oneself, and violent death of a loved one)” (completed)

Wish upon a star “A drunken wish on a star lands Lovino back in the time of pirates, and when he runs into a familiar face with an unfamiliar personality, he’ll start to question his own heart. Pirate!SpainxRomano. Rated for language, violence, and maybe mature situation” (completed)

Crooked Timber “As an artist, Lovino understands that perfection doesn’t exist. If only Antonio agreed with him, and stopped trying to hurt himself. -Human (College) AU. Spamano multi-chapter with other minor pairings. Depressed!Antonio, Writer!Antonio, Artist!Lovino- TW for self-harm.” (completed)

Just Pretend! “Romano liked Emma- a lot. Except her stupid big brother was too overprotective (and, okay, a little scary)! He wouldn’t allow any guy near her- unless they weren’t romantically interested in Emma. So, Romano decided to pretend to be gay, with the help of Antonio, in hopes of getting Emma to fall in love with him. Perfect plan, right?” (completed)

The Duty of an Elder Son “Lovino Vargas knew a lot about duty.” His Grandfather’s swollen empire puts all of his family in danger, the other gangs are massing, the police are on their tails and Lovino is given a bodyguard in one Antonio Carriedo. 1920s Mafia AU fic. (completed)

Flatmates “They were flatmates, they were best friends and they were really frustrated about relationships. So what would two young men do about this?” (completed)

Zero Tolerance “Lovino lives a perfect life. Or atleast thats how he is suppose to appear. Antonio lives a life as a dangerous gangbanger. North Side meets South Side as these two are partnered in their Chemistry class. But there is one chemical reaction these 2 arent prepared for- Love. AU, human names used. Based on the book “Perfect Chemistry” by Simone Elkeles.” (completed)

Your Love Can Be My SIght “Seventeen year old Lovino Vargas lost his sight in a terrible car accident. Antonio, a teacher at Lovino’s school was born without it. Can Antonio teach Lovino that even without sight, life can be beautiful?” (completed)

The Greatest Treasure, You Idiot! “Spinoff of the “Sea Foam” chapter in Hetalia Fairy Tales. Captain Carriedo of the pirate ship, Buscador Dorado, seeks a legendary treasure “that is worth gaining” with the help of the infamous wish-giver, Lovino. But what is the true treasure?” (completed)

Crowns of Triple Gold “Things are rarely simple for Romano in the Eternal City, especially when he falls for one of his clients, a Hispanian senator up for consul against his father.” (completed)

Prisoners on the Slave Ship of Love “Lovino Vargas has been captured and taken hostage in a pirate raid led by Captain Antonio Fernandez Carriedo and his band of Spanish buccaneers. Tensions grow high and hearts are tested when Lovino becomes Captain Carriedo’s personal prisoner…” (on-going)

The Lemon Tree “Lovino didn’t want to be a slave in that scary mansion. He needed to break free. The fight for independence, however, is a difficult path, and falling in love with the man that destroyed his life doesn’t make things any easier.” (completed)

Sun Kissed “A powerful man once created gods to rule the sky as the creatures of the land lives. The Sun and the Moon. Brothers since birth, and all powerful, they rule side by side. As time passes, the Sun realizes how unhappy he is watching people hide from him. What happens when he discovers a man who isn’t afraid to live under the harsh sun?” (completed)

Tesoro Mio “Antonio’s the charming, handsome farmer with an infuriating Spanish accent, and Lovino is the mysterious wine entrepreneur who comes and goes. When Antonio falls in love, he throws society, expectations, and religion to the wayside, but can a strict Catholic like Lovino do the same?” (completed)

Because of the war “A first person POV for Romano during and after WW2. His thoughts as he fights and survives. Beware of angst.” (completed)

Just Add one Mermaid’s Tear “To gain something of ultimate value; the unthinkable must be preformed. The line is etched upon the brow of every nation, the taste of the water still on their lips. What happens though when one nation desires the fountain of youth once more?” (completed)

Until the Moss Had Reached Our Lips, and Covered Up Our Names “In a city filled to the brim with gangs, all the territory split between them, peace has lasted for the past sixteen years. It’s a tentative peace, won after the last massive gang war reshaped the entire city. Except all it takes is one domino to fall, and the Vargas patriarch is dead, leaving behind Antonio to lead his house, who isn’t even his blood relative. With an untried Head, the balance of power has started to shift again, and it seems as good a time as any to start calling in old debts and revenges.” (on-going)

The Bet “When someone kisses you, and then moves away you’d think that would be it. But when Antonio comes back from Spain he wants Lovino to be his again. Except Lovino now hates Antonio…which sucks for Lovino because Antonio isn’t going to let go that easily.” (completed)

Wings “People ask me a lot why I love him. Why I spend so much time chasing him when he never returns my feelings. It’s because I see something they don’t.” (on-going)

My Heart is Drenched in Wine “Wine and romance. More importantly, when you cut through my wine!fangirling, this is a story about Lovino and Antonio and how they find their way back together (in spite of the past and occasionally the present) as they attempt to make wine and sometimes love.” (completed)

Of Two Minds “Feliciano and Lovino are living on the streets, with a secret that keeps them from getting close to anyone. Will their lives get better or worse after being forced to join a pirate crew, and what will happen when their secret finally comes out? Rated T for some (minor) violence, Romano’s mouth, and some angsty feelings. Pirate AU.” (completed)

Beats of Fever “Antonio Fernández Carriedo is a doctor working in Madrid dealing with a crush on an Italian tourist when the tensions in Spain reach a head and Civil War breaks out.” (on-going)

All of Our Sins “Lovino is Catholic, but he’s not entirely sure what he believes. Nevertheless, he and his brother Feliciano are forced to attend confirmation classes. When Lovino meets their group leader- bizarre, cheerful Antonio; one of the first people to treat Lovino like he matters- things get complicated. When they find this church is much darker than it appears, things get terrifying. Fast.” (completed)

Es Sólo Tu Corazón “Lovino has been in love with Spain for as long as he can remember. All he wants is to be with his former caretaker, but he soon finds out that the Spain he knew as a child is no longer there…and the real one is far more dangerous.” (on-going)

There Goes My Life “Antonio, 26, a old gourmet chef, a bachelor who’s all party. Lovino a 20 y/o premed student who only has one goal, to be become a doctor. He is determined to let his feelings for the Spaniard fade away, but after receiving devastating news, a drunken one night stand leads to the end of life as Lovino knows it.” (on-going)

As We Were “Rich, bored and unhappy, Lovino Vargas is the heir to his grandfather’s wine brand. Antonio is the restless young traveller prone to attacks of claustrophobia. For them, falling in love is a journey. Literally. Spamano, Human AU, multi-chapter. Warnings for language and sexual themes.” (completed)

NekoRoma “Antonio has been feeling lonely with his recent break up with his on/off boyfriend. The solution: a new kitten that his boss doesn’t want. Just as he gets used to this cat, a new challenge is thrown at him. How do you teach a cat to be human?” (completed)

Summer Sensations “The hot summer nights of Madrid bring many things, but one very special night changes two lives forever. Lovino learns that love is not such a frivolous thing after all.” (completed)

Fools Like Us  “What starts out as a normal Friday night for the “Bad Touch Trio” soon becomes an opportunity for Francis to use his favorite word in reference to his best friends. Unfortunately, Gilbert and Antonio couldn’t possibly have fallen for people who would return their feelings easily, but Francis is determined to help them out despite his own relationship-or lack thereof.” (completed)

Hear Me “Antonio and Lovino are trying their best to get by in high school, but between the stresses of grades, family, friends, and heartache, it’s a lot harder than it looks.” (completed)

Fame and Fortune “Lovino Vargas is a barkeeper and reluctant Stasi informant. As much as he despises what he does, he obeys the terrifying Red Army colonel, Ivan Braginsky. That is, until the secretive and frustratingly attractive Antonio Fernandez Carriedo arrives in his life and breaks all the rules. Inspired by the Elvis Presley song of the same name.” (on-going)

It’s all Antonio’s Fault “Condoms, footballs to the stomach, fake nurses, confusing hallways, and flying backpacks. Lovino Vargas’s first day at World Academy was already one of his worst, and he could only imagine that it would spiral downwards as he got to know the tomato bastard, otherwise known as Antonio Fernandez Carriedo.” (on-going)

My Antonio “Going against everything in his strict, Catholic upbringing, Lovino has fallen desperately into love and lust for his family’s Spanish stable boy, Antonio.” (completed)

Sound Life “Spain is dead, leaving Romano distraught and wishing for there to be a way for him to see his beloved Spaniard alive and healthy…Only to wake up in a strange alternate world… with another Spain seeking his affection.” (completed)

Possessively Scary “Romano begins college late with his brother after their nonno passes away. When entering, he meets a very strange Spaniard. The man is odd but still attractive at the same time. As they get closer, Romano learns more about Antonio and doesn’t know if he should be scared of the man or not. Can he get out of something he got himself into?” (on-going)

This Dance “Antonio wants Lovino to be his dancepartner at Austria’s ball. Lovino, struggling with his growing feelings of love and affection for everyone’s favorite tomato-bastard as always, agrees. Now, there could be worse things, right?” (completed)

Powdered Sugar “Truth, like powdered sugar, tastes sweet but goes down cold. If a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down, we might need a bit more.” (completed)

Singles “Antonio, Francis, and Gilbert are three friends who suffered their first heartbreaks at the age of fifteen, and made a pact to never fall in love again. That will change for Antonio when he first lays eyes on a brown-haired young man in a club…” (completed)

A Heated Story “Sky High / superpower hs au. wip. Lovino Vargas is a new kid at Sky High with his brother. He has the power to control fire. Only one problem, he hates the heat. Spamano, and other ships. Doesn’t actually have anything to do with the movie, just used the school.” (on-going)

I Don’t Hate You “Lovino and his brothers face the unknown while on a mission to Earth. The Italian angel comes up against more than he bargained for when a dark angel takes a liking to him and now he and Feliciano might be cast out.” (completed)

Like all things, it ends “Lovino doesn’t want his family to know how much his childhood trauma still affects him and he does a good job at hiding it. That is, until he moves to a new town and meets Antonio, someone he is unable to hide anything from.” (completed)

Disegno e Colore “A young, apprenticing artist, Lovino craves rationality, perfection, and self-possession, and has curated his life to one day attain that. He never expected a chaotic and brash painter to barrel into his life and test everything Lovino thought he wanted and knew of himself, his art, and his heart.” (on going)

Land Beyond Dreams “Antonio is saved from death by someone he’d spoken to only a few times, but who lost his life in the process. Grief-stricken, he only wishes he could have gotten to know his savior, when his dreams suddenly become reality…or are they still only dreams?” (completed)

It’s All Antonio’s Fault “Condoms, footballs to the stomach, fake nurses, confusing hallways, and flying backpacks. Lovino Vargas’s first day at World Academy was already one of his worst, and he could only imagine that it would spiral downwards as he got to know the tomato bastard, otherwise known as Antonio Fernandez Carriedo.” (on-going)

A tale of endurance “Lovino had no idea what to do. Knowing that your life will be over in half a year tends to do that to you. Well, one thing he knew for sure. No one would ever discover this until the day he was pushing daisies. And that was a fact.” (completed)

The Risk of Love “Romano is dead and Spain is broken, spiralling into the deep, blackness of depression. And as he locks himself from the outside world, isolating himself from his friends, from everyone, in his oblivion of pain, Romano find’s he’s the only one who can help. Only, how can useless ghost like him even dream to help the slowly dying love of his life?” (completed)

Dance with me “Lovino Vargas started taking tango lessons completely by accident. Who would have thought that one day he wouldn’t mind those hands roaming over his body? That he would be dancing with his teacher as if there was no one in the room but the two of them?” (on-going)

Fireflies “Lovino was abandoned in Italy with his grandfather at age seven because his parents liked his little brother better than they liked him. On his way back from America, he sits next to a far too happy Spaniard. But, when this childish Spaniard turns out to be his new teacher, what will happen? And with a field trip to Venice on the way, what antics will they get up to?” (on-going)

El Corazón del Pirata “Fate is once kind, twice cruel. And Captain Antonio Fernandez Carriedo does not have a heart, nor does he fall in love with his prisoners. But Lovino Vargas might just be the fuel to his flame - certainly there’s more to him than meets the eye.” (completed)

More Than Lust “Why did the Spaniard always hope for the impossible? That Romano would come to him one day, confessing his feelings, and they would make LOVE? That they would cry out each others names, he could hold the Italian, wake up the next morning, and he would still be there?” (completed)

The Prince and the Pauper “When Prince Feliciano goes missing, it is up to a poor servant boy Romano to step in to take his place and thwart an evil plan to take over the kingdom. However, falling in love was something neither one anticipated. Based off of the Princess and the Pauper.” (completed)

Talking to My Shadow “Lovino spends his life telling doctors about his brother, Feliciano. They hear about his look-alike brother everyday but never see him. Lovino is finally taken to a new physiologist and he meets the doctor’s son, a springy little Spaniard who’s excited to help his new friend, no matter the difficulty. Will this illness mean a life time of seclusion for Lovino or can he win?” (completed)

Spend my time dancing “As much as Lovino loved seeing the upperclassman in his soccer jersey, he’d much rather help him take it off. It’s about time they started playing on the same field. AU. SpaMano. Various others. All’s fair in love and soccer.” (completed)

Maybe, Just Maybe “Romano couldn’t help but be instantly attracted to the stranger on the train, the one with bright green eyes and an unforgettable smile. How could something so simple end up changing his life so much?” (completed)

Dead Alone “Lovino drains the life from anything he touches, seriously. It seems that he’s the embodiment of death while his lively twin brother is his counterpart life. He has isolated himself from everyone, for their own protection. So what happens when a new transfer student decides to take an interest in him his freshman year of high school?” (on-going)

Lovino and the Conquistador “Lovino lived a life of simple pleasures; a good book, his own little world and an odd, but loving, family. However, in order to save his family, he must take their place as prisoner of a hideous beast within a gloomy castle. Based on “Beauty and the Beast” (completed)

Truth Be Told “The Well of Uncomfortable Truths is discovered & deals Spain a hard fact- "Whenever you said you loved him, you didn’t really mean it. You were thinking of his brother. They were empty words.” Can Romano be convinced about whom the Well was talking about?” (completed)

Scaliest “When his entire life is taken from him, Antonio vowed to slay the beast that ruined his life no matter the cost. But on his travels he meets a secretive, sassy bard who might be more helpful than either of them realize. Is vengeance the answer or is there more at stake?” (on-going)

All I’ve lost “Lovino Vargas has slowly fallen into the trap that is Anorexia. He meets Antonio who is a strangely kind kid. Lovino thinks maybe, just maybe…there is hope. Warnings: Depression, anorexia, bulimia, mental illness and bullying.” (completed)

Infection “Antonio didn’t know what to think of the man who randomly showed up in his home… completely naked. Yet, he still found himself drawn to this “Lovino”, only to be thrown into his worst nightmare.” (on-going)

Tomato Angel “What happens when Antonio get’s jealous? (Aftermath of ‘Awesome Being Evil’)” (completed)

Step-Lovers “King Romulus is getting married to Queen Isabel. While the wedding goes smoothly, things don’t go all that smooth for Antonio and Lovino. The heat is especially turned up when it’s decided that there will be a competition for who gets to be heir to the throne.” (completed)

There goes my life “Antonio, 26, a old gourmet chef, a bachelor who’s all party. Lovino a 20 y/o premed student who only has one goal, to be become a doctor. He is determined to let his feelings for the Spaniard fade away, but after receiving devastating news, a drunken one night stand leads to the end of life as Lovino knows it.” (on-going)

Broken Wings, Healed Hearts “Junior Lovino Vargas, a broken angel, has a dark secret he’s determined to keep to himself, now matter how much of an outcast it makes him. But will his new neighbor, Antonio, change that?” (completed)

The Reunion “Light or Dark?” Lovino asked. Feliciano studied him before answering. “Light. Light always wins” When Feliciano Vargas catches the eye of a mysterious man only by the name of “The Lord,” he finds himself and his brother on an adventure ending in Germany’s infamous Black Forest. However, the Lord’s affections are not what they appear to be and Lovino finds himself worried there is a worse threat other than some creep trying to get into his brother’s pants. (on-going)

Slowly But Surely In Love “Lovino Vargas turns fifteen, the age at which the words of peoples’ soul-mates say to them when they first meet is branded onto their wrists. Feliciano has a brand as soon as the hand strikes midnight, but why doesn’t Lovino?” (completed)

Life with Lyrics Lovino Style “Lovino struggles with what he believes is a one-sided crush and his completely oblivious, also entirely too cheerful, brother. Mentions of suicide, but not a death fic!” (completed)

Walking the Line “Maybe stumbling into Walmart in search of supplies during the end of the world wasn’t as good of an idea as Lovino initially thought. Nothing screamed desperate like raiding the aisles of a fucking Walmart for food while a hoard of the undead snarled at him from outside, but that didn’t seem to matter to the armed trio he stumbled into, or more specifically, the odd Spaniard munching on Skittles. His ideas were getting to be pretty lackluster these days.” (ongoing)

Hymn to the Sea “Please, call me Antonio,” he says. “Oh, and Lovino?” “What?” Lovino snaps, a little sharper than he wants when his brain has finally caught up to his embarrassment and he realizes he’s acting like a love-sick child. He finds he still can’t keep up when Antonio’s smile changes into something different: not the friendliness it was earlier nor the comforting warmth it was moments ago. No, this one is affectionate. “I prefer your smile over Feliciano’s any day,” he says, quiet and honest. (completed)

I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You “Throughout the 500 years they spent together, Antonio never stopped reminding Lovino of how special he was, and Lovino never stopped making Antonio the happiest man on earth.” (completed)

Lentamente “Antonio and Lovino are struggling with catastrophic life changes. A traumatic event leaves Antonio scared of his own shadow; a romantic betrayal destroys Lovino’s ability to trust people. And when coping seems impossible, can dance save them?” (completed)

We’d Be Together “Something felt off about Antonio’s new home. The stairs creaked, the windows groaned, and in the mirror he saw a face he didn’t know. The face was young but the gestures old; Toni began a romance untold. He felt an issue new to most… if only he could touch Lovino the ghost.” (completed)

Blessed WIth A Curse “Monsters are real… and they didn’t just hide in your closet or under your bed. Too bad they came in the form of Antonio Fernandez Carriedo- a Spaniard too sexy for his own good. / AU Vampire!AntonioxLovino” (on-going)

Speak  “Lovino is shy. So is Antonio. Oh dear…” (completed)

You Belong With Me “Lovino wished for a lot of things. He wished he had a family or food or fitting clothes or friends but mainly just wished to belong. He doesn’t quite get what he wished for when he meets filthy rich Antonio, who just came from Spain and has settled in the same town as the little thief. Still…it’s a start.” (completed)

The Witch of Sicily “There were still whispers, rumors that the witch of Sicily remained in that forest, cursing all who would come near. It was a place many feared to tread, treated almost as sacred ground. Only fools would dare incite the wrath of the witch by entering that place. Only fools…and pirates.” (on-going)

We the Dreamers “New York City, 1940: Antonio is a recently arrived refugee from Spain, a scarred soldier with firm political convictions. For Lovino, everything is pointless and nothing ever lasts. The two of them live, love and dream desperately, as World War Two threatens to take it all away.” (completed)

Guide Me “After witnessing a startling event, Lovino Vargas finds himself stricken with blindness from a psychological misfortune called ‘conversion disorder’. Without anyone to guide him, he is placed with Antonio Fernandez Carriedo, a novice seeing-eye counselor, who will try to help him regain his sight and if not, teach him how to live in the new dark, lonely world ahead of him.” (completed)

Pirate’s Lullaby “It was the last thing in the world that Lovino Vargas wanted. To fall in love with Antonio Fernandez Carriedo. But when the pirate takes him aboard his ship, Lovino learns that maybe it’s not so bad to be a pirate.” (on-going)

Infamous “Lovino was a childhood actor, but once the show he was a part of got canceled he thought he was free and could leave all the acting and fame up to his brother Feliciano. However, when a 'follow up’ episode is decided upon ten years later, he ends up going back. There he sees a familiar, face; Antonio Carriedo, a singer with his eye on Lovi making normal impossible” (completed)

Guilty Bliss “Lovino has had a drug problem for years that he’s never been able to stop. With his debts getting out of hand, Lovino finds himself in situations that made him wish he had quit.” (completed)

Bottoms Up! “Follow Lovino on his weird and, well, at least quite interesting trip around Europe in order to find out some of the greatest secrets ever about himself, Europe, tomato-shaped alarm clocks and the past of his lovely, but complicated Spanish partner.” (completed)

A Trip To Spain Could Only End In “Lovino is a foreign exchange student in Spain. Things were going just brilliantly before he happened upon a Spanish restaurant in the heart of Madrid where he laid eyes on a certain Spanish Sex God…” (completed)

The Pirates Treasure “Pirate Captain Antonio wants one thing, and one thing only; a mermaid. Boy or girl doesn’t matter, as long as they are royalty and can make him jewels.He’s got his wish, but dealing with this prince is going to be much harder than he thought.” (completed)

Strike a Pose, Fake a Smile “Antonio loves the stage; Romano hates it. So when he’s “convinced” into coming to drama club, he’s not gonna like it. In fact, he’s going to say things that he’ll regret. And because he’s such a good actor, this time Antonio believes him. Uh-oh.” (completed)

A Helping Hand “Antonio owns a cafe low on business. One day a strange boy comes in, running from a group of men and covered in wounds. Antonio offers for him to stay and repay him with work. As payment, the boy Lovino begins to make new dishes to bring more people into the cafe. Who is this boy and why won’t he tell Antonio anything but his name and age?” (completed)

A Beautiful Story “Lovino Romano Vargas is a suicidal designer who is unhappy with his fate. One day, he chances to meet Antonio Fernandez Carriedo, who turns his life upside down.” (completed)

Careless “This year, Antonio had priorities: grades, girlfriend and the Football competition, securing college with his two best friends! But that was before the Vargas moved in with all their drama including kidnapping, threats, and football talents. If anyone asks Lovino, not getting killed would be a clear ecstatic success. He is just what Antonio needed, or not.” (on-going)

This is it for now but I might update this if I get any suggestions, if I remember any fanfic that I missed or if I find any new good ones. If you’re an author and want me to add your fanfic or if you just want to suggest me one don’t be afraid to PM me! (because this is a masterlist after all)

[horrorkingdom]

Horror story 👻

Creepy Things Kids Say

Creepy things kids say to their parents. An internet forum posed a question: “What is the creepiest thing your child has ever said to you?” The responses were scary, spooky, disturbing and chilling:

A friend of mine’s child told him, “Daddy, I love you so much that I want to cut your head off and carry it around so I can see your face whenever I want.”

My 3-year old daughter was standing over her newborn baby brother, looking at him. Then, she turned to me and said, “Daddy, it’s a monster… We should bury it.”

My cousin used to freak he mom out as a child. Whenever her mom would ask her why she did something mean or wrong she would whisper, “The devil told me to do it!”

I was babysitting for a little girl and she asked where I had parked my car. I pointed out the window to my car across the street. She looked at me and said, “Go to it without looking both ways.” I asked her why and she replied, “I want to see someone die.”

One night, I was tucking in my 2-year old son. He said “Goodbye, Dad.” I corrected him, “No, we say goodnight.” He replied, “I know… But this time it’s goodbye…” I had to come back and check on him a few times during the night to make sure he was still there.

My 3-year old son was cuddling with his grandmother. He took her face in his hands, and stared straight into her eyes and said, “You’re very old and you will die soon.” Then he made a point of looking at the clock.

My little girl went through a phase where she would just constantly say ‘Hi’ to things. “Hi hi hi hi hi hi” One day, it sound sounded strange, so I asked her, “What’s that you’re saying?” She turned to face me and just whispered “Die die die die die diiiieeeeeee…….”

My niece was sleeping over at my parents’ house one night. She had all the lights on in the spare bedroom. I asked her if she was afraid of the dark, and she said, “No. I am afraid of what is in the dark.”

My 5-year old daughter said, “Mommy, when you die I want to put you in a glass jar so I can keep you and see you forever!” My 6-year old son laughed and replied, “That’s stupid. Where are you gonna find a jar that big?”

My 3-year old daughter was holding her newborn baby brother for the first time. She looked up at me and asked innocently, “So, I shouldn’t throw him in the fire?”

My sister was pregnant and we were having a conversation at the dining room table. My 4-year old son asked my sister if there was a baby in her belly. She told him there was. He slid out of his chair and headed for the kitchen, saying, “We need to get it out. I’ll go get the knife.”

When my son was little, I would sometimes hold him down and pretend to eat his face, saying, “nom nom nom.” One day, he said, “I’ll never eat your face, Mommy. I’ll cut it off and wear it as a mask…”

My 5-year old cousin drew a picture of a hideous, black monster. Then, she looked up at me and said, “He told me to draw this… He’s coming for you… You better hide…”

When I was about 3 years old, our cat had kittens, but they all died. I asked my father if we could make crosses for them, which he did. As he was making them I asked, “Aren’t those too small?”

Dad: “What do you Mean?”

Me: “Aren’t we going to nail them to them?”

(Several moments silence)

Dad: “we’re not going to do that”

My mom loves to tell this story: Apparently when I was 5 or 6, I told her that aliens had stolen her real son and replaced him with me, an exact copy. I said that someday, I would return to my home planet, but she shouldn’t be sad, because her real son was having a good life in our zoo.

My little cousin was thrown out of a Catholic preschool because he took off his shoe and told one of the nuns, “Shut up or I’ll take out your eye with my shoe, because I’m the son of the devil!” Apparently that was the last straw.

I was awoken from a deep sleep at around 6 AM. My 4-year old daughter was standing over me and her face was inches from mine. She looked right into my eyes and whispered, “I want to peel all your skin off”. For a few seconds I was terrified. In my sleep addled state, I didn’t know if I was dreaming or what was going on. Then, I realized what she was talking about. I had been sunburned the previous week and my skin was starting to peel.

My niece was sitting on the couch with a weird look on her face. I asked her what she was thinking about and she said, “I’m imagining the waves of blood rushing over me.” As it turns out, they had just come back from a local science museum. There was an exhibit on the circulatory system of blood in the human body.

My 3-year old son was telling me there was a man in his room. “Mommy,” he said. “The man has big yellow eyes and he is looking at you.” I tried to tell him there was no man and my son just told me, “Oh he is hiding now.” Two minutes later, he said, “Oh no Mommy, you made him very mad. Now he says he will come when you are sleeping.” Some time later, he told me, “I’m not going to be four. I’m doing to die and you will put me down, down, down in the hole.” I assured him that wasn’t true and asked who had told him that. He got very quiet and replied, “The man told me. But I will be scared, so after three nights you will die too and come with me.”

I was in the basement of my friend’s house with her 2-year old son. He took my hand, led me over to a brick chimney that had a rusty metal door on it and said, “That’s where the dead babies go…”

I was looking at houses with my brother and his 3-year old son. As we passed the school, the little boy said “If you buy a house here, that’s where your kids will go to school!” Then, we passed a pool and the little boy said, “And that’s where your kids will go to the pool!” Then, we passed a cemetery and he said, “And that’s where you’ll bury your kids!”

One night, when my daughter was 4, I overheard her talking in her room. I poked my head in and asked if she was talking to me. “No,” she replied. “I was talking to the little boy who lives in my closet… He’s dead.”

I jokingly asked my little cousin, “What’s the best way to get a girlfriend?” His response was, “Tell her to be my girlfriend or she’ll never see her parents again.”

One day, totally out of the blue, my 5-year old son said, “Before I was born here, I had a sister, right? Her and my other Mom are so old now. They were OK when the car was on fire, but I sure wasn’t!”

One day, my 3-year old son hugged my wife and said, very seriously, “Mom, I promise I won’t ever chew on your bones…”

My 5-year old daughter had night terrors and she would sometimes scream in her sleep. One night, I said “Mommy’s here. It’s OK.” She looked right at me and screamed, “Mommy? But who is that behind you?”

A few months ago, my 3-year old daughter was playing outside in our backyard. My wife was sitting on the back step and my daughter came up and asked her if she could play with the little girl on our slide. My wife said, “I don’t see any little girl” and my daughter said, “She’s right over there on the slide, Mom. Can’t I play with her?” My wife said, “I don’t see anyone” but my daughter kept insisting, “She’s on the slide and she is blue. Can I play with her?” My wife was freaked out said, “Let’s just go inside and get a snack.” For the rest of the day, my daughter kept looking out the back door, telling my wife that the little blue girl was lonely.

When my brother was very young, he was sleepwalking. My mom was trying to get him to go back to bed. He said, “I would, but the devil is behind you…”

One day, my 4-year old son said, “My brain is telling me to do things I don’t want to do.” I just hope his brain wasn’t telling him, “Burn them! Burn them all!”

As a child I would tell my parents daily that they were not my real parents and that my real parents died in a train accident. At first, they thought it was cute, but after a few months of this, they had to put a stop to my story.

Out of the blue, my 2-year old daughter said, “If you’re quiet you’ll stay alive.” I still have no clue where that came from.

My daughter and her friend were talking about dinosaurs. I asked her, “If you were a T-Rex, what would you eat?” She got very serious, looked me right in the eyes and said, “Children… I’d eat children.”

Last week, my 5-year old son asked me, “What do you see through the black circles in my eyes when you’re controlling me when I’m at school?”

My 5-year old son gave me a card he’d made at school. On the front, it said, “How you see yourself”. He had drawn a picture of me walking in a meadow. I was surrounded by blue skies, a blazing sun, green grass and butterflies. There was a big smile on my face. Inside, it said, “How you really are”. There was a picture of me in a jail cell, gripping the bars and crying.

I work in a preschool there is a small toy kitchen in our classroom that the kids use for playing house. There was one little girl who was playing with a baby

, rocking it back and forth and singing to it. Suddenly, she shoved it into the toy oven, slammed the door shut, turned to me and said, “Sometimes bad babies go in timeout!”

My mother told me that when I was a little girl, I saw some guy at the grocery store and started screaming and crying. It was so bad we had to leave and when we got back to the car, my mom asked what was wrong. I told her he took me away from my first mom and hid me under his floor and made me sleep for a long time until I woke up with my new mom. It totally freaked my mother out.

My daughter told me that there is a woman in her bedroom who watches her and sleeps on the ceiling above her bed. She also says the woman doesn’t like me and wants to eat my heart.

A few days after my dad passed away, my mother and I were awoken in the middle of the night by a furious banging noise. We went downstairs to find my little sister desperately trying to open the back door, yelling, “He wants back in! We have to let him back in!”

We had a small fire in the backyard and my baby cousin picked up a branch, lit it on fire and stared at it for a few minutes, muttering “burn…..burn….BURN!” Eventually, as the whole stick caught fire he started laughing maniacally and yelling in a deep demonic voice, “BUUURRRNNNNINNNGGGG! BUURRRNNNINGGGG! BUUURRRNNN!!!!” It was terrifying.

My mother told me that, when I was a child, I asked her what it was like to die. When she said she didn’t know, I told her not to worry because I’d find out when I was 21.

My aunt was very sick and my wife and I were talking about the cost of making arrangements for the funeral. Our 4-year old son walked in and said, “Why don’t you just set her on fire?” As it turned out, that’s how he thought cremation worked.

We were collecting my mother-in-law at the airport. While we were waiting, my husband picked up our son and joked about tossing him over the railing. On the way home in the car, our son spent the next 3 hours making a booklet titled, “All the Times My Dad Has Tried To Kill Me”. There were illustrations showing him in all sorts of peril, including being flushed down the toilet by my husband. My mother-in-law was horrified.

I was making dinner and my 5-year old niece casually walked through the kitchen and said, “I’ll get you, and I’ll make it look like a bloody accident”. It scared the heck out of me, but later I found out she was quoting a line from The Cat in the Hat.

I asked my 3 kids what they wanted to do when they grew up. My 10-year old said, “I want to be a teacher!” My 8-year old said, “I want to be a writer!” My 6-year old said, “I want to run the machine that cuts the heads off chickens!”

I was giving my 6-year old daughter a bath and she a couple of Barbies in the tub with her. One of the Barbies had no head. The head was floating in the water. I asked her to reattach the head because it was creepy. She responded, “Why Mom? It’s not REAL. If it was real, the bath would be full of blood, and THAT would be creepy…”

One night, I was reading my 3-year old niece a bedtime story and I fell asleep. When I woke up, it was dark and eerily silent. There was a nightlight on. I turned over and saw my niece. Her eyes were wide open and she was staring at me. Then, she whispered, “How did you get out of your box?”

I asked my nephew what he was drawing and he replied, “A skeleton-making machine”. On further inspection I saw that he hadn’t drawn a skeleton making machine but rather a flesh removal machine, complete with screaming naked men and a channel for the blood. Creepy.

My wife and I were giving our daughter a bath one night, when all of a sudden, she said, “You humans brought me here!” It took us four months to figure out that it was a line she heard in a movie.

Late one night, I was sitting at my friend’s kitchen table when her daughter walked into the kitchen and said, “Mommy, when I was older I crashed the car and died. Can I have something to drink?” My friend calmly gave her daughter a glass of milk and sent her off to bed. It gave me the chills, but my friend didn’t want to talk about it. She started crying and told me never to bring it up again.

When I was 6 years old, we moved house. I said my mother, “The lady who use to live here told me that she hates the wallpaper and you are covering up her note.” She just thought it was childish rambling and forgot all about it. Twelve years later, my mother was redecorating the house. She took down the wallpaper in the attic and found a suicide note scratched into the wall.

When my mother was pregnant, my little brother came into the room and pointed a nerf gun at her stomach. “Oh, no! Don’t shoot me!” my mom said playfully. “Don’t worry, Mom,” he replied. “I’m not trying to kill you, I’m just trying to kill the baby.”

A friend of mine brought her 3-year old son over to my apartment. I asked him what his favorite holiday was. He replied, “I like Halloween because I like candy and death!”

I was minding my own business, working in the garage when the door creaked open and my 2-year old son popped his head in and asked, “Daddy, are you dead yet?” I replied, “No…?” and then he just slowly closed the door.

I was at a friends house when his 4-year old cousin was getting ready to go to bed. He walked around, giving everyone a goodnight hug. I said to him, “Sweet dreams!” He stopped at the top of the stairs, turned around and with a very serious face said, “I’ll control your dreams and make them nightmares…”

My son was 4 and his sister was almost 2. I had to go to a meeting and I couldn’t read them a bedtime story. I promised I would read them two the following night to make up for it. My son said, “It’s ok, Mom, Auntie Tracy will read to us”. I felt the hairs go up on the back of my neck. “Who?” I asked. “Auntie Tracy, Mom,” he said. “She looks just like you. After we go to bed she reads and sings to us”. I had never told them that I was an identical twin and my sister died at birth. Her name was Tracy.

My wife was making a sandwich for our 4-year old son. He was watching her really intently and she asked what he was doing. He replied, “I’m watching you make a sandwich… so I know how to do it when you die.”

While I was cooking dinner one evening, my 4-year old daughter came in and wanted to help. “You’re not going to touch the stove, are you?” I asked. “No,” she replied. “Do you know why you shouldn’t touch the stove?” I asked. She looked at me and, in a very serious tone, replied, “Because I might get burned and die and then you’d have to eat me.”

I was blowing my nose into a tissue and my 6-year old daughter asked if she could see it. I said no and she responded with, “I promise I won’t eat it”.

[inkribbon796]

The Lost Ones Ch. 2

Chapter 2: A Star is Born

Summary: Now that Anti has his clone of destruction it’s a lot smaller and a lot less destructive than he planned. But that doesn’t mean he can’t get some chaos out of the little scientific miracle.

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

The glitch demon was not impressed.

He honestly didn’t know what he had expected, he’d barely been a part of the process past snipping off pieces of aura. But a brat sleeping in a glass box wasn’t what he’d expected.

Where was the doom? The chaos?

Anti glared at Beauregard, “It’s tiny.”

“Yep,” Bouregard was almost bouncing with glee. “We’ve named him Paul-08 since he’s the eighth one. He’s about five months now.”

“Don’t care, prolly not keeping the name,” Anti warned. “Ye said it was alive, looks pretty still ta me.”

She looked disappointed, “He’s sleeping, and we really like that name. Besides, he’s just a baby.”

“Don’t,” Anti repeated. “Care. Is it alive or not? I didn’t get ye fookers their auras ta throw a baby shower.”

“Yes, he’s alive, he’s just sleeping,” she told him. “We’re starting to get him to try solid foods.”

“Good,” Anti immediately reached in a picked the baby up, realizing one thing. “This kid’s freezing.”

“Yes, we think it might have something to do with the maternal side genes,” she admitted.

Anti stared at her before looking the baby over, who was starting to fuss. Fighting the urge to dump the kid back in the incubator and walk away, he studied the kid a bit closer, a light coating of dark fluff was already on top of his head, and his eyes were starting to darken from the normal baby blue.

Then his brain halted, “Wait, I didn’t brin’ anythin’ extra.”

“Oh, the maternal genes came from Smoky,” Beauregard was silently coaching Anti how to hold the baby, and to Anti immense relief he stopped fussing. “Whenever it turned more red it was receptive to cooperating even if it did become more aggressive in the process.”

“Smoky?” Anti repeatedly.

“Yeah Smoky and Bubbles, we gave them nicknames because it was shorter than writing Dark Aura and Warfstache Aura.”

“I like it,” Anti decided, “continue.”

“Well you would not believe how uncooperative auras are, it took us ages to actually get the kid. He had to coax Smoky into making the shape we wanted and after a couple tries we got this little cutie.”

The baby let out this little bubbly giggle.

It reminded Anti more of Wilford than Dark, but all he needed was the thing to keep breathing.

“Kay, we’ll be back,” Anti said, already opening up a portal and taking the kid through.

“What?” Beauregard looked panicked. “Wait! He hasn’t had his—”

Anti was stepping through with the kid and smiled, “Let’s go find your big scary dads and watch ‘em squirm.”

A couple of stolen baby things later and Anti was standing in a downtown plaza with the kid in a harness attached to his own chest, waiting while holding a phone he’d found ages ago and was using to post pictures online with him and the baby. The picture’s caption read: Not ready for swimming lesson but still likes the water. Don’t tell his dad.

His favorite so far was the picture he took was the one he took standing on a large fountain in Dark’s territory, holding two fingers up with the kid trying to grab the water.

Anti had to admit, the kid definitely inherited all of Wil’s charm and none of the anything Anti didn’t like about Dark . . . which fortunately for the kid that was everything about the Entity.

So Anti was checking his phone, standing next to Wil’s radio station, the kid trying to grab his phone and was fussing a little bit. Which meant that he was either hungry or something like that. He’d have to take the kid back at this rate because he was not changing the brat’s diaper.

In total he’d had the kid out for about ten minutes before he dodged Jackie who tried to snag the kid directly off his chest.

“Hey, hey,” Anti floated up and the kid started crying at the gust of wind suddenly rushing by them, startled and scared. “You don’t just steal kids, what kind of hero are you?”

“Okay, Anti,” Jackie approached carefully, having lost the element of surprise. “What’s it gonna take ta get that kid back ta their folks?”

A dumb hero, and a whole lot of noise. Anti smiled. “I don’t know, why don’t yah come an’ take it from me?”

However Anti was grabbed from the back of the carrier straps and dragged back towards the ground by Silver.

“Come on, Anti, just give us the kid,” Silver ordered. “Poor kid’s probably hungry.”

The screaming the kid was doing was starting to become shrill, a dull ringing confused for Jackie’s tinnitus, but was a byproduct of inheriting Dark’s aura.

Anti wrapped his arms around the kid and glitched himself away, slamming into a car. The instant Anti’s aura kicked up, the kid started snuffling instead of crying, trying to put some of the glitching pixels into his mouth.

“Come on, bend reality, do somethin’ yah ankle biter,” Anti demanded.

“Anti, don’t be a bastard, give us the kid,” Jackie demanded.

“Wish I could,” Anti looked at the car he’d crashed into and knocked it into the news station with his aura, it hit the gate and crashed into the entrance.

“Oops,” Anti smiled, and predictably color started to drain from the area, an odd red and blue effect echoing out from nearby objects. Well kid looks like Daddy’s on his way, Anti thought to himself.

If the glitch couldn’t get his kicks from the kid, he would get it from Dark.

Dark came from the shadows right in front of Anti, his aura whipping around him threateningly, “Anti!”

“Shit. Shit. Shit.” Silver muttered under his breath, Anti was one thing. It was bad enough that Anti had the kid, but he hadn’t done anything with the kid yet. But Dark hated kids, he’d gone on the record for his disdain for children. He didn’t let them get into his network, he didn’t let them get near him. And Dark was already pissed.

“Ahhh,” a little coo came from the kid attached to Anti’s chest and two little hands reached out to touch Dark’s aura.

The act just about gave Silver and Jackie a heart attack. They’d seen adult superheros get hit by Dark’s aura and come out the other side like they’d bent sent through a blender.

Dark jolted when his aura met with something strangely familiar. His aura calmed down without Dark’s permission.

“What is that?” Dark asked, pointing down at the kid, his finger was grabbed by the kid.

“Jeez took yeh fer-fookin-e’er ta show up,” Anti rolled his eyes and took the kid off of him, and shoved the kid into Dark’s arms who looked about ready to drop the kid on the spot. “See if I babysit fer ye fooks again.”

Dark looked actually confused and Anti knew that regardless of if they actually kept the kid, he was going to savor this for the rest of his existence. Anti had never seen Dark twitch and blink so much, the ringing a bit more subdued.

The infant was already sticking Dark’s tie in his mouth and chewing on it.

“Anti!” Dark yelled at him as Anti began walking backwards, a huge smile on his face. Wilford pushed the car out of his way, looking frustrated and angry, the situation successfully escalating. “What am I supposed to do with this thing?”

“Uh, uh,” Anti held up his index finger. “Favor’s done, I charge full price next time.”

Wilford grabbed Anti who started whispering something to him.

Dark however glared at the happy child in hands who he was trying to hold away at arm’s length. He was smiling, drooling all over his tie, which was still loosely hanging from his mouth. Bright dark brown eyes beaming with happiness and his pudgy little arms reaching towards the mob boss.

A slew of questions was going through Dark’s mind:

Why did he give me a kid? Why would he even have a kid? Oh fuck! Is he Wil’s? What am I going to do if it’s Wil’s?

“Uh, Dark?” Silver asked.

Dark let out a little sigh of relief, “Finally you heroes are good for something.”

He turned and held the kid out for Silver. “Here, take the wretch back to its mother.”

Silver seemed to exhale in relief, “Yeah no problem, do you know who—”

“Well if you wanted a break, Darky, all you had to do was ask,” Wil chuckled as he snagged the kid out of Dark’s hands before Silver could take him.

The superhero stared at Wil in absolute horror, realizing that he’d rather have absolutely anyone holding the kid except for Wil.

The little boy let out a startled cry but going completely silent, starting up at Wil with large round eyes. Wil’s almost invisible aura making the kid’s pupils dilate just a little bit.

“Long day, huh Junior?” Wil smiled as the kid reached up for Wil’s curled mustache. “Did you have fun with Uncle Anti?”

“Wil, let’s not play games right now,” Dark demanded. “Give them the child.”

Wil looked confused at that, the baby grabbing at one of Wil’s suspenders and starting to chew on it. “Why? I got done with work early? I can take Junior for the evening.”

Silver and Jackie looked at the baby, Dark and Wilford, and then at each other.

“Wil, it is two in the afternoon, you didn’t get done with anything,” Dark spat, pointing at the cat lying in front of the radio station. “Anti threw a car at you.”

Wilford almost did a double take, staring at the car, “How long has that been there?”

“Give me the child,” Dark demanded, holding his hand out, his aura already trying to pry the baby from Wil’s arms. “Just go back to work and I’ll fix this.”

The baby started fussing and crying, grabbing onto Wil’s shirt.

Wil’s aura snapped into visible sight and Dark’s aura was slapped away, the mad man holding the boy closer to his chest. “You don’t remember Junior?”

“There’s nothing to remember,” Dark spat angrily, his ringing almost shrill, his shell echoing and fracturing. “Anti found some brat off the street, give it to me.”

“He’s ours!” Wil huffed, the baby’s crying was almost shrill, the boy’s ringing cry lost in Dark’s much louder one.

Dark felt the need to strangle Wilford, his fingers itching to summon an axe to bury into his chest. “You stupid idiot, Wil, that child isn’t yours!”

Silver and Jack were trying to get close but the dueling auras didn’t permit it. The situation was quickly spiraling out of control.

Wil let out an offended gasped and quickly slipped through a portal with the infant, almost slicing off part of Dark’s aura when he tried to stop him.

His shell was fragmenting into dozens of copies as Dark stewed in his own caustic anger. Then he screamed in furious anger, most of his aura turning into a caustic, blood red. His aura tore up the pavement and the gate, and just about anything else he could reach.

Dark’s fury turned to Anti who was just cackling off to the side, finding the whole mess utterly hilarious. He was floating off the ground.

He was in front of the glitch demon in an instant, glaring down at him in molten fury. “Where did you get that thing?”

Anti fought for breath before smiling, “Don’t know what you’re talkin’ ‘bout Daddy, maybe yeh should go catch yer boyfriend ‘fore he kills the kid?”

Dark raked his claws across Anti’s face, narrowly avoiding destroying Anti’s tentatively corporeal form, but stomping into a portal to follow Wil’s decaying magical trail.

Cheering victoriously at himsef, Anti picked himself off the ground and saw one more game to play, Silver and Jackie already putting out a frantic call for a missing baby.

“How long before you think they realize it’s fake?” Anti chuckled, floating next to the two heroes.

“What?” Jackie demanded, pausing in his report of the kid.

“Pffft,” Anti laughed. “Come on, I magicked up a bag ‘a flour an’ stuck a clump ‘a dog hair on it. I mean what kid smiles at that piece of shite? I’m amazed Dark bought the illusion.”

“Anti, if you are fucking with us, and that was a real kid, it’ll die,” Silver threatened darkly.

Anti just laughed, “I wonder if Wil will try an’ make cookies outta it before or after he realizes it’s fake? Did you see Dark’s face when Wil told him no, I didn’t think Bubbles had it in him.”

Then Anti left, chuckling to himself, after all the lab coats had made one brat, if Wil killed it they could just make another one.

Silver and Jackie were just standing in the wake of destruction, unsure what to do.

“What are the chances he’s lying,” Silver demanded, “you’ve known him longer than me.”

Jackie frowned, “I don’t know, Anti doesn’t usually mess with kids, but they stopped crying when Dark first took ‘em, so maybe he’s telling the truth.”

“Let’s put out that APB, if that kid’s real we need to find their mom and fast,” Silver decided.

“Good thinking,” Jackie agreed and the two of them checked that everyone in the station was okay before leaving to find Abe.

[pixelrender]

Top 10 games I played in 2019

In many ways 2019 was a transitional year for me. 2020 will be a completely different year than 2018. Full of work and studying. And that’s why I need to leave my computer behind for a while. I have few games I would like to play on my phone, but mostly, I’ll be silent on the gaming front. I managed to play over 95 games this year. I wrote two or three sentences on every single one of them here. They were mostly short games from Itch.io, most of them under one hour of gameplay. There were many gems and I have an urge to honorably mention at least five of them. So, there might be another post along these lines or check this playlist of mine for some essential games, which might be missing in this selection.

Top 3 was a clear cut, but coming up with the order for the rest of it was difficult. FTL is in my top ten of all times for example and a superior game to both Morphblade and A Short Hike. It is however a game I had played before. The list is quite cohesive this year and I think that every single game on it is either an example of excellent design, great fun or an experience more interesting than films. 2019 was a year, in which I stopped caring about the story being good. I don’t need twists I only want feelings and there are other ways to evoke them. Video games and various kinds of walking sims are way more powerful tool for that. It might be that I’m more sold on games than most movies right now? Dunno, I guess I just managed to dig myself deep enough in my niche. There’s one honorable mention I should make right here. I finally managed to beat, one of my favourite games, FTL this year. Finally! It was the most satisfying moment in gaming of the year. I considered to put it on the list for that reason alone, but being one of my favourite games of all times, I don’t think it needs further spotlight.

10. The Isle is Full of Noises

I played several games from Dreamfeel early 2019 and fell in love with the devs. They’re sensitive, emotional and visually delightful. Curtain probably is the best starting point, but The Isle is Full of Noises is where it’s at. This flatgame is a full emotional outbreak accompanied by some of the best music I’ve heard in video games. It being a flatgame, there’s no collision just your character moving around and discovering things. Despite this simplicity I felt the game and the painful alienation of the character. It’s free and on every platform but phones!

9. Espectro City

This is such a weird combination of influences and simply the best game to come out of  CosmoD’s jam. This game’s about a city inhabited by ghosts. The whole world seems to be dead. It’s a detective game and you move around the city, which happens to be a desktop of a computer and individual places icons. The writing is really good, the mood superb and the gameplay itself surprisingly fun. The game’s full of sentimental sadness and rather deep too! I can’t wait to see more pieces like Espectro City from the dev. Again the game’s free and that’s a  nice bonus.

8. Renowned Explorers: Inernational Society

I played this back to back with Curious Expeditions and expected to like Expeditions better, because their gorgeous art style suits my taste better. And they were a lot of fun with ridiculous thngs happening all the time, usually because of my exploits. I enjoyed it quite a lot, but not as much as Explorers. This game’s really sweet with its simple addictive tactical battles, which are winnable by being friendly, handcrafted locations, great random events (the structure reminds me of FTL) and board game like elements like cards. Also, individual explorers feel way more personal. This was the most fun I had with the game all year long.

7.  The Things We Lost in the Flood

This little free game was exposed on major outlets such as Rock Paper Shotgun and PC gamer for a reason. It’s an impressive experience, a piece of art almost. It makes you think and most likely creative and insightful. I played it only few days ago, but I immediately knew that this needs to go on the list. Besides floating on your ship through the flooded world (in one direction), you come across messages from other players. This subtle multiplayer function makes the game really shine. You feel connected yet distant and there’s no space for hostile interactions. Even after several runs, I feel like there’s more stuff to explore too with screens being thrown at you at random. Play it and get engrossed in its meditative nature, this is the future of poetry.

6. Even The Ocean

For a fairly traditional Megaman inspired platformer in its core gameplay, Even The Ocean brought a lot of extra stuff from JRPGs in. There is a story, which gives you reasons to explore more, an overworld and the esthetic. It’s a nice game, but some of the backgrounds or platforms looked more like sketches than defined illustrations. The gameplay is smooth and good and I enjoyed a good portion of it. It’s all about jumping and overcoming various obstacles, the game doesn’t include battles. Also, the game evolves around corporations, exploitation of power and resources and nature and keeping things in balance and it’s all really actual with climatic changes being number 1 topic of the year. The story is somehow predictable but there is a very enjoyable twist.

5. Even The Stars

This was a simple game about exploring universe, which left a deep impression on me by its finally, which gave your wandering a purpose. Now this is a major SPOILER. This game ends with you dying and revealing your path and discoveries. Even without a purpose, your life had a purpose. It was such a strong message and it crowned the slow exploring, which, tbh, was quite enjoyable on its own.  There’s not much to say, just play the game, it’s free. While you’re at it check other games from Pol Clarissou as well, they’re little gems.

4. Heaven Will Be Mine

Ok, I claimed that I moved from story driven media earlier and this is a visual novel. It was the truth only partially. I still enjoy a good story if it manages to get me invested. This is both a hot romance and a tragedy. You choose to play as one of the three Mecha pilots, all of them are female, each of them representing one faction, one vision of the future. It's really complex and you can never fulfil all of your goals. Choices you're making are difficult from the get go and you're usually choosing between goals of your faction and your personal attitude towards one of the other two pilots, because you're, if not in love, in a hot relationship with both of them. Mecha suits get steamy and it Bronté level romantic. Also, it's worth it make multiple runs with various goals as different drivers. In the end the emotional impact this game with a relatively complicated and often post-human motivations had on me was the main reason why it stuck with me and why I enjoyed thinking about it's politics so different and yet same as problems of my own and this world. Despite the strange it was easy to relate thanks to masterful writing and sleek esthetic choices.

3. Morphblade

I hadn't got around anything really strategic or thinky this year before playing Morphblade. Damn, what a bullseye! This game's an almost abstract endless puzzle game with no real fiction attached to it. In the same way as Super Hexagon it makes it more addictive than morphine. Maybe that's why it's called Morphblade. Or it might be because you morph every turn into a new weapon or tool, based on tile you land on. The game's only mode is endless survival, so there's no real reason to keep playing but the addiction and the great combination of upgrading tiles by killing bugs on them and expanding the playing area. Despite being more of a little side project, this might be the best game Tom Francis has created so far. It's definitely the tightest design.

2. A Short Hike

The top 2 games on my list have a lot in common. They're both Humble Originals and they're both games about enjoying simple things. In case of A Short Hike, you're a city dwelling teen thrown on a Wi-Fi free island and you're being learnt to enjoy it. And it is enjoyable and warm and fuzzy. It's for reason this short game appeared on end of the year lists of many respectable outlets. Looking at screenshots and gifs doesn't make this game justice despite them being really pretty. The low poly in this game is superb and it being this good looking certainly gives it an edge, when it comes to presenting all the little nice things you can do to have a brighter day without exploiting anyone. A Short Hike is an extremely friendly game. Everyone on the isle is welcoming and sharing their enthusiasm with you. I cried of joy. Movement in this game is another thing. You walk, run, glide and climb and everything feels right. It's a game you can play on a wet day to make it the best day possible or on a sunny day to inspire yourself. Because enjoying the pleasures of movement on your own is the real deal.

1. Kimmy

This was a wonderful experience. The game's about Dana, a good caring kid, who is babysitting Kimmy. They walk around town, chat and play games. Mechanics of the game are simple but the way Kimmy presents itself, together with its structure and everything weaved in its narrative, it simply is brilliant. At first it might feel that the game's about building relationships with other kids. That part's really cool on its own as you get to know more about them and they're all original characters and positive ones in one way or other. Next, you uncover the second line. Simple game we all used to play and how we all managed to lose something, when embracing playing on computers and even various board games with many rules and components. It's never been the same sensation since. The last thing is the overarching narrative of the relation of Dana and Kimmy. There were more serious tones thrown in and the final plot twist went against my expectations and made me totally happy. The move from simply satisfying player is a bold one and I would say more rewarding in this case. Definitely more rewarding for me. Celeste and her work on Tacoma had put Nina Freeman on my map years ago, but only after playing Kimmy, she became a real star for me and I'm looking forward to playing We Met in May one day. This definitely is on par with Tacoma in terms of using the medium to carry over a message and a depth of the message.

[ad1thi]

Steve goes back in time and delivers the infinity stones, yes. But he delivered one of them a lot more times than he needs to. Bruce shouldn't have recounted his talk with The Ancient One in such fine detail, but Steve figures that if these little trips of his are going to cause any real damage, Strange wouldn't have chosen a timeline in which Steve decided to Do The Thing. (Ask 1 of 7)

And so he delivers six of the stones, then picks up some more Pym particles and makes off with one of the stones, splintering the timeline he’d just repaired. First of all, just to get one long-lingering regret out of the way, he goes to see Peggy. He dances with her, he kisses her, he finds out that when she draws her stockings on, she only draws them up to about mid-thigh. (Ask 2 of 7)

It’s a good life, but he finds that he hadn’t lied to Tony so many years ago (ahead?) when he’d said that the man who wanted a wife and a home had gone into the ice and not come out. He puts the stone back. Then he travels back a tiny bit and takes it again. He dances with Peggy again, but this time he leaves before dusk falls. He finds Howard and then lives out another lifetime, with no wife this time but with a family he comes to think of as his own. (Ask 3 of 7)

It’s a lot of hiding even though smartphones and social media haven’t been invented yet, and a lot of experiments and frustration because the number of people that Howard can let in on this secret are about nil. The only thing that makes it bearable is taking over nearly all of the babysitting duties. Little Tony (You’re thinking of naming him WHAT?!) is surprisingly normal. He sleeps and eats and burps and cries, and once in a while, he pees on Captain America. (Ask 4 of 7)

Children, even preternaturally intelligent ones like Tony, can’t be trusted with secrets as big as the man who lives in a shut-off wing of their home, so Steve relocates when Tony is six. Bucky is still out there, after all. But he goes back. Over and over, countless stolen particles and stones, the little time-compass that Tony (Tony!) designed still going strong. Sometimes he shows up with Bucky in tow, but mostly he’s alone, the weight of failure bowing his shoulders. (Ask 5 of 7)

Tony always greets him with a smile. The number of teeth in that wide-open mouth vary. Steve always loves the little baby, and eventually takes a chance on sticking around to watch the little boy grow up, too. Waiting those few extra years increases his chances of successfully freeing Bucky. It burns him from the inside out to deliberately leave his friend to all that suffering, but the memories of his bloody, mangled, failed attempts teaches him patience. (Ask 6 of 7)

He returns to the Stark’s primary home one year with Bucky by his side, and literally runs into Tony on the front steps. The chubby little infant he’d rocked and fed and picked up and put down is fresh out of MIT. “Tony!” Steve blurts, surprised by how surprised he is. It’s just Tony. The kid he’s watched grow up countless times now. It’s just that he’s so much taller and more solid under his hands and blindingly bright-beautiful and oh. Oh! Oh. Oh shit. (Ask 7 of 7)

*after sending you 7 Asks* And that is my theory on why super-soldier Steve aged so much while returning the infinity stones. He spent like a bazillion years doing it. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

–

i think this is definitely the longest ask i’ve ever gotten and its definitely a really interesting idea but i just don’t see steve doing that??

idk in my head if he was going to settle with someone; he’d just stop

he loves so fiercely and passionately that i feel like he’d make the whole world stop just for this one person

but idk thats just me

its a really interesting concept though!!

–

send me headcanons and stuff (to help me avoid a mental breakdown!!

[overcaffeinated-creative]

Facts About Karta Jakobs

1. She's a Siren, one of six in the Galaxy, with the distinguishing blue tattoos running the left side of her body. Ebbs and flows of swirling blue, some with sharp, switchback angles to the lines but others rounded. The three blue dots under her left eye are the same as th others though.

2. Following the headcanon that each Siren develops a phase ability to suit what they need, Karta summoned Pudge when she was a kid. Her greatest longing was for understanding and deep connection to someone: a friend. Thus, she gained the ability to Phasebond and with it Princess Pudge (now effectively shortened to Pudge). Imagine a smooth scaled creature with six legs (two sets grouped to the front and one further along the back) end with raccoon like paws capable of gripping, a large wingspan (wings resemble a dragonfly's in shape, spacing, vein pattern), a short of draconian head with a snout and small horns, and a long tail. His overall color scheme is black, shite, and the same electric blue of Siren tattoos. His topped size (or what she thinks may be his size) is a about that of a medium sized dog and he typically rests on her shoulders/in her lap. Karta's best guess is he's related to Vault Guardians.

3. Phasebond allows Karta and Pudge to mind meld, allowing her to see through his eyes, uses his senses, and direct him around the battle field. When trained enough they fan even switch places allowing her to almost shadow travel around the field of combat. They also have a sort of constant telepathic communication going, where Pudge is highly intelligent but doesn't actually think on words as much as pictures and feelings. He's very intuitive of Karta's feelings and highly protective.

4. For a creature that should scare everyone Pudge is rather friendly. He adores belly rubs and accepts treats (he will also eat /anything/ off the ground from real food to still flaming Psycho corpse if not told no), and typically wears a ribbon around his neck in a bow. He also butts his head into others forehead's (or licks them/gives kisses) as a sign of affection. Around Karta, he prefers to sleep on her lap or on her/in the sleeping bag/bed with her to be as close as possible.

5. Karta forgets to speak out loud some times because she's so used to talking to Pudge, who doesn't need vocalizations to understand her, that she seems to constantly jump conversations, topics, or go strangely mute.

6. Karta is in fact a granddaughter of Montgomery Jakobs, and after actual accidents, has become the heiress to the Jakobs weapons company, subsidiaries, and all else. The Board, nor her family, are really thrilled about such things. While they prefer a traditional approach to weaponry, she is very much an up and comer in pushing boundaries to Do More. They also disagree on how to treat their employees i.e. she's big one worker's rights and stuff.

7. She has a Doctorate as well a small assortment of degrees that cumilated in her earning a spot on Jakobs R&D team as a lead weapons designers/smith. The four elemental Jakobs were aftermarket modifications made by her and totally broke company policy of "No elemental weapons."

8. At a conference she did in fact meet Handsome Jack and was originally just going to sleep with him to spite her family. He's /Hyperion/ after all. It sparked into an almost year long relationship because that programed was a gold mine of Hyperion Data and up on Siren Lore.

Their break up was out of the blue and she basically didn't tell him so much as she disappeared one night. Straight up vanished really with no note, no nothing. She also took several copies of weapon schematics because "It's an early anniversary gift. I picked it out myself!"

There is a lot of bad blood there.

9. Karta also never told Jack about her full Siren powers. Pudge was a genetically altered creature from a distant planet that she picked up in a market. Her Siren skills related to sniping and nothing more. Jack may have been one of her few relationships but she didn't trust him that far.

10. Karta grew up breathtakingly lonely. She never felt like enough for her family, the other kids typically ignored her because she seemed to win the lottery "Siren, Jakobs, Genius, Gifted Markesmen". The friends she did have were one other person, Francine Begonia Mathers (someone she out and out hates now), and Pudge.

Pandora gives her real friends among the other Vault Hunters. Also gives her teammate which takes an adjustment period because she's used to being her own team or having to babysit the other person (not Pudge, but Begonia)

11. She was an avid Bunkers and Badasses Player growing up. She only really had Begonia to play with, who insisted on being the Siren ("You get to be special in real life! Let me have this") and an AI as the Game Master.

12. She is 100% a purist about her weapons and all of her Jakobs uses only Jakobs parts. She'll mix and match them to make the best (or custom make parts for things such as elementals) but they are only Jakobs parts. Everything else is fair game though.

13. Calls Maliwan the "Hipster Brand for People who Can't be Bothered to Aim." and considers the only good use of their submachine guns to be as bludgeons, which is her opinion of all SMGs really.

14. Her preferred weaponry includes sniper rifles and revolvers for close combat, the occasional shotgun, grenades with special attention played to singularity grenades, her hidden wrist blades (think Assassin's Creed), and occasional bare handed strikes, powered up because she's a Siren.

15. When looking for other Sirens/Hiding from Jack, she takes the name Kará Jensen and keeps her left side fully covered to hide her tattoos. If she has to show her face she mirrors the three dots to the right side with makeup to make it look like a choice.

16. She hates Nisha Kadam because of how much they have in common and the fear Nisha inspired in her. "I could've become that."

17. Karta's "Party Trick" is to take an empty revolver, spin the cylinder, rapidly load six bullet, then fire at a playing card a good distance away. She typically picks a Queen of Hearts and shots rapidly in the pattern Left Q Heart, Face, Lower Face, Right Heart, Right Q. To prove her accuracy and skill with Jakobs. It fires as fast as she pulls the trigger and she can also handle the recoil without losing focus.

18. Her hair is a sort of silver-lavendar melt, her skin very fair, her eyes a cold gray (fitting for a sniper), and she favors blacks, grays, and oranges for her clothes.

19. Her three Skill Trees are: Aerial (the Elemental Tree), Spectre (the Stealth/Sniper Tree), and Mastermind (the weapons/shields/grenades buff tree).

20. As badass as she looks and as stone cold, manipulative bitch as she acts, Karta is also a dork at her center. She coos at new weapons, adores animals (including trying to play with the more tamed skags/playing with them and Pudge), and honestly just wanted someone to believe in her, and to help her help others.

[gaycousinlarry]

Annual Writing Self-Evaluation

*All answers should be about works published in 2017.

1. List of works published this year:

If the story is part of a series or a challenge I’ve put the name of the series/challenge in parenthesis.

In the order that they were posted

Them Butterflies (Them Butterflies)

Moments of Memories

You light up the room (short fics & drabbles)

They don’t know (short fics & drabbles)

Just for you (short fics & drabbles)

Follow the sun (short fics & drabbles)

Flutter of a Butterfly (Them Butterflies)

sun kissed (short fics & drabbles)

Hot Guy (short fics & drabbles)

Remind Me Again

the sun comes back up

a night like this (daydreams are made of this)

a day like a dream (daydreams are made of this)

It’s halftime. Are you ready to go? (50 reasons to Have Sex Larry Fic Fest)

deck the halls with boughs of holly (Larry Winter Drabble Challenge)

The rest under the cut <3

2. Work you are most proud of (and why): Them Butterflies will always have a very special place in my heart. It was the first fic I wrote/posted and that was a huge step for me. I also think it, in a way, set a tone for who I am as a writer lol. It gave me the courage to keep writing, to see what I’m good at and what I need to work on. I’m also so in love with the characters from this verse, I still think about them all the time.

3. Work you are least proud of (and why): Okay I’m going to be obnoxious now, but I’m sort of ridiculously proud of everything that I’ve written? Not because I think they’re all perfect or even particularly good, but because it was something I wrote and even if I don’t like it, it’s helped me get better. I do worry about what people will think of my writing and I always hope people will enjoy it. But I think I’ve never had too high expectations on my own writing because I literally just started writing a year ago and I’m still amazed that I write at all and that I love it so much haha.

4. A favorite excerpt of your writing: This is from Moments of Memories. These two break and mend my heart in equal parts and in some strange sort of way I feel honoured to have written about them.

And it’s so much more than Harry ever imagined. Because he always dreamed of butterflies in his stomach, shaky breaths and soft lips, and it is all that, but also calloused hands holding his face delicately, tears welling up in two pairs of eyes and lips wobbling into wide grins of equal parts disbelief and elation. His fingers find the deep lines at Louis’ temples, wiping at the wetness collected there and he thinks that from now on he doesn’t want to miss a single tear.

They break apart and breathe in the same air. Share another moment containing hundreds of moments, but this time it consists of moments that never were. Kisses never shared, tearful eyes that never had the opportunity to find comfort and understanding in each other. It is years spent apart that wore down their hearts and shrivelled their thoughts.

5. Share or describe a favorite comment you received: I don’t think I can pick one. There are people who’ve told me my writing makes them cry, that it’s one of their favourite fics, that I’ve moved them and that they come back to read my stories again and again. I have no words to describe how much every single comment means, especially if someone take the time to say why they enjoyed the story. Okay now I’m weepy so I better stop.

6. A time when writing was really, really hard: I struggled quite a bit with Remind Me Again at times because the story was so intuitive to me and it’s difficult to get that to make sense to other people. I knew the feeling I wanted to get across, knew why things were happening the way they were, but the characters didn’t always make sense and sometimes it felt like I was swimming in an ocean of jumbled messy EMOTIONS that made no sense outside my own head. Thank to the gods Nic was there to pull my out of it. Over and over. And over again.

7. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you: I would say… no? The stories don’t always end up the way I thought they would, but I think they very rarely surprise me. I guess Remind Me Again was more of a continuous stream of revelations though haha. More like things falling into place than coming out of left field? I dunno.

8. How did you grow as a writer this year: Oh my god. I became a writer this year hahaha! I learned that all these thoughts and feelings (cheers to that if you don’t need them!) that I’ve carried around with me my whole life can be put down and other people can read it and enjoy the things that I’ve kept locked up for so long? Amaze.

What has helped me the most is HANDS DOWN working with the most incredible beta in the world, Nic @louandhazaf . She puts words to the mess that is the thoughts in my head and makes me sit down and think about why a character does something. She makes me see that sometimes less is more. Sometimes more is definitely more so why the frick aren’t I showing that? She makes me think more like a storyteller and a writer rather than just someone vomiting feelings into a computer.

9. How do you hope to grow next year: I’d like to get better at what I already think is my strength, which is stories that are emotionally/character driven. To understand that it’s okay to write like that, but that it also doesn’t mean it has to be all over the place heh.

I would however like to get better at world building and maybe, at least a little bit, dip my toes into more plot based stories…. okay that will literally never happen who am I kidding. I guess what I’d like is to get better at using the surroundings and symbols, to try to be more structured even when it comes to things beyond timelines and scenes.

I just want to keep writing and find new stories to write and characters to fall in love with and discover my own writing while doing that. I still feel extremely new to the process of writing so. I think I should be kind to myself and just let me enjoy it haha.

10. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc): NIIIIIIICCCC! <33333 I literally could never thank her enough. The thought and the time she’s put into helping me, to make my writing make sense to myself, to push me and question me and make me annoyed at myself because I kind of sort of already knew that didn’t make sense but I didn’t CARE and now she’s pointing to the mess and asks What is this? Why is it? but THEN we get to the best part which is when her questions makes me think and then new inspiration hits and all I want to do is write write write. I cannot believe my luck to have found you and get to call you my friend on top of that. Miracles and all that.

I also have to say, I read so much fic and this fandom has so much of it that is absolutely mind blowingly spectacular. I think reading is one of the best ways to become a better writer because it sort of… stretches out your mind and it makes you think about why that writer made you belly drop to the bottom of the ocean with just one word. God I love the writers of this fandom so incredibly much, your words mean so much to me, both as a writer and as a like... human being.

11. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year: I have read and related to m/m fic since I was very young. It’s been a way for me to escape reality but also find comfort in characters that are more like me than heteronormative mainstream stories. Then this year I started reading f/f and my world tilted off its axis and put a billions thoughts in my head that I thought I was done dealing with a thousand years ago. Then I sat down and wrote girl direction myself and yeah. Gods I love girls.

12. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers: BE KIND TO YOURSELF! Honestly the fact that you’ve written anything at all is AMAZING. Every single word you put on that page is wonderful. If you don’t let yourself explore and need everything to be perfect from the start, it won’t be fun and you’ll never learn more. You learn by making mistakes and just writing, no matter what it is. Betas, editing and rewriting are the magical words.

13. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year: -Oh gosh. I’m reaaaally looking forward to posting my Hope Floats AU that will probably come out in January. I have worked on it since this summer and it’s made me sweat and cry and laugh. Cannot wait to show it to you guys and I’m so happy @curleduphl is doing amazing artwork for it <3

-I’ll continue writing my girl direction series. I have the next part planned out, I just need to… write it.

-I have a “summer nights” fic that I hope to write. They’re teenagers and it’s summer and Louis skates at the park every night and Harry cannot stop staring. I already have a playlist for it soooo… haha.

-Louis babysits Harry’s cat and has a deep and meaningful conversation with the cat about his feelings for her Papa.

-Omega/Omega fic. I love ABO fics and I’ve had this idea forever. I hope I can gather up the guts to actually write it. Friends to lovers and ridiculous amounts of pining.

-I would also like to write a snippet from the Them Butterflies series. They are at a lake house with their friends and Harry has been really quiet over the past few days.

-THE INCREDIBLE AMAZING IDEA THAT WILL COME TO ME ANY SECOND NOW

14. Tag three writers/artists whose answers you’d like to read. ;)

I don’t know if you’ve been tagged before but I’d love to read this from @haloeverlasting @rosegoldhl @indiaalphawhiskey <3333

[callunavulgari]

Scrapbook 2018

Scrapbook for 2018! A reminder, for myself and others-

Italicized titles = enjoyed muchly, bold titles = love, titles with an asterisk* = OBSESSION and titles in (brackets) are re-watches/re-reads. And lastly, strikethough = DISLIKE.

Goals are: read forty-five new books this year, finish six video games, write either 30 fics or 70k total, finish the damn Sabriel AU, and write something original. 

MOVIES

January

(Guardians of the Galaxy 2)

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

February

(LOTR: Fellowship)

(Wonder Woman)

Black Panther

Annihilation

March

The Ritual

Cloverfield Paradox

Pacific Rim Uprising

A Wrinkle In Time

(Star Wars: The Force Awakens)

(IT)

(Star Wars: The Last Jedi)

April

Wolf Children

Moonlight

The Red Turtle

Europa Report

Avengers: Infinity War

May

A Quiet Place

Alien

Deadpool 2

The Conjuring

BOOKS

January

A Tale For The Time Being | Ruth Ozeki

La Belle Sauvage | Phillip Pullman [Fin]

London Falling | Paul Cornell

A Swiftly Tilting Planet | Madeline L’Tengle [Fin]

In Other Lands | Sarah Rees Brennan [Fin]

They Both Die In The End | Adam Silvera [Fin]

Thunderhead | Neal Shusterman [Fin]

The Sun and Her Flowers | Rupi Kaur [Fin]

The Paper Magician | Charlie Holmberg 

February

A Tale For The Time Being | Ruth Ozeki [Fin]

The Diviners | Libba Bray [Fin]

The Paper Magician | Charlie Holmberg [Fin]

We Were Liars | E Lockhart [Fin]

Lair of Dreams | Libba Bray [Fin]

The Tropic of Serpents | Marie Brennan

The Goblin Emperor | Katherine Addison

I Am: Seventeen Brushes With Death | Maggie O’Farrell [Fin]

Norse Mythology | Neil Gaiman [Fin]

Phasma | Delilah Dawson

Caraval | Stephanie Garber

March

The Tropic of Serpents | Marie Brennan

The Goblin Emperor | Katherine Addison [Fin]

Phasma | Delilah Dawson [Fin]

Caraval | Stephanie Garber [Fin]

Tess of the Road | Rachel Hartman [Fin]

Clariel | Garth Nix [Fin]

Seraphina | Rachel Hartman [Fin]

Before The Devil Breaks You | Libba Bray

April

Before The Devil Breaks You | Libba Bray [Fin]

The Tropic of Serpents | Marie Brennan

Salt to the Sea | Ruta Sepetys  [Fin]

The Wicked Deep | Shea Ernshaw  [Fin]

Hamlet | William Shakespeare  [Fin]

Fangirl | Rainbow Rowell [Fin]

The Scorpion Rules | Erin Bow [Fin]

The Thief | Megan Whalen Turner [Fin]

Hear The Wind Sing | Haruki Murakami [Fin]

May

The Tropic of Serpents | Marie Brennan [Fin]

Only Human | Sylvain Neuvel [Fin]

World War Z | Max Brooks [Fin]

The Queen of Attolia | Megan Whalen Turner [Fin]

The Stand | Stephen King

Shadow Scale | Rachel Hartman [Fin]

London Falling | Paul Cornell [Fin]

Goldenhand | Garth Nix [Fin]

PODCASTS

January:

N/A

February

N/A

March

The Bright Sessions (Eps 30-41)

Wolf 359 (Eps 5-8)

King Falls AM (Eps 5-6)

April

The Bright Sessions (Eps 41-52)

Wolf 359 (Eps 8-13)

King Falls AM (Eps 6-7)

Penumbra Podcast (Episode 1)

May

Wolf 359 (Eps 14-49)

The Bright Sessions (53-55)

TV SHOWS BY SEASON

January:

Planet Earth II

Devilman Crybaby

Steven Universe s4

Brooklyn Nine-Nine s1

RWBY s5

(Stranger Things 2)

The Orville

(The X-Files)

The Flash s3

February

The Flash s3

Brooklyn Nine-Nine

The Gifted

The Good Place

The Runaways

AP Bio

March

Voltron s5

(Soul Eater)

Battlestar Galactica

(Sailor Moon)

Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Cards

Bride of the Ancient Magus

Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress

April

Battlestar Galactica

Legion

The Flash

AP Bio

(Yu Yu Hakusho)

Persona 5 Animation

Westworld s2

May

Westworld s2

Legion

The Flash

Lost In Space s1

Persona 5 Animation

Siren s1

Steven Universe s5

VIDEO GAMES

January:

Prey (18 hrs)

Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds (20 hrs, FIN)

Monster Hunter World (8 hrs)

February

Monster Hunter World (25 hrs)

Kingdom Hearts BBS (1 hr)

March

Monster Hunter World (25 hrs) 

Witcher 3 [FIN JFC]

Stellaris

Life Is Strange

April

Life Is Strange

Final Fantasy 12: Zodiac Age

Dragon Age: Inquisition (Dany - 98 hrs; Brienne - 5 hrs)

May

Dragon Age: Inquisition (Dany - 138 hrs - FIN; Brienne - 5 hrs)

SOMA

Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone DLC

DELIGHTFUL FIC

January:

Just the One, Two by Panny | Jessica Jones | Jessica/Trish | 10k They say you should never meet your heroes, but what about when you've been sort of in love with them since they broke your mother's marble sink? 

Daylight by @notbecauseofvictories | Star Wars | Rey/Luke | 3k “Can I ask what you think it is you’re doing?” Luke says. His voice is only a little strangled. The silence that falls in its place is awkward, thick as sand. “Oh,” Rey stutters out. “Is that not—?” “No,” Luke grits out. “Please put your clothes back on.”

run all the lights by @fahye | Captive Prince | Damen/Laurent | 8.5k He’s a slim, too-pretty boy of twenty, and the men of this particular underworld talk about him as though he’s an open flame, a sparking engine near a pool of gasoline: volatile, and not to be handled. Kid’s got balls of sheer fucking steel, Damen’s contact said. Which must be true, because having just lost a race against Damen for pink slips, Laurent looks him straight in the eye and says, “Double or nothing?” in a voice like vodka poured straight from the freezer.

They Say It's Mighty Fine by apocryphal | Teen Wolf | Sterek | 23k "Hello. This is Alpha Vernon Boyd, calling from Camp Remus about—""Derek?" Talia asks, confused. "You're calling about Derek? Is he okay? What happened?""Oh, boy." Melissa blows out a breath. "All right. Is he hurt?""He's been there for two hours, what could he possibly have—" John pauses. "Hang on, Camp Remus? Like the werewolf camp?"

León de mi Corazón by clockheartedcrocodile | The Exorcist | Tomas/Marcus | 16k | Not for the first time, Marcus wishes he were a poet. Tomas drinks up beautiful words like wine, practically thrives on them. He thinks of his own clumsy attempt at a letter, begun and re-begun until the whole thing had been consigned to the rubbish bin. It was laughable.Besides, he thinks, Tomas and Jessica wrote letters because they could not have each other.“You have me,” he says, quiet enough that Tomas won’t wake.

Things Worth Knowing by Femme (femmequixotic) | HP | Drarry | 163k After the Battle, Harry thinks he's left Hogwarts for good, but Minerva insists that all students return for an Eighth Year if they wish to sit for NEWTs in the spring, and Harry needs those NEWTs to go into the Aurors. Draco's just grateful not to be in Azkaban. Or the Manor. He's hoping he can steer clear of Potter this year and grapple with his own problems.

Under the Covers by ToAStranger | Stranger Things | Steve/Billy | 72k Steve is (maybe) a little bit still in love with Nancy Wheeler and (maybe) trying to figure himself out-- between the night terrors and the babysitting and the general weirdness that is Hawkins, Indiana-- before he graduates.Billy Hargrove fits in there somewhere (probably).

the party never ends by brawlite | Stranger Things | Steve/Billy | 7k Billy wants a fight from Steve Harrington. He'll do just about anything to get it, too.

February

what a wicked game you played (to make me feel this way) by brawlite, ToAStranger | Stranger Things | Steve/Billy | WIP | Billy knew Steve Harrington would ruin him. Steve knew Billy Hargrove was nothing but trouble.They never expected it to end up like this.

don't just stand there by brawlite | Stranger Things | Steve/Billy | 3.5k Steve kisses a stranger in a club in a desperate attempt to spurn an advance from an unwanted admirer. Turns out, it's not really a stranger at all.

there's nothing wrong with me (loving you, baby) by ToAStranger | Stranger Things | Steve/Billy | 4.6k | “Mr. Hargrove,It has come to HR’s attention that you have, once again, used company property incorrectly. Please refrain from using the break room as a work out facility during your lunch hour. If you are in need a gym recommendation, I'm happy to provide you some. Remove your weights from the lower cabinets at your earliest convenience.Regards, S. Harrington”This isn’t the first ridiculous email Steve has had to send to Hargrove, and Steve sincerely doubts it will be his last.

in waves by lymricks | Stranger Things | Steve/Billy | 45k Plant your feet, Billy wants to scream at him. I’m going to bowl you over.

can't you see them? (can't you feel them?) by ToAStranger | Stranger Things | Billy/Steve | 8k | They're breathing down your neck.

Little Pockets of Upturned Loneliness by SeptemberEndings | Stranger Things | Gen | 5k | Months pass, and nothing bad happens to Will.

isizathu by black_nata | Black Panther | T’Challa/Erik | 8k |  "What do you want?" T'Challa whispers. Almost like he's pleading. All Erik wants to do is wrap his fist around that smooth throat and make him beg some more.

falling for you in hawkins, indi-fucking-ana by LazyBaker | Stranger Things | Steve/Billy | 31k | Billy gets his shit together. Steve figures some stuff out. They fall in love.

thank god you see me the way you do by LazyBaker | Stranger Things | Steve/Billy | 6k |  Five times Billy has had sex and one time he made love.

Secrets Make This Town by Oop | Stranger Things | Steve/Billy/Hopper | 5k | Hopper knows that Billy Hargrove sucks cock like he was born for it and he knows Steve Harrington is hung like a pornstar. He knows these by accident.

March

another city (better than this one) by notbecauseofvictories | Star Wars | Gen, Ben Solo & Lando | 6k | “You really should be more creative with your aliases,” Lando says mildly. “I’ve had every anagram of ‘Skywalker’ flagged since the first time you tried to run away from home.”

his hands so cold they shake by plinys | FBAWTFT | Percival/Credence | 4k |  A soul mate is meant to be a blessing, but Percival feels anything but blessed.

We Keep Meeting by scioscribe | Hamilton | Hamilton & Burr | 4.5k |  In which Hamilton finds himself a little more non-stop than even he expected, and Burr doesn't know why he's surprised that even death can't make Alexander Hamilton lie down and be quiet.

There Aren't Any Stars in the Sky by Ambrosia | Star Wars | Reylo | 4k | “Why are you here?” Rey asks. She appears to be meditating. Even his muscles remember the basics. Her eyes are peacefully closed.“Your mind is most open when you Jedi meditate, ‘letting everything go’,” he tells her, striding around in a vicious, predatory circle. “Which you would know if you had an at least halfway-competent teacher.”

Found Wanting by sellertape | The Bright Sessions | Mark/Damien | 2k | It didn’t take superpowers to know what Mark wanted him to say. He wanted him to lie. It didn’t take superpowers to get Damien to do what you wanted.

pull out the insides by SpineAndSpite | The Bright Sessions | Mark/Damien | 4k | “Stop,” Damien says again, more insistent this time.“I’m not doing it on purpose.” Mark's heart pounds in his ears and he sees Damien’s hands shaking. God. They shouldn’t have started talking about sex. Shouldn’t have filled in the colors and shadows to this pencil outline of a sketch forming between them. They shouldn’t have given it a name.

Life Is Not A Love Song by DetectiveJoan | The Bright Sessions | Mark/Damien | 4k |  “Oh, you know the old saying — once bitten, twice mildly paranoid that everyone you’ve ever met is secretly working for the shady government agency that kidnapped you.” Mark's voice is sing-song through the dressing room door.

I Want You To Want Me by Ryuutchi | The Bright Sessions | Mark/Damien | 4k | Food, scotch, sex-- I don’t know, Damien; there's a lot of good things in life.

(coming for the king, that's) a far cry by lipgallagher | Stranger Things | Steve/Billy | 17k |  billy and steve 'pretend' to be gay boyfriends in love for what is essentially just extremely small-time personal gain.

all these to me by lymricks | Stranger Things | Steve/Billy | 9k |  Three times Steve and Billy share (a bed, a meal, the truth) and one time they share (a virus).

Until My Feet Bleed and My Heart Aches by Reiya | Yuri On Ice | Yuuri/Viktor | 197k | ‘…Of all the rivalries in the world of sports over the years, perhaps none has become so legendary as that of Russian figure skater Viktor Nikiforov and his rival, Japanese Yuuri Katsuki…’

no need to say goodbye by smolsarcasticraspberry | Voltron | Allura/Shiro | 13k | The juniberry tree blossoms every seven years, and when it does, a gateway opens up to another world - a world that Shiro first explores as a child. There, he meets Allura.

(shoot the lights out, hide) till its bright out by lipgallagher | Stranger Things | Billy/Steve | 50k | The most dangerous thing walking around Hawkins goes by the name Billy Hargrove. And he fucking knows it.

April

so this guy walks into a bar by MasterOfAllImagination | Pacific Rim | Newt/Hermann | 2.5k | “Bourbon,” Hermann says, hooking his cane on the edge of the bar and sliding by degrees onto a stool.“Straight up?” the bartender asks.“Please.” Does he look like the kind of man who enjoys having his nostrils fumigated by undiluted whiskey? “On the rocks.”

Seeing in Color by what_alchemy | Pacific Rim | Newt/Hermann |  The Dr. Geiszler Hermann had found in the publications — printed pages worn with constant handling and tucked into his briefcase for easy access — was an eloquent scientist whose work functioned at a level far above almost anyone else Hermann had ever encountered in the field, and yet he neither patronized his readers nor expressed himself in the inexplicable jargon which so infected much academic work.

Strong Enough by therealraewest | Pacific Rim | Newt/Hermann | 4k |  "I would like to speak to Newt."

Laying Siege by astolat | GOT | Jaime/Brienne | 8k | “Marry me instead,” Jaime said.

Fool by astolat | GOT | Jaime/Brienne | 15k | Jaime didn’t really expect things to go well when he rode north, but after all, they hadn’t been going well otherwise, so it wasn’t that much of a change.

heartstrings by taylortot | Miraculous Ladybug | Marinette/Adrien | 60k |  one of marinette’s rare unlucky days turns into something treacherous. thanks to a certain cat, the real danger passes, but there are other things to be more afraid of. her heart, for example, might be one of them.

Words by astolat | GOT | Jaime/Brienne | 10k |  “So we’ll look for you in the North," Robb Stark said, "coming to pay your debt."

ashes to ashes, dust to dust by romanoff | Marvel | Tony/Steve | 2k | Series | Steve and Tony seek closure with a conversation.

nanna by biggrstaffbunch | Thor | Thor/Loki | 1k |  Thor, after.

just in it for the game by grim_lupine | Thor | Thor/Loki | 6k |  “It's excellent rehabilitation for my image,” Loki says, widening his eyes. “They love you, and because of that they'll trust me. You wouldn't ruin this for me, would you?” 

May

these fragments by Wildehack (Tyleet) | Avengers | Loki/Valkyrie | 4k | “Someone has to survive this day,” Thor grinds out, pressed briefly close to her by the fight.“Someone will,” she tells him.

Make Me by Ajaxthegreat | Star Wars | Hux/Ben Solo | 52k | A genocidal megalomaniac Emperor and a very slutty smuggler/occasional Resistance spy walk into a bar.

cherry pie by brawlite, ToAStranger | Stranger Things | Billy/Steve | 61k | illy Hargrove lives for summer. Endless sunshine, heavily chlorinated pools, roaming ice cream trucks, and unencumbered freedom? There’s nothing better.Even being stuck in Hawkins can’t ruin the summer for him. He eats it up, devouring every day whole.***

the ghost and good queen val by Wildehack (Tyleet) | Thor | Loki/Valkyrie/Thor | 8k |  “Oh my god,” Korg says. “You did! You saw a ghost!”

Suspicious Minds by astolat | DA | Iron Bull/Dorian, Inquisitor/Solas | 4k | “Hm,” Bull said, thoughtfully. “Something I’ve been curious about. Solas.”“You want to talk about another man now?” Dorian said.

  By The Still Waters by emilyenrose | DA | Fenhawke; Inquisitory/Solas | 83k | Hawke was left in the Fade. Fenris goes looking for him. He doesn't go alone.

Some Things Are Certain by cupiscent | Star Wars | Anakin/Obi-Wan | 7k | Detained far from where he should be by random chance, Obi-Wan meets an unusual slave.

For Better or Worse by DragonBandit | The Bright Sessions | Damien/Mark | 22k |  Wherein Damien and Mark are soulmates, and this changes enough.**

killing me to love you by mostlikelydefinentlymad | The Bright Sessions | Damien/Mark | 2k |  Mark waits by the phone.

give my reflection a break by autoeuphoric (FreezingRayne) | The Bright Sessions | Damien/Joan | 5k | When the bell rings, she almost doesn’t answer. She hasn’t ordered anything and it’s too early for carolers. She does not speak to her neighbors, and she’s not about to start today.Joan gets up and answers the door anyway. Because she wants to.

Try, Try, Try Again by anticyclone | The Bright Sessions | 8k | Joan gets mugged. Damien interrupts. Interrupting is kind of his thing.

sharp shock to your soft side by agivise | The Bright Sessions | Mark & Damien | 22k | The universe is a cruel, unforgiving bitch, and honestly, he's a little sick and tired of it. Sure, he deserves it or whatever, but still, totally uncool, universe. Real poor timing.

Scarier Things by starkraving | The Bright Sessions | Mark & Damien | 5k |  Mark drags Damien back across the country in what amounts to the most karmic reverse kidnapping in history, but stopping to take hipster pics of scenic overlooks will not protect you from the scary stuff lurking in the liminal space behind highway truck-stops.

Patient Intake by starkraving | The Bright Sessions | Joan & Damien | 9k |  ssume Joan takes a less passive approach to Damien’s influence in her life. Assume she’s sitting in her car with the engine running and he’s on the sidewalk in front of her. Assume there’s six months between this moment and the moment she first met him.  

Artifice by buttpatrol | Wolf 359 | Eiffel/Hera | 23k | A story told in parts about colour palettes, identity, robot uprisings, sensational trials, space, and messy love.

blow your mongrel mind by endquestionmark | Wolf 359 | Eiffel/Jacobi | 13k | The first time Eiffel sees Colonel Warren Kepler — shockingly real, after so many days spent somewhere between delusion and despair — what strikes him most is how still Kepler is.

Calling Out My Name by vlasdygoth | Wolf 359 | Jacobi/Kepler | 2.5k | Five times Kepler called Jacobi a pet name, and one time Jacobi managed to pull it off on him.

and twice as bright by endquestionmark | Wolf 359 | Eiffel/Hera | 6k |  “Eiffel.” Very quiet, hardly audible through the echoes. “What is it like?” 

DELIGHTFUL FANVIDS

January:

2017 [Multifandom Mashup]

MCU Films // ♫Can't You Hear Me Knocking (12 Strong trailer version)♫

Arya & Brienne // The Rules Were Wrong

play with fire [Black Butler]

kylo ren & rey【 In a Dream, in a Nightmare 】TLJ spoilers

Stranger Things || Above and Below

Jim Hopper || Do you ever feel cursed?

Stranger Things || Sweet Dreams

February

Stranger Things || Time After Time 

Darth Vader // The Force is strong with you

Game of Thrones || We Live In A Beautiful World

Allison Argent | Look What You Made Me Do

Kylo Ren and Rey l Hearts A Mess

►Stranger Things | Stay Alive

not alone | stranger things

Will Byers || You're home now

March

Voltron | Cosmic Love 

Voltron | Broken Crown

River, MARVEL. [2k]

Voltron | Radioactive

S O L D I E R ll Voltron AMV

Loki // Hustler

a morphine toast

Bucky x Steve || Brooklyn (Go Hard)

Fullmetal Alchemist || Brother

Anime Mix - Legends Never Die [AMV]

Death Parade AMV - Feeling Good

AMV - Crucible of Souls - Bestamvsofalltime Anime MV ♫

[AMV] Transmutayshun - FullMetall Alchemist: Brotherhood

AMV Dazzling Inferno

April

kylo ren || animal

FLESH || Yuri on Ice

Roman&Peter || Piece by piece

◼️ quentin&eliot; give me love

Hannibal/Will - Take Me Back

Kylo Ren // In The End

(Marvel) Avengers | The End

Thomas & Newt ✘ Could I have saved him?

Multifandom || Wake Up

The Avengers | The Final Curtain

(SW) Darth Vader | A Light In Darkness

loki laufeyson | saturn (+ragnarok)

Loki - Birthright

May

Infinity War | I Was Here 

Avengers: Infinity War

MARVEL || Bohemian Rhapsody

River, MARVEL. [2k]

The Expanse || A War Built On Lies

Avengers || Together

MARVEL || Lions Inside (collab w/ djcprod)

COMIC FILMS - Bohemian Rhapsody

Pixar: The Complete Supercut (2018)

Let Us Be Brave

👑black panther👑 

X-Men || Revolution (ft. Ruelle)

DELIGHTFUL MUSIC

January:

Choir & Crickets | Jeff Russo

Black Lung Heartache | Joe Bonamassa

Undiscovered First | Feist

Tribe Society - Kings

MIX - MAURICE RAVEL Bolero

Never Give Up | Sia

Silvertongue | Young the Giant

Vikings Soundtrack

February

Sweet Dreams | Mark Hadley

A Hazy Shade of Winter | The Bangles

White Rabbit | Jefferson Starship

Stranger Things Theme | Kyle Dixon

Go To War | Nothing More

Does Your Heart Break | The Brilliance

Please Speak Well of Me | The Weepies

Smallest Light | Ingrid Michaelson

Flying | Cody Fry

My Friends | Oh Wonder

New Rules | Dua Lipa

Young As The Morning Old As the Sea | Passengers

Never Be The Same | Camila Cabello

Slow Down Love | Louis the Child

Come Together | Gary Clark Jr.

Don’t Think Twice | Utada Hikaru

Your Tongue Like The Sun In My Mouth | Sophie B. Hawkins

&Run | Sir Sly

Giver | K.Flay

Black Panther Soundtrack

March

Daddy Issues | The Neighbourhood

Whatever It Takes | Imagine Dragons

Carry Me Back To Her Arms | Jessica Curry

The Healing | Gary Clark Jr.

These Days | The Black Keys

No Roots | Alice Merton

Susanne Sundfør | The Golden Age

The Blue Whale | Steven Price

Everywhere' by J2

Sinners | Barns Courtney

Sam Tinnesz - Play With Fire (feat. Yacht Money)

Here | Junna

Robert DeLong - Favorite Color Is Blue (Lyric Video) ft. K.Flay

Steve James | Warrior

Hold My Liquor | Kanye West

Sweatpants | Childish Gambino

April

The Sailor Song | Autoheart

Steve James - Warrior (feat. LIGHTS)

Mother Mother - Reaper Man

Hello | Via Audio

Beyoncé | Back to Black

James Brown - It's A Man's Man's Man's World

Emeli Sande - Daddy

Nathan Angelo - Leigh

"In The End" Linkin Park Cinematic Cover (feat. Jung Youth & Fleurie)

May

Black Space/Stand By Me | Imagine Dragons

Dear God | Lawless

Sinners and Saints | Andrea Wasse

Ghost | Natasha Blume

Peter Gundry - Tales of the Night

Metal Gear Solid V Medley: Quiet's Theme / Sins of the Father | Freya Catherine

SOWULO - Yule

WOLVEN STORM ORCHESTRAL COVER (Witcher 3 - Priscilla's Song)

Amulet | Copal

Holding Out for a Hero | Nothing But Thieves

WRITTEN FIC

January:

N/A

February

Everybody's Looking For Something | Stranger Things | Steve/Billy | 4,790 words | On the third weekend of May during their last year at Hawkins High, Steve Harrington throws a party.Billy crashes it.

taste you on my tongue | Stranger Things | Steve/Billy | 2,290 words | “You’ve never felt pleasure like it, Steve,” an old girlfriend had told him once, her eyes bright with memory. Steve shrugged. “No vampires here, though.” 

March

Home | Star Wars | Reylo | 1,670 words | “Rey,” he says into the quiet. “Just drive.”

April

hits like a drum | Stargate Atlantis | Mcshep | 3,507 words | “Believe it or not, having something with sharp teeth breathing down your neck is not actually conducive to one’s thought process.” John barks out a loud, abrupt noise that might be laughter, his breath tickling the hairs at the base of Rodney’s neck. “I’d have thought it would be good motivation.”

feed the hunger | Stranger Things | Steve/Billy | 1,792 words | “Thought you wanted to fuck me, Hargrove,” Steve whispers, and presses a sweet kiss to the hinge of Billy's jaw. “Now's your chance.”

Apotheosis | Marvel - INFINITY WAR | Thor/Loki, Steve/Pepper/Tony | 4,450 words | Grief, a story told in three parts.

May

N/A

FANMIXES/GRAPHICS

January

2018

February

We Could Be Heroes

Daddy Issues

March

N/A

April

Newmann 

May

danien: back in black

[connorrenwick]

What No-one Tells You About Becoming a Parent by BrandsExclusive

No matter how many times you babysit, how many puppies you hugged as a child or how many times you’ve watched The Wiggles with your nephew, you can never truly be prepared for parenting. We polled some in-house experts (which, ahem, may or may not have included ourselves) to learn what they found to be the most surprising things about being a parent.

Not even the bathroom is a private place We hope you enjoyed all those times you got to pee with the door closed because, friend, those days are well and truly over. Same goes for showers, shaving, plucking and any kind of hair removal at all, actually.

… and your private parts are certainly not private anymore Men have been trying to figure out how to answer “What’s that, daddy?” since the dawn of time. If you can come up with a non-awkward response, we’re all ears.

Kids are far too honest Nothing crushes the soul quite like a three-year old lovingly touching your face as they ask “are you 100 years old mummy?” … except maybe when that same child starts poking you in the tummy and telling you that you feel squishy.

Sleep was a nice thing to have Remember when you were a child, and you simply could not wait to jump out of bed in the morning? Payback is brutal. From crying sporadically through the night as a newborn, to being scared of monsters under the bed as a three-year-old, to pre-teen sleepovers, house parties and (just when you think the stress is over) having a child who can legally stay out drinking until all hours of the morning… you can kiss goodbye to a full eight hours for at least the next 18 years.

You will doubt yourself No matter how confident you are in making decisions in your everyday life, parenting is a whole new ballgame. You will constantly be asking yourself “is this what my child needs?”, “is this what my child wants?”, “am I doing the right thing by my child?”. There is no right answer here unfortunately – you’ve just got to do your best!

You will think your child is the best looking child to ever exist Remember when you were child-less and you saw a strange-looking baby and you wondered whether the parent realised how weird looking their child was? They didn’t.

You will worry, constantly Parenting feels like a dangerous business. How many different ways could that coaster cause injury? How can we be truly sure that trampolines are safe? That the school bus is a trustworthy mode of transport and that little Jimmy isn’t leading your totally innocent child astray?

You will come to rely on your partner more than ever before In both a practical and emotional sense, you will need to have each other’s back, to provide support, love, an ear and understanding. When it comes to parenting, team work truly does make the dream work.

Everyone has an opinion Every child, every pregnancy, every birth, every relationship and every life is unique – and yet everyone has an opinion on how to do it right. All you can do is make decisions that you believe to be best for you and your family.

There’s always room in your heart for one more On your wedding day your heart is so full of love and joy that you don’t know how life could get any better. But then you get a puppy, and somehow your heart gets even fuller, and by the time your first child comes along your heart is so full of love that you can hardly breathe. You don’t know how you could find more love to give a second child, but you do. Same goes for your third. Fourth. Fifth. Sixth (you crazy person!).

The post What No-one Tells You About Becoming a Parent appeared first on BrandsExclusive Blog.

from WordPress https://connorrenwickblog.wordpress.com/2018/03/28/what-no-one-tells-you-about-becoming-a-parent-by-brandsexclusive/

[evodex]

14 days of Everest Base Camp: Pages From My Travel Journal I

Everest Base Camp Trek

There is a real world and a mountain world and I have existed in both. In the mountain world, we play different roles and it tests us in our weakest moments and bares our souls even to strangers. We feel a strange connection with people we may never meet again in life but while we exist there, we are bonded. We were a team of eleven strangers, some known to each other, some not but while in the mountains we became the EBC family.

While you are looking and probably reading the blog to know more about the trek, I can’t do justice to the same without sharing my experience and the background story. So when I decided earlier this year that I wanted to do the EBC trek, my only experience was a low altitude 5-day hike that I had done in Iceland last year and more grueling 100 kms trail walk under 48 hours. While the former was easy to medium level the latter was a test of grit. I was reaching a milestone in my life and I knew I had to do this to make this special but I needed one more such crazy person and I have to admit that I asked a lot of people around me. Meera, my trail walker teammate agreed to it. She was a little unsure but I hung on to the idea and made sure she doesn’t back out. It was only later that I figured out many occasions that she was made of sterner stuff and I was glad for it.

EBC(Everest Base Camp) at 5564 meters is the holy grail for all mountaineers, for the ones who claim to be and the ones who actually summit, all have to touch forehead here. The trek has been marked as medium to difficult and trust me whether it is the lack of oxygen, hours of climbing, the substandard tea houses, gross common toilets or commonly occurring landslides on the way, they all test your grit, passion, and ambition. Which is why I strongly believe that no person who decides to go on this trek is ordinary but whether it’s a mom who does it for her child or a mom who does it leaving her kids behind for three weeks, or a seventy-year-old or a first-time trekker they are all driven by their own reasons.

Kathmandu, Nepal

We arrived in Kathmandu on the 27th of October and were accommodated in the Thamel resort. Meera and I chose to arrive a day early and catch up on some sightseeing. Both of us are moms to two kids and it took us months of planning, begging parents to babysit and overcoming all the motherly instincts when we realised that we will be away from our kids for a really long time. I have been away for a week at times but 19 days was too much. We kept two extra days to sightsee. Some of the touristy things to do in Kathmandu are Pashupatinath, Durbar square, Bodhinath, Patan etc. 

Your guide will give you an orientation a day before you leave and that’s the day you will end up meeting your group as well. Let me introduce them to you to them. You already have a background of Meera and me. The next was a group of five; an American named Justin( 36 years old), Sunil Nehru(71 years), and Ashok Mahadevan(69 years), Anita Singh(43 years) who was doing it again to mark her son Angad’s thirteenth birthday. Arun, an avid trekker(43 years), who has already done some 8-9 treks in the Himalayas. Then there were three brothers from Karnal, Rahul(40 years), Raghav(25 years), and Madhur(23 years), two of them were first-time trekkers and one had trekked in various national parks in the US but nothing as demanding as this one. The reason I have mentioned everyone’s age is to give you an idea of how varied the group was.

pic credit- Meera Prashant (Do not miss spotting Kunthal in the blue shirt who has climbed Everest and is celebrity status for all aspiring climbers.)

The next day Meera and I decided to cover up some sightseeing and headed to Bodhinath Stupa and then to the Sherpa shop, which was highly recommended by Meera’s friend for authentic trekking products. Kathmandu is the best place to buy trekking gear from brands like Northface, Icebreaker etc but you have to be careful about authenticity and make sure you buy Northface and not Northfake :).

P.S. We booked our trek with White Magic Adventures and while some people might like to trek on their own and it’s very possible, I would not suggest the same unless you are a hardcore trekker. Managing bookings at various tea houses, arranging for porters and taking care of the whole background work becomes too much. Plus if you fall ill your guide is your best shot to recognise the signs and fly you back to safety. We saw many helicopters evacuating people on a daily basis. 

For the ones who are reading for some inspiration in between our story you will know what the trek looks like; 

pic credit

The minor difference being that we skipped Pheriche during our trek.

Day 1 — Lukla(2850)/Begin Trek/Phakding (4-6 hours)

While booking your trek if you have done your research, unlike me, you would know that Lukla airport @2850 mtrs is listed in the top 10 dangerous airports in the world. We prayed hard to survive this as it would be a complete shame if our expedition would end before it even started. Luckily we had a smooth landing. Next, we headed to Yak Donald’s resort and met our porters there. The highlight was meeting two women porters Anjali and Dilmaya who would be lifting around 30 kgs each and pacing with the male porters. They were indeed superwomen in their own right, a fine example of women liberation and empowerment. I was so proud of them.

We started our trek at around 8.30 and we trekked from Lukla to Fakding. Most of the trek is downhill, you descend down along the river Dudh Kosi(which means milk river) and this day was easy. We stopped at around 11.30 for lunch. Lunch was a standard for all Nepali veg thali set and then ginger honey tea which was really nice. Little did I know that slowly I will get bored of my wits eating these. On the way, you will pass many beautifully embossed stones known as the ‘Mane Pathar’. They have some mantra written on them, most probably it says “OM Mane Padmai Hum’, a very well known Buddhist mantra. You cannot miss them. 

The people in Nepal are very friendly and the Nepali kids are used to strangers. They love posing for pictures and I got a few lovely shots with them. 

Loved how he was playing with his cycle.

Once we reached Fakding, Meera and I decided to voice record our day on our phones so that we can pen it down when we reach home. It was a brilliant idea, because, I am really reliving every day listening to them.

P.S. My right knee was already hurting as we had climbed down many stairs today, so I decided to tape it as I knew next day was going to be a lot more stairs and walking. This is a special roll tape which my physiotherapist had recommended I carry. I checked Youtube videos on how to apply the tape.

Day 2  — Phakding to Namche Bazaar(3440 mtrs) – (6-8 hours)

Every night before we retired to bed our guide Sanjeev, would give us a briefing on the day ahead. What we needed to wear, what to carry and what to expect on our trek. He told us that Phakding to Namche would be fewer steps but my phone stepper showed around 116 floors climbed at the end of the day. I think he purposely hid this bit from us to keep us away from the pressure. Now, this where I felt good about not doing research because had I read about this stretch earlier I would have been weighed down by what lay ahead. Sometimes having no expectations is great. Of course, we also had people like my dear mountain sister, Anita, who even after having done the trek in 2015 didn’t remember any parts of it and to counter her was Meera who knew the names of the Peak and all that was to know of the trail and someone who had watched the EBC youtube videos many times over . On day 4, we entered the Sagarmatha National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site, at Monjo.

Meera and Me

The entire Sagarmatha park is a wifi enabled zone and honestly, I was a little disappointed as I was looking forward to social media detox for the next few days. I had finished my work before flying to Nepal and left my team with instructions on how to handle it while I was away. This meant I would still be tempted to check my device.

The Dudh Kosi river in the background

We walked through villages along the Dudh Kosi river(Dudh-Milk, Kosi-River) and crossed multiple suspensions bridges. The most noteworthy was a double suspension bridge that we had to climb.

Double Suspension Bridge

The trek went on for four hours to reach Monjo and another four hours to reach Namche. The second half from Monjo to Namche was more of an uphill climb and was killing. I stopped on a few occasions to stretch but did not stop for too long as the body tends to start cooling down and then you start shivering. 

Taking a halt just before we reach Namche Bazaar

At 4.30 pm we saw the first steps to the market town of Namche Bazaar filled with Tea houses and restaurants and even spotted the Irish pub, which we marked for our return celebration. Today we celebrated with Pakodas, chai, and Mars roll( Mars chocolate dipped in flour batter and deep fried), very unique to this trail and would recommend it as a must try. Angad, the thirteen-year-old with us was the last one to reach but I was so impressed with this kid. No complaints, just very focussed. Ashok, on the other hand, walked with both his hands folded on the back, like a walk in the park. Both Ashok and Sunil(69 and 71 years to their credit), didn’t ever take breaks and managed to stay ahead of the pack. 

pic credit: Justin Brown

We changed into fresh clothing as we were sweating and wore an extra layer as it tends to get colder here. Here we met Shanon and Rebecca, two nurses from Las Vegas. What I learned from them was that they are going all the way to EBC and doing Kala Pathar but taking a helicopter back. They paid 2700 dollars for the entire trip which is way steeper than what I paid, but as they explained time is a valuable commodity for them and they couldn’t have taken more time off. Honestly, I was tempted but I knew I would feel unaccomplished if I didn’t walk the entire route back as well (an option that will keep clouding my mind many times on the way back).

P.S. You burn about 4000 calories per day, so stock up on those carbs people.

Day 3 — Acclimatisation Day At Namche

On the trail to EBC, the guiding companies plan a few acclimatisation/rest days for you to avoid medical issues and acclimatise better. These rest days don’t mean that you will laze around in the tea houses but they take you on short treks around the area. We had our first rest day at Namche and we hiked 250 meters up to see the Tenzing Norgay Museum. I was experiencing a little shortness of breath and then I saw these two women racing uphill. They were runners from Malaysia participating in the Everest Ultra Marathon which starts from EBC and goes all the way to Dingboche. The museum has a lot of information regarding Sagarmatha Park, the animals, flowers, people and about the various expeditions that were carried here. Would definitely recommend a visit here to the museum and also you get lovely views of the Everest from here if you are lucky to get clear weather unlike us. I picked up some medicines, an Icebreaker Merino wool base layer(you don’t get this brand in India and it’s expensive but worth it), a few t-shirts for my kids etc. This is also the destination where my guide adviced me to start Diamox which helps in combating altitude sickness. I napped for a few hours and woke up feeling terrible. All kind of thoughts were clouding me. It was just the start of the trek. If I was going to feel sick then how will I manage the rest of the days? I couldn’t even eat my food. Sanjeev, my guide was amazing. He told me to just remove every negative thought from my mind and relax. While I couldn’t it felt good to see someone tell you that. Luckily I had carried theplas(Gujrati bread) and ‘achar'(pickle) from home and polished away a few. The salt levels in my body improved and soon I was chasing a huge insect from our room, instead of lying down and pitying myself. My apologies for ever doubting the reasons for any Gujarati family to carry this stuff on their holidays. They were a boon that night.

    p.s. Some side effects of Diamox are that you pee a lot and might have blurry vision. 

p.s. Namche Bazaar is the last place where you can shop for anything you need for your trek and the last place you will find ATMs. 

Intrigued to know more about the Everest Base Camp? Keep reading, I promise to be back with more stories.  This post is getting too lengthy, so I am going to divide it into a few more posts as I am aware that reading so much can get boring. Until next post, Ciao and happy dreams of the mountain world.

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26 People Talk About The Paranormal Event That They Cant Find A Rational Explanation For

These stories from Ask Reddit are unexplainable. Unbelievable. But that doesn’t change the fact that they actually happened.

1. Anexact copy of my little girl walkedaround ourhouse

“I was annoyed with my daughter because she hadn’t cleaned her room in weeks so when I walked by her room and saw her standing there, I assumed she was doing what I said. A few minutes later, she walked out of the shower in the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her and asked why I was looking at her strangely. When I asked her who was in her room, she looked scared, too. I never figured out who that was but they didn’t clean up the room, either.” —musememo

2. My brother stumbledacrossanAboriginal spirit

“Not me but my twin brother, we were around 6 years old, and in central Australia with our dad and older brother.

We were doing some nature walk and he fell back a bit. He then screams and runs and catches up. He told my dad he had seen something.

Later that day we were in the town nearby and my twin pointed at a painting in an art gallery and said that the figure in it was what he had seen.

My dad went in to the gallery and asked the person at the counter what the figure in the painting was, and they said it is an Aboriginal spirit that takes children who wander too far from the camp or family.” —Baccarri

3. My dead sister threw her photographs off the walls

“I was watching my parents’ dog while they were out of town. My sister passed away in their house about a year prior. While I was there, I witnessed a picture of her fall off the wall. Then I discovered that EVERY picture of her in the house had fallen off the wall, seemingly at the same time. (They didn’t keep many pictures up in general, so it was only four different pictures.) I chalked it up to something shaking the house, even though we live in Ohio and I felt nothing.

I went home to my apartment. Face up on my desk was a picture of my sister and me that I knew I had packed away. I don’t believe in things like this but this occurred at a time where I was still very much actively grieving the loss of my sister and it hit me hard. Still can’t explain it.” —kingchuck419

4. My friend predicted his own death

“On the days before the Utya massacre one of my friends said that he had bad stomach cramps, as well as pain in his right hand. He kept rubbing the palm of his hand, as if to numb the pain a bit. We went to a doctor to see if we could find anything wrong, but they found nothing wrong at all.

About three days later he was killed by Anders Breivik. Shot three times in the stomach, once in his right hand.” —Meior

5. I had an encounter with a kindhearted spirit

“When I was young (probably around 8-10), I caught chickenpox. I woke up in the middle of the night one night, and called for my mom, because little kids can’t do SHIT for themselves when they’re sick.

A woman came into my bedroom and sat on my bed and stroked my hair until I fell asleep. For whatever reason, I thought it was my grandmother, but she was dressed funny.

When I woke up the next morning, I went downstairs for breakfast, and asked where my grandma was, and (naturally) my mom told me that she was at her house, like she always was.

I told my mom she’d been in my room the night before, and my mom laughed and said that I’d just been dreaming.

However, my aunt (who tended to believe that sort of thing more)was babysitting me that day (the upside to chicken pox meant there was no school for me) and I told her the story.

She asked me to describe the weird outfit, and it was a nurse’s outfit from the 50’s/early 60’s. My family knew the previous owners of the house. The wife was a nurse in the fifties, and had died a few months previously.

Can I say with 100% certainty that I had an encounter with a spirit? No. But it’s certainly a spooky coincidence.” —TheOneTrueChuck

6. A dead body appeared and reappeared in front of us

“When I was a child (10 years old), we lived on the North shore of the Shuswap Lake in BC. It was, then, very rural with a population of ~400 spread out over ten miles of beach front with farms up in the hills. No town, just a store, a post office and an old Indian trail that wound through the forest for perhaps a half mile near where I lived. We played on the trail all the time. One afternoon, my family, mother, father, brother myself and a friend went for a walk along the trail. My friend and I ran ahead at one point, out of sight of everyone. We stopped and were looking around and off, in the forest was a man, slumped over a fallen, rotting log with chickens pecking around him. I can still feel, and I’m talking 50 years in my past, the adrenalin blasting up my back as the figure lifted its head and looked at us with empty pecked out eyes. We screamed as both of us saw it and ran back to the adults. When my parents came to the spot with us, only the rotting log was there. To this day, I would not dare walk that path by myself.” —inlandviews

7. Spirits scratched up his arms and legs

“Not me, but my stepfather’s best friend (call him Jim) has supposedly been experiencing paranormal activity since he was a teenager. He’s a court reporter, stepdad was a speech writer, very skeptical and stoic guys.

There were countless stories. They got on an elevator full of people in downtown Atlanta, stopped at a floor that was all kinds of wrong — 1940s decor, abandoned, dusty — then the elevator went back down and opened on the opposite side of the building.

Jim’s dog died. A week later the stereo turned on by itself and started playing a song Jim loved to play for his pet. No cd inside. It had snowed the night before and there were paw prints in the backyard leading to the house, but none near the gate.

He frequently finds giant piles of coins under his pillow. He lived in London for a time, thinking he’d escaped the spirit (which had begun to scratch him hard on his arms and legs). After 6 months he found a little pile of pennies in his bed, even though he hadn’t been carrying American coinage.

I personally witnessed one strange event while Jim was around. Was walking down the stairs and felt something whip past my head and heard it hit the wall. Looked down and saw a quarter dated 1948. I thought my sister was messing with me, but she was down at the lake with everyone else.” —nickfinnftw

8. We spotted a UFO from our houseboat

“Back about 1975 when I was a teenager, our family and another family together took a 40 foot houseboat from one end of Norris Lake (Tennessee) to the other. Me and the boy from the other family slept on the foredeck, the girls slept on top of the cabin, and the adults slept inside the cabin.

One night me and the other boy were staring up at the night sky, and a UFO appeared. It was about the same size as a dime held at arm’s length, and pure white. It moved rapidly across the sky and disappeared. We told everyone else about it in the morning, and of course no one believed us.

Later that day we pulled into a marina to get gasoline and other supplies. There, on the front page of the local paper, was the headline, ‘UFO Sighted In Seven Counties’ and a picture of a large white dot of a UFO.

Now, I’m not saying it was little green men, but it was exactly what we saw – an Unidentified Flying Object.” —Atmospharoah

9. An ouija board threatened us

“Played Ouija with some friends and it started being threatening and Satany, so we threw it away in a church dumpster.

The next day that church was struck by lightning and burnt to the ground.” —NosDarkly

10. We heard sounds coming from the woods

“You should know that I consider myself to be a very rational person. I’m not superstitious, and I don’t believe in psychic powers or the supernatural. My best friend, Travis and I used to play guitars together almost every day. That’s not important now, but it will be later. One day we decided to go to the beach with our girlfriends, and take some mushrooms. After a little while, when the mushrooms were kicking in, Travis said that he wanted to wander off alone, so I stayed with our girlfriends. We all had a great time. As the sun began to set, Travis’ girlfriend asked me, ‘Where’s Travis?’ None of us knew where he was, but I could hear him playing the guitar, so I suggested that we just follow the sound of the music until we got to him. The girls told me that I must have really good hearing, because they couldn’t hear anything. I said, ‘Well, I can definitely hear it, so just follow me.’ Now here’s the strange part: I followed the sound for several minutes, into the forest, and went directly to him, but when we reached him, he did not have a guitar, and I realized that we had left our guitars at home! I still have no idea how that happened.” —Gatorburger

11. Phantoms were crying inside of our haunted home

“I lived in a haunted house with three roommates.

They lived there for a couple of weeks before I did and swore up and down that a young woman was haunting the house. One of them said they had some incense manually extinguished when they weren’t home. Another one said they were feeling around in the dark looking for a light switch and felt the hair on the top of someone’s head. Someone that wasn’t there when the light came on.

I, being a good and proper atheist and knowing my roommates were kinda potheads, thought it was all bollocks and that they were paranoid.

A month or so after I moved in, I was laying in bed when I heard a girl crying in the hallway. Two of my roommates were girls so I got up to do the requisite investigating and consoling. I opened my door to see who it was, only to discover that I was the only person home at that time.

I’m still not a major believer in the supernatural but I won’t rule anything out now.” —spuds_mckenzie

12.I saw The Phoenix Lights in person

“I saw The Phoenix Lights with my own eyes. Been a hardcore UFO/alien/Government Conspiracy nut ever since.

The Phoenix Lights were a series of lights that appeared one after another on March 13th, 1997., forming this huge arc. They floated in the air for an hour or so. Thousands and thousands of people reported seeing a silent craft the size of a ‘football stadium’ passing over their homes as well. Including the Governor at the time, Fife Symington. It was never fully explained.” —tisdue

13. Two tall figures stood in my doorway

“So much paranormal shit happened to me when I was a kid. One that has always stuck was when I was about 3 or 4 years old. Back then I used to randomly wake up in the middle of the night really often for no known reason. I was still sleeping in my parents bed at the time so I would just lay in bed and look around. I swear, every fucking time I’d look at the doorway to the living room, I would see two really tall figures standing there. They looked like the old farm couple in that one painting. Except they had hollow eyes and they were thinner. They never really didn’t do anything but stare back at me at first.

One night was especially weird. I woke up as usual and saw them standing there I front of the doorway again. Only this time something felt a bit more off than usual. The ceiling fan was on high and the blades were going so fast, that the entire fixture was moving back and forth. I look back at the figures and they have some really dark, creepy grins on their faces. I got scared and buried myself in the blankets, hoping they’d go away. Then all I heard was the ceiling fan spinning even faster, somehow… the beads at the end of the switches were tapping against the glass light cover furiously I peeked up out of my covers and the two figures were right next to the bed standing right over me with their ugly smiles.

I screamed bloody murder and the glass cover on the light came off and shattered on the ground. My dad jumped out of bed immediately and turned on the light to see what happened, but the two figures were gone already. I was crying hysterically and took my mom a long time to calm me down. So much other stuff went on while in lived there. That was the worst house I ever lived in…” —miss_mactastic

14. The computer chair spun on its own

“Once when i was about 13 i was home alone when I heard a rattling coming from my dads room upstairs. I went up there to see what it was and saw my dads computer chair spinning to a slow halt, as if it had been spinning rapidly up to the point I had ventured up there. We lived in a hundred year old house, and I often justify it as maybe a rat jumped on it and started the spinning or something, but the noise was loud enough for me to notice with the television on a fairly loud volume.” —imapieceofshitAMA

15. We spotted a UFO amongst the stars

“Somewhere out in the mountains near Mammoth, CA, as a kid, My dad, myself, and a few family friends were out gazing at the stars. Being as I was from LA, I think it was the first time I’d ever seen the stars without light pollution, so I was fascinated.

I pointed out to a cluster of 3 stars and said, ‘Hey look, It’s Orions belt!’

My father corrected me and showed me that Orion’s belt was elsewhere, so I asked, ‘Well what constellation is that then?’ and pointed back to the one from before.

He conceded that it did look very similar to Orion’s belt, but that he couldn’t tell what it actually was. A little while later, what appeared to be the middle star of the 3 started moving,

It zig-zagged through the sky for several seconds, before its brightness intensified and then just like that it disappeared.

To this day the only thing I can think of that it could possibly be was some kind of experimental drone, but this was in the early 90’s, and I’m not sure drones existed back then. And if it was a drone, it was must’ve been a damned advanced one because it stood still for long enough that myself and several adults nearby all thought it was a star.” —jdrc07

16. All of the cupboardsopened on their own

“Making toast late one night facing the kitchen bench eating for a good 5-10mins. Cleaned up and turned around and every single cupboard door and cutlery drawer were open. They were all closed when I went into the kitchen, and there was no way anyone could have snuck in and done it because I was home alone. I also didn’t hear them open in the time I was there. Scared the shit out of me so I froze, let it register for a few seconds, then calmly closed everything and went back to my room to hide until daylight. One of a few weird things to happen growing up.” —FalariRum

17. An inanimate object kept moving on its own

“My grandpa, who was a tough as nails WWII Marine vet, had a little stuffed bunny. He kept it out in the open and when he would walk past it and thought no one was looking, he would pet it. Big old tough guy petting a little stuffed bunny in adorable secrecy. It was an ongoing family joke.

Anyways, he committed suicide and we all went to the house to deal with the police and ME and everything. We stayed in the house that night and it had an overall creepy vibe because of what had happened. We were all naturally upset and struggling and doing dumb things to try to make ourselves laugh to try to deal with it. And we realize the bunny has been moving. Like it would be on the dining table and then we would see it in the den an hour later. I thought someone was doing it as a joke. But everyone swore they wouldn’t do that and we never caught anyone doing it. I kept an eye on that bunny the entire week. Never saw anyone touch it but it would still be moved! I think granddad was playing jokes on us. Not the most convincing or scary story but I like it.

His cell phone also called his landline. That was weird.” —[deleted]

18. I sawthe ghost of my mother all throughout my life

“My mom passed when I was 7. Flash forward to middle school. We were at this band clinic thing at my moms old high school. Each school prepared their own piece with their bands, and then we all got the same piece to do together (if that makes sense). Anyways, we were waiting around to get back on stage to play with everyone and were just chatting away as a group. I looked over and at the back of the room was a woman who looked identical to my mom: same red hair, glasses, height, everything. I caught her looking at me a few times and smiling at me. Turned to tell some friends about it and by the time I looked back, she was gone and I didn’t see her after that.

Also, I graduated with a French award from high school. I did my walk across the stage, obligatory photo with my department head (who I’m close with) looking out at the crowd. 3 rows behind my dad, stepmom and aunt I saw the same lady from before.

Super eerie but also kinda nice.” —AlexaGxo

19. I could seethe silhouette of a young girl

“My girlfriend and I were visiting my sister, who lived in a 200 year old home in western MA that used to be a brothel. We were staying in her guest room, which recently had new carpet installed that was rather tall and stiff. This made it quite difficult to open and shut the door. I recall using my body weight to force it shut and needing to yank it open. As I’m trying to fall asleep, I hear something bump the door from the hallway. I assume this is my sister, her boyfriend, or their dog. A few minutes later I hear something at the door again, but this time the knob turns. I freeze as I see the knob slowly turn and the door begin to open until I see a shape resembling the silhouette of a young girl. The only child in the house is an infant. I immediately roll over onto my side, close my eyes, and attempt to convince myself that what I saw was the silhouette of the dog. I don’t mention this to my girlfriend or my sister, because I don’t want to alarm anyone. Fast forward a few months: my girlfriend and I are returning to western MA to attend my sister’s wedding and we will be staying in the same room. On the plane my girlfriend says “I have something I feel I should tell you about your sister’s house.” I immediately know where she’s going with this. As it turns out, she was awake when the door opened, but she got a better look then I. She describes seeing a girl of about 5 or 6 wearing a victorian-styled night gown open the door and stare her in the eyes with a penetrating intensity before my girlfriend looked away. I tell her my story and we decide to make sure we drink enough to pass out every night so we won’t be awake if we are ‘visited.’” —noiselvr

20. I have a sixth sense that protects me from danger

“I have a very strong danger sense that’s been proven terrifyingly correct both times I’ve had it. The first was when I was in high school training for cross country. I would usually run by this lake near my house, but one day I was close and got a very strong “NO” feeling. It was like fighting against a very strong animal instinct to go any closer. I turned right around and went back to my house. When my mom commented on how short my run was, I explained to her what happened and she seemed alarmed, wondering if I’d had some sort of panic attack. A few days later, police found a body in the lake.

The more recent example was when I was riding the DC Metro with my partner some time last year. We were on the orange line, and needed to get off at a stop that was also on the silver line. We’re on the train when all of a sudden I get this very strong sense again. I told my partner about it and though at first he was skeptical, he trusted me and we switched lines. Later we found out there was a stabbing on the orange line that same night.�� —moist_anal_leakage

21. A phantom appeared in my mother’s bedroom

“My mom’s first husband was a Navy pilot during the Gulf War. The carrier was about ten days into it’s cruise and operating with complete radio silence. She hadn’t heard anything from the ship since it left but that was to be expected, this was a war. On that night about ten days into the cruise my mom woke up suddenly in the middle of the night. She saw her husband standing in the room. It wasn’t an ethereal form either, he appeared solid and utterly the same. The only thing different about him was that his head was shaved. He only had one thing to say, “Goodbye.” This whole experience startled my mom and she couldn’t get back to sleep. She went to the kitchen to get some water when the doorbell rang. All military wives know what the late night doorbell means. Her husband had suffered a massive heart attack and died aboard the carrier. She was grief ridden but reasoned that the apparition had been a hallucination born of the stress of having a spouse deployed. Besides with his head shaved, he didn’t even look that familiar. Her mother and mother-in-law flew out immediately to plan for the funeral and receive the body. She stayed strong until the first viewing of the body. Her lifeless husband was bald. In a letter from his NFO the shaved head was explained as the result of a lost bet. There had been no way of knowing that his head had been shaved and my mom suffered a minor mental break.” —raider02

22. A rock unexplainably fell from the sky

“When I was about 10 I saw a large rocket fly almost vertically down into the sea. This was on a small Mediterranean island and there was no explosion or mention on the news. No sign of it after it entered the water. No one else was nearby to see it.” —Thaxs-Axel

23. My cat spoke to my telepathically

“When I was around six or seven we had a cat that had kittens. We knew it had kittens because it was pregnant and then it wasn’t anymore. The problem was that we had no idea where the kittens were. I was wondering about it and looked right at the cat and sort of thought in my mind ‘where are your kittens?’ but without using words if that makes any sense. Immediately the location came into my mind. It was through some broken boards just above our porch that our cat could jump into from pillars on the side of the porch. I KNEW that they were there. I walked straight over there, climbed onto the stone pillar and looked through the hole in the boards. The kittens were right there. I’ve never had a similar experience again in my life.” —metallic_orange

24. My grandfather warned me about his death in a dream

“Well, Monday I started to worry about my Grandpa. The moment of worry passed, and I went about my day. Later on I posted an article about automated lawn mowers, saying that my grandpa would love this, since taking care of his yard was his hobby. Literally right after I hit share, my dad calls me.

We all know this feeling. It’s that drop in your stomach when you know something terrible has happened, or it’s about to. The feeling that your world has changed and there’s nothing you can do.

Anyways, he tells me that my grandpa was rushed to the hospital with a bladder infection followed by several heart attacks, but he’s still alive. I didn’t think anything about worrying earlier, at least until I woke up the next morning.

My dream that night was what made it click in my head I guess. In the dream I was sitting in my grandpa’s shed watching something, and he sits down next to me. Without any pretense he starts talking.

‘The next few weeks are gonna be hard, and they will test you. Don’t worry about me, in a few hours I won’t have any use for it.’

We ended up spending what seemed like hours talking about a lot of personal things, things I honestly didn’t know or didn’t remember about my grandpa. Most of which my dad and his brother have confirmed to be true, although a little exaggerated apparently.

Grandpa didn’t die until around noon on Tuesday, pretty much just a few hours (Three hour time difference) after my dream.

I’m not religious, nor will I be, but for fucks sake, what the fuck? I know the subconscious mind can do things like this, but some of the details he told me about his life are things I wasn’t there for, or even alive for.” —CrimDS

25. Our young son mentioned his pastlife

“My wife and I were getting dinner on the table. Our 4-year-old son was in the adjoining room, and said, ‘Hey. That’s the job I had in my last life.”‘He’s looking at the TV, and there is a man shaping metal over a fire. We were shocked because we had never discussed reincarnation with him, or even with each other in his presence. We’re atheists. I tried to get him to elaborate, but he just went back to what he was doing like he never said it.” —Scrappy_Larue

26. We saw a woman that traveled from the past

“Was spending the night at a friend’s house as a kid (around 12-13). Parents weren’t home so we decided to go out, do some ding dong ditching, get into some young angsty debauchery. We get home, and it’s around 1 or 2 in the morning. Cue a ringing of the doorbell; naturally we think it’s the cops or a pissed off neighbor. My friend had a small window that looked out onto the front porch that you couldn’t really see into from outside, so we took a peek at who was calling at such a late hour. Standing at the door was an old woman in a dress and a young boy in a weird newsie outfit. Both were dressed out of period, as this was the 90’s, and my friend had never seen either in the neighborhood before. We duck because we’re a bit freaked, look again no less than 10 seconds later and they’re both gone. Nobody on the street walking away, no cars driving away, they were just gone without a trace. We did not sleep well.” —JusticarFudge

Read more: http://ift.tt/2lffgJy

from 26 People Talk About The Paranormal Event That They Cant Find A Rational Explanation For

[evodex]

14 days of Everest Base Camp: Pages From My Travel Journal I

Everest Base Camp Trek

There is a real world and a mountain world and I have existed in both. In the mountain world, we play different roles and it tests us in our weakest moments and bares our souls even to strangers. We feel a strange connection with people we may never meet again in life but while we exist there, we are bonded. We were a team of eleven strangers, some known to each other, some not but while in the mountains we became the EBC family.

While you are looking and probably reading the blog to know more about the trek, I can’t do justice to the same without sharing my experience and the background story. So when I decided earlier this year that I wanted to do the EBC trek, my only experience was a low altitude 5-day hike that I had done in Iceland last year and more grueling 100 kms trail walk under 48 hours. While the former was easy to medium level the latter was a test of grit. I was reaching a milestone in my life and I knew I had to do this to make this special but I needed one more such crazy person and I have to admit that I asked a lot of people around me. Meera, my trail walker teammate agreed to it. She was a little unsure but I hung on to the idea and made sure she doesn’t back out. It was only later that I figured out many occasions that she was made of sterner stuff and I was glad for it.

EBC(Everest Base Camp) at 5564 meters is the holy grail for all mountaineers, for the ones who claim to be and the ones who actually summit, all have to touch forehead here. The trek has been marked as medium to difficult and trust me whether it is the lack of oxygen, hours of climbing, the substandard tea houses, gross common toilets or commonly occurring landslides on the way, they all test your grit, passion, and ambition. Which is why I strongly believe that no person who decides to go on this trek is ordinary but whether it’s a mom who does it for her child or a mom who does it leaving her kids behind for three weeks, or a seventy-year-old or a first-time trekker they are all driven by their own reasons.

Kathmandu, Nepal

We arrived in Kathmandu on the 27th of October and were accommodated in the Thamel resort. Meera and I chose to arrive a day early and catch up on some sightseeing. Both of us are moms to two kids and it took us months of planning, begging parents to babysit and overcoming all the motherly instincts when we realised that we will be away from our kids for a really long time. I have been away for a week at times but 19 days was too much. We kept two extra days to sightsee. Some of the touristy things to do in Kathmandu are Pashupatinath, Durbar square, Bodhinath, Patan etc. 

Your guide will give you an orientation a day before you leave and that’s the day you will end up meeting your group as well. Let me introduce them to you to them. You already have a background of Meera and me. The next was a group of five; an American named Justin( 36 years old), Sunil Nehru(71 years), and Ashok Mahadevan(69 years), Anita Singh(43 years) who was doing it again to mark her son Angad’s thirteenth birthday. Arun, an avid trekker(43 years), who has already done some 8-9 treks in the Himalayas. Then there were three brothers from Karnal, Rahul(40 years), Raghav(25 years), and Madhur(23 years), two of them were first-time trekkers and one had trekked in various national parks in the US but nothing as demanding as this one. The reason I have mentioned everyone’s age is to give you an idea of how varied the group was.

pic credit- Meera Prashant (Do not miss spotting Kunthal in the blue shirt who has climbed Everest and is celebrity status for all aspiring climbers.)

The next day Meera and I decided to cover up some sightseeing and headed to Bodhinath Stupa and then to the Sherpa shop, which was highly recommended by Meera’s friend for authentic trekking products. Kathmandu is the best place to buy trekking gear from brands like Northface, Icebreaker etc but you have to be careful about authenticity and make sure you buy Northface and not Northfake :).

P.S. We booked our trek with White Magic Adventures and while some people might like to trek on their own and it’s very possible, I would not suggest the same unless you are a hardcore trekker. Managing bookings at various tea houses, arranging for porters and taking care of the whole background work becomes too much. Plus if you fall ill your guide is your best shot to recognise the signs and fly you back to safety. We saw many helicopters evacuating people on a daily basis. 

For the ones who are reading for some inspiration in between our story you will know what the trek looks like; 

pic credit

The minor difference being that we skipped Pheriche during our trek.

Day 1 — Lukla(2850)/Begin Trek/Phakding (4-6 hours)

While booking your trek if you have done your research, unlike me, you would know that Lukla airport @2850 mtrs is listed in the top 10 dangerous airports in the world. We prayed hard to survive this as it would be a complete shame if our expedition would end before it even started. Luckily we had a smooth landing. Next, we headed to Yak Donald’s resort and met our porters there. The highlight was meeting two women porters Anjali and Dilmaya who would be lifting around 30 kgs each and pacing with the male porters. They were indeed superwomen in their own right, a fine example of women liberation and empowerment. I was so proud of them.

We started our trek at around 8.30 and we trekked from Lukla to Fakding. Most of the trek is downhill, you descend down along the river Dudh Kosi(which means milk river) and this day was easy. We stopped at around 11.30 for lunch. Lunch was a standard for all Nepali veg thali set and then ginger honey tea which was really nice. Little did I know that slowly I will get bored of my wits eating these. On the way, you will pass many beautifully embossed stones known as the ‘Mane Pathar’. They have some mantra written on them, most probably it says “OM Mane Padmai Hum’, a very well known Buddhist mantra. You cannot miss them. 

The people in Nepal are very friendly and the Nepali kids are used to strangers. They love posing for pictures and I got a few lovely shots with them. 

Loved how he was playing with his cycle.

Once we reached Fakding, Meera and I decided to voice record our day on our phones so that we can pen it down when we reach home. It was a brilliant idea, because, I am really reliving every day listening to them.

P.S. My right knee was already hurting as we had climbed down many stairs today, so I decided to tape it as I knew next day was going to be a lot more stairs and walking. This is a special roll tape which my physiotherapist had recommended I carry. I checked Youtube videos on how to apply the tape.

Day 2  — Phakding to Namche Bazaar(3440 mtrs) – (6-8 hours)

Every night before we retired to bed our guide Sanjeev, would give us a briefing on the day ahead. What we needed to wear, what to carry and what to expect on our trek. He told us that Phakding to Namche would be fewer steps but my phone stepper showed around 116 floors climbed at the end of the day. I think he purposely hid this bit from us to keep us away from the pressure. Now, this where I felt good about not doing research because had I read about this stretch earlier I would have been weighed down by what lay ahead. Sometimes having no expectations is great. Of course, we also had people like my dear mountain sister, Anita, who even after having done the trek in 2015 didn’t remember any parts of it and to counter her was Meera who knew the names of the Peak and all that was to know of the trail and someone who had watched the EBC youtube videos many times over . On day 4, we entered the Sagarmatha National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site, at Monjo.

Meera and Me

The entire Sagarmatha park is a wifi enabled zone and honestly, I was a little disappointed as I was looking forward to social media detox for the next few days. I had finished my work before flying to Nepal and left my team with instructions on how to handle it while I was away. This meant I would still be tempted to check my device.

The Dudh Kosi river in the background

We walked through villages along the Dudh Kosi river(Dudh-Milk, Kosi-River) and crossed multiple suspensions bridges. The most noteworthy was a double suspension bridge that we had to climb.

Double Suspension Bridge

The trek went on for four hours to reach Monjo and another four hours to reach Namche. The second half from Monjo to Namche was more of an uphill climb and was killing. I stopped on a few occasions to stretch but did not stop for too long as the body tends to start cooling down and then you start shivering. 

Taking a halt just before we reach Namche Bazaar

At 4.30 pm we saw the first steps to the market town of Namche Bazaar filled with Tea houses and restaurants and even spotted the Irish pub, which we marked for our return celebration. Today we celebrated with Pakodas, chai, and Mars roll( Mars chocolate dipped in flour batter and deep fried), very unique to this trail and would recommend it as a must try. Angad, the thirteen-year-old with us was the last one to reach but I was so impressed with this kid. No complaints, just very focussed. Ashok, on the other hand, walked with both his hands folded on the back, like a walk in the park. Both Ashok and Sunil(69 and 71 years to their credit), didn’t ever take breaks and managed to stay ahead of the pack. 

pic credit: Justin Brown

We changed into fresh clothing as we were sweating and wore an extra layer as it tends to get colder here. Here we met Shanon and Rebecca, two nurses from Las Vegas. What I learned from them was that they are going all the way to EBC and doing Kala Pathar but taking a helicopter back. They paid 2700 dollars for the entire trip which is way steeper than what I paid, but as they explained time is a valuable commodity for them and they couldn’t have taken more time off. Honestly, I was tempted but I knew I would feel unaccomplished if I didn’t walk the entire route back as well (an option that will keep clouding my mind many times on the way back).

P.S. You burn about 4000 calories per day, so stock up on those carbs people.

Day 3 — Acclimatisation Day At Namche

On the trail to EBC, the guiding companies plan a few acclimatisation/rest days for you to avoid medical issues and acclimatise better. These rest days don’t mean that you will laze around in the tea houses but they take you on short treks around the area. We had our first rest day at Namche and we hiked 250 meters up to see the Tenzing Norgay Museum. I was experiencing a little shortness of breath and then I saw these two women racing uphill. They were runners from Malaysia participating in the Everest Ultra Marathon which starts from EBC and goes all the way to Dingboche. The museum has a lot of information regarding Sagarmatha Park, the animals, flowers, people and about the various expeditions that were carried here. Would definitely recommend a visit here to the museum and also you get lovely views of the Everest from here if you are lucky to get clear weather unlike us. I picked up some medicines, an Icebreaker Merino wool base layer(you don’t get this brand in India and it’s expensive but worth it), a few t-shirts for my kids etc. This is also the destination where my guide adviced me to start Diamox which helps in combating altitude sickness. I napped for a few hours and woke up feeling terrible. All kind of thoughts were clouding me. It was just the start of the trek. If I was going to feel sick then how will I manage the rest of the days? I couldn’t even eat my food. Sanjeev, my guide was amazing. He told me to just remove every negative thought from my mind and relax. While I couldn’t it felt good to see someone tell you that. Luckily I had carried theplas(Gujrati bread) and ‘achar'(pickle) from home and polished away a few. The salt levels in my body improved and soon I was chasing a huge insect from our room, instead of lying down and pitying myself. My apologies for ever doubting the reasons for any Gujarati family to carry this stuff on their holidays. They were a boon that night.

    p.s. Some side effects of Diamox are that you pee a lot and might have blurry vision. 

p.s. Namche Bazaar is the last place where you can shop for anything you need for your trek and the last place you will find ATMs. 

Intrigued to know more about the Everest Base Camp? Keep reading, I promise to be back with more stories.  This post is getting too lengthy, so I am going to divide it into a few more posts as I am aware that reading so much can get boring. Until next post, Ciao and happy dreams of the mountain world.

The post 14 days of Everest Base Camp: Pages From My Travel Journal I appeared first on Maa of All Blogs.

14 days of Everest Base Camp: Pages From My Travel Journal I published first on http://ift.tt/2Afzj22

[evodex]

14 days of Everest Base Camp: Pages From My Travel Journal I

Everest Base Camp Trek

There is a real world and a mountain world and I have existed in both. In the mountain world, we play different roles and it tests us in our weakest moments and bares our souls even to strangers. We feel a strange connection with people we may never meet again in life but while we exist there, we are bonded. We were a team of eleven strangers, some known to each other, some not but while in the mountains we became the EBC family.

While you are looking and probably reading the blog to know more about the trek, I can’t do justice to the same without sharing my experience and the background story. So when I decided earlier this year that I wanted to do the EBC trek, my only experience was a low altitude 5-day hike that I had done in Iceland last year and more grueling 100 kms trail walk under 48 hours. While the former was easy to medium level the latter was a test of grit. I was reaching a milestone in my life and I knew I had to do this to make this special but I needed one more such crazy person and I have to admit that I asked a lot of people around me. Meera, my trail walker teammate agreed to it. She was a little unsure but I hung on to the idea and made sure she doesn’t back out. It was only later that I figured out many occasions that she was made of sterner stuff and I was glad for it.

EBC(Everest Base Camp) at 5564 meters is the holy grail for all mountaineers, for the ones who claim to be and the ones who actually summit, all have to touch forehead here. The trek has been marked as medium to difficult and trust me whether it is the lack of oxygen, hours of climbing, the substandard tea houses, gross common toilets or commonly occurring landslides on the way, they all test your grit, passion, and ambition. Which is why I strongly believe that no person who decides to go on this trek is ordinary but whether it’s a mom who does it for her child or a mom who does it leaving her kids behind for three weeks, or a seventy-year-old or a first-time trekker they are all driven by their own reasons.

Kathmandu, Nepal

We arrived in Kathmandu on the 27th of October and were accommodated in the Thamel resort. Meera and I chose to arrive a day early and catch up on some sightseeing. Both of us are moms to two kids and it took us months of planning, begging parents to babysit and overcoming all the motherly instincts when we realised that we will be away from our kids for a really long time. I have been away for a week at times but 19 days was too much. We kept two extra days to sightsee. Some of the touristy things to do in Kathmandu are Pashupatinath, Durbar square, Bodhinath, Patan etc. 

Your guide will give you an orientation a day before you leave and that’s the day you will end up meeting your group as well. Let me introduce them to you to them. You already have a background of Meera and me. The next was a group of five; an American named Justin( 36 years old), Sunil Nehru(71 years), and Ashok Mahadevan(69 years), Anita Singh(43 years) who was doing it again to mark her son Angad’s thirteenth birthday. Arun, an avid trekker(43 years), who has already done some 8-9 treks in the Himalayas. Then there were three brothers from Karnal, Rahul(40 years), Raghav(25 years), and Madhur(23 years), two of them were first-time trekkers and one had trekked in various national parks in the US but nothing as demanding as this one. The reason I have mentioned everyone’s age is to give you an idea of how varied the group was.

pic credit- Meera Prashant (Do not miss spotting Kunthal in the blue shirt who has climbed Everest and is celebrity status for all aspiring climbers.)

The next day Meera and I decided to cover up some sightseeing and headed to Bodhinath Stupa and then to the Sherpa shop, which was highly recommended by Meera’s friend for authentic trekking products. Kathmandu is the best place to buy trekking gear from brands like Northface, Icebreaker etc but you have to be careful about authenticity and make sure you buy Northface and not Northfake :).

P.S. We booked our trek with White Magic Adventures and while some people might like to trek on their own and it’s very possible, I would not suggest the same unless you are a hardcore trekker. Managing bookings at various tea houses, arranging for porters and taking care of the whole background work becomes too much. Plus if you fall ill your guide is your best shot to recognise the signs and fly you back to safety. We saw many helicopters evacuating people on a daily basis. 

For the ones who are reading for some inspiration in between our story you will know what the trek looks like; 

pic credit

The minor difference being that we skipped Pheriche during our trek.

Day 1 — Lukla(2850)/Begin Trek/Phakding (4-6 hours)

While booking your trek if you have done your research, unlike me, you would know that Lukla airport @2850 mtrs is listed in the top 10 dangerous airports in the world. We prayed hard to survive this as it would be a complete shame if our expedition would end before it even started. Luckily we had a smooth landing. Next, we headed to Yak Donald’s resort and met our porters there. The highlight was meeting two women porters Anjali and Dilmaya who would be lifting around 30 kgs each and pacing with the male porters. They were indeed superwomen in their own right, a fine example of women liberation and empowerment. I was so proud of them.

We started our trek at around 8.30 and we trekked from Lukla to Fakding. Most of the trek is downhill, you descend down along the river Dudh Kosi(which means milk river) and this day was easy. We stopped at around 11.30 for lunch. Lunch was a standard for all Nepali veg thali set and then ginger honey tea which was really nice. Little did I know that slowly I will get bored of my wits eating these. On the way, you will pass many beautifully embossed stones known as the ‘Mane Pathar’. They have some mantra written on them, most probably it says “OM Mane Padmai Hum’, a very well known Buddhist mantra. You cannot miss them. 

The people in Nepal are very friendly and the Nepali kids are used to strangers. They love posing for pictures and I got a few lovely shots with them. 

Loved how he was playing with his cycle.

Once we reached Fakding, Meera and I decided to voice record our day on our phones so that we can pen it down when we reach home. It was a brilliant idea, because, I am really reliving every day listening to them.

P.S. My right knee was already hurting as we had climbed down many stairs today, so I decided to tape it as I knew next day was going to be a lot more stairs and walking. This is a special roll tape which my physiotherapist had recommended I carry. I checked Youtube videos on how to apply the tape.

Day 2  — Phakding to Namche Bazaar(3440 mtrs) – (6-8 hours)

Every night before we retired to bed our guide Sanjeev, would give us a briefing on the day ahead. What we needed to wear, what to carry and what to expect on our trek. He told us that Phakding to Namche would be fewer steps but my phone stepper showed around 116 floors climbed at the end of the day. I think he purposely hid this bit from us to keep us away from the pressure. Now, this where I felt good about not doing research because had I read about this stretch earlier I would have been weighed down by what lay ahead. Sometimes having no expectations is great. Of course, we also had people like my dear mountain sister, Anita, who even after having done the trek in 2015 didn’t remember any parts of it and to counter her was Meera who knew the names of the Peak and all that was to know of the trail and someone who had watched the EBC youtube videos many times over . On day 4, we entered the Sagarmatha National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site, at Monjo.

Meera and Me

The entire Sagarmatha park is a wifi enabled zone and honestly, I was a little disappointed as I was looking forward to social media detox for the next few days. I had finished my work before flying to Nepal and left my team with instructions on how to handle it while I was away. This meant I would still be tempted to check my device.

The Dudh Kosi river in the background

We walked through villages along the Dudh Kosi river(Dudh-Milk, Kosi-River) and crossed multiple suspensions bridges. The most noteworthy was a double suspension bridge that we had to climb.

Double Suspension Bridge

The trek went on for four hours to reach Monjo and another four hours to reach Namche. The second half from Monjo to Namche was more of an uphill climb and was killing. I stopped on a few occasions to stretch but did not stop for too long as the body tends to start cooling down and then you start shivering. 

Taking a halt just before we reach Namche Bazaar

At 4.30 pm we saw the first steps to the market town of Namche Bazaar filled with Tea houses and restaurants and even spotted the Irish pub, which we marked for our return celebration. Today we celebrated with Pakodas, chai, and Mars roll( Mars chocolate dipped in flour batter and deep fried), very unique to this trail and would recommend it as a must try. Angad, the thirteen-year-old with us was the last one to reach but I was so impressed with this kid. No complaints, just very focussed. Ashok, on the other hand, walked with both his hands folded on the back, like a walk in the park. Both Ashok and Sunil(69 and 71 years to their credit), didn’t ever take breaks and managed to stay ahead of the pack. 

pic credit: Justin Brown

We changed into fresh clothing as we were sweating and wore an extra layer as it tends to get colder here. Here we met Shanon and Rebecca, two nurses from Las Vegas. What I learned from them was that they are going all the way to EBC and doing Kala Pathar but taking a helicopter back. They paid 2700 dollars for the entire trip which is way steeper than what I paid, but as they explained time is a valuable commodity for them and they couldn’t have taken more time off. Honestly, I was tempted but I knew I would feel unaccomplished if I didn’t walk the entire route back as well (an option that will keep clouding my mind many times on the way back).

P.S. You burn about 4000 calories per day, so stock up on those carbs people.

Day 3 — Acclimatisation Day At Namche

On the trail to EBC, the guiding companies plan a few acclimatisation/rest days for you to avoid medical issues and acclimatise better. These rest days don’t mean that you will laze around in the tea houses but they take you on short treks around the area. We had our first rest day at Namche and we hiked 250 meters up to see the Tenzing Norgay Museum. I was experiencing a little shortness of breath and then I saw these two women racing uphill. They were runners from Malaysia participating in the Everest Ultra Marathon which starts from EBC and goes all the way to Dingboche. The museum has a lot of information regarding Sagarmatha Park, the animals, flowers, people and about the various expeditions that were carried here. Would definitely recommend a visit here to the museum and also you get lovely views of the Everest from here if you are lucky to get clear weather unlike us. I picked up some medicines, an Icebreaker Merino wool base layer(you don’t get this brand in India and it’s expensive but worth it), a few t-shirts for my kids etc. This is also the destination where my guide adviced me to start Diamox which helps in combating altitude sickness. I napped for a few hours and woke up feeling terrible. All kind of thoughts were clouding me. It was just the start of the trek. If I was going to feel sick then how will I manage the rest of the days? I couldn’t even eat my food. Sanjeev, my guide was amazing. He told me to just remove every negative thought from my mind and relax. While I couldn’t it felt good to see someone tell you that. Luckily I had carried theplas(Gujrati bread) and ‘achar'(pickle) from home and polished away a few. The salt levels in my body improved and soon I was chasing a huge insect from our room, instead of lying down and pitying myself. My apologies for ever doubting the reasons for any Gujarati family to carry this stuff on their holidays. They were a boon that night.

    p.s. Some side effects of Diamox are that you pee a lot and might have blurry vision. 

p.s. Namche Bazaar is the last place where you can shop for anything you need for your trek and the last place you will find ATMs. 

Intrigued to know more about the Everest Base Camp? Keep reading, I promise to be back with more stories.  This post is getting too lengthy, so I am going to divide it into a few more posts as I am aware that reading so much can get boring. Until next post, Ciao and happy dreams of the mountain world.

The post 14 days of Everest Base Camp: Pages From My Travel Journal I appeared first on Maa of All Blogs.

14 days of Everest Base Camp: Pages From My Travel Journal I published first on http://ift.tt/2Afzj22