#work and life and too much lately i miss fanta;;;;;

[hopkei]

Keito&Sota for mini

[slippinmickeys]

Proof of Life 4/?

1. “Dana, I cannot tell you how glad I am to hear your voice,” Ethan says. The connection is not great, a truncated hiss on the line, but he sounds truly relieved. “Honey, I missed you so much.”

She is not sure how to respond. She is thrilled of course, to no longer be a hostage. To have unlimited food, water, and Jesus Christ, a hot shower. But even in the midst of the gunfire, of her producer dying in front of her, her thoughts didn’t once turn to Ethan. She thought of her mother, her nephews. If he’s waiting to hear that she’s missed him too, she’s not sure she can bring herself to say it.

“Dana? Are you there?”

“I’m here,” she says.

“I’m sure you’re tired and…” his words trail off. Traumatized, is probably what he’s thinking. And he’s not wrong.

“Yes,” she says. She is tired. But it’s an emotional exhaustion.

“Honey. I’ve talked with Bill. We’re still going to get you home. The network is going to help cover the cost.” She feels a small amount of guilt for putting a kink in Bill’s plans. The military will no longer be transporting her home, not after her insistence on being brought to the mainland and onto the closest US base. His superiors were not thrilled, and neither is he.

“Okay,” she says. There is something he’s not saying, she can hear it in his voice.

He hesitates a moment longer.

“Listen, the network… They want to do an interview. As soon as possible. Do you feel up to doing that?”

It sounds like the very last thing she’s interested in doing.

“Ethan, I don’t know,” she says, weary. What would she even say in an interview? Yes, I was kidnapped at gunpoint and my friend and producer was killed in front of me. I thought I was going to die. I thought I was going to be raped. I was held hostage without enough food and I passed the time by falling in love with my cellmate and having a lot of sex.

“I get it honey, you’ve been through a lot,” he says. He needs to stop calling her honey. “It’s just…”

“It’s just what, Ethan?” she says testily. No part of her wants to be having this conversation right now.

“The network. They… They paid a lot of money to the rebels for your release. They spent countless resources trying to find where you were being kept. There was a full week’s worth of news cycle on you when you were taken, and now that you’ve been rescued, it’s back in full swing. We’ve had requests for interviews from all the broadcast networks. But I feel like we owe it to CNN to appear there first.”

She is struck silent by his words. Ever the newsman, his priorities have remained the same since they met. And the word “we” bothers her.

“I’ll be right with you the whole time. I’ll pre-screen every question. You don’t have to do it alone.”

“That’s… very kind of you,” she says, with no emotion.

There is another hiss of static on the phone.

“Listen, it sounds like we have a bad connection,” he says. “I’m going to let you go. Bill should have your flight information by morning. I love you.”

She does not say it back.

2. They met, embarrassingly enough, at a pub.

She had actually agreed to go out with some friends from the hospital — something she never did — and they both ordered the same drink while standing next to each other at the bar, something fruity and pink. She was impressed at the confidence with which he placed his order and told him as much. He was impressed by her.

They began dating soon after, about a year after Ethan had started at CNN. She was working in pediatrics — something she both loved and hated — when Ethan brought up an idea one night while they were out to dinner.

“So one of my segments tomorrow,” he says. “The guest dropped out just as I was leaving for dinner.”

“Is that why you were late?” she asks.

He gives her a small smile, ignores her question and plows ahead. “It’s a story on the phenomenon of misinformation as it pertains to the AIDS epidemic.”

“Oh, Ethan,” she says, suddenly and genuinely interested in his work. She forgets to be annoyed at him. “That’s fantastic. There’s so much bad information out there.”

His smile gets wider.

“I was thinking,” he goes on. “That maybe you could step in.”

She’s confused. “What do you mean?”

“You could step in and be the guest. The medical expert. For the segment.”

“You mean on air?” She’s flummoxed by the idea. It’s ludicrous.

“Yes,” he says simply.

“Ethan, I’m not an epidemiologist. I’m not… There are far more qualified people that would do a much better job than I. Like… Spitzer. Or Harris. Or… who’s that guy from NYU, the one who wrote the paper? He could take the train down and be here in plenty of time.”

His grin has only gotten wider.

“I tried,” he says. “They’re all at a conference in Amsterdam. Listen, you’d do great. You know your stuff, you can think on your feet and, I mean… you’d look fantastic on camera.” He is playing on her vanity now.

“Kirby would have a heart attack,” she says, stabbing the olive in her drink with the straw. Kirby is an executive producer, and Ethan’s boss.

“Kirby already approved it.”

She was running low on arguments and he could sense the blood in the water.

“You’d be on air for five minutes, tops. And we can pay you.”

When she heard the amount, she blanched. She had med school loans to pay back and Ethan knew it.

In the end, she agreed to do it. And once she’d done it, she found that she liked it. Was good at it. Kirby was so thrilled with her performance that he asked her to come back, and eventually, to be an on-call medical expert. Not long after that, she was offered her own monthly segment that sent her out into the field. Ethan’s star began to climb. They moved in together. And one thing led to another which led to another, an odd snowballing effect which led her to a street corner in a war-torn city in West Africa, where she was kidnapped by a group of rebels and thrown into an upper floor hotel room with a man she had never met.

Where the course of her life once again took another hard right turn.

3. She has reached a level of numbness that she can’t fight her way out of.

She doesn’t actually want to fly back to the States. Well, she does, but she wants to find Mulder first. To talk to him, to explain. To have an honest conversation about what they went through and What Happens Next. What must he have thought when he saw Ethan on the base television? When he read the chyron under his name, when he heard him say ‘I want to put my arms around her and never let go?’

What must he be going through? Whatever it is, she feels like they should be going through it together. Nothing feels right anymore. For weeks and weeks all her experiences were filtered through a lens of the two of them together. Every decision she has to make now comes with the impulse of wanting to turn to him to see what he thinks about it.

Their relationship in the Hilton was something they were in the middle of. Everything inside her is screaming we weren’t done! It’s like they were mid-conversation when someone cut the phone line.

Ethan, her boyfriend, the man she has built a life with, feels like an annoyance, a pesky insect she wants to brush from her shoulder. Her life had narrowed to the four walls of a hotel room and the man that was harbored within them. The world outside of it is too much. She wants nothing to do with it. She wants Mulder and the narrow, fixed point of her life as it intersected with his. Nothing else feels right. It’s too much. She wants to be rid of it.

So she chooses to feel nothing. She chooses the hebetude of nihility. It’s not the healthiest choice, but at least it’s hers.

4. She tries on calling him Fox. Like slipping on a sweater she isn’t sure will suit her, she calls him by his first name.

“Fox,” she says, letting the X draw out a little, letting it hover in the air like a fine mist of smoke. She is wearing nothing but the natty sheet from the bed, which makes her feel libidinous and a little bit bratty. She’d like to reach out to touch him, but he’s on the other side of the room.

When he hears her say it, he winces. There’s a story there.

“You don’t like your name,” she observes.

He wanders back towards her a little, but gets caught in a shaft of sunlight streaming into the room.

Outside the window and up, up, the clouds look like cotton candy. They could be in Kansas, in Iowa, in one of those states in the middle with a lot of Walmarts and Republicans. Outside the window and down, there is the burnt-out husk of a Ford, there is a rounded shape of what once might have been a human turning to leather in the sun. A khaki colored dog trots by, like it has somewhere better to be.

“I—,” he starts, “I even made my parents call me Mulder.”

He gets to the bed where she’s waiting and lowers himself onto it, reaching out to touch her arm.

“Is that so?” she says.

He shrugs, opens his mouth to say something, then closes it. Scully senses pain behind his silence and touches her hand over his where it rests on her arm. He rolls his hand over so their palms are touching and laces his fingers through hers.

“‘Fox’ was the last thing my sister ever said to me,” he says, looking at the floor. “She was calling out to me, asking for help. She was calling my name.”

A hard shot of empathetic pain darts through her chest.

“What happened to her, Mulder?” she asks quietly. If he doesn’t want to answer, she won’t force the issue.

He squeezes her hand and then lowers himself onto the floor next to the bed, leaning against it, the back of his head resting on the mattress.

“I was twelve when it happened. She was eight…”

5. “Tell us about the picture, Dana,” Maureen, the interviewer asks her, empathy or sympathy or pity edging into her speech from all sides.

The woman hands her an 8x10 color reproduction of the proof of life picture the rebels had taken, ever so slightly out of focus, the cheap little flash making her hair look like the orange of a lava flow. Mulder is standing just beside and slightly behind her and so he’s a little bit darker, and his beard in the picture is really just a few days worth of stubble. They both look frightened, a little stunned.

“Did the picture give you hope?” Maureen asks.

“Did it give me hope?” she asks, confused. She had been shoved up against the wall with guns in her face; hope was so far off in the distance it wasn’t even on the horizon.

“When they took the picture. The Proof of Life. Did you know then that we were trying to get you home? Did it give you hope?”

There’s that word “we” again. Scully swallows, looks down, shakes her head.

“He gave me hope,” she says quietly, staring at the Mulder in the photograph.

She thinks of his narrow hips between hers, his hands spanning her ribs. She thinks of the pictures he took, the way he looked at her like she was the only woman in the world.

“Fox Mulder?” Maureen asks her. “The other hostage?”

Scully nods, then finally pulls her eyes from the photograph and looks for Ethan in the darkness just behind the camera. She doesn’t see him. It’s hard to see anything with the lights so bright in her eyes.

“Yes,” she says, coming back to herself, remembering to be professional. “The other hostage. We leaned on each other.”

Maureen leans forward eagerly. “Why don’t you tell me about that, Dana.”

[alsjeblieft-zeg]

112 of 2024

Created by brelee

Have you ever written a song?

Yeah, when I was a child. It was so lame omg.

What was the last drink you had?

Some Fanta.

Do you ever feel numb?

Yeah, but like, comfortably numb.

Which do you think would be scarier to experience, an avalanche or tsunami?

Both, I can't choose.

Do you currently have a honey jar in your pantry?

We have like four different types of honey, and we teat them as natural medication.

Do you always find a silver lining in bad situations?

I tend to. I'm rather hopeful by nature.

Do you prefer being inside or outside?

Outside. I love the sea in particular.

When did you last use a lighter or matches?

Today. I went to the church and lit a candle for my workplace.

Do you think the ocean needs more exploring?

I don't have any opinion on this.

Do you ever experience panic attacks?

No. If I do, it's typically a seizure (some resemble panic attacks very much).

Have you ever had to call 911 or your country's emergency number?

Yeah, quite a few times.

What was the last conversation you had about?

My stepson's college, he just started this year.

Are you doing okay?

In general, yes. Just concerned about the future of our workplace.

Do you know an Olivia?

Yes, a daughter of someone I used to work with.

Is there a past relationship/friendship you miss?

If ever, then only with Nielsje. I'm feeling weird about that situation with my workmate, too.

Do you like mangoes?

Nope, I hate them. As much as other melon-type fruits. The smell and the taste make me sick on my stomach.

Last song you listened to?

Mouth by Paradise Lost. Frequently on repeat, to be honest. One of my favourite songs.

What do you believe in the most?

That everything needs to be proven.

What was the last movie you watched and enjoyed?

I don't watch movies at all, let alone enjopy them.

Do you use captions when watching TV?

Sometimes, especially when I don't want the TV to be too loud.

What was the last app you used?

GIMP on my laptop, Moises on my phone.

What's your most used app?

Besides Opera, I think GIMP and Audacity.

What percentage is your phone battery on?

59%. Time to charge.

Are there any recipes you'd like to try?

Yeah, I'd love to make my own waterzooi.

Did you use Vine when it existed?

I didn't know about its existence back then.

What decorations do you have in your bedroom?

Fake plants and framed photos of our late older cat.

Who is a celebrity you'd like to hang out with?

I can't think of anyone, but maybe Amy Lee from Evanescence? She seems cool.

How many amusement parks have you visited?

A few, but I don't like them very much.

Do you prefer chewy or crunchy textures more?

Ew I hate crunchy food. Sensory overload.

What last broke your heart?

Thee most of all, death of my beloved cat.

What is happiness in your own words?

Being able yo enjoy life no matter what.

Do you still live in the town you grew up in?

No, it's been long time.

Are there any events coming up you're looking forward to?

Yeah, probably October fair in Oostende and Christmas at my parents, if possible.

What's the most random collection you've had or known someone to have?

Probably my collection of pens is the most random ever.

Are you currently wearing anything green?

No, not at all.

Do you google your symptoms everytime there is something wrong?

No. I prefer to ask the doctor.

Have you or would you ever go see a psychic?

I don't believe in such things.

Who is the strongest person you know?

There are a few, I would count myself, too. I overcame most of my disability.

What's your go to Chinese food order?

Chicken soup and nasi goreng.

When was the last time you visited family?

This summer, I finally met my sister.

Do you currently feel restless?

Not in particular.

What is something you're naturally good at?

Making people laugh.

Have you had coffee or tea today?

No, I can't consume caffeine.

What flower did you last see?

Probably a wild rose.

What's your favorite fictional book?

Anything about Pelle Svanslös, that Swedish kitty without tail.

[unanuvola]

Come sarò io e come sarai tu (con qualche giorno in più)

Pairing: Damiano David x reader; Ethan Torchio x reader

Characters: Damiano David, Ethan Torchio, Victoria De Angelis, Thomas Raggi

Genre: Romance

Warning(s): Swearing

Summary: What if after fifteen years the past you really want to forget comes back to you at work? What would you do?

Note: thanks to my friend @tezz1n for the translation <3

⁂~⁂~⁂

PROLOGUE

June 2005

It was terribly hot for the beginning of June and I was in the middle of a chaos of people. It was as if most of the Manzoni High School students had the same brilliant idea as me and were trying to grab something to eat before the Måneskin concert. My patience reached its limit when I was surrounded by armpits’ smell. God, why are guys so afraid of washing themselves? 

"Excuse me... Please…" I said while trying to break free from sweaty and sticky people.

"Let her pass that her fiancé is going to perform! She can’t wait to throw her bra on stage!" 

I heard them clearly because, after all, they weren’t trying to hide themselves and I didn’t even need to look who was talking, ‘cause I knew them all too well.  Mariani and Russo from fourth grade, two losers with little desire to study and a big desire to be a pain in the ass. They started a little while ago, but I was trying not to care too much, in a little bit more than a month the final exams would have been over and I would have not seen those bastards ever again. 

"You know what? His boyfriend? In my opinion he fucks with all of them, also the lass from International!" 

While they were still laughing, I reached my table. I took a plate and a handful of cheese fries and asked for a cup of Fanta. I thanked and turned around, fries in one hand and a fully filled cup in the other. I’ve not even had the time to take a step when someone on my right pushed me and my orange flew on Russo’s white shirt. 

"Holy shit!"

My gaze went from the orange stain growing on the fabric to the livid face of Russo and a laugh broke free. The more he looked at me with hate, the more I could not stop laughing. 

"The fuck are you laughing at, dickhead? Look at what you’ve done! Where do you think to go? Come back here, bitch!" 

But I was already slipping in between the crowd with my medium finger well high so that the two losers could clearly see it. 

I sat in front of the stage that the end-of-the-year festival committee had placed in the middle of the school yard, and took my phone from my crossbody bag. Two missed calls from mom. I rang her ‘cause obviously I had no credit and, after some minutes, the phone started to buzz.

"Ehy momy! Something happened?" 

"No, just wanted to know if you’ll be home for lunch."

"Don’t know… it depends on what they guys are going to do after the concert," I said nibbling my lips, "but this evening I’m home for sure. I’d like to speak with you about something." 

"Ok, honey! See you at dinner. Please, on time. Have a good concert and say hi to Ethan!" 

"Ok! Bye, bye, bye!" and I hung up. 

So, this evening I would have said to my parents that I’d have liked to sign up for university here in Rome and to not come back to Turin. Was I ready? Absolutely not, but that was not the time to worry myself for sure. I would have thought about it later.

The other students from the Manzoni were starting to crowd and I had to stand up. I was about to put the phone in my bag when it buzzed. A message.  

From: Damiano 

<3

Without thinking twice I gave him a ring and then I started staring at that little heart mindlessly. Shit, I’m screwed - I thought while placing the mobile in my bag and taking my oh-so-precious digital camera, a birthday gift from my parents. 

I liked Damiano, well, I liked him a lot and, inexplicably, he liked me too. I wasn’t able to understand how such a miracle was even possible, but it was and the best thing to do was to live it every single day.

The principal took the stage and, after the usual recommendations (“No pogo, no throwing things on stage and no inappropriate behaviours."), he introduced the band.

"And now a big round of applause to Måneskin!" he exclaimed, gesturing for my friends to get on stage, "Have fun everyone!"

The firsts to get on stage were Thomas and Victoria, already carrying their guitar and bass over their shoulders. Then it was the turn of Ethan. His eyes were frantically moving over the crowd until they set on me. He smiled at me before sitting behind his drums. At least, it was the turn of Damiano. He went past me and winked, I could not do or say a single thing such was my bewitchment. The long hair over his shoulders, the shirt opened that allowed a glimpse at his abs. The same abs I was caressing only some evenings ago.

"Hey-yo this is Måneskin! The first song is for you, Malibù." Damiano said at the microphone and the unmistakable notes of Luna by Verdena started to fly in the sky.

Yes, Malibù is me. No, Malibù is not my name. It’s the nickname Damiano gave me one of the first times we’ve met. And in that moment, he was dedicating me one of my favorite songs. Saying I was in cloud nine was not enough. I sang every line, at the top of my lungs, and only when they started singing the other songs I decided to take some picture. I tried my best, but I was almost sure that all the pictures would end up being blurred because the guys were moving worse than snakes. What kind of official photographer would I be if I couldn’t even take a picture in focus?

At the end of the concert - too early for my taste - I ran in the classroom that had been set as backstage. I wanted to congratulate the guys and, even more, I want to jump on Damiano, saying to him that he’d been oh-so-good and then kiss him for the rest of my life. 

The classroom door was half-closed. Instead of opening it, I peek through the crack and what I saw turned my blood into ice. Without even noticing, I started crying. I covered my mouth with my hands to lessen the sobs, but it was too late. Victoria, her lips still on Damiano’s, opened her eyes and saw me. 

I started running, fast. My eyes were burning terribly and my brain couldn’t react to what I’ve just seen. 

I have not had the time to leave the school when I felt someone grabbing my arm. Even if my sight was blurred by the tears, I turned and saw Ethan. 

"What happened?" he asked me. His voice sounded so far away, like a distant murmur, "Would you tell me what happened?". His usual composure was gone. I squirmed and ran away without looking back. 

I exit the school building not knowing that that was the last time I would have seen Damiano. 

[carnalpleasure]

Michael x Angel!Reader 👼

hi!! i’ve had this idea in my head for months and finally felt inspired to start it tonight. i’m still working on my other two fics.. but Michael’s been calling to me lately💕

Summary: The reader assigns herself to be Michael’s guardian angel. This takes place at the beginning of Sojourn, with Michael in the wilderness. But takes a slightly different turn <3

Every human being in the history of humanity had been born with a guardian angel. The precious moment a newborn baby breathes its first breath of life, an angel is assigned to be their lifelong guardian. The angel’s main mission being to protect their human ward from the dark forces that had plagued the earth for all eternity. Ever since the serpent seduced Eve into her first bite of the knowledge of Good and Evil.

But that streak was broken one day in late March of 2012, when Vivian Harmon gave birth to Satan’s only begotten son.

She was the Anti-Mary. Instead of a blessed virgin being touched by an angel, she was a victim of a demonic sexual assault. She died giving birth to the Antichrist.

Michael Langdon was Satan’s very first creation. Because he was not a child of God, he was not born with a guardian angel. His father didn’t bother to assign him a guardian demon either. The spawn of Satan was left in the hands of none other than his grandmother Constance, whom his father felt was perfect for raising the little monster.

When Michael outgrew her, his father introduced him to Anton Lavey, one of his most trusted followers, who would then introduce Michael as the heir to the Church of Satan.

Michael, however, didn’t really take to Anton. He felt much closer to another key member of the church, Miriam Mead. She took a liking to the boy too and lovingly welcomed him into her home, where she taught him all about rituals, prayers, Black Mass, satanic prophecy.. She was preparing him for the apocalypse. His destiny, as they’d all say.

Once Michael began becoming aware of his powers, his father then led him into the hands of the Warlocks. They thought they were training him to be their next Supreme, but he only needed them to show him how to use his powers. They were disposable beyond that.

Michael was a loyal son, never questioning his father’s decisions, until his beloved Ms. Mead was permanently taken from him by the witches. Cordelia was right, why did he let this happen?

In search of answers, Michael fled to the wilderness on a quest. Jesus had spent 40 days out in the desert being tempted by Satan himself before his own Father finally spoke to him. Michael decided he had to do the same.

That’s when he wandered out into the forest on the outskirts of LA and started to trace a pentagram in the dirt, tired and out of options.

“I’m not going any further,” he sulked, dragging the jagged stone across the ground. “Father, tell me what to do, and I’ll do it,” he pleaded, out of breath as he finished carving his sigil into the soil.

“I’m not leaving this circle until you talk to me,” he pouted stubbornly. “They’re gone.. the warlocks.. my Ms. Mead. Burned alive at the stake by the witches. Until nothing was left but ash and smoke,” his voice was breaking but he was too exhausted to cry.

“You tell me what to do,” he sighed, “or you let me die here.” Then he fell to his knees in the center of the circle and waited for a sign.

He watched the sun set and rise four times before he finally had a vision. But even then, he couldn’t be sure if he was seeing a sign or just suffering from severe dehydration.

He saw a little boy offering a cold grape Fanta, and a little girl holding a basket of red apples, and he thought maybe God was trying to tempt him into the light now. To distract him from his mission and derail him from his destiny.

He refused, “No, I’m on a mission. I have to talk to my father,” he said weakly. “Leave me alone.” Then the visions turned dark. He was taunted by Ms. Mead and then praised by Anton Lavey.

“You’re not real. None of this is.. re-real.” He shook his head and raised his hand to shield his face from the blinding light that was radiating from the High Priest before him.

“You’ve done a great job.” The Satanist proudly smiled. “No..” Michael protested, “I failed. I-I’m lost. I don’t understand my purpose,” he was out of breath and at a loss for words. He was tired of games, all he wanted was his father’s help. Everything was spinning.

The vision of Anton continued reciting to him from the prophecy in Revelation, calling him the Alpha and the Omega. Michael couldn’t take it anymore. He made a lunge for Anton, wrapping a hand around his throat to choke him out. Only seconds later, the vision vanished altogether.

And that’s when he saw you. The last thing he remembered was an impossibly beautiful girl with big white wings and a little white dress. He fell to his knees again, in shock and exhaustion, and collapsed into her arms. He felt the warm, soft embrace of feathers, and then he fell into a much needed sleep.

When he awoke a day later, he was still pretty disoriented from the lack of food, water, and sleep. His mind was a haze. He didn’t realize where he was, he only knew that this bed was softer than anything he’d ever felt.

The blankets felt like fluffed up clouds and the pillows smelled like lavender. A cool breeze caressed his skin, and he noticed the temperature of the room was significantly cooler than anything he’d felt in a long time. That radiating heat that seemed to consume him constantly just wasn’t there.

He reached his hand out to feel along the bed. Empty. He opened his eyes, hoping to see the angel from his dreams sitting there watching over him. But the room was empty too.

He sat up in bed, clutching the sheets and looking around anxiously. The room was nice, but it wasn’t anything extreme. It was kinda charming actually, soft and cozy. It didn’t look like anyone had been living here for very long.

Michael climbed out of bed, stepping foot on the soft, plush carpet and smiling at the touch. He walked towards the bedroom door which was just barely cracked open, and stuck his head out slowly to peak outside.

You were in the kitchen, digging around in the refrigerator when you heard him come out. You twisted around, bumping the fridge door shut with your hip and then dropping everything on the counter.

“You’re up already? Are you feeling okay?” The pained look on his face made you worry. He looked exhausted still, leaning against the doorway just to hold himself up.

You rushed to his side, a little faster than humanly possible, and wrapped an arm around his waist to help him steady himself. He leaned into your embrace but winced a little at your touch. His body was sore everywhere.

He couldn’t stop staring at you. Almost glaring, looking at you like you’d just lied straight to his face. You walked him to the counter, sitting him down across from you and then running back to quickly check the stove. He didn’t take his eyes off you the whole time.

“I’m making you a breakfast feast,” you smiled at him over your shoulder. “You look like you haven’t eaten in days..”

“I’m sorry,” he interjected. “But wh-who are you? How did I get here?”

You smiled gently, passing him a plate of bacon and eggs to get him started while you finished the french toast. “I’m Y/N, I brought you here,” you said happily.

He kept looking you up and down. You looked exactly like he remembered, but you were now missing one unique, defining feature..

“Are you-“ he couldn’t bring himself to say the word out loud. It didn’t seem possible to him. “You had.. wings before,” his brow furrowed in confusion and his glare returned.

You simply nodded, glancing over at him and frying a piece of toast in the pan. “You remembered,” you said with a smile.

His confusion only grew. You poured him a glass of milk and then slid the fork closer to him. “Eat, please. We have plenty of time to talk later. I’ll tell you everything you want to know,” you brushed his blonde curls out of his face and the divine touch of your fingers briefly lingered on his skin, sending shivers down his spine.

He hesitated, picking up his fork and taking a bite. It wasn’t just the starvation talking, he genuinely enjoyed your food. He immediately started feeling his strength and energy coming back. He felt revitalized.

It wasn’t just the food. Something about your presence was so satisfying to him. You brought him a kind of merciful peace that was only reserved for the saints. He didn’t need confirmation, he knew in his heart you were something holy. And he only hoped that you didn’t know what he truly was. If you ever fell in love with him, it would be your fall from grace.

“You’re an angel,” he whispered softly. His heart was pounding. He felt like he was committing a crime just by being in your presence. He felt like God would smite him any minute just for laying eyes on you.

You cupped his face in your hands gently, wiping away a stray tear that fell from his eyes. “As of today, I’m officially a guardian angel,” you smiled proudly. Your eyes actually twinkled, it completely captivated him.

“Guardian? Who’s guardian?” his pouty lip quivered and you could see all the new emotions swirling around him like a hurricane. He couldn’t believe any of this was really happening. He thought he must’ve been dreaming. He wasn’t dead, he knew that. He was destined for hell and there’s no one like her down there.

He was so cute. “Yours, duh” you giggled, letting go of his face and playfully tousling his blonde locks. He looked up at you with a small smirk that spread into a big smile. He couldn’t wrap his head around it. “How?-“ he silently mouthed as the words he was looking for escaped him.

“You didn’t have one,” you shrugged. “So I.. guess you could say I volunteered.” You didn’t want to overwhelm him with too many details, but the adorable confused puppy look on his face was begging for answers. “Volunteered?” he repeated, cocking his head to the side curiously. He wiped his nose on his sleeve.

“I just thought you should have someone looking out for you too.. you know. You didn’t deserve to be abandoned. Not by God or anyone.” You said it with such sincerity, he could see it on your face how strongly you felt about those words.

His eyes started to overflow with tears but he couldn’t help but smile. It was the single kindest thing anyone had ever said to him. That’s when it hit him. You already knew what he was. You knew who he was. And you were willing to go against both God’s will and Satan’s to take over as his protector. You left heaven just for him.

He pulled you into his lap, wrapping his arms around you and quietly sobbing into your chest. Tears of pure joy and gratitude. Little “thank yous” whispered on repeat against your skin, so close you can feel his lips brushing across your collarbones with each word.

He snaked his arms around your waist tighter and tighter, pulling you as close to him as physics would allow. It melted your heart how close he wanted to be to you.

“Aw.. you just want to be held,” you giggled, putting your arms around his shoulders and hugging his body closer to yours. “I’m here, Michael. I’ve got you now. You’re safe, you’re mine,” you cooed, your lips brushing against his temple.

His eyes were closed and his face was pressed against your chest, all he heard was a swift whoosh as your wings suddenly appeared, folding around both of your bodies like a soft shield tucking him into you. He’d never felt so safe before, all nestled in your feathers.

He peaked his eyes open to look around at them. “That’s fucking awesome,” he muttered softly, his jaw dropping as his eyes shot up to meet yours. You smiled down at him, kissing his forehead. You couldn’t help but giggle. He made you feel giddy, the way he looked at you. Like you were made of magic.

“My own guardian angel,” he said quietly to himself, still in awe of it all. He refused to let go of you for the rest of the day after that. All he wanted to do was lie in your arms. Feel your embrace. And you were happy to oblige because he needed to rest anyway. The two of you returned to your bed where he spent the rest of the night on your chest, fast asleep in your arms. The safest place he could ever be.

💕taglist: @sexwon131 @jimmason @whatcodysaid @angelicmichael @thewarriorprincessxo

[whatcouldgowrong-ohthat]

Between the Ink and Papers Ch. 7

Summary: Steve and Peggy have been divorced for a year and Sarah is still starting to find her groove in it. However, it becomes a lot easier when she and Typhanie realize it might be time for her dad to start dating again.

Pairings: tattooartist!dad!Steve x Reader, Typhanie x Sarah, Peggy x Logan, Bucky x Natasha

Between the Ink and Papers Masterlist - Masterlist to Other Works

Word Count: 1691

Warnings: Teenagers plotting

--

Death’s “Politicians In My Eyes” blared over headphones, threatening to deafen her poor ears. Not that she cared. Instead, Typhanie twirled around the kitchen and rocked from one foot to the other while waiting for the toaster to finish its attack on her poor bagel.

However, the awesome 70’s song grew quiet when her headphones were tugged off her head. She spun around, grinning when Sam held out her very burnt bagel. “Eating this will kill you.”

“Life’s all about risks.” She snatched the food right out of his hand, taking a bite before grabbing a Fanta from the fridge.

“Why’re you in such a rush?” Sam grabbed her backpack from the kitchen table, holding it out of her reach as Typhanie paused her song.

“I have a meeting with the school counselor.” With a mouth full of bagel, she shoved the last of her papers into a messy stack and shuffled them until they resembled something akin to order. Then, turning to her dad, Typhanie held out her hand. “Backpack, please.”

Sam silently raised a brow, waiting for some sort of elaboration. When none came, he shook his head and handed it over. “Be safe! And let me know if you’re hanging with Sarah after school.”

Already out the door, a muffled “got it” was the only sign she heard him.

He chuckled, looking out the window. His crazy teenager grabbed her skateboard and was already taking off. The pep in her step never wavered and god, he loved to see her smile like that. Sam pulled out his phone, taking a second to glance at the time before he muttered a soft, “Shit!”

It looked like his kid would be early, but Sam would mostly definitely be late.

--

“Ms. Y/L/N! Ms. Y/L/N!”

Y/N looked up to her open door, wondering who would be shouting her name this early in the morning. She caught sight of Typhanie sliding past the door and immediately scrambled to her feet. “Typhanie?” Y/N poked her head out as Typhanie kicked up her skateboard and tucked it under her arm. There was a giddiness to the teenager, something Y/N saw so rarely in the students she worked with. It made her smile. “You’re here because of our conversation, right?”

“Y – Yeah. I just have Speech and Debate practice later, so this is really the best time.”

Y/N’s smile faltered. Concerned, she asked, “What other school activities are you a part of?”

“Um…” Typhanie’s brow scrunched as her teeth caught her lip. “Band and StuCo. Plus I take duel credit where I can and Mr. Rogers hired me to help out at the shop when I have the time.”

“Wow.” Y/N leaned against her desk, hands braced against the edge. “Typhanie, I’ve looked at your grades. That and what you just told me, you’re doing amazing. I’m not sure why you’re worried about college. If anything, I’d be worried you’re overworking yourself.”

“I can manage this last year. That’s not a problem for me, Ms. Y/L/N.”

“Yeah, you mentioned.” Y/N walked around the table and flipped through her notes. “You’re worried about affording it, right?”

Typhanie nodded, sitting on the arm of the nearest chair. “Dad tries his best and I love him for it. I just – “ She swallowed the lump in her throat, twisting one of the many rings around her fingers. “I want to ease any sort of financial burden if there would be one.”

Y/N watched her carefully. She loved Typhanie’s determination. Her drive was impeccable. She knew exactly what she wanted and she wasn’t going to let anything get in her way. Nodding, Y/N pulled a file out of one of the desk drawers. “Then, let’s see what we can do, hm?”

--

Sarah had been hopeful ever since she and her dad had spoken about her anger. The fact that he believed in her, in Ms. Y/L/N helping them work through this, it brought a pep to her step that even her teachers noticed. They knew better than to question her about it. After all, no one wanted to be the reason for its disappearance.

However, the one person she wanted to talk to about it was Typhanie. And the girl was no where to be found this morning!

She had tried catching her at Sam’s, but she wasn’t there. Tried seeing if she’d be at the subway and there was no luck. Tried and tried and tried.

So there she was, totally surprised to find her girlfriend leaving her counselor’s office.

Definitely not something she expected to see today.

“Hey.” Concern etched her features. The pep wavered just a moment as Sarah approached Typhanie. She wasn’t even paying attention to the fact that Typhanie had a bunch of papers in hand or that she was smiling.

Girlfriend + Counselor = Concern.

That was all there was to it for Sarah. “What’s going on? Are you okay?” Sarah’s eyes flitted from her to Y/N who was pouring herself a cup of coffee and back.

Typhanie was already laughing. Sarah was too much like her dad. Protective and asking the wrong questions. “I’m fine,” she assured. “Ms. Y/L/N was just helping me with…” She shrugged, fiddling with the papers.

Sarah’s eyes drifted to the stack. On top, a list of colleges and scholarship opportunities. The wires finally connected in Sarah’s head. “You finally talked to her about college.” It wasn’t a question. It didn’t need to be. “Oh my god, you finally did it.” A cheek-hurting, face-splitting grin tugged at Sarah’s lips as she squealed. She tackled Typhanie in a hug, earning a startled laugh.

“Sarah! Oxygen,” she wheezed. But instead, she was only squeezed tighter. Startled laughter and an another attempted, “Sarah,” and yet still, there was no use. The bell rang, signaling the actual start to their day. “Babe, the bell!”

Sarah begrudgingly let go, making a point to give Typhanie that look. “We are not done with this. I swear, we are going to celebrate.”

“I haven’t even applied,” she reminded.

“I don’t care. As long as I’ve known you, this is what you’ve wanted. I’m not going to ignore it and nothing you can say will change that.”

Before Typhanie had a chance to comment on Sarah’s excitement, or even why she was in such a good mood, the blonde was kissing her cheek and running off to class. Typhanie stared for a long moment. Shocked. She looked over her shoulder - at the office that had given her so many answers. A thought crossed her mind. A rather valid one that had her wondering. Was Ms. Y/L/N was a bigger influence than any of them were realizing?

--

It wasn’t until lunch when Sarah and Typhanie actually got another moment together. Now, Sarah was much like a cat. Head in Typhanie’s lap, letting her play with her play with her hair as the much more responsible one flipped through paper after paper.

“I should’ve known you would go straight into the work part of it.” Sarah took a bite of her way-too-greasy cheese pizza. A long string stretched from food to lips before she finally gave it a good yank.

Typhanie glanced down at her. An unbecoming snort made her shoulders shake when she saw tomato sauce splattered on Sarah’s chin. She flicked her nose, earning an adorable scrunch as she teased, “And I should’ve known you’d pig out.”

Around a mouthful of food, Sarah declared, “’M hungry.”

“She’s always hungry.”

Typhanie looked up as Sarah half-assed an attempt at peering over the table. “Cassie!” Grinning like the cat that ate the canary, Sarah swung herself around so she could properly sit up. “Did you finally get a break from that stupid boyfriend?” Reaching across the table, she stole one of her friend’s French fries and shoved it in her mouth before it could be snatched right back.

Cassie rolled her eyes. “Stupid boyfriend is stupid ex-boyfriend now.”

Sarah’s nose wrinkled once more. “Gross.”

“I’m sorry, Cass. You want to talk about it?”

She shrugged, shaking her head and finally digging into her lunch before Sarah could eat it all. “Not really. Ned was a sweet guy, but there’s not really room in his whole friendship with that Parker guy.”

“Oh, yeah. Isn’t that the kid interning at Uncle Tony’s?”

Though the question was innocent enough, Typhanie turned to face Sarah. She pointed at her, a determined, “No,” putting a stop to any schemes Sarah could come up with.

“What?”

“Just no.”

Sarah huffed, shoulders slumping as Cassie giggled. An irritated whine left her lips, but everyone knew that Typhanie had won the non-argument.

“Jeez, you two are too good together. It’s gross.”

Typhanie shrugged, smiling. “I don’t mind it.”

“Well, yeah, of course you don’t! Everyone wants someone they can share – “ Cassie gestured to…well, all of them. “- That with.”

It was meant as a joke. Simple teasing between friends, really, but Cassie and Typhanie could practically see the lightbulb blip over Sarah’s head. “Cass, you crazy genius.”

“What’d I do?”

Sarah turned to face Typhanie this time. “Ms. Y/L/N really helped you with the college thing, right?”

Typhanie shrugged, taking a sip of her water. “Yeah, I guess.”

“And she’s helping me with my anger. She’s already met my whole family and knows their shit. Dad actually thinks she’s cool. In fact, Dad thinks she could be a huge help for us.”

Cassie waved a hand in the air, feeling very much like the kid in class who simply didn’t get it. “What am I missing here?”

And like always, Typhanie was quick to catch up. “No.  Don’t you even – “

“I’m evening. I’m going there. You can’t stop me.” Sarah was already gathering her things and getting up.

Typhanie had no choice, but to watch as the dominoes lined up and chaos prepared to unfold. It was then she saw it. That pep in her step. Excited and unwavering, Sarah headed inside like a woman on a mission.

“Typh, what’s going on?”

She spared Cassie a glance and shook her head. “Believe me, I’m not even sure I want to know.”

[matildaofoz]

Memento Mori Pt 3. (Michael Langdon x Fem!Death!Reader)

You reached the courtyard of Kineros Robotics in record time, Michael hot at your heels.

“Can you walk a little slower?“ Michael complained, walking quickly beside you to keep up despite his long legs. You weren't lying when you had told him that you were on the clock.

„No can do, kiddo. Now come on, use those wonderful legs of yours,“ you threw at him over your shoulder, your hands searching for the car keys you had stashed in one of the conveniently hidden pockets of your dress without slowing down. Why weren't those a thing yet when humanity had invented every other type of useless thingamabob and yet pockets on a dress were blasphemous, you wondered. The intricacies of humankind often evaded you. The fingers of your right hand grazed the keys in your pocket and with a satisfied smirk you pulled them out.

“I'm not a kid, you know. I'm the Anti-,“ Michael began, irritated.

„The Antichrist, yes and you were born exactly when, 2012? You may not look it Michael, but in the grand scheme of things you're barely an amoeba,“ you interrupted him, not in the mood for any more temper tantrums. Without having to look back at his face, you felt the anger rolling off him in waves. He really was not used to being treated as anything less than the son of Satan. If he wanted you to lick his shoes, he was sorely mistaken. If anything, he should be on his knees before you, praising the universe for having sent you in his hour of need.

Continuing to ignore a seething Michael, your eyes zoned in on your newest toy. A 1965 Black Ford Mustang Convertible with bright red leather seats. Seeing as you were all things considered an ancient being and material things meant positively nothing to you, you did have two weaknesses. Fast food and fast cars. You liked to think that it was due to the human form you took, your immense power being pressed into the confines of a limited body and your patient nature being expressed in a rather paradoxical instant gratification. Thankfully, you couldn't gain any weight nor die in a car crash, remaining ever the same, and so you chose to indulge yourself at every given opportunity. Soon enough, those fleeting pleasures would come to an end. Might as well enjoy it while you could.

You skipped over the curb to the driver's side, admiring the way the inky paint coat glistened in the late afternoon sun, not a speck of dust in sight.

Michael came to stand by the passenger door, now more confused than angry. He was ever-changing, you mused.

“Did, did you sell your soul to my father too?” he asked, mustering the convertible before his eyes searched your face.

“No, Michael,” you chuckled amused. H really didn't know the first thing about the Apocalypse or his place in all of this. Maybe there would be time to give the boy a lesson, but not until you had had a good meal.  

“I think I'm out of your dad's league if we're being honest. I am more a collector of souls myself. Your father or God don't actually hold the monopoly even though that's what they like to tell everyone. Tell you what, over dinner you and I will take a little trip down memory lane,” you explained, watching him with intent.

“Liar,” Michael said lowly, processing your words. His icy blue eyes narrowed at you. You could feel his power trying to claw at you, yet it felt distinctly like a kitten lick.

“Oh please, Michael, I don't lie,” you retorted unaffected, your hand grabbing the door handle and sliding into the seat, grabbing the pair of sunglasses on the dashboard and putting them on before looking at Michael, your fingers drumming on the steering wheel. This was not going nearly as well as you had planned and if you wanted to keep the plan you had set in motion rolling, you would undoubtedly need to change course, despite the fact that you loathed having to do so. Death be damned, you thought.

“I don't like repeating myself, Michael. I don't owe you any answers but perhaps I'm growing soft and the fact that you are left to your own devices, trying to figure out the single most monumental task on this rock hurtling through space has me feeling a little...sympathetic,” you stated, leaning over to push open the passenger door as a sign of goodwill.

“Tell you what, you can ask me all the questions you like, deal?”

Michael contemplated for a few seconds. He didn't like to admit it but so far he hadn't been the one to come up with any good plans that didn't involve The Omen 3 plot and his father had been absent throughout his accent so far. He didn't trust you or anybody bar Ms. Mead and yet you presented an enigma to him, one he needed to crack open. He was brilliant at problem-solving and he would solve you too, he thought to himself, a little grin creeping into the corner of his mouth. His invisible claws retracted.

“Deal. But I get to ask as many as I want,” he replied, pulling the door open all the way and plopping himself into the passenger seat beside you, arms crossed over his broad chest.

“Fine, a deal's a deal,” you groaned only halfheartedly, shooting him a grin of your own as you fired up the engine and pulled out onto the road. You really did have your work cut out for you. Lucky for Michael, he was so easy on the eyes that you didn't mind as much as you should have. You pressed the 'on' button of the radio and stifled a laugh at the song that had just started playing:

I see the bad moon a-rising I see trouble on the way I see earthquakes and lightnin' I see bad times today

Don't go around tonight Well it's bound to take your life There's a bad moon on the rise

°°° 20 Minutes later, you pulled into a parking lot, turned off the engine, hopping out of the car, and came around to Michael's side to take an unneeded but deep breath, filling your lungs with crisp evening air and the distinct smell of desert. The sun had just begun to set, a slight chill setting in and the last remaining rays illuminated Michael's blond hair in a way that reminded you an awful lot of his father before the fall. You let your gaze wander over his sitting form for a second, before lightly slapping the arm he had draped over the side of the car, lost in his own thoughts.

“Come on, Angel, we're here,“ you chided playfully, knowing it would rile the blonde man up unnecessarily. On cue, Michael's gaze shot up to meet your own, nostrils flaring at the more than holy pet name.

“Don't call me that! I'm anything but that!“ he bit out but couldn't keep the blush from creeping up his neck. He didn't like the way you made him feel. Weak and unsure of himself. No power he had encountered could match his, not even Cordelia's and then you came along. As if he wasn't already feeling insecure enough, even after having massacred the witches and warlocks, you only added to the sense that he hadn't yet achieved what he was meant to do, or be where his father expected him to be. Sensing his unease, you tussled his locks with your left hand, pulling him out of his self-induced reverie.

“There is nothing a good cake can't fix, Michael. Trust me,” you smiled at him, hoping he would pull himself together and get out the car. At the word cake, he did perk up, finally glancing behind you to look at where you had taken him.

“The Cheesecake Factory, really?” he looked up at you quizzically, disbelieving. If you were in fact Death, and he wasn't yet sure you weren't lying to him despite your overpowering aura, shouldn't you be dining in some high-class restaurant on the other end of town where they didn't even have prices on the menu?

“Are you food shaming me?” you retorted, one eyebrow shooting up.

“Err, no. It just doesn't...suit you,” Michael replied, his right hand coming to massage the back of his neck, embarrassment evident at his remark.

“Wouldn't you like to know what does and doesn't suit me. If you must know, it's kind of my thing. Don't ask me why but I just can't keep my hands off sweet things,” you explained, winking at him and only adding to his embarrassment. Before the Antichrist could slide any further down your passenger seat and be swallowed whole by the ground, you opened his door and gestured for him to get out.

“Relax. You clearly don't know how to take a joke. Come on, I can smell the cakes from here.” You turned on your heels, cape dress swishing behind you as you made your way across the parking lot to the entry. You weren't quite sure your words were meant as a joke but that was a heart-to-heart you'd have with yourself later. The only sweet thing on your mind right now was cake and soda. The slam of the car door indicated that Michael had managed to detach himself from the red leather interior and he jogged up beside you, matching your stride.

“I hope you're hungry. I'm paying,” you said, smiling with glee and making Michael chuckle. Another thing to add to your slowly growing list of likes about the spawn of Satan, you noted to your dismay.

°°° You placed the fork neatly back onto the now empty plate, devoid of even the smallest crumb, that had held an entire ultimate red velvet cake, groaning blissfully. Eyes closed, you swallowed down the last bite. Opposite you, Michael had stopped eating his pasta dish some time ago. When you had said that there is nothing a cake couldn't fix, you had meant an entire cake after all.  The hunger you felt whenever you were in a human body was not easily satiated. Something that Michael or the waiter were clearly not prepared for. Both had been watching you for the last 5 minutes, jaws slack, as piece after piece traveled on the fork and into your mouth.

“That was positively delicious,” you hummed, casting a glance at Michael, fork suspended in mid-air.

“W-would you like anything else, Miss?” the waiter stuttered, taking your plate and admiring it as if it were a rare antiquity.

“Oh no, I think I've been quite naughty enough, don't you think?” you giggled, reaching for the Fanta and taking a large sip.

“Michael, you've hardly touched your food,” you noted, your voice rousing the young man out the trance your display of gluttony had placed him under. He cleared his throat, putting the fork down, adjusting his seat on the table.

“I'm not hungry anymore.”

“Oh, ok, well in that case we'd like the bill please,” you addressed the waiter with a satisfied grin, gulping down the last remnant of orange soda in your glass.

“Hey, you said you'd answer my questions! I knew you were a liar!” Michael intercepted, trying his best to keep his voice down.

“ I don't lie, Michael. You chose to watch me enjoy some cake instead of asking questions, didn't you?” you countered, your elbows coming to rest on the table, fingers intertwining. His anger and frustration bubbled to the surface once again. If he weren't the Antichrist, you were sure he would have a heart attack by the time he hit 30. His body tensed at your statement of truth, eyes squinting menacingly at you. Yet you were right, he had been so busy watching you, he had forgotten all about the myriad of questions buzzing in his mind like moths around a flame. His eyes fluttered shut briefly, gulping down the rage that threatened to burst out his chest. You watched as the blonde man tried to gain back his composure, your finger coming to run along the rim of the empty glass in front of you.

“Michael,” you demanded. His eyes opened to meet your own and you could see his restraint hanging by a thread in them. He did have a temper and you didn't want him setting fire to your favourite restaurant just yet.

“I'm in a good mood tonight. Instead of just answering your questions, I would like to show you something that will answer almost all of them. A deal is a deal,” you tried to reason. Michael mulled your words over in his head, sizing you up while doing so.

“Oh for goodness sake, Michael! I'm not trying to manipulate you. I'm trying to help you!” you exclaimed, exasperated at his hesitance and mistrust. While you knew his beginnings on this earth weren't exactly peppered in love, warmth and trust, you couldn't afford him seeing you as the enemy. Neither could he.

“If you don't believe me, take a peek. Make it last, this will be a one-off,” you encouraged him, an invisible finger beckoning him closer and allowing him limited access to your mind momentarily. Michael's mind pushed through your doors, grazing, flitting over millennia of memories before you let him look at your core.

No lies, Michael, you see?

You eased him out and sealed the doors shut tightly once again, leaning back in your chair, the restaurant coming back into focus.

“Here's your bill, Miss. Thank you for stopping by at the Cheesecake Factory tonight,” the waiter had brought you the bill. Wordlessly, you handed him a 100$ bill, nodding your head briefly at him to suggest that he could keep the change and waited for Michael's response.

“Ok,” Michael finally replied, rolling his head on his shoulders, resulting in a gratuitous cracking sound. You weren't sure if he was entirely satisfied with your show of goodwill. Not that it mattered.

“Let's take a walk,” you suggested, getting up without even the slightest hint of a stomach after decimating an entire cake. Michael's eyes never left you and the enigma you were to him just became a lot more enticing. A boyish smirk crossed his face as he stood up to walk in front of you. At the exit, he held open the door.

“My, my Michael. Didn't take you for a gentleman,” you chuckled, gracefully pushing past him and into the cool night air.

“My Ms. Mead would expect nothing less of me,” he offered, not bothering to hide his Cheshire cat smile. You had allowed him access to your mind and the things he saw, he desperately wanted to see again. You were like a box of confectioneries to him. For once in his life, his pride and ever-growing sense of entitlement took the backseat.  He felt like he had finally met someone of his own caliber and the feeling was exhilarating to him. You weren't his father but you were the next best thing and best of all, right in front of him.

Tag List:

@sexwon131​ @leatherduncan​ @rocketgirl2410​

[naturaldisasterfanfiction]

25. Part 3

Sitting on the floor of my basketball court out of breath, these niggas are really working me today “you tired nigga?” Ryan dapped me as he sat next to me “a little” I laughed, I been playing basketball since we came back, I invited some of the boys over to do that instead of going back out. Clearly the police will be on high alert, I did nothing wrong so I just thought I would do this for the rest of the night. I mean it’s not late, it’s just turning about nine “I am going to get a drink” getting up from the floor “look at this nigga, as soon as he starts losing he sat on the floor” I laughed shaking my head, my hands on my hips as I left the court. Maybe I am getting unhealthy, but they are whooping my ass on the court right now, I think it’s me. My mind is on the fact I done nothing, I am ignoring the fact I have so much to do and I don’t know what to do. I am not sure, I think London is peaceful but like I got no niggas to do shit with, it’s like I am bound to stay with Robyn and her friends which are cool but like where is my little friends, like I don’t know. I do like it here when I am not high as fuck, out here having fun. I just don’t like Robyn cussing me out, like that is uncalled for. I don’t want to say anything to her, I respect Robyn with all my heart, she is my wife, so I am just letting her get on with it and give her space. Tomorrow I will do something, with my home anyways. I love this home too much to let it go, even if the shit has bad memories I worked so hard on it. Sinko’ head shot up looking at me “man, I am tired” I huffed out shaking my head laughing, opening the fridge door. Grabbing the bottle of Fanta, banging the frige door shut. Opening the bottle turning to him, Sinko looked up at me again all wide eyed “what?” drinking from the bottle “you dogging us out for Rihanna now? She is having your baby” Sinko turned his phone to me, seeing the picture of Robyn and I which made me spit my drink out “eew, what the fuck. My phone” my heart is in my mouth right now “where did you get that from!? That is photoshop” that is the first thing to come to mind “you fucking spat drink at me!?” slamming the bottle down “where is that from!?” Sinko is moving away from me, but I am beat his fucking ass “what the fuck, why are you chasing me!? This is from her page, oh my god” gripping his tee “give me your phone!” I shouted “here, man. What the hell, you been out here lying” grabbing his phone, this is the shade room. That is a lie, it’s photoshop. Nobody is supposed to know this, I know this is not photoshop because I was there for the picture, but I don’t know, I am in denial. Typing in Robyn’ name, tapping on her profile “see, I didn’t lie” my heart just dropped seeing that she posted it.

Placing Sinko’ phone down on the counter “why are you so upset?” he asked “because I am stuck here! With you niggas, I liked it when nobody knows. Now look!” I shouted; everyone is just staring at me. I am confused, Robyn wouldn’t just air this out, what the fuck. Walking by some of the boys walking back inside “what happened?” hearing someone say “check the blogs” Sinko laughed saying, jogging up the steps. I left my phone in my room because honestly, I just didn’t want to argue with Robyn, I didn’t like that she is swearing at me, I was just trying to be the better man, but this is not good for me. What about me, why didn’t she wait for me. I thought we was doing this together and now I am stuck here with the vultures, she dogged me out like this. Grabbing my phone from the bed “Oh my god” my phone is going off, the time difference. Robyn will not be awake it’s so early in the morning there, but I will try, ignoring my notifications and calling Robyn, she did call me but just the once and that is it. All I am getting is missed calls from everyone and I do not know what is happening “come on Robyn, come on” I said pacing my room “fuck!” I spat; I am angry because she dogged me out I don’t know what to do.

I decided to call Mel, she is in Barbados and she never sleeps. I don’t want to speak to anyone else, I need answers and people are coming at me “I got your text nigga, you know I don’t sleep. You barely let me read it, what the fuck is up?” Mel picked up “what the fuck is she doing Mel!? I have been playing basketball, Robyn and I have been in a disagreement, what!?” I shouted “calm down Chris, didn’t she tell you? This is actually your fault. So I got the notifications from these fans, sending me messages of is it true. Some neighbour took a video of Rihanna saying welcome to the neighbourhood and the video shows your Lamborghini. The fans worked it out which meant blogs would pick it up, I called Robyn as soon as I found out. She didn’t take it well and panicked, so this is your fault in a way because of your cars. So she asked me what to do, I said break it before they do, and she did just that. She is angry at you; she doesn’t need you now and that you let her down. I said run your own show, but the marriage part has not been told at all” I am in shock, sitting on the edge of the bed “but I never knew! Fuck, Mel what am I going to do? We were supposed to do this together. I am alone here” I don’t know what to do “so is Robyn, she had to do what she needed Chris. I know it’s the deep end but just don’t act out and go with the flow” I feel like crying “yeah, people will come for me. I get the abuse!” disconnecting the call.

I don’t even want to look at Instagram, I can’t even bring myself to do it because it’s me that gets it with everything. They will say I forced her to be pregnant, seeing my mom calling. She has been calling me since I have been on the phone with Mel so let me pick up this time “hey” answering the call “you do pick your women! You got Rihanna pregnant!? She has destroyed you Chris, I cried hearing that news, why!? Why did you do to yourself Chris, no wonder you have changed. Are you crazy, those people made sure to bring you down, you haven’t been the same since being with her” worse person to be talking “I don’t want to be rude because Robyn wouldn’t agree but as much as she did me over, I also did to her. We both destroyed each other. Those people are now my family friends” I don’t want to be rude to her, I really don’t want that that “you will never see that baby, she will make sure you are some pathetic man on the side” I clenched my jaw “I will have more say in this girl’ life then I did for Royalty and Aeko put together, I am going to London. Robyn and I will be living together, so I will hear every cry, every diaper change, every gurgle, every burp, every smile. And I won’t miss a thing, you destroyed me, you left me out. Don’t ever say Robyn’ name in vain” my mom laughed “reminds me of when you started dating her, I don’t hate her. I hate you together” shaking my head “well we are together mom and trust me I will be obeying by her rules. I am drug free” the phone disconnected, oh wow she put the phone down on me, oh fucking well.

I don’t know why but I feel emotional, like I want to cry maybe it’s the hurt I am feeling from Robyn because she is hurting so much. Just hearing those words back to myself, I will obey Robyn when I have upset her. I wish I never sent my cars there, but I do want to change, I want to move there. Looking to the side of me “yes” she is ringing me back “hello” answering the call “hi Chris” I groaned out, not Dennis “that was nice of you, this phone has woke me so many times but I saw you call so I called back “I guess you heard” he said, clearing my throat “where is she? Is she ok?” I hope she is “erm, yes. Robyn is ok. She is asleep, she gave me her phone and doesn’t wish to see the things being said so I am minding her phone. Making notes of the people she needs to contact back and whatever, minding her social media but it’s a mess. Can I give you some advice, I have been working with Robyn a few years now and she is a strong character, but she rarely asks for help, or looks to people for help and she has with you. It hurts to see her become vulnerable, where she has asked for help with you and you haven’t come, it’s hard to watch. She really wants you and needs you here. It’s happened now with the cars. And reading things, it’s rude. And I hurt for you both, you should be back” putting my head down “tell her to call me, please” I need to hear her “I will, think about it. You need someone to mind your social too” I don’t trust anyone to do that for me like that “yeah, tell her please” I can imagine Robyn not wanting to know and ignore this request, but I do feel so bad about this.

I didn’t want to go downstairs but I did, and it’s like nobody left even though I have been upstairs for a few hours, I want them gone “hey, y’all! I need y’all go to, something came up and I need to deal with something that came up” I sound like I am upset but they don’t know the half of it “congratulations, like you got the fucking crown nigga. You got Rihanna pregnant, like you won. You won in this, you fucking won” Ryan pointed at me “shit, I know every nigga wanted that, imagine being her baby daddy” licking my lips smiling “thank you but I do need y’all to go, everyone” they think I am joking “whatever you want boss” watching Sinko walk over to me “so that is it huh, London visits been for that?” nodding my head “it has” I mean it is out now “you really got the love of your life knocked up, I can’t even fucking write it. How?” Sinko is in disbelief “one night, like she said. It was just one night, it happened. I fainted when I found out, I just need to have some alone time. You know, it’s not easy and that. I am happy but it’s just politics” dapping Sinko “cool, I got you. I am just shocked man, you did the full thing” he doesn’t know that I am also married, I have already been a bad husband. I am taking Zeus and running, I need to run because shit is coming my way now, I am going to have a queue of people, I need to call my bodyguard too.

Feeling my phone ring out on my chest, I just closed my eyes too “oh god” Royalty is awake at this time, you got to be kidding me right. I am ignoring everyone but this is my daughter, answering the call clearing my throat “hello” I answered “you know damn well it ain’t Royalty, her ass is asleep” I closed my eyes hearing Nia’ voice “I knew you would pick up if it was her name calling, now what the hell is going on? I mean I called your mom, but she was no use to me. She said you ruined yourself and now she lost her son, Rihanna Chris? Really? I saw the post and the little devil herself smiled at me and didn’t say anything” I guess that was Royalty “I am also married” I blurted out “what!?” Nia shouted down my ear “hold up, Chris. What? Are you ok? I mean you aren’t drugged up right?” Nia said in shock “I took Royalty to Mexico and she was there for the day, I eloped with Rihanna. I am married Nia, I am not drugged. This is me, I stopped drugs since being with her” the phone fell silent, I just felt like saying it and I don’t know if it was a good or bad thing “I am literally getting emotional from the shock, oh my god. Wait, is that why. That child of mine knew” she said down the phone “you married your teenage love, awww Chris. Wow. That is shocking, I mean she didn’t put that on there” I swallowed hard “I know, that is us hiding away from the backlash, but yeah” I sound so sad “you don’t sound happy, I mean you married Rihanna!? Come on!” that made me laugh “I mess up things and it’s like I am losing things here, I don’t know” I am confused “fuck those things, like I don’t know. I mean we only share a daughter, that is amazing Chris. You stopped drugs? Wow, I am super happy for you. Like for my daughter too, but for you. Chris, this is really good” I literally made a mess, a mess Robyn is having to deal with alone “don’t tell anyone about the married thing, I need to go back to London. I didn’t manage to get Royalty’ gifts, tell her I am sorry”  I think I need to just go now “acting like you not going to speak to her, you can tell her that but I can always get it her, just tell me it. Wow, this is unreal. Married, but I won’t say anything. Just know that I am happy for you, I think also Royalty is happy for you, you know she is your biggest fan” that she is.

For my own sanity I didn’t bother to be with my phone, but my own mind is just racing. Dennis bless his soul; he is taking it for me. And it is what it is now, I guess it’s out there now but not the way I wanted it too. It was rushed, no content behind it “are you awake?” Dennis said outside my door “come in!” I shouted, I heard him earlier come to ask if I was awake, but I didn’t want to know so he has come back around again “drama, drama, drama. I feel like your assistant. Tina is awake by the way, she is helping me too, so. How is Robyn, and baby Fenty” Dennis climbed onto the bed “we are stressed” rubbing my bump smiling “stop it, I turned off your comments. First time ever, I was done. Sorry” nodding my head “that is fine, what is the damage?” Dennis should quit photography and be my assistant because he is good at this “me and Tina was going back and forth, both Jay’ are after you, shock horror. Oh yeah. Chris called, he was in hysterics and emotionally not happy, I told him. I said Robyn is asleep or whatever, he asked for you to call him” I rolled my eyes “I called him, he didn’t pick up when I was going through it. Was he being emotional about it?” if he is then that means he will not let me be sad, I will have to console him “uh yes he was, Mel told me she called him because he called her. He was going around the houses, so he does know, she also said he was emotional about it. He said that he will be get the abuse about it, so what next? The picture is doing pretty well, it’s doing it’s rounds anyways, around the blogs and whatever” Dennis says what is next, but I didn’t prepare for this “ouch” I didn’t prepare for the pain right now either “ouch? Oh we not doing birth now are we?” shaking my head “no, I hope not anyways. Erm, so this is all getting pretty wild, I need to face both Jay’ I need to have my team on my side, I guess. This was all supposed to be clean sailing, I swear I had a fucking plan. So yes, tell Tina to prepare that for me. Was anyone happy for me?” I need to know “there was a few, but I think there was more shock emojis then anything. But they have really ran with Chris being searched by the police, you have a thug in your life. That is the words they used” rolling my eyes “nice” I sighed out “if you can just give me my phone, I will contact Chris. Thank you so much for taking care of that for me. I know, pregnancies are supposed to be magical and loving, but you know. People won’t allow that” Dennis shuffled off of the bed “I wouldn’t have it any other way” he is a sweetheart.

I’ve been feel the tightening on the lower abdomen, but it’s very random it will happen, but I think it’s me. I am stressing out, like I am happy. Let me just call Chris, I wonder if he will let me be sad with him. Tapping on his name, I didn’t bother to see anything else just speak to Chris and then get out of bed. Letting it ring out on speakerphone, if he doesn’t pick up then I am not trying again “Robyn?” he picked “hey” taking my phone off speaker and placing on my ear “Robyn, man. What the fuck? I am so sorry, I didn’t think that would cause an issue, I am literally wanting to move my things to you, that was it” he said “I know, I didn’t blame you. It happened now and it happened in a way I didn’t want it too. I did call you, but you didn’t pick up, were you sleeping?” he must have been because he is awake now and it’s eight hours behind there so now he is all wide awake “I was uhm” I already know, he is not saying it straight up “I was playing basketball, all you were doing is swearing at me, it was pointless Robyn. I missed it because of that I regret it, I am sorry” I sniggered “my fault then, I don’t ask much from you. That could have been a call about me being in labour and you missed it, you had a tantrum because I swore at you, now don’t you think I am even more fucking angry now!?” I spat “I am sorry, I was sick of hearing you cuss me out” I swear he gets on my nerves “I barely fucking cussed you out, I said you are useless when I ask what you did! How the fuck are you doing a mixtape when I am ready to give birth, you don’t fucking think. You think of stupid shit, you know what. Me, it’s my fault. I sent you to California with no guidance, I should know that you have no sense. God forbid you upset your fucking friends that need your vocals. I mean what is the third baby, you missed the rest” Chris put the phone down on me, I expected much when he said he is fed of me.

Looking up at the laptop “so are well in agreement?” Tina said, I have no idea what she said, “what did you say?” I have to ask “that you release another picture, with more words and just say how you kept it from the world. Jen agrees don’t you” my mind is elsewhere, maybe I should calm down with Chris “as for now, your publicist said to not do anything. Jay Brown wants you to stop what you are doing until then, but I say release something else, keep it going until they understand why you kept it away. Not a pity party but to also show you are happy. Because the post, when I read it. It was like oh shit, we got caught we are having a baby bye. So I think we need to make another post, equally goes to Chris whatever he is doing. He needs to show more, including the fact he is an active father, he also needs to shut up his baby mothers before we do” Jen said, she is half asleep speaking “I will say it to him, I will think on it. But ladies, be here for the meeting later I guess” I smiled at them “we will, oh my god. You are so adorable pregnant” Jen said “it’s been so long, and I am amazed” I cooed out, it has been so long since she has seen me.

I called him back since he put the phone down on me, I am doing it because I have been on his case and I am disappointed in him, but his emotions work differently, and I got to accept that. He gets side tracked and he just can’t help it, he’s the very kid that will go up to something if it’s shiny and not think of the bad. It’s me, I feel bad I should know him “hi” he picked up at least “hey, what are doing?” least like to know “sat in my yard smoking a blunt on my own, why?” he’s on his own, I expected his friends to be around “just wanted to know, I uhm. I am sorry, for what I said. When someone is wanting to be better, I can’t just throw that to them. I just want you to know I am sorry for that, when I release that it wasn’t because I wanted too but it was because I had too, I had no choice and I am not asking. I am telling you to come back now, you drop what you are doing because we are supposed to be doing this together” I think I have decided, to myself that is. That I may need to help Chris with himself, like I do forget and think he is ok so when he is sad and I am sad, his sadness is even worse then mine and I can’t be sad, I married him for him and I am just going to back off, try my best to not want to cuss him out anyways “I let you down, I fucked up. Like I shamed you already, I am so sorry. They all right I don’t deserve you” Chris is a wreck clearly “Chris, I want you back. Like now, get on the jet. Bring a bodyguard with you to escort you, don’t act stupid when you land here either. No weed either, listen to me Chris. Don’t read into anything or speak to anyone. Just come back, I am not angry with you, I need you” Chris is really crying “I feel alone though, like I don’t know what to do” chewing on my bottom lip watching my mom sit down “you do, you’re coming back here. I will call you again, I expect you to be making movements ok? I love you Chris”  trying to hear out for him, I can hear him sniffling “I love you too” he seems really hurt, I think maybe I didn’t help, disconnecting the call “doesn’t he want to come back?” my mom asked “he’s not taking it well, I have been at him you see” my emotions is very much in the air.

[hpfangirl13]

50 questions you’ve never been asked

tagged by @chasethesun18 

What is the colour of your hairbrush? white and black

Name a food you never eat? olives and raw sushi

Are you typically too warm or too cold? i am constantly hot. i open the window to my room when it’s cold at night so I feel like I’m sleeping in a fridge.

What were you doing 45 minutes ago? eating an apple and watching youtube

What is your favourite candy bar? hmmmm... close tie between reese’s and butterfingers

Have you ever been to a professional sports event? yes! we love the chicago cubs in our family and i’ve probably been to about 20 mlb games. I have also been to 2 nfl games for the bears.

What is the last thing you said out loud? “i’m ordering the pizza, chill” @ my dad

What is your favourite ice cream? cookies and cream 100%

What was the last thing you had to drink? water- very bland

Do you like your wallet? yes. its michael kors and my dad bought it for me as a 10th grade graduation present.

What was the last thing you ate? an apple (im bout to eat pizza so don’t think im that healthy)

Did you buy any new clothes last weekend? no cuz nothing is really open and i havent been to the mall in a hot sec.

The last sporting event you watched? damn idk. sports have been off for so long that i dont really know.

What is your favourite flavour of popcorn? the movie theater kind with a shit ton of butter

Who is the last person you sent a text message to? @chasethesun18 aka ryan. talking about how when she comes over to watch mpi tonight and coughs she has allergies and not corona.

Ever go camping? i guess. i went to a summer camp for 2 years when i was like 12 and 13. we did a “pack out” one night. wasnt really a fan. i like sleeping in a bed thx.

Do you take vitamins? yes my mother yells at me every morning to take my gummy vitamins. (yes, i am 5 years old)

Do you go to church every Sunday? no, not really religious at all. i don’t really believe in that kinda stuff.

Do you have a tan? ehhhhh kinda but not really? i cant really tan tho cuz im part irish and polish white.

Do you prefer Chinese food or pizza? pizza. i gotta be in the mood for chinese.

Do you drink your soda with a straw? in restaurants yea at home no.

What colour socks do you usually wear? any kind really, i have harry potter socks all the way to adidas socks

Do you ever drive above the speed limit? yep. i speed and its really bad. especially when im on the interstate.

What terrifies you? losing my parents, being all alone in life, snakes, spiders, and dying in a car crash.

Look to your left, what do you see? my closet door with pics on it and my “i ship it” sticker. (miggy im thinking of you)

What chore do you hate? walking my dog and folding laundry.

What do you think of when you hear an Australian accent? shrimp on the barbie

What’s your favourite soda? sprite or cherry fanta (but you can never find it anywhere)

Do you go in a fast food place or just hit the drive-thru? drive-thru lately cuz that’s all you can do

Who’s the last person you talked to? my dad

Favourite cut of beef? i guess burgers? idk what that “cut” of beef is called tho

Last song you listened to? macho man- the village people-- dont ask me why.

Last book you read? a fanfic. havent read a book since harry potter and that was like 6 years ago

Favourite day of the week? friday. cuz my shows are on and i get littyyy

Can you say the alphabet backwards?i probably could but it would take too much effort and i dont want to.

How do you like your coffee? at home i will drink anything decaf with flavored creamer. my fav is from starbucks where i get a  decaf venti iced hazelnut latte with nonfat milk and 4 pumps of hazelnut. (very complicated i know)

Favourite pair of shoes? prob my nike ‘07 air force ones

The time you normally go to bed? ehhhh sometime between 11 and 2 normally. kinda depends on how tired i am and what time i have to get up the next day.

The time you normally get up? when i work i get up around 8. on the weekends i get up around 10

What do you prefer, sunrise or sunsets? sunsets cuz im not a morning person.

How many blankets on your bed? like 8. i really like blankets

Describe your kitchen plates: we have had the same damn blue and flowered plates in my house since before my birth. no lie.

Do you have a favourite alcoholic beverage? im 19 and i dont drink. ive had a sip of beer and wine from my parents before and i hated it so i dont feel like im missing a lot.

Do you play cards? we play uno like once every 6 months

What colour is your car? bluish grey

Can you change a tire? nope

Your favourite province? well my mom is from montreal, canada so imma have to say quebec.

Favourite job you’ve ever had? babysitting! for the first family i ever babysat for in my neighborhood. theyre in middle school now. *sheds tear*

How did you get your biggest scar? the only scar i have is on my right foot on my second toe. smashed it in a pool when i was 7

What did you do today that made someone else happy? well i deliver groceries for a living so hopefully i made people happy by bringing them food?

THE MAGNUM PI FINALE IS ON TONIGHT AND MY BODY IS READY!!!! @chasethesun18 and I are bout to get litttttt

tagging: @juliethiggy @jenscorpion @theblacksiren @jennie-may

[noromojustkeith]

Pippythewriter submitted to noromojustkeith:

Okay, so I’m Pippythewriter. I’m fanwriter who has been lurking in the shadows of various fanfic sites for several years. I’ve been reading fanfic since April of 2013. I’ve been a (relatively) silent part of the Voltron fandom for a little over a year now, and a lot has happened since then. I want you to know that after many years of not understanding my feelings towards other people, your blog personally helped me discover that I’m ace, and that that means a lot to me. Through your Tumblr I’ve found a handful of others in the same place as me. So in return I give you this story. It may not seem like much and it’s very choppy, full of typos and antiquated info, but I’ve never shared my writings and I thought this was a good start. I hope you enjoy. Introducing, October 23rd.

My apologies for taking a little to get to this submission; been away this weekend at a family event. But this was so neat to find when I opened my inbox today! I’m thrilled to hear that this blog has had such a positive impact on you, and flattered to death that it encouraged you to share your writing! (Which, by the way, you did a great job on! You have given me EMOTIONS!)

The fic in question is under the cut!

October 23, 2066

Kyle Kogane knows only 3 things right now. First, he is now 18. Second, he LOVES racing on his hoverbike. And third, because of the other 2 things he’s never felt freer in his life. That is, until he crashes. One second he’s speeding across the desert and he’s feeling the wind in his hair, and next thing he knows he’s got a cut on his eyebrow that’s sure to scar with his arm broken. His parents lecture him on how he should know better than to do things like this at his age. And he and his little brother Kent just nod their heads. Of course, mere moments after his parents leave the room his brother is at his bedside raving about how cool that was. Kyle promises he’ll teach him how some day.

October 23, 2067

A year later and that race seems miles away, standing at his parents grave hugging his sobbing brother close to him. He doesn’t cry, not until his brother’s safe in bed next to him after crying himself to sleep. Then he finally lets go, and makes a tearful promise to his parents that he’ll try his hardest to do better. To be the big brother Kent deserves, and maybe, to someday be even half the father his was.

October 23, 2071

A few more years have passed and now Kent’s on his own, and Kyle’s a firefighter. He’s working hard to save people from what he couldn’t save his parents from. He married a beautiful woman, they had a child that he loves more than all the stars in the sky. He loves her, Krolia, too. He misses her dearly, though he knows that she left to protect them. Which may sound like an excuse, but to be fair the survival of earth actually depended upon it. Now Keith’s a year old and the spitting image of his mother. Keith misses her dearly as well and is making it known by wailing his little heart out. He hasn’t said any real words yet, but Kyle isn’t worried, as Kent didn’t speak until he was 5 and he turned out fine… Well, mostly fine. Anyway, so he does the only thing he can think of and swaddles the kid and takes him out to see the stars. Surprisingly enough, it works, and Keith starts gurgling and laughing happily.

“I don’t know how, but I think you just figured out where your Mama is.”

October 23, 2075

Keith’s 5 now, and is about to start kindergarten. Kyle’s temper flares when they want to put him in the CDC class just because he still has trouble with verbal speech. He tries to explain to them that he taught Keith Morse code, and that if he has a nonverbal episode, he’ll use that. Eventually though, he has to compromise, and they agree that Keith can go to mainstream if he takes speech and if he sees a therapist. Kyle reluctantly agrees and after several hours with the behavioral therapist, they get a diagnosis. Autism. Keith, has autism. They want to put him on medication for it, but Kyle refuses. On the way home from Keith’s first day of school Keith has a thoughtful look on his face.

“Daddy?” He asks.

“Yes kiddo?” Kyle replies.

“What does retard mean?” When Keith asks that Kyle almost crashes the car.

“Who called you that?” Kyle bites out angrily.

“Why?” Keith asks.

“Keith, tell me who called you that.” Kyle repeated, trying to keep the anger out of his voice.

“His name is James, but what does it mean?” Keith asks, nothing but innocent curiosity in his eyes and Kyle sighs. Kyle was hoping this wouldn’t happen at least for a few more years.

“It’s…” Kyle tries to gather his thoughts. How do you tell your autistic 5 year old that he just got called the allistic version of the N word? “It’s not a very nice thing to say.”

“Oh…” Keith replies, eyebrows furrowing. Before Keith can question further, Kyle interjects.

“How’d you like to get a soda to celebrate your first day of school?” Kyle asks, and Keith’s face lights up.

“Can I get strawberry fanta?” Keith asks and Kyle chuckles.

“Okay, just this once.” Kyle concedes, and the way Keith’s beaming is almost worth the headache he’ll get later from Keith bouncing off the walls (red dye number 5 is a truly terrifying foe)

October 23, 2080

Keith will never forget his feelings that day. The utter terror of facing an early death. The pain of the flames licking his cheeks and the smoke in his lungs. The crushing loneliness of realizing that he was all by himself. And the all consuming guilt that his father died saving him. Kyle Kogane died a hero at 31, just 3 days shy of 32. He survived by his 10 year old son and his brother who couldn’t take care of him because of a technicality. Keith remembers his dad’s last words to him.

“Keith, when I’m gone-” Kyle started, but a sobbing Keith interrupted him.

“No dad. You’re not gonna die. You- you can’t! You- you just can’t!” Keith stuttered, and Kyle stroked Keith’s long hair through his fingers like he always had to soothe him.

“Keith, you know I love you more than all the stars in the sky, but this is out of my hands. But no matter what happens I want you to remember that I love you.” Kyle said fighting off his own tears.

“N-no y-you-” Keith stuttered.

“I’m sorry kiddo.” Kyle said, as he closed his eyes for the last time. These are the things Keith will never forget. But there are things that he won’t remember. His first social worker’s name, the first family he was placed with, even the first year after his father died. He won’t remember not speaking aloud for that year, though he frantically tapped out Morse code to anyone he thought might listen. And years later he would forget what their home together looked like before it went down in ashes, no matter how hard he’d try.

October 23, 2085

“Shiro?” Keith asks tentatively, and he gets a warm smile in return.

“What is it Keith?” Shiro asks.

“Can you take me somewhere? Tomorrow?” Keith asks.

“That depends, where do you want to go?” Shiro asks.

“Nevermind, forget it.” Keith says, not making eye contact.

“Keith, I have to know where we’re going. Otherwise how are we supposed to get there?” Shiro tries to lighten the mood but Keith still won’t look him in the eye. Shiro sobers. “Keith, what’s going on, huh? What’s wrong?”

“I… The place I want to go to is a graveyard.” Keith states vaguely.

“Okay, which one?” Shiro asks, and Keith, of all things, blushes.

“I- I’m not sure what it’s called. It’s, the one in the city? For… For ‘fallen heroes’? I think…” Keith asks, unsure.

“I think I know which one you’re talking about, I can take you there.” Shiro replies, smiling reassuringly.

“Thanks.” Keith says.

“Okay well, if we’re going to make that trip tomorrow you better get some sleep.” Shiro states, firm but kind.

“That’s all you’re gonna say?” Keith asks, confused.

“What else would I say?” Shiro asks.

“You’re not gonna ask me any questions?” Keith asks, afraid of the answer.

“Why would I?” Shiro asks curiously.

“I don’t know, just… I don’t know.” Keith trails off. Shiro gives him that same reassuring smile.

“I figure you’ll tell me when you’re ready.” Shiro shrugs, and Keith finally looks at him.

“Thank you.” Keith replies empathetically.

“No problem kiddo.” Shiro says, not knowing what he’s gotten himself into. He finds out at 5 AM when he hears a knock on his and Matt’s door. Thankfully Matt is still (not after waking up, but STILL awake) awake, and answers.

“Why if it isn’t Kashi’s shadow? You want me to get him? SHIRO! Keith’s here for your late night escapades!” Matt yells, Shiro groans.

“It’s 5 in the morning Matt.” Shiro says and winces when he realizes his mistake.

“Well then someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed.” Matt says and narrowly misses the pillow that Shiro throws at him. “Sorry Keith. But it looks like it’s too early for your hero to do the one thing-”

“I’m up, I’m up.” Shiro protests and proceeds to get up. “Just give me a second to get dressed.” Keith nods and Shiro gets dressed. “Okay, let’s go.” The ride to the graveyard is silent, with Keith looking out the window with a solemn look on his face. “Alright, we’re here.”

“Can… Can you wait in the car? I won’t be long.” Keith asks, the tentative tone returning.

“Sure, take all the time you need.” Shiro reassures. He thinks he hears Keith mumble 'thanks’, and Keith leaves the car. While Keith’s gone Shiro catches up on his emails and gets sucked into a bizzare pun war with Matt and his little sister Katie.

“Okay, we can go back now.” Keith says as he gets in the car, and Shiro can’t help but notice how his voice wavers.

“Buckle up.” Shiro states and Keith nods, once again refusing to make eye contact. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” Keith shrugs, buckling his seatbelt.

“Alright. But I’m here if you need to talk.” Shiro says, and is met with a contemplative silence.

“My dad was a firefighter.” Keith whispers so softly that Shiro almost doesn’t catch it.

“That’s cool. Did he save a lot of people?” Shiro says, and quickly realizes it was the wrong thing to say because Keith flinches. “You sure you’re alright?”

“I’m fine.” Keith states weakly, but Shiro’s getting more because Keith’s shaking now. Shiro pulls over.

“Keith, Keith it’s okay. You don’t have to talk about it if you’re not ready.” Shiro tries to reassure Keith, but he’s inconsolable at this point.

“No! No, I… I have to.” Keith states almost resignedly.

“Are you sure?” Shiro is met with silence. “Keith…”

“You deserve to know.” Keith says, and this time it’s said with the determination that Shiro remembers.

“Okay, take your time.” Shiro reassures softly.

“My dad, he… He was the only one who cared about me. For a long time it was just the 2 of us. When I was 10 there was… Our house caught on fire. He gave me his breathing mask… We both got out but… He died a couple of hours later in the hospital. It was a little over 5 years ago.” Keith was trying so hard not to cry at this point and Shiro could tell.

“Keith I’m…” Shiro starts, but trails off. Instead he decides to start stroking Keith’s hair, not knowing that Kyle would have done the same thing. Keith finally breaks down, and Shiro pulls him into a hug. “It’s okay Keith, I’m… I’m not your father but I’m here. And I’ll never give up on you.”

October 23, 2087

Keith hasn’t gotten off the couch in 3 days. It’s been 2 months since the Kerberos went offline. 66 days since the Kerberos crew was declared dead. 1589 hours since Shiro… 3674598 minutes since he became alone. 94608000 seconds since he found someone again. 5720400000 milliseconds since he became alone again. Keith so desperate for a distraction that he used the calculator to do the math. He had to get up, so he did. He took his old hoverbike to the graveyard and visited his dad’s grave.

“H-hey dad I…” Keith trails off and there’s no one to stop his impending breakdown now. He wants someone anyone, to come to him and stroke his hair like Shiro, or like the father he tries so hard not to forget but finds slipping away little by little. He remembers both and cries himself to sleep when no one comes.

October 23, 2088

The day after the incident with Lotor and the storm planet is the day Keith’s been dreading all week. He hides in his room and turns off the lights. He knows that he messed up, that he should apologize to the team, to Allura. But the person he really wants to apologize to isn’t here and it’s his fault. And as if the universe wants to punish him there’s a knock on the door.

“Hey Mullet. Come on, open up!” It’s Lance, obviously. Keith doesn’t have the energy to argue so he opens the door wordlessly and let’s Lance in. “Hunk made those amazing arepas for breakfast you have t-”

“Lance is there something important you want to talk about?” Keith says, feeling guilty but wanting Lance to let him suffer in silence.

“Well I just wanted to cheer you up, but since you insist on being the broody loner why don’t we talk about how you totally demeaned Allura’s idea that she was totally right about, by the way.” Lance states angrily.

“I messed up okay! You try leading!” Keith retorts defensively.

“Here we go again! Keith gets to be leader and he’s pouting about it!” Lance replies.

“Do you think this is easy?” Keith asks.

“I think we deserve better!” Lance answers.

“Do you think I don’t know that?! Do you think I WANT this?!” Keith yells, and Lance is taken aback.

“What?” Lance asks, startled.

“How do you think I feel?! Knowing I’m failing the team, that I’m failing the ONE PERSON THAT CARES ABOUT ME! Knowing that my dad would have been 40 today and that the universe would have been better off if he’d put the STUPID MASK on himself instead of ME!” By the end of his rant Keith is panting and tears are running down his face. Lance doesn’t know what to say.

“What did that last part mean?” Lance asks, afraid of the answer.

“What?” Keith asks.

“The last thing you said, the part about your dad.” Lance answers.

“What are you talking about?” Keith asks and Lance gets upset.

“You KNOW what I’m talking about, the part where you said you SHOULD HAVE DIED instead of your dad.” Lance states on the verge of tears.

“Just forget about it.” Keith blows it off.

“Now you see I can’t forget it, because ONE OF MY CLOSEST FRIENDS JUST SAID THAT THEY WISH WERE DEAD, and that is NOT I repeat NOT okay!” Lance is crying now.

“I’m sorry.” Keith chokes out.

“You don’t have to be sorry, you just need to ask for help.” Lance states firmly.

“I just… I don’t know how.” Keith stutters, still holding it in. Lance pulls him in for a hug, and strokes his hair. Keith finally let’s go.

“… Lance?” Keith mumbles.

“Yeah buddy?” Lance asks.

“I… I need help.”

[fastcurious]

The Last Curious Man / The enormous life of Anthony Bourdain, according to those who knew him best

published on GQ

+ https://www.gq.com/story/anthony-bourdain-men-of-the-year-tribute

Chris Bourdain is searching for a word that he cannot quite find. We're sitting together in a small café in Grand Central Terminal, drinking table wine and talking about his late older brother, Anthony. Chris has a habit of looking away as he's talking to you, one of many physical traits he shares with Tony. And right now he is thinking, with Bourdainian intensity, for a way to sum up his brother succinctly, and for a very specific reason.

"The death certificate that was printed in France," he tells me, "listed as his profession 'chef.' And I tried for months to figure out, what is the appropriate way to describe what Tony has been doing for the last seven or eight years? There's no description for it."

It's true. There is no easy description for Tony Bourdain, or for the utterly unique role he managed to carve out for himself in this world. He was a chef. He was an author. He was a very popular TV host—the cheerfully dickish center of the food-media universe. He was an explorer who removed degrees of separation from the world's sociological arithmetic, a man who was always, in his words, hungry for more.

He's gone now. And while everyone I talked to for this story is still coming to grips with the enormity of that loss, one can also sense a fierce determination among them that Bourdain's work cannot end with him. That's why Chris is racking his brain, trying to boil it all down to a simple vocation, a template that others might be able to follow to live richer, fuller lives.

This is Tony, according to those who knew him best.

Bourdain with the staff of Les Halles.

Philippe Lajaunie (owner, Les Halles, where Bourdain had been executive chef): The first time I met him, he was in the kitchen and cooking. It was a cramped kitchen that had been designed back in the '70s, so it was kind of out of proportion. And he was very quiet. Almost timid. He had just worked a few years for an Italian restaurant, and at the beginning all of his specials were very Italian. So that was rattling my cage a little bit—it was a French restaurant!

Jeremiah Tower (chef): I went by the restaurant, Les Halles, because I'd read [his memoir] Kitchen Confidential when it came out, and I was absolutely wowed by the book. And he asked me what I thought of Les Halles, and I said, "Well, it's a fairly terrible restaurant." And he loved that I said it.

Chris Bourdain (brother): I loved Les Halles. I miss it. Had he ever showed interest in cooking [when we were kids]? No, no, no, no, no, not at all. Zero, zero, zero.

Sam Goldman (childhood friend): The first time I met Tony was the winter of 1969. He was two grades behind me, which in high school made him an entirely different generation. He was new at our school, and this Bourdain kid was tiny. I remember we hazed him just a bit. The first Friday of our ski-club trips, we made him ride in the luggage rack.

Bourdain: I know he didn't like [college], and I know he didn't care. Our parents did not have a lot of money, and I definitely remember, we went to some restaurant in Putnam County, New York, on Route 22, where our parents had a massive, huge fucking argument with Tony: Why are we paying for Vassar? You're fucking up there. Which he was. The upshot of that was he did not go back to Vassar. After that, he ended up working out of Provincetown, Massachusetts, down at the restaurant there.

Miles Borzilleri (Vassar class of 1979): I was on campus for a couple years when he was around. The thing that I remember is Tony used to have two samurai swords. They were holstered around his waist, and he would just go through the day like that. That was part of his little persona.

Jeff Formosa (musician, childhood friend): He was big with nunchucks for a while. I don't know that he was good at striking, but he made them fly around his body, and he didn't hit himself too often. He was a joker, too. He'd run into the next room and turn on a blender or a noisy appliance, and he would start screaming like his hand was caught in it.

David Remnick (editor in chief, 'The New Yorker'): My wife came home one day, and she said, "Look. There's a really nice woman at the newspaper. Her son is a writer. She wanted you to take a look at his work," which seemed...adorable, right? A mother's ambition for a son. I took this manuscript out of its yellow envelope, not expecting much. I started to read. It was about a young cook, working at a pretty average steak-and-frites place on lower Park Avenue. I called this guy up on the phone. He answered it in his kitchen. I said, "I'd like to publish this work of yours in The New Yorker. I hope that's okay." That was the beginning of Anthony Bourdain being published. I don't know if there's any way to put this other than to say he invented himself as a writer, as a public personality. It was all there.

After the success of 'Kitchen Confidential,' Bourdain was approached by freelance TV producers Lydia Tenaglia and Chris Collins, who would go on to form Zero Point Zero Productions, the studio behind 'A Cook's Tour,' 'No Reservations,' and 'Parts Unknown.'

Lydia Tenaglia (co-founder, ZPZ Productions): Chris [Collins] and I were doing a lot of medical shows, like Trauma in the ER. I read Kitchen Confidential, and I said, "Hey, I'm a producer. Can I talk with you?" And [Tony] was like, "Yeah, sure, whatever." We made an appointment to meet at the restaurant. It was in between the lunch and the dinner service, and I walked in, and he was sitting at the bar. He had his chef whites on, unbuttoned, and he was having a drink. He stood up, and my first thought was "He's very tall. We're going to be looking up his nose a lot with our cameras." We watched [him] in the kitchen, clearly in control. He just talked about what traveling the world would be like for him. He had gone to France as a kid, he had gone to Japan once, and that was it.

“I just think it’s lonelier without him in the world.”—Paula Froelich

Bourdain: We were staying with my father's aunt and uncle in France, when I was like 7. There were these two night tables, and they had little drawers you open at the bottom, and in there were the chamber pots. We had to try them. I think we only did number one. We weren't gonna be nasty. We thought it was very funny to pee in them and then pour 'em out in the alley. It was fucking hysterical.

Tenaglia: Chris and I got married in December 2000, and a week after we got married, we left for this five-week foray with Anthony Bourdain. We joke all these years later that we got married and then, a week later, we all got married.

For the first episodes of 'A Cook's Tour,' a TV show with an accompanying book of the same name, Bourdain and his future ZPZ team traveled to Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand.

Tenaglia: Japan was a fucking disaster.

Chris Collins (co-founder, ZPZ): The mistakes were very clear. He did not engage with us. He would not acknowledge our presence and that we were there working together.

Tenaglia: I think he was thinking, "Great! I just got a free ride to all these countries."

Collins: It was a ruse. It was, I'm gonna double dip here. I'm going to be able to get paid to go make something, and I'm going to write articles.

Tenaglia: We would go back to the hotel and say, "We are so screwed."

Collins: We shot in Japan for probably nine days. And Tony said, "Listen, I gotta fly back to New York. I always cook dinner for my wife's family, Christmas dinner." [Bourdain and his first wife, former high school sweetheart Nancy Putkoski, divorced in 2005.] I'm like, "You gotta fly home?"

Tenaglia: Part of us thought that he may never come back. [He did.] Then we flew to Vietnam. Suddenly he looked around and he had this instant cultural touchstone. His idea of Vietnam, Japan, and Hong Kong all emanated out of literary and film references. And of course he was a voracious reader, one of those just preternaturally gifted people that could absorb what he had read and retain it. He wanted to connect what he had read with the actual experience of that in a very romantic way.

Collins: He started drinking it in, and something inherently changed in that guy. There was something...the smell, the colors...something twisted in his head the right way. It really sounds crazy, but it was "Okay, we've got something."

Tenaglia: He felt it, too. He came alive, because those frames of reference were starting to pop. His sudden inclination was to turn and share that with us. You could sense this excitement, like, "Holy crap, I'm actually on the ground in a location that I have studied, that I know, that I have references to." You know, Apocalypse Now, Heart of Darkness, Graham Greene, the Vietnam War. He was percolating with an excitement that was very genuine.

Collins: It was like a light switch coming on.

Tenaglia: [Before that] he was the guy with the camera around his neck. No, seriously. He went everywhere with his frigging camera, and we'd have to pull it off his neck. He was a tourist! One time, we went to the home of this duck farmer in Vietnam…

Collins: This was unbelievable.... So what they do is duck, wrapped in clay, onto a fucking smoldering fire to cook. Clay hardens, the duck cooks, you crack it open, and you've got duck. So they choked off the duck and wrapped it in the clay, and they put it on the fire.

Tenaglia: There was a big fire that was burning.

Collins: And they hadn't sufficiently choked off the duck! The duck came back to life. So it's broken through loose clay, now the feathers are smoking, and we're all...What do you do? They got the duck back in the proper condition to cook it, and then a 32-ounce Fanta bottle filled with some sort of translucent liquid is brought out.... It was grain alcohol. I mean, you could have cleaned a wound with that.

Tenaglia: The booze, moonshine.

Collins: And it commences.

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After the initial success of 'A Cook's Tour,' Food Network demanded more domestic episodes and more beauty shots of barbecue. Bourdain balked. He and ZPZ went to the Travel Channel a year later and rebooted the show as 'Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations’; the show would eventually migrate to CNN as 'Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown.'

Collins: [Travel Channel] gave us an order of three episodes. Paris was our first shoot. Tony and I are standing outside the restaurant we're going to shoot, and at that point I could see he was smoking like three cigarettes simultaneously, so something was amiss. We took a little walk together, and it was just this welling up of this anxiety and insecurity. "Why are we doing this? What are we doing? What have I done?" And I'm like, "Tony, let me tell you what we've done. We've just agreed on a contract to deliver three episodes. So you better walk this off and get your ass in the restaurant, and we're gonna go to work." People's idea of Tony is formed after 20 years of watching him on television, and there's a sense of like "This guy is the un-muscled James Bond." In fact, he was actually a shy man.

Gabrielle Hamilton (owner and chef, Prune): He was an awkward dude. When he's on, you know, he can perform. And perfectly. But I think he has social anxiety. I know he does. Tony's famously like, "Just don't leave my side. We're about to walk into this room, and there's gonna be 450 people in it. And they're all gonna say hi to me, and can you not be far?"

Eric Ripert (chef, Le Bernardin; Tony's close friend and frequent on-air guest): On camera in Peru, we went to see a shaman. The shaman was explaining what he was going to do, and I was the translator. And I said, "The shaman is gonna put some alcohol in his mouth, and he's gonna purify you by spitting on you." And Tony said, "I don't want to be wet—I don't want anything to do with that." So I translated to the shaman by saying, "Oh, he loves the idea. He's excited about it!" And then Tony went in front of the shaman, and he completely covered Tony with the alcohol.

Daniel Boulud (chef, restaurateur): He wanted to do Lyon. He said, "I want to go to your parents' farm and see [legendary chef] Paul Bocuse and go to your school where you grew up." The problem [was], I drove that car for quite a while. It was basically a piece of fabric, a little thin mat with springs and a tube frame for the seat. It's the cheapest car in France. It has two horsepower.

The car broke down, and we were stuck in the middle of an entrance of a highway, and everybody was screaming at us, because we were closing the traffic during rush hour. It was noon, when the French go home and eat. It was terrible. I felt so bad, and I called my father at home. I said, "Can you come and maybe pick us up or something?"

Ripert: When we went to Sichuan, I knew very well that I was going to suffer with the spices, and he knew, too. He asked me before I went, "Are you okay with that?" And I said, "Yes, I'm gonna be a good sport." Now, I didn't know to which degree I was going to suffer, but it was unbearable. It was so bad that one night I said, "Tony, I can't anymore.… Take me to Hooters."

Next to the hotel was a Hooters. He was like, "You're kidding me." I said, "No, I'm not. I'm not. My stomach is burned, I can't." And he said, "Okay, let's go to Hooters."

And he took all the production, invited everyone. So all the cameramen, everybody, we all went to Hooters in Chengdu in the middle of China. I needed a break. I ordered a burger with a weird name. I needed bread.

Morgan Fallon (director and D.P., ZPZ Productions): Honestly, a lot of times I was so hungry after a scene, I'd just go over and start picking at what was left. And Tony, very lovingly, would refer to us as seagulls.

Josh Homme (frontman, Queens of the Stone Age; composed the theme song for 'Parts Unknown'): He was such a beautiful contagion. He presented such a fascinating doorway to so many other things that aren't within your narrow doorway of what you do. When it was time to write the song for his show, he sent over [Joey Ramone] doing "What a Wonderful World." And I said to him, "Are you sure you want me to do this?" And he just said, "It is a wonderful world. Isn't it?"

Michael Ruhlman (author): There was this woman who was a foodie, but she was a student and she was poor. And she used to go by his restaurant every day. She'd just stand out there, looking in and smelling the smells and thinking about it. One day Tony came out and said, "Hey, I see you here all the time." She said, "Yeah, I can't afford to eat here." He said, "Come in. I'm gonna feed you." And so he fed her a steak and a proper béarnaise sauce while she sat amongst the crowd.

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Between 'No Reservations' and 'Parts Unknown,' Bourdain and the ZPZ team ended up producing 242 episodes. He traveled nearly 275 days out of every year, never stopping, because the mission of the show had grown too important to him and to everyone else involved in making it.

Tom Colicchio (chef, TV host): Anthony took food TV and turned it into something serious. It was about bringing people together around food and trying to get Americans to see someone living in a Middle Eastern country, [that] they weren't terrorists. They were people who live there and had very similar issues to issues we have here, and he was able to do that through food.

Collins: If anything can be said about Tony, he was an unbelievable guest.

Helen Rosner (food correspondent, 'The New Yorker'): I remember sitting across from him at this table at this sort of sticky beer bar and him saying to me, "Helen, it makes a difference if you walk in the door saying, 'I'm going to love it here,' or you walk in the door saying, 'This place is going to suck.' "

Ripert: He never complained about anything. That was something that struck me about Tony. You could be hours in a car, or you could be in freezing weather, or you could be in a room with very unpleasant people, and Tony would not complain, ever.

Matt Goulding (co-founder, Roads & Kingdoms): You could never beat Anthony Bourdain to a meeting. It was impossible. And if you were late to a meeting, you probably wouldn't get a second one. The guy showed up 15, 20 minutes early to everything in his life.

I remember the last time that I saw him was out in L.A., and we were going into Netflix with a show that we were developing with him. We said, "You know what? Let's try to get there 20 minutes early. We've got to beat Bourdain." And so we show up there 22 minutes early into the lobby. Sure enough, there's Tony sitting there with his legs crossed, with his newspaper out and his cup of coffee. And he's like, "Enough, guys, you're never going to beat me."

Nathan Thornburgh (co-founder, Roads & Kingdoms): He traveled incredibly well and efficiently. We just had to make sure he had a lot of Marlboro Reds.

Peter Meehan (co-founder, 'Lucky Peach'): Tony was an excuse to smoke.

Ripert: We were at the French Laundry. The dinner was exceptional, but one of my favorite moments was when they gave Tony a crème brûlée that was infused with Marlboro cigarettes. And I have to say, it was delicious.

Fallon: There was never a show that he was like, "We can just coast through this one. It's not an important show. It's not." It always meant something.

Thornburgh: That guy, he did appreciate a fine thread count.

Goulding: He was a hotel hound. I don't know if you remember, but for the longest time his Instagram stories would only be about his hotel rooms.

Collins: Listen, he deserved it. The guy was on the road a great deal of the year. There were certain shows, it was very clear, like, "I wanna make sure the toilet's got great suction and the thread count on the sheets is four figures."

Tenaglia: We would get his wish list for the next season; there was always this moment of eye-rolling like, "Okay, we're going to Africa, and then we're going to the Caribbean." All right, Caribbean, yes we get it.... There was some calculation going on there.

Fallon: There were folks who wanted to put him at this fancy golf resort near the town of Welch, West Virginia. And they were like, "Tony will be more comfortable there." I was telling them, "No. He's gonna stay in town." It's old, it's run-down, it's not exactly comfortable. You can't drink the tap water there. And Tony showed up there being like, "I love this little hotel!" And he'd just be sitting there on the front porch, screwing around with his phone, kind of absorbing the environment with no one messing with him. And I saw him truly comfortable and happy there.

Collins: Tony was also sorta klutzy.

Tenaglia: Very klutzy.

Meehan: He had an AOL e-mail address.

Paula Froelich (author, journalist): I'll never forget laughing my ass off because he was obsessed with my dog, who's a small dachshund. He'd always walk my dog, and he was so tall and the dog was so long and short, they would look like this movable L.

Collins: It was our first or second Russia shoot. We went out to a decommissioned air-force base where there were two MiGs [jets] sitting on a tarmac that was completely shattered, with weeds coming up. We rig a camera in the cockpit, looking straight up at Tony. Off we go together, and I cannot tell you how exciting it was flying across the [former] Soviet landscape in MiGs, wing-to-wing. And I could see Tony and see the color of his skin changing. He looked like a man that was not going to make it through the flight.

We get to the ground. Tony gets out of his plane. Tony is gray. His skin color was a mess, and we go in and start drinking vodka straight afterwards. He's smoking like there's no tomorrow. So I go out to check the footage from the plane, and the camera was double punched. [It wasn't usable.]

I went back, like, "Tony, we didn't get the footage." He's like, "That's your fucking problem. I'm not going back up there."

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In 2016, before the election, President Barack Obama joined Bourdain for an episode shot in Hanoi, Vietnam, a meet-up that was months in the making.

Jake Tapper (chief Washington correspondent, CNN): The Obama White House reached out to me because Obama was going to Kenya, and somebody had the idea of Bourdain joining Obama and going someplace in Kenya with him. But Bourdain couldn't do it. I don't remember why, but he had something, and I just passed it on. To me, I thought that was funny because…what did he have better to do?

Sandy Zweig (executive producer, 'Parts Unknown'): I think that's probably the only time I've seen Tony nervous.

Meehan: I asked him about the Obama hang, because obviously you ask about that. And he said to Obama, "We're both fathers. Can you tell me, is everything going to be okay?" And Obama said, "Yes, Tony. Everything is going to be okay." And he was comforted by that.

Goulding: We went out to El Bulli. Albert and Ferran Adrià, the brothers, hosted us for a big barbecue there on the beach. And Ferran turned to Tony and said, "How far can you keep going? Where else can you go? You can't go to the moon!" And Tony goes, "Really? Why not? I'll go to the moon and make an episode on the moon. I'll go anywhere."

Tower: We were going to CBS. We were walking down the block to go to the studio, and on the other side of the street were some 15 or 20 really loud, professional strikers. Tough guys from New Jersey, screaming and yelling. They saw Tony, and they turned around and went, "Hey, Tony, Tony, Tony!" And he went over and said, "Hey, guys, you know, I'm doing a show, could you just tone it down for about 15 minutes?" "Yeah, Tony, of course, anything for you." Now, who in the world could get a bunch of New York picketers to shut up, other than Tony? They just turned into little, quiet mice instantly. For about an hour.

Jen Agg (chef, author): I got an advance copy of my book to him and didn't expect much, but within a week he'd sent me a beautiful, cover-worthy quote, and I actually cried. I couldn't quite believe he'd done it.

I was very used to being dismissed/ignored/vilified by the men who run my industry, so when he chose to do the opposite, I was very, very touched.

Meehan: He kinda got to a point where he didn't need to do anything, but he still did everything, 'cause the opportunity that he had meant something to him.

Goulding: He [eventually just got] tired of eating. You could see it. Very rarely he said anything more than, "Mmm, that's really good." I said, "You don't talk about food anymore." And he was like, "What do you need me to tell you? You need me to tell you how the acidity plays off of the richness of the cream sauce? And how the crunch helps refresh your palate? Bullshit. You don't need me."

Off camera, Bourdain still greatly enjoyed cooking, hosting, and gently fucking with loved ones.

Marcus Samuelsson (chef): He took me to this Russian bar [Siberia, a now defunct dive bar located inside a subway station]. This was, like, at two o'clock in the morning. I had my speech and demo the next day. He had his speech and demo the next day, too. He said, "Marcus, you need to get out, because you have to be sober tomorrow, and guess what: I don't. I'm going to do my demo hungover and be fine." I'm completely trashed, and he's laughing. My demo was horrible. I was hungover, and I see Tony and he's just laughing on the stage: "See, I told you."

Ripert: Oh, my God, [that bar] was disgusting. It was dirty. He loved the music, and the music was, in my opinion, horrible.

Doug Quint (co-owner, Big Gay Ice Cream; close family friend): He needed to shut up sometimes. Which I told him.

Tower: There was the time when Tony was supposed to interview me. Tony started asking me questions, and then it turned into about a three-hour monologue about himself. He'd ask a question, but it really wasn't a question, it was an observation. And then I would open my mouth to say something, and he would just then go on with more brilliance.

I kept looking at the director, and she was cracking up and just shrugging. I finally said, "Hey, Tony, are you going to ask me a fucking question or not?"

In 2007, Bourdain married Ottavia Busia. Together they had a daughter, Ariane, now 11 years old. The couple separated in 2016 but never formally divorced.

Collins: A few years ago he was doing a cookbook, and they were testing recipes up at his apartment. So we went up there, and he made a meat loaf that was really horrific. And our daughter was like, "I thought he could cook!" She's 14 now, and after Tony passed away and everyone was putting up their messages outside the restaurant, she went over there by herself, and she wrote a note. And on that note she wrote, "I really didn't enjoy your meat loaf, but the pancakes you made were fantastic."

Quint: You know, at his house especially, he just loved grilling giant slabs of meat. But the first time I ate with him, I was at his house, and he'd prepared pigs in a blanket. Hebrew National pigs in a blanket. That was dinner. From a box. They were horrible. And they were burned. It was pre-emptive. He was like, "I cooked food, but I hope you don't expect much," and then he threw those at us as a joke.

He used to leave the gas stove on. I remember a sign painted over it that Ottavia put up to remind him to turn off the oven or the stove. He would take something off the burner and leave it on.

José Andrés (chef, author): The last two, three years, he was cooking more and more—almost like he was coming back to cooking. He was enjoying cooking again.

Boulud: He was taking pride in doing simple things, even if it was a steak frites. Tony was quite European in a way, in his thinking of cooking. Even French, I would say.

Ripert: When he was renting a house, he was a real chef. You will go to the kitchen, his mise en place was incredible, like something that you see only in fine-dining restaurants. He was so precise with all the ingredients in the different containers that were perfectly placed on the table. He never cooked anything bad for me.

Quint: He's the kind of host like Ina [Garten] or Martha [Stewart], who has Tupperware ready to go at the end of a meal. He made sure there were extras and that you went home with stuff.

Homme: He liked all the bits that were well beyond what I liked. They make tripe out in the desert in these giant cauldrons, for all the guys who pick grapes and citrus. He was like, "Tripe!" I was like, "I can't believe you're excited about tripe." He's like, dad-joking, "It takes guts to love tripe."

Andrés: He never got his scuba-diving permit. I gave him a computer, and he did the course at the same time with my 10-year-old daughter. He had to study to take his scuba-diving diploma. Tony was reading the books and everything, but going through the exam online was a pain in the butt. Well, he passed because my daughter did it for him.

He was an excellent scuba diver. Very calm. You could see that he was very bold. I think under the water he found, always, a lot of peace. No photos, no cameras, no selfies, no people asking him questions. He was just one more guy watching life going by. And that's why he liked scuba so much.

Quint: It was at a rental house out in the Hamptons, and it was the first time I'd ever spent a night with him or anything like that. Their daughter [Ariane] at that time was probably 5. She came and tapped on Ottavia's arm and whispered to her, and Ottavia said, "Oh, she's going to do her song." And I said, "What does that mean?" And Tony said, "Don't ask. Just watch."

Ottavia took her phone and cued up "Call Me Maybe," and Ariane came out from behind the wall and lip-synched and acted the whole thing out. Picking up a phone and fake calling into a phone, and it was just the most fuckin' adorable thing I'd ever seen. I remember looking over at Tony, and he just stared at her with this look on his face like, just he was seeing perfection and couldn't believe it had come out of him, you know? It's exactly what you want to see in a parent's eyes when they look at their kid. I sometimes didn't like Tony, but I always loved Tony, and there was a lot to love when I saw that look come out at her.

Homme: I was saying to him, "I want my daughter to do martial arts and learn to play piano." And he said, "I don't care what she does, as long as she loves it." I thought that was beautiful, because that is the right attitude for parenting. Not to push—to help someone be who they already are and to help someone search hard enough to find who they could be.

Hamilton: That's the thing about friendship with Tony. Tony lavishes you with love and friendship and generosity and kindness, and then he disappears in the night and you don't get to reciprocate. It wasn't mutual. But it was breathtaking to be loved by him.

Cable News Network: A Time Warner Company

Friends also recognized that life wasn't always easy for Bourdain, and that he had his own demons and struggled with the burden of his fame.

Thornburgh: He wasn't out there kicking his heels all the time and saying, "I'm rich and famous." I think he felt the darkness of it, too.

Andrew Zimmern (TV host): We're shooting promos, standing around, both drinking coffees, smoking a cigarette, waiting for the cameras to get set up. And he looks at me, and he says, "Television is such a vile mistress." Then we heard, from 200 yards away, "Action," and we started to walk, and I was paralyzed, like, "What the fuck does he mean by this?"

Andrés: I think Tony always saw himself as a man always on the edge of the good or the bad. It's like a knife. It's a very small edge, a very thin edge, but you have to be careful because you can cut yourself and you'll never know what side of the knife's blade you're going to end up on.

Tenaglia: Chris and I had dinner with him three weeks before he died. We had a really great meal together. I remember he had a big piece of steak, a big fat slice of cheesecake at the end of it. I'm just very, very thankful that we had that moment with him. Because three weeks later, to the day, he was gone.

On June 8, 2018, Eric Ripert discovered Bourdain dead by suicide in the bathroom of a French hotel. Ripert declined to discuss Bourdain's final days for this story. Actor and director Asia Argento, with whom Bourdain was involved at the time of his death, politely declined to participate altogether. The wounds remain fresh and deep, but those closest to Bourdain appear to have absorbed an awful lot from him about how life ought to be lived.

Quint: I heard my phone going off in the middle of the night, and it was a text from Ottavia saying, "He's killed himself, and I wanted you to know before the news came out." I [drove] to O'Hare and went to their house. The whole morning, I was sitting head down, making sure I didn't look at the TV. It's just so fuckin' lousy. It feels like you're speeding into a black hole.

Tenaglia: I don't think it was a shock that one day we would get a call. It was like, "Okay. Maybe we should prepare ourselves that one day Tony's either gotten into a plane crash, or flipped on an ATV, had a heart attack."

Collins: Not expecting, but you acknowledge that it could happen.

Tenaglia: But we didn't expect that call. It's like someone's just hit you with a giant fucking frying pan.

Meehan: It was hard to understand because he was really good at being a person.

Rosner: He was the center of so many ecosystems.

John Birdsall (writer): He didn't speak as if he had power, which was the great thing.

Lajaunie: I was on a trip in the north of Vietnam, on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. I stopped in this little village, exactly the kind of place where Tony and I would have stopped on the way. I heard my phone ding, with news, and I learned from the A.P. or Reuters that he had just killed himself. It could not have been a better place, and it could not have been a worse place. It was exactly the place we would have been together. And so it was eerie.

Homme: There's a [New Yorker article called "Jumpers"], about people who jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. And all the survivors say the exact same thing, that as soon as their fingers left that bridge, they were like, Stop, wait, if I could just take that back…. I think with two more seconds, it wouldn't be this way.

Quint: That day, Ariane said to me something like, "Is this something that people outside of New York are gonna know about?" And we were like, "Yeah. All around the world, people are sad about this." Telling her that made me realize, Jesus, God, this is world news. He changed lives around the world.

Froelich: I just think it's lonelier without him in the world.

Bourdain: I have in my possession the notes that people put up on Les Halles. I have them at the house. There was one woman who drove up from fucking Tennessee. Some dude took the back of an envelope to find some blank white space to write on, and he stuck it onto the glass at Les Halles with a Band-Aid. He wrote this personal, heartfelt little thing and then stuck it on with a fucking Band-Aid.

Fred Morin (co-owner, Joe Beef): I decided to put the bottle down. About 73 days.

Fallon: I've stopped drinking as a part of this whole thing, too.

Lajaunie: I'm moving to Vietnam. I think it's time for me to do it.

Zweig: I just assumed that we would finish [the show]. It just seemed wrong not to. It's his life's work. Why not take the material that we have and make the most of it?

Tenaglia: There has not really been a moment to actually sit and try to fully process the fact that he's gone. The producers and the editors were left in the aftermath to deal with all the footage for the five, six, seven shows of Parts Unknown we have to present. I know this one longtime director-editor, Nick Brigden, said it so beautifully: It dawns [on] you...I'm not going to [get his] feedback. But then at the same time, I know exactly what that feedback would be. Through all these years of working with him, through osmosis, we have the same creative force and integrity as that guy. Whether he was alive or not here, we have all ingested it. And we're trying to move forward with it.

Goulding: The one common thing you hear from everyone is "Why does this hurt so much? I didn't know the guy." Yes, you did know the guy. You shared 100 meals with him, if not more. He shared 1,000 meals with the world. He did that year after year, episode after episode. So to not be able to do that anymore, I think is a big hit for all of us. From President Obama down to your friggin' mailman, everyone feels that loss.

Boulud: When Tony passed away, I suddenly watched a lot on CNN to see all these retrospectives on him, because I needed to feel connected. But I haven't looked at the episode we did in Lyon since Tony passed. I want to do that in a moment where I can relax and enjoy and watch it maybe with my family in France. That would be nice.

Hamilton: I have a very, very, very, very tender, fond moment of saying goodbye to Tony in L.A. I had to leave, and he was napping on his couch in his trailer, sleeping with his arms across his chest. No blanket. Shoes on. And me going in and just touching him on the arm and saying, "I'm leaving, thank you," and going back to the airport. Just a brief kiss-on-the-cheek kind of goodbye.

Fallon: People have said to me, "Well, you probably don't wanna talk about that." I feel exactly the opposite. I want to talk about Tony. I want to make sure that people understand and know that that was the real deal, man. That was a singular, brilliant, magnificent human being.

Thornburgh: My wife's father's family is from Japan, so we went and did a month in Japan a few years back. We were at the last soba shop in Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan, a place you walk over wood planks over a pond to get to. It just felt like the edge of the earth. My kid, who must've been like 7 at the time or something, he taps me on the shoulder, and he's like, "Dad, it's your friend." I'm like, "What are you talking about?"

I turn around and, of course, because it's this planet we all share, there's a picture of fucking Tony shaking hands with the soba master in that noodle shop. You cannot go find something that he hadn't done or where he hasn't gripped and grinned. The end of the earth. "Daddy...there's your friend."

Drew Magary is a GQ correspondent.

A version of this story originally appeared in the December 2018/January 2019 issue with the title "The Last Curious Man."

[mori-sketchbook]

:333333 every one of those questions for both you and Andras.

sometimes meesh….. somtimes

(1) Do You Sleep With Your Closet Doors Open Or Closed?

closed! they are full length mirros

(2) Do You Have Freckles?

only when super tanned

(3) Can You Whistle?

nope *cries*

(4) Last Song You Listened To.

All Star, which i normally cant stand cuz it gets stuck in my head like no ones business but this was a surprisingly good cover

(5) What Is Your Favourite Colour?

i usually default to maroon/burgundy but i think gold is inching into first place

(6) Relationship Status.

engaged

(7) What Is The Temperature Right Now?

15′C but muggy as all hell

(8) Did You Wake Up Cranky?

oh boy did i

(9) How Many Followers?

1,129

(10) Zodiac Sign.

Sagittarius

(11) What Is Your Eye Colour?

blue but with marbley grey

(12) Take A Vitamin Daily?

yes, but i should take more tbh

(13) Do You Sing In The Shower?

yeah but i never remember the words so just mumble along

(14) What Books Are You Reading?

Half Blood Prince audio book

fun(ish) fact, i was super into reading until the good ol’ depression killed my ability to read so i started listening to audio books recently as a part of my therapy and the harry potter series has a very clear ramp up in difficulty as they age so i figured it’d be a great way of working my way up again

(15) Grab The Book Nearest To You, Turn To Page 64, Give Me Line 14.

There is one, and only one, advantage to somebody who cannot play the violin insisting on doing so anyway, and the advantage is that they often play so loudly that they cannot hear if the audience is having a conversation.

(16) Favourite Anime?

Shirokuma Cafe!

(17) Last Person You Cried In Front Of?

Kaedian :’>

(18) Do You Collect Anything?

movie props!

(19) What Did You Have For Lunch?

a little pizza~

(20) Do You Dance In The Car?

i can barely sit in a car im so tall let alone dance

(21) Favourite Animal?

sometimes sharks, sometimes octopi, sometimes armadillos

(22) Do You Watch The Olympics?

opening cermonies and anything with beefy ladies *cough*

oh and archery!

(23) What Time Do You Usually Go To Bed?

aim for 11/12 but as for actually falling asleep…..

(24) Are You Wearing Makeup Right Now?

only a little, not been taking care of myself lately tbh

(25) Do You Prefer To Swim In A Pool Or The Ocean?

pool maybe? but id rather just sit and look at the ocean

(26) Favourite Tumblr Blog?

eh?? no real fave but Clients from Hell is always a good read

(27) Bottled Water Or Tap Water?

neither

(28) What Makes You Happy?

*stares into the camera*

(29) Post A Gif Of What You’re Currently Feeling Right Now.

(30) Do You Study Better With Or Without Music?

if im taking stuff in, with music, if im writing stuff down, without

(31) Dogs Or Cats?

doggos but i do love cats too

(32) If You Were A Crayon What Colour Would You Be?

some weird offshoot pastel grey

(33) PlayStation Or Xbox.

i guess playstation, i;ve owned a ps1/ps2/psp but no xbox

(34) Would You Swim In The Lake Or Ocean?

if we’re talking idyllic waterfall lagoon from some fantasy book then lake, if not then neither pls

(35) Do You Believe In Magic?

(36) What Colour Shirt Are You Wearing?

grey NASA tee

(37) Can You Curl Your Tongue?

no it confuses me how people have control over those muscles (ears too wtf)

(38) Do You Save Money Or Spend It?

i go through periods of saving then periods of spending

(39) Is There Anything Pink Within 10 Feet Of You?

 a lighter

(40) Do You Have Any Obsessions Right Now?

i guess the history of Hyperion (Borderlands) and the departments in the Ministry (Harry Potter)

i tend to hyper focus one aspect rather than a franchise as a whole

(41) Have You Ever Caught A Butterfly?

only to save, leave them be pls

(42)Are You Easily Influenced By Other People?

initially yeah but then those people quickly become an annoyance and everything they do annoys me

(43) Do You Have Strange Dreams?

i have the blandest dreams ever as can be seen here

(44)Do You Like Going On Airplanes?

i dont dislike them but the longer the flight the more claustro i get

(45) Name One Movie That Made You Cry.

Up, in the cinema, front row with my crying friends, you know the scene

(46) Peanuts Or Sunflower Seeds?

sunflower seeds pls

(47) If I Handed You A Concert Ticket Right Now, Who Would You Want The Performer To Be?

it was a life goal to see David Bowie in concert :’

i guess either Pulp if they ever toured again or just whoever puts on the best show

(48) Are You A Picky Eater?

ill try anything in a restaurant but at home with everyday meals i am put off by food a whole bunch

(49) Are You A Heavy Sleeper?

maybe??? its hell to get me to sleep but once im out i think i stay out pretty well

(50) Do You Fear Thunder / Lightning?

no i LOVE it

(51) Do You Like To Read / Write?

in theory…

(52) Do You Like Your Music Loud?

pls no

(53) Would You Rather Carve Pumpkins Or Wrap Presents?

pumpkins i guess but not by much

(54) Put Your Music On Shuffle, What Is The First Song That Came Up?

Mariner’s Revenge - Decemberists

(55) What Season Are You In Right Now? (Weather)

summerino

(56)What Are You Craving Right Now?

i can still taste that pizza so im good for the moment, it will be chocolate tho, its always chocolate

(57) Post A Screenshot Of Your Tumblr Feed.

no that’s weird

(58) What Is Your Gender?

…..nope

(59) Coffee Or Tea?

Coffee~

(60) Do You Have Any Homework Right Now? If So, What Is It About?

nothing official

(61) What Is Your Sexuality?

Pansexual/Polyamorous

(62) Do You Make Your Bed In The Morning?

not even a little :’>

(63) Favourite Pokemon?

(64) Favourite Social Media?

i tend to avoid it really, i dont wanna know what ur doing sorry

(65) What’s Your Opinion On Instagram Stories?

i dont even know what they are? if theyre the same as snapchat stories then??? theyre fine i guess

(66) Do You Get Homesick?

not so much homesick as “omg i need to get home im having a panic attack”

(67) Are You A Virgin?

nop

(68) What Shampoo And Conditioner Are You Using Right Now?

original source i think?? just get whatever

(69) If You Were Far From Home And Needed To Sleep For The Night, Would You Choose To Rent A Crappy Motel Room For $60 Or Sleep In Your Car For Free?

Car for sure

(70) Are Both Of Your Blood Parents Still In Your Life?

nope

(71) Whats The Next Movie You Want To See In Theaters?

it was Atomic Blonde until i heard about all the queer baiting and shit, and i would’ve watched it regardless cuz kickass older woman beating people up but theres enough violence against queer people as it is

(72) Do You Miss Your Ex?

would you like to pick between, abusive ex number 1, abusive ex number 2, friend who we got together cuz we were being pressured by friends and realised we were just friends, ex who was obsessed with me and i didn’t feel anything for but you’re too young to realise that shit aint love, ex who was so torn up about his sexuality he seemed to genuinely fear admitting it or the ex who i never technically got together with but was in love with but had no idea how to go about it cuz “healthy” and “relationshop” where not two words that belonged in the same sentence according to past experience

honestly the best relationship i ever had before Kae was just a friend who was there for me after being abused and we fucked from time to time and there was no “going out” aspect to drag us down

(73) What Is Your Favourite Quote Right Now?

shrug, never been one for quotes

(74) What Eye Colour Do You Find Sexiest?

green i guess?? gimmi unnatural contacts, they can be sexy, i never see a natural eye colour and think “i wanna bone that” tho

(75) Did You Like Swinging As A Child? Do You Still Get Excited When You See A Swing Set?

dont have a question about sexiness followed by a question about swinging and expect my brain not to go there

but yes swings are the best i love them

(76) What Was The Last Thing You Ate?

leetle pizza

(77) What Games Do You Have On Your Phone?

WoW companion App is the closest to a game, D&D character sheet app too

(78) Would You Give A Homeless Person CPR If They Were Dying? Why Or Why Not?

wtf yes???

(79) Been On The Computer For 5 Hours Straight?

ask me if ive been OFF the computer for 5 hours straight

(80) Stalked Someone On A Social Network?

no i actively avoid most of those sites, tumblr is the closest but i tend to follow the art only blogs of people anyway

(81) Do You Like Meeting New People?

in theory???? but generally no

(82) Do You Wear Rings? If You Do, Take A Picture Of Them.

i do, always at least 2, a spinning ring for anxiety and a spiral copper band. will wear more if feeling fancy

(83) Do You Sleep With Your Bedroom Door Open Or Closed?

bed is on a mezzanine but the other doors are clsoed

(84) What Are Three Things You Did Today?

walked the doggo, talked to landlord, avoided a withheld number who was ringing for like a solid 5 minutes leave me alone

(85) What Do You Wear To Bed?

i just take off my jeans and sleep in that

(86) List All Of Your Different Beauty Products You Have Right Now.

ughhh soap scrubs, face cream, sea salt hairspray, coconut oil…errr makeup/nail varnish i guess i dunno

(87) Are You A Day Or Night Person?

is neither an option

(88) List All Of Your Video Games On Your Phone, Console Etc.

*groans* n-no thats way too much effort

(89) Tell Me About A Dream That You Had And When It Happened.

i dreamed a was in a shop (well.. it was a white void with a single shelf) and i picked up a mug and looked at it. that was it. the endand it was a couple months ago

(90) Favourite Soda Drink?

hmmm cherry coke or fanta

(91) What Sounds Are Your Favourite?

audible ones

crunchy leaves are good? OMG wait no that echoing ice crack sound on massive lakes that stuff is the best

(92) Do You Wear Jeans Or Sweats More?

jeans

(93) How Do You Look Right Now?

exhausted

(94) Name Something That Relaxes You.

if only i knew

(95) What Tattoo Do You Want?

hmmm ive considered my sigils but the act of marking them on my skin is a whole part of the process for me so maybe not, geometric stiff is my jam tho, i dont like “picture” tattoos

(96) Favourite YouTuber?

[littlepuddingsugg]

Come get Your Girl

Request: Y/N and Joe are fighting so Y/N goes to see Connor Franta in LA.

“Y/N!!” Connor shouted as you walked closer to him.

“Hey Connor! It’s been so long!” you smiled, embracing him into a hug. 

You had flown into LA for a week to discuss some really fun opportunities you might be doing with YouTube later on in the year and your good friend Connor Fanta had offered to let you stay with him. You agreed mainly because you haven't see him in almost a year but recently you were more glad that you wouldn't be alone in a hotel room. 

“Come on lets go get your luggage and then we can go grab some lunch, you're probably starving” Connor said, pulling you towards baggage claim. 

The two of you, after grabbing your bags, walked out of the airport and into the bright sunshine and warm air of LA. 

“God I miss this place. Always sunny. London should take a few notes if you ask me” you laughed as you walked towards Connors car.

“Yeah London is a great city, but imagine if it was sunny for a change” 

The car ride to lunch was full of laughter that was silenced by a call coming in on your phone. Connor watched as you ignored the call and let out a deep breath. 

“Do you wanna talk about it? You and Joe that is?” Connor asked, watching as you avoid his eye contact by looking out the window. 

“No not really, I just want to forget about it” you sighed.

“If you want to forget about it, I think you two should make up”

“Probably” you mumbled, eyes still focused on the passing scenery.

The next couple of days were filled with exciting business meetings and dinner dates where you were able to catch up with all your LA friends. On this particular day, you and Connor had decided to take it easy and just order a pizza and relax in his apartment. 

“So Y/N...” Connor said as he finished his slice of pizza. 

“So Connor” you questioned.

“Have you talked to Joe yet?”

You frozen at his question. “Um no I haven't” you swallowed the lump in your throat and took a sip of your drink.

“Y/N please talk to me at least. You and Joe are prefect for each other honestly, and I don't like seeing my friend in pain” his voice was laced with concern. A tear unwillingly rolled down your cheek and you closed you eyes, attempting to keep the rest from spilling out. 

“Its just...ugh I don’t know Connor. I honestly don’t even know what happened. Everything was good, everything was prefect and then one day it wasn’t. We’ve both been so busy and on edge and we’d just be at each other throats all day and night. It got so bad that a few days before I came he, we weren’t even sleeping in the same bed anymore.” the tears were now flowing down your cheeks. 

Connor scooted closer to you and wrapped his arms around your body, pulling you closer to him. He rubbed your back as he laid his head on yours. 

“Oh Y/N I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But you two will get through this, I promise. You two are meant for each other.” “Thats just it though Connor. We haven’t spoken properly in weeks nearly, and I don't even know what to say when he calls, thats why I don't answer.” You sniffle, wiping your eyes with the back of your hand. 

“It’ll be okay. I promise, we’ll figure this out” he said giving you a squeeze. 

The next day you had 3 meetings and told Connor that you’d be home quite late. Connor said that he too had a pretty busy day and that’ll be home shortly after you. You thought nothing of it, knowing that he was involved with some pretty cool projects and opportunities as well. 

When you finally arrived back at Connor’s apartment that night, you were beyond exhausted. You decided to have a hot shower and cozy up on the couch and wait for Connor to arrive so the two of you could continue watching the Netflix show you two were currently binge watching.

While in the shower, you heard Connor’s door open and close and a few voices. You thought nothing more than it being Connor and one of your friends who wanted to hangout with you two tonight. You stepped out of the shower and pulled on some sweatpants and a t-shirt that just so happened to be Joe’s. You sighed as you looked at yourself in the mirror. You really missed Joe and just wanted to call him and tell him how much you loved him and that you were sorry that all this happened, but now was not the time. 

You pushed Joe out of your mind and walked out of your room and into the living room where you saw Connor, sat on his couch, talking to a man. A man who looked exactly like Joe from behind. 

Connor smiled as he met your eyes. “Surprise”

Joe turned his head towards you and quickly stood up and embraced you in a hug. 

“Hi love” 

“What...what are you doing here?” you questioned.

“Connor called and said I needed to come get my girl” he said pulling away and looking back at Connor. 

“I’m sorry-” you started but were cut off by Joe.

“No love I’m sorry. I’ve been taking on way too many projects and have been trying to keep up with all three of my channels and its just too much for me and I just took it out on you which resulted in you lashing out on me and us hating each other.”

“I don’t hate you Joe. I love you. I love you so much and I’m sorry too.” you kissed him deeply before embracing him in another hug. 

“Awwww! See Y/N I told you’d be okay” Connor gushed.

“Thank you Connor. You’re a really great friend you know that?” You said extending your arm out, signaling for him to come hug you. 

Connor took no time in taking you up on your offer and hugging you and Joe. 

“When we get back love, were going on a holiday. I need to be away from work for a bit and spend time with the love of my life” Joe smiled down at you.

“I think thats a great idea” You smiled back at him.

[sadmudzines]

EEL IN THE BATHROOM - PART THREE

(Featured in The Salmons Vol 1)

INT. HALLWAY, OCEAN VIEW HOTEL – NIGHT

Earle knocks on the door to the bathroom but blushes when Dr Eel doesn’t reply.

Marge eyes him expectantly.

MARGE: Can we watch Inspector Morse now?

EARLE: In a minute-

MARGE: You said there’d be Pringles-

EARLE: There are.

Earle avoids eye contact to protect his lie.

MARGE: I’ve got a hankering.

Earle knocks louder, disappointed in the silence.

MARGE: I don’t need the toilet. I don’t go after 8pm. It’s a health thing.

Earle knocks desperately.  

EARLE: Dr Eel?

Earle goes to knock again when he eventually hears a grumbling noise. He jumps on it excitedly as it grows louder and louder until suddenly, silence.

DR EEL (OS): Come here or fuck there, I don’t care.

Earle breathes a sigh of relief that Dr Eel’s still there. He opens the door and nudges Marge inside but as he goes to follow him Dr Eel’s tail whips and the door slams shut.

Earle sweats, locked out, panic rising.

EARLE: Dr Eel? Marge?

Violent splashing.

EARLE: Everything okay in there?

Earle knocks tentatively. But no answer.

The splashing sound grows wilder, then screaming. Louder and louder screaming.

Earle panics. His knocking desperate. He’s shouting now.

EARLE: Dr Eel! Let me in!

No response. Just splashing and screaming.

EARLE: Marge? Marge! You alright in there?

The splashing and screaming zip silent. The silence sounds dangerous.

The bathroom door slowly creaks open.

Earle’s panting, scared to step inside.

Earle steps across the doorway. The once white walls now drip in red, glossy blood. Dr Eel and the multiplying fresh eels swim happily in the blood-dyed bath water.

Pieces of Marge scatter the bathroom, torn as if he was made of wet tissue paper. Earle whimpers when he spots Marge’s head. A frozen expression of fear and confusion on his dead face.

Earle can’t bear to look at it. He picks up a towel and gently lays it across what’s left of Marge.

EARLE: Mum’s going to be so mad… Why’d you do that for?

DR EEL: He just smelt so delicious. Like croissants.

EARLE: People will ask questions, what are we going to say? What are we going to do?  What a mess, what an awful, disgusting mess. I don’t-

Earle stops mid-sentence as he notices his white trainers are stained with blood.

EARLE: Oh. They were brand new…

The eels continue to slosh in the bathtub.

DR EEL: Go on then, go and get your sweeties. Same place as before.

Earle looks around at the bloody mess.

EARLE: I’m not really in the mood anymore-

DR EEL: But look at all this effort you went through.

EARLE: I know but-

DR EEL: It’s not often you get a night like this.

Earle scoffs.

DR EEL: It’s not often it’s just you, relaxing-

EARLE: With a fucking talking Eel.

DR EEL: Do it.

EARLE: Hmm…

DR EEL: I mean it, do it. Do it, there’s nothing else left to do.

EARLE: I really don’t feel like it anymore.

DR EEL: This isn’t an invite to a tea party. Snort the cocaine, Alice.

Dr Eel whips his tail. As it touches Earle’s skin, electric current zings through his skeleton. Earle howls in pain. His hairs on end.

Dr Eel raises his tail again as a threat. Earle jumps to the cotton wool pot. His hands shake in fear as he scrambles for the drugs.

Pinching the powder between his fingers he pushes it up each nostril. Desperately. He snorts and sniffs as chunks fall from his nose. White rings highlight the circles of his nostril holes.

He repeats until the bag empty. He slumps to the bloody floor once he’s inhaled it all.

DR EEL: Now, more.

EARLE: No more.

DR EEL: Another human, a prettier one. A skinnier one.

Earle shakes his head.

EARLE: No more, I just want to go to bed-

DR EEL: These are the final hours of the night. Aren’t you curious about what could happen? How much we could achieve?

EARLE: No.

DR EEL: That’s what you tell yourself now. But in the morning? When the memories are already made…

Earle softens, tempted. Dr Eel hisses in excitement at Earle’s change in heart.

DR EEL: One more human.

EARLE: There’s no-one who’s thin or pretty in Sugar-On-Sea.

DR EEL: Just thin, then. I can use my imagination…

EARLE: What are you going to do with them?

Dr Eel just hisses.

EARLE: I’d feel guilty about Marge if it wasn’t Marge. But another person… I don’t want you doing what you did to Marge.

DR EEL: One more human, one more line.

EARLE: But I don’t want one-

Dr Eel flicked his tail and electrocuted Earle. The flash created shadows from his bones, nerves and organs as if his skin was a silk screen for puppets.

The air smelt of burnt hair, his own. The electric current had singed his extremities including his fingertips. He didn’t want to leave the house, he meant it when he told Dr Eel there was no-one thinner, prettier and awake. Sugar-On-Sea drained the life from people and instead pumped them full of Trans fat and pessimism. It was a lost cause, but he couldn’t face Dr Eel. The shocks were becoming more painful as Dr Eel’s strength gained from the Fanta and blood. It made his bones vibrate, he never felt pain like it. He sank to the sofa, his hope catching a ride out on every exhale he took. His lungs were nearly empty of all air and feeling, his body as flat and flimsy as a pair of tights. He tried to concentrate, but his head swam; neurons darting in directions as a school of fish at a junction. He thought if he could brace himself, go back into the bathroom and tell Dr Eel no – as confidently as the women who reject him weekend in and out– then it would be all be okay. Just as he was to make the long walk back to the bathroom; something stopped him. A book on the shelf. Sugar-On-Sea still published the yellow pages. A mistrust of the internet in this town gave way for long lost relics to still have a functioning place in society such as phone boxes and Marks & Spencer’s.

This edition of the yellow pages was a few years old, Mr Salmon liked 1988 so he tried to hold onto as many things from that year. It was Earle’s last and only shot.

The town’s council had a surprisingly progressive stance on sex work; prostitution was legal and the strip club was more like a town hall than… well, a strip club. But really, to Earle, it was just a veiled attempt for the council men to cheat on their wives in the name of feminism and freedom.

Earle flicked through the yellow pages and came to the section he needed; whores. The council really had a way with words. He ran his finger down the listing from the Angelas through to the Bettys and then to the Catherines. He stopped on one, Daphne. Her shoulders were sharp points, her soft skin fell dramatically from cheek bones which could only have been achieved by a decent few years of an eating disorder. Thin, yes. Pretty, sort of. The decider was her foreign surname; at least if she was to end up on the floor of his bathroom, like a macabre pick and mix, then maybe it best if she didn’t have any family in the area, no-one would miss her – at least not in a one hundred-mile radius. Earle rang and to his surprise she answered straight away. His heart sunk a little as he heard a thick Essex accent. But it was late, and he just wanted this whole horrible ordeal to be over and done with. He imagined her pink lip stick smudging the other end of the retriever.  

He told himself if he managed to clear up all the blood and Fanta and Class A’s by morning. It would be okay to stay up a little later and do one last deed for Dr Eel.

INT. FRONT ROOM, OCEAN VIEW HOTEL – NIGHT

Earle nervously scratched the back of his head.

DAPHNE (O.S): 5am? Make it 4am – gotta get the kids to school.

EARLE: Kids?

DAPHNE (O.S): I don’t know what you’re thinking you dirty pervert but-

EARLE: No, no. That’s not what I… I just didn’t think about them, about you having to be somewhere in the morning-

DAPHNE (O.S): I’m a real person, you know that right?  Got jobs on my list that don’t start with blow. Got it?

EARLE: Yes…

Earle’s face drops, the guilt almost weighing down the skin around his eye sockets.

DAPHNE (O.S): Looking forward to it… What’s your name?

EARLE (sadly): Cunt-Fuck.

DAPHNE (O.S): Is that German?

EARLE: Sure.

Earle puts down the receiver. He sniffs and wipes his nose.

Thumping electronic music sounds from inside the bathroom.

EARLE: Dr Eel! The Neighbours, please-

The music is nudged louder.

Earle rests his head against the wood of the door, weary.

The purple light of dawn seeps through the window, intensifying with every minute.

The doorbell rings. Earle’s paralyzed.

The doorbell rings again, but this time the ringing is sustained.  

Earle goes to duck and hide but is too late.

DAPHNE (O.S): I can see you in there! I’m not swapping my jammies for corsets for no money.

The door shakes as it’s banged.

Earle answers the door.

DAPHNE (58) stands on the other side. Older and fatter than her picture.

She barges past.

DAPHNE: What the fuck was that about? Told you I didn’t have the time for games. That’s extra.

Earle stares at the picture in the yellow pages. Looking up and down to persuade himself it’s the right woman. Daphne catches him.

DAPHNE: After the 80s, came the 90s and this is what they did me. Like I said I ain’t got all night.

Daphne drops her coat to reveal her body, like raw sausage meat poking through a complex of leather straps and fishnets. Earle grimaces but Daphne steels.

DAPHNE: Money. Now.

Earle scrambles for the cash.

DAPHNE: Actually, I’m desperate for a wizz. Back in a min-

Daphne turns to go to the bathroom but Earle goes green.

EARLE: Wait!

DAPHNE: I can piss on you, but that’ll be £30 on top of what we’ve agreed.

Earle’s thinks about it.

EARLE: Really?

Daphne takes another step closer to the bathroom.

EARLE: No, stop!

Guilt overcomes him.

EARLE: I can’t do this-

DAPHNE: You called me, remember?

EARLE: I’m not, I-

Daphne laughs as Earle squirms.

EARLE: What I’m about to tell you is… I just need you to believe me. It’s weird, I don’t really believe it myself but-

DAPHNE: Spit it out.

EARLE: There’s an eel. A talking one. In there. And I think it wants to chop you up. I told him no but he wouldn’t take it. He said to bring you here and-

DAPHNE: You were going to feed me to at talking fucking eel?

EARLE: Not feed, I’m not really sure what he wants. I think he likes blood or maybe organs I’m not really sure.

Daphne lights up a cigarette.

DAPHNE: I knew you were into some sick fucking stuff, but this?

EARLE: I was hoping he wouldn’t eat you.

DAPHNE: Where is he?

Earle nods solemnly to the bathroom.

Daphne sighs knowingly.

DAPHNE: £40 now then £40 after.

EARLE: I’m feeling quite vulnerable right now, I’m not sure I could… perform as I’d like-

DAPHNE: I’m not going to fuck you.

Daphne gestures to the bathroom door.

DAPHNE: I’ve seen this before.

EARLE: Oh.

DAPHNE: I should have known by the way you were chewing the inside of your cheek.

Earle claps his hand across his mouth, feeling for himself just how tight his jaw is.

DAPHNE: I need rubber gloves, a bread knife and salt.

Earle stares in disbelief.

DAPHNE: Now.

Earle scrambles for the items in the kitchen.

Daphne lights another fag.

DAPHNE: Nice place…

She picks up a family photo from the side and snorts.

DAPHNE: You a Salmon?

The sound of Earle clattering around from the other room.

EARLE (O.S): Yeah, why?

DAPHNE (mutters): Like father, like son.

Earle returns triumphantly. Daphne swipes the items from his arms and pockets the £40 into the leather strap of her girdle. She pings the plastic gloves onto her hands as if a vet would at the rear end of cow.

Earle watches as she marches towards the bathroom. Naked aside from her bondage.

Earle winces as he sees her stub her cigarette out on the carpet. Daphne bashes the door down with her hoof-like foot. Earle goes to follow but she slams the door shut.

A high-pitched squeal ruminates from the bathroom.

Earle can’t bear to hear it.

The sound of water thrashing. It lasts forever to Earle’s ears.

Daphne eventually emerges from the bathroom holding the decapitated head of Dr Eel. It’s as if a bucket of blood had been poured over head. She coolly slicks her hair back and scoops the blood from her eyes. Two pearl-like peepers peer back through the ruby gloop.

She lights a cigarette. Breathing in the smoke with resolve.

She holds out the palm of her hand and a shaken Earle places £40 within it.

DAPHNE: Let me know what to expect next time. I wouldn’t have worn this.

Daphne dumps Dr Eel’s head next to Earle and leaves without another word.

Earle slumps to the floor, weary and broken. Stunned.

His eyes heavy, he falls into a deep sleep.

INT. FRONT ROOM, OCEAN VIEW HOTEL – MORNING

Hungover, Earle remains collapsed against the wall. The room is blood-stained. Dr Eel’s chopped head next to him. The end credits of Inspector Morse speed downwards on the TV.

The sound of the front door opening and closing. There’s footsteps for a few moments until suddenly they stop. A startling scream pierces the house.

Earle bolts awake. The force almost makes him sick.

EARLE: Shit, shit, shit-

MRS SALMON (59) appears from around the corner. Furious, she stands over Earle.

MRS SALMON: Have you seen the state of that bathroom?

EARLE: I’m sorry, mum.

Mrs Salmon burns red.

MRS SALMON: You’ve been doing drugs again, haven’t you?

Earle hangs his head in shame.

MRS SALMON: I told you, no drugs!

Earle goes to open his mouth but no words come out. She knows when he’s lying.

MRS SALMON: You haven’t even bothered to wipe the tiles.

Mrs Salmon storms from the room.

Earle is left alone, a naughty and sad little boy.

Mrs Salmon caught Earle a couple of times a year in his early twenties. He did it because it felt good – for a while anyway – a pursuit of pure, selfish pleasure where the dopamine hit was only equalled by online shopping and not much else.

[63824peace]

Wednesday, 12th of october 2005

Television programs receive broadcast extensions in autumn, or else they are canceled. This year's turn-around resulted in the cancellation of Nihon TV's Tuesday Suspense Theater. The show had been broadcasted for twenty-four years. It was television's second longest running show, outlasted only by TV Asahi's Saturday Wide Theater. What a disappointment!

Both programs featured series of two-hour dramas. No one of my generation ever missed an episode. We eagerly awaited each new installment to see how the drama would escalate. Of course, this was before we became adult contributors to society as members of the work force.

Serialized television shows us that traditional storytelling methods are outdated. They are too straightforward to offer useful social criticism. We will only have variety shows left if the old-fashioned shows go off the air. Television programs and games are alike ; each needs its audience.

We should still preserve some media and cultural artifacts that are uninfluenced by popular trends. People who share my temperament grieve the loss of a show that we grew up watching. Saturday Wide Theater remains on the air; the patriarch of television programs survives for now. I sincerely wish it well.

I watched the weather forecast this morning. The usual autumn rain front moves under the influence of high atmospheric pressure. The children who have eagerly awaited the athletic festival celebrated a victory this week. Typhoon-20 will still come ashore, but at least it seems that the sky will be clear this afternoon. I yearn to feel a pure autumn day.

We held our routine meetings this morning. I realized suddenly that I haven't seen Shin-chan in a while. I checked his work booth, but he wasn't inside.

Then I remembered he is on vacation.

The MGS4 team worked around the clock when we were preparing for TGS. They are taking the belated vacation that they missed during the August Bon festival. Everyone ought to be enjoying time with their families or lovers. They are making up for lost time. Because of the vacation, Mr. Nishimura hasn't sent feedback on my articles via our intranet server. I wrote my articles without his counsel this time, so I'm eager to learn his reactions. I expect that I'll owe him a few apologies when he returns.

I ate Yakisoba with pork, mushrooms, and oyster sauce at the Chinese restaurant Fuuton San Raakyo for lunch. I probably should have eaten udon. I have a comprehensive endoscopic exam scheduled for my stomach and intestines tomorrow. I ate udon last night though… no, excuse me. I ate Oudon for supper last night. Because I prepared for the exam last night, I wanted at least to enjoy Yakisoba for lunch today.

I received a pamphlet from my doctor's office that details my pre-exam preparations. It reads: "Please abstain from eating vegetables, fruits, and seaweeds prior to your procedure." I feel pretty fortunate that I dislike vegetables. I wonder though... was it okay to have eaten the mushrooms?

Mr. Shida came to the office this afternoon to perform the final check on the Existence disc. We started by watching and listening to it in the editing studio. He seemed to enjoy it more than he scrutinized it.

I have entrusted the remainder of the third disc's direction and structure to Mr. Shida. I also had requested that he write and edit the L Book that accompanied the limited edition of MGS3. The man knows more about MGS3 than even the MGS3 staff. He might be the only person after myself who knows the game so intimately.

The MGS team is a big family. Of course, specialized divisions focus on developing specific aspects of the games, such as the script, the visual designs, the programming, and the audio. As Director, I unify the various parts by giving orders that guide everyone along my vision. Leaders and supervisors manage each group from within, but the success of our work ultimately hinges upon my relationships with each staff member.

The game only becomes possible through direct relationships with each person working in each group. Intimacy grows between us. We discuss certain development details known only to the specific person and myself. For example, the scripting group usually understands the game better than anyone else. However, they don't know anything about how the audio works. They listen to the audio during the development process, but they aren't privy to the ideas that have laid the foundation for the audio's development. They have no way of knowing those conversations.

I don't know how other game developers work, but we make MGS through a honeycomb of confidential relationships.

Mr. Shida has conducted check-up interviews with almost the entire MGS staff for years. He even checks up on me. He knows our outfit down to the slightest details. He knows the whole staff as intimately as I do, so I have entrusted him with the Existence disc.

I have already supervised the whole process. I am confident that my collaboration with Mr. Shida will really make our work shine.

Mr. Shida and I finished our work in the editing room and proceeded to the sound room. I noticed a few flaws when I listened to the Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound output. Every time I review a certain scene I think, "That doesn't sound right. Maybe I'd rather do it differently after all." We don't have much time left. We wouldn't dare revise the disc's contents at this stage if the project were in the hands of an average producer.

My work as a game designer takes priority over my role as a producer, however. I grumbled to myself, "You know, I would really like to... well, I would love to change that, but... well, I guess we'll just have to leave it as it is." Mr. Shida kindly responded, "Why don't we tweak it a little?"

Even if our time is short, Kojima Productions' sound team is always ready to tackle new problems. Our true pleasure comes from doing the best work possible.

I will share my technique for cultivating this attitude with HIDEOBLOG's readers. It isn't good enough if a man must tell his staff, "Hey, fix this." I cultivate a specific work environment so that my staff naturally says, "Hey, let's fix this!" This attitude is any game's most crucial ingredient.

If any part of our development staff feels overstressed, chances are it's the programming team. They are responsible for debugging the game and creating the master copy. Sometimes our interactions become pretty tense.

Mr. Shida suggested that we go ahead and revise the audio, despite the size of the task and our time constraints.

"You said the right words!" I said in the Kansai dialect. "If you didn't think like that, I wouldn't have even let you in here. So you really think we can revise it at this stage?"

"Yeah, let's hit it. Let's push ourselves until we fix this thing and everyone goes home satisfied."

Mr. Shida is right. A truly good thing makes everyone happy. Everyone makes a huge effort. Kojima Productions' vitality spins upon one point: an unspoken consensus to make only things that are truly good and that improve everyone's happiness.

Preparation for our field training continues. Yesterday's carpenters have become today's outfitters. They are checking all of our field training equipment.

I realized that today is Wednesday, Kojima Productions' Longest Day. Everyone leaves the office at 5 P.M. today to watch a movie. We're all so busy this week that no one has even prepared to go home after the film.

I am unable to watch today's movie, but I have great movie-related news. MGS4's TGS trailer will officially show at the 2005 Tokyo Fantastic Film Festival. It will run in the Shinjuku Milano Theater at 10:30 P.M. on Saturday (October 15).

The MGS4 trailer will run as part of the special event celebrating the Tokyo Fanta's tenth anniversary. The event's theme is a dedication to the late Teruo Ishii's memory. And there's more! Shogo Ishii's film Crazy Thunder Road will run at the end of the dedication event. Shogo Ishii... one of the most revered men in the industry!

I will share a screen with Director Ishii... wow, what an honor! I can't even describe my delight. Sometimes we are blessed in this life beyond our expectations.

I picked up Depeche Mode's new album Playing the Angel on my way home. It was a quick grab, like a bird snapping something from the grass then barreling away.

The pre-exam preparation pamphlet says that I should have taken the laxative at 7 P.M. I arrived home a little later than that though. Around 8 P.M.I ate Su-udon at home ; udon noodles without anything added for taste. (According to the folks at the restaurant Tsrutontan, it should be Su-Oudon.)

After I ate, I took the laxative according to the pamphlet's instructions. I dissolved the Magukoloolu-P medicine into 150ml of water and then poured in the additive Rakisoberon. I mixed them up and gulped the whole concoction. I chased the laxative with three glasses of water. I felt as though I were an astronaut undergoing launch preparations.

I'm a typical Type-A personality. I like to follow procedures. I really had wanted to begin at the scheduled time.

I followed the next step at 9 P.M. and drank three more glasses of water. The laxative hadn't taken effect yet, so I decided to push it a little. I drank two extra glasses of water. I listened to Depeche Mode while I waited for the laxative to kick in.

The music is good... really good! I was a little anxious given the band's four year lapse between albums. Alan Wilder has left the group, but Playing the Angel really reminds me of Depeche Mode's glory days.

I'm kind of a dork, so Depeche Mode's music fits me. I love David’s voice and singing style despite the fact that I'm a middle-age man. I'll listen to Depeche Mode even if I'm Grandpa Kojima.

The laxative started working while I listened to the album. I followed the pamphlet's last step at 11 P.M.: I drank two more glasses of water. I was on my own after that, so I recited my procedure to myself. "One: drink some water. Two: listen to Depeche Mode. Three: use the restroom."

...I feel as though I have become a drainage pipe.

I think I'll stay away from Oudon for a while.

[markwatkinsconsumerguide]

Consumer Guide / No.40 /   Maggie K de Monde (Swans Way & Scarlet Fantastic) with Mark Watkins.

MW: Maggie, you wrote your first song - “Gloriana” - aged 14. Can you recall the first two lines? What's the story behind it?

MKDM : Mark, the first two lines were : “ Mrs Moffat’s done a bunk, the barbs she ate made her a punk. She flies higher, cooler higher, in her automatic Hotpoint spin drier.”

“Gloriana” is an imaginary state of grace/imaginary place where everything is calm and full of love, and there is no suffering, and everything and everyone is in perfect harmony. A Utopian fantasy. I think I was very influenced by the TV show Rock Follies at the time!

MW: How did Swans Way, then Scarlet Fantastic, come about?

MKDM: I met Rick P Jones at Kent uni where I was studying French and Drama. Rick was a guitarist. We formed our first band Playthings, and then we met Robert Shaw and decided to do something completely different - which to us, meant ditching our original instruments and starting afresh on something new. Hence me playing the drums!! We read a lot, and watched a lot of old '50s movies, and listened to many soundtracks (French and Italian). We were looking for some different influences. Marcel Proust wrote a novel, “Swann’s Way”. I think we may have chosen our name as a nod to this, although we spelt our name differently, as we didn’t want people to think that we were all about the book.

After the release of a critically acclaimed album, The Fugitive Kind, Rick and I became restless, and decided we wanted to take a different musical direction. We weren’t inspired by Swans Way any more. We bought our own studio gear and Rick learned to programme drum machines and synths etc and we came up with a glam/pop/electro/ kind of sound which seemed quite unique to us at the time. We were into larger than life imagery and big slogans: - “Energy Breeds Energy” , “Deconstruct the bad vibes” and many more. I think we felt we were on a bit of a mission, we were very much into the idea of spreading peace and love! We used to describe our sound and imagery as a mix of the REAL the SURREAL and the FANTASTIC. We needed a name that encompassed all this so we chose Scarlet Fantastic! Rick used to make a joke and say it was the colour of my lipstick!

MW: How did Swans Way and Scarlet Fantastic compare and contrast?

MKDM: I think there were similarities in the sense that we were out on our own, doing our own thing, writing songs from the heart, but sound wise there were definite differences as Swans Way had a very organic sound and Scarlet Fantastic was more electro. Lyrics were a very important part of both projects.

MW: Tell me about Duran Duran...

MKDM: Rick and I were in our first band Playthings before Swans Way. Duran Duran used to say that we were the other best band in Birmingham apart from themselves. Birmingham back in the '80s was a very close knit scene, everyone knew everyone. We toured with Duran Duran as they had their first hit “Planet Earth”. I was with Simon sound checking for a gig at Aston Uni when they received the news that “Planet Earth” had charted. Simon was a big, friendly, bouncy ex-drama student, always the flirt too!! Jon Taylor was the one who was always perceived as the cool one (I guess he was initially a little shy). My mum had a cup of tea with him once and said: “what a lovely boy he is!” . Nick Rhodes was the one who people would sometimes say had a tendency to be somewhat of a poseur, but I think he was genuinely into quite diverse and left field art projects etc. Andy Taylor the guitarist was the most down to earth, a salt of the earth Northern lad and Roger Taylor the drummer just always looked incredibly cool!!

MW: …careless memories of BBC Radio 1?

MKDM: I used to love doing Radio one sessions, going to the big studios in Maida Vale and then getting all excited when the sessions would air. Swans Way played live several times on Radio One sessions but I can’t remember whose show we were on. Janice Long was a great supporter of ours along with her producer Mike Hawkes.

MW: ...TV appearances?

MKDM: I think Top Of The Pops and The Tube were always my faves. Both shows were iconic for their time. I miss them both, and sadly there seems nothing like them today. The Tube made several really interesting films of Swans Way and Scarlet Fantastic ; it’s so great that those time were captured on celluloid and can now be see on YouTube all these years on!

MW: Maggie, tell me about your new album Reverie...

MKDM : Well Mark, I called my new album Reverie as I felt the word describes the sound. Reverie is released on Dirtbag Baby Records and it’s distributed by Right Track through Universal. It’s a gentle, dreamy alt-folk album. A journalist recently described it as ethereal folk. It’s a very song based album. I wanted the emphasis to be on my voice and my words. I had an idea for the overall sound and it was a joy to work with my husband and musical partner on it, Mark Leif Kahal, he produced it and played most of the instruments on it too. We really went for clarity and an uncluttered sound. The songs were very much influenced by dreams and nature. There are many similar themes to the original Scarlet Fantastic from 30 years ago but the sound on this new album is very different. It’s more in keeping with my previous album Union which was by Maggie and Martin, a collaboration I did with Marc Almond’s keyboard player.

MW: OK, let’s talk books...

MKDM: The most recent book I read was written by my friend Clayton Littlewood, “Dirty White Boy”. It’s about a shop he had on Old Compton St., and the daily goings on with all the Soho locals. It’s hysterical. It’s a real fun read and it’s in a diary form as Clayton started off by blogging but ended up turning it into a novel. I love his observations of people and places, he’s so insightful and so funny!

My next read will be a re-read, “Tender is the night”, by Scott Fitzgerald. It’s been on my mind often lately and definitely needs a revisit. I love the time it’s set in and I’ve been enjoying a lot of artists from this period recently too. I have also just bought “Testimony” by Robbie Robertson; I can’t wait to to get tucked into this! I’m a huge fan of his and the whole period with all his contemporaries, some legends. It’s meant to be a brilliant book.

MW: Which newspapers can’t you live without?

MKDM: I read The Guardian and The London Evening Standard. Simon Jenkins is one of my favourite journalists. On world news, I’m a big Christiane Amanpour fan.

MW: What are the best and worst aspects of social media?

MKDM: The best aspects are being able to spread the news about my work and to connect and reconnect with people/old friends/new friends/like minded people etc. I enjoy learning about new projects and hearing reactions to world situations etc. I feel the whole “community” aspect of it can be a positive thing. The worst aspects are the cruelty and bullying that can occur, especially amongst teens. I think people can also waste way too much time on social media and forget about/neglect real life. I do know that it does help socially isolated people and lonely people which is a very positive thing.

MW: List your Top 10 favourite EIGHTIES albums...

MKDM:

1 Joshua Tree - U2 (1987) 2 This is The Sea - Waterboys (1985) 3 Faith - George Michael (1987) 4 Kick - INXS (1987) 5 Purple Rain - Prince (1984) 6 Let’s Dance - Bowie (1983) 7 Sign o’ the Times - Prince (1987) 8 The Lion and the Cobra - Sinead O'Connor (1987) 9 Fisherman's Blues - The Waterboys (1988) 10 Hounds of Love - Kate Bush (1985)

Each album I’ve listed here reminds me of a very specific time in my life and a very specific feeling evoked when listening to the music. My life’s journey has been accompanied by some very poignant soundtracks. I spent a very special time in South Africa with my father before relocating to Dublin which was full of magic. Throughout my African experience then onto my Dublin experience, before, during and after, The Joshua Tree held a very special kind of magic for me as did the top 5 albums I’ve listed, all of them in fact! Very hard trying to pick the favourite. All sensational and played an important part in my life, helped me through a few things and celebrated with me too!

MW: Which BOWIE song is your favourite? How did you feel on hearing the sad news of his death?

MKDM: Mark - I was devastated when I heard of his death. It’s so difficult trying to pick one favourite song, I have many but one which never fails to move me is “Wild is the Wind”.

MW: You live in Eastbourne. What do you enjoy doing along the South Coast?

MKDM: I love the nature here. I walk and cycle often and spend a lot of time by the sea. I’m enjoying painting again. We have a fantastic modern art museum here, affiliated with the Tate, so I’m often there. We have some great record shops and cafes and some amazing restaurants too (I’m a real foodie!!). I often hop over to St. Leonards, Hastings or Brighton. London isn’t far either. I travel a lot around the South East as there is always a lots going on. Music, art shows etc. I have my own studio so I record a lot of stuff here too.

MW: … plans for 2017?

MKDM: I have a song “Heartbreak House” on Hifi Sean’s album Hifi Sean Ft. The video for the song will be released shortly. I filmed it in St Leonards, it’s turned out to be a rather neo-Gothic affair! Sean is ex-Soup Dragons, his album is doing very well, his track with Crystal Waters has just gone into the Top 40. There are some interesting artists on the album, Yoko Ono, Fred B52’s, David Mc Almont and many many more. As well as being a part of that I’m writing new material and I’m also painting a series of still lifes in oils. You can keep up with me on my Facebook musician pages, Maggie K de Monde, Scarlet Fantastic and Swans Way. There is also a website www.scarlet-fantastic.co.uk

© Mark Watkins / February 2017