#*the details are fuzzy. the couple may have worked at the hotel and been checking on the woman. but this way makes more sense to me i think

[misscrazyfangirl321]

Had a dream, and I’ve decided it was for the weirdest gum commercial ever. 

It was set in a hotel. There was a couple staying at a hotel, and a worker who went to check on them for the evening.* They told her they wanted some chewing gum before they went to sleep. 

Then, all three of them were wandering the hotel, looking for chewing gum. Separately. And somehow, they figured out there was a ghost in the hotel, so they shifted to trying to figure out where the ghost was. 

The camera cut between them. 

Woman 1.

Woman 2.

Man.

Woman 1.

Woman 2.

But when it cut back to the man, he wasn’t there. After that, it cut back and forth between the two women, increasingly rapid, until-

I woke up. 

[criminalrambling]

Checkers and Coffee

Pairing: spencer reid x reader

Rating: G , fluffy! Some mention of a stalker, typical unsub stuff but story does not take place during a case. Enjoy the cute!

__________________________________________

The Charleston sun was still rising, not yet heating the air to sweltering, and the morning smelled of coffee and salt water. Most people would have been asleep at their vacation homes at this time of day, but you happened to be seated in a cozy booth at the local diner across from a certain tall, tousle-haired Doctor. The rest of his team had left earlier that morning on their jet, but unrelated to their recent case, they were transporting two Marines back to DC and two people needed to wait for a later commercial flight… you’d all drawn straws, and the lucky agents to stay behind were yourself and one Dr. Spencer Reid. 

You’d checked out of the hotel, but hadn’t wanted to go to the airport just yet. So you’d convinced Spencer to join you at one of your favorite places for a few cups of coffee and breakfast. It must have been the lack of sleep combined with lack of coffee that caused you to challenge someone with an eidetic memory to a strategy game.

“You really think you can beat me?” His brown eyes glinted as he raised his left brow and smirked. 

You rolled your eyes and nudged the round crimson game piece one space forward. “It’s checkers, Spencer. Not chess.”

“True,” he responded, scooting forward a black piece of his own. “But there’s still a significant amount of strategy involved. Did you know that versions of checkers were played as far back as 3,000 BCE? Archaeologists found evidence of a similar game in the Iraq city of Ur, and there have been other versions played throughout history. Though I’m not sure any of those versions involved a fabric board…” 

His sentence was cut off by a grey-haired waitress who took your breakfast orders with military precision and a smile. You didn’t place a dainty order either. If Spencer thought you were a gluttonous cow, then so be it… breakfast was the best meal of the day, and you didn’t make it to Fleetwood Diner nearly often enough. You were pleased that Spencer took your suggestion of pancakes as part of his order, though his were plain and not the blueberry ones you preferred. 

“Playing checkers at the Fleetwood Diner is tradition in these parts. At least, in my family it is.” You countered, jumping one of his pieces and trying not to gloat as you snatched it off the board. “Your turn.”

“Well, if it’s a tradition in the Y/L/N family then I’m happy to partake.” he shrugged, and gulped down more coffee out of the stout, thick handled cup. “Is it just me, or does coffee taste better when it’s served in this kind of mug?”

You grinned and looked over your shoulder to see where your waitress was. “Not just you - I love diner mugs. In fact, a couple of Fleetwood ones may have mysteriously made their way into my kitchen cabinet.”

“A federal agent, admitting to thievery!” Spencer laughed. “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.”

A warm, fuzzy feeling spread through your body at the sound of his laughter and the way his wide grin made his eyes crinkle.  You hadn’t heard that laugh in several days, maybe even a week? Despite the busy workload in the intelligence department of the FBI, you’d taken off for South Carolina as soon as your sister had called asking for your help. The BAU had come down a couple of days later after you’d phoned JJ, the panic and emotion in your voice convincing her to bring the team to your hometown to help. The fact that everything had worked out… well, the fact that you were even able to smile was truly something to be thankful for. 

Your sister’s 6 year old son James had gone missing from the University day-care that he attended after his half day of kindergarten. It turned out that one of her former students, now going by a new name, had targeted her. He was jaded since she’d turned him down shortly before her wedding 7 years ago and coveted the life she’d built. After 3 days of dedicated work on the geographical profile, James was found in an abandoned warehouse. He had been unharmed but was very dehydrated. The UnSub was located a few hours later as he was en route to the University, where he would have… well, done something terrible to your sister. 

“I owe you one,” you smiled back, moving another piece. “And not just for keeping my diner mug secret. There’s no way I could have handled this one out without you and your team. It means the world- thank you.” 

“Oh, I’m sure…” he started to brush off the commend, looking a tad sheepish before you cut him off with a look and placed your hand on top of his, squeezing gently. He gulped. “You’re welcome.”

You withdrew your hand awkwardly, hoping to whatever higher power there was that your cheeks weren’t changing colors. The two of you continued moving your checkers pieces, and you downed the last sip of your coffee before reaching for the pot the waitress had left on the table. 

“The only flaw of these mugs… they aren’t nearly large enough.” You joked, trying to lighten the mood. 

The corners of Spencer’s mouth turned up slightly. “I was debating doing some research through the biomedical engineering program at Johns Hopkins… There has to be a way to inject coffee straight into the bloodstream.”

“Might even earn yourself another PhD, smarty pants.” you played along, teasing him. You loved the way he lit up at the banter as you went back and forth.

“One can never have too many PhDs.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“No PhDs, and yet you’re winning at checkers.”

“Are you letting me?”

“No. Do you want me to?”

“No!” You gasped. “I like to win fair and square.”

“Oh, that’s too bad…” He smirked, and double jumped your pieces. “I might just have to make a comeback.”

“You son of a…” 

“Pancakes!” chimed your waitress, swooping them down to your table. They looked perfect, as always, and your mouth watered. You knew they would taste even better. “And the blueberry, with extra crispy bacon. Syrup is on the table, anything else I can get you?”

“More coffee?” You and Spencer said in unison, looking at each other in embarrassment when you realized it had happened. 

“That would be amazing, thank you.” You told the waitress as she took the empty pot from your table and said she’d be back momentarily.

You ate in silence for a few minutes - both due to the delicious food and also to take in what you were feeling. Of course, you felt relieved that your family was healthy and safe. Genuinely thankful for the smarts and skills of the BAU, especially those of the man across from you. You also felt… nervous? Oh dear, were those butterflies? 

Of course, you knew Spencer prior to his arrival in Charleston to help with the case. You both worked at the Bureau and everyone knew the BAU team. You’d been with Spencer at a couple of functions (not together, just… there at the same time), and had gotten to know a few other members of the team over the years. Your department frequently passed cases their way, so you worked with JJ and Penelope most often. You’d always found Spencer handsome, but figured he was either already seeing someone, well out of your league or just… not interested. 

But now, after spending the last several days in close quarters and under emotional stress, you felt that something had changed. The entire team was great, but Spencer in particular had been sweet, supportive and focused on helping you and your family. And when your nephew had finally been found, he'd been the one to talk to him, probing for details that would help in the UnSub’s capture. He'd pulled a magic trick to make James laugh, and you could immediately see how much he loved kids. Something about that combined with the extra time together… well, now that you weren't so anxious about your family, your attraction to him was ramping up into a desire for more than just the casual acquaintance you had before. 

But did he feel the same? 

The coffee arrived and you finished your last piece of bacon. 

"So, uh.." Spencer started, fiddling with a sugar packet. "What time is our flight?" 

"10:30.” you replied, sipping your coffee. It was just after 7:00. “So we should probably be there around 8:45 or so and it takes 45 minutes to get there…we can grab our checks if you want to leave a little extra time to grab our luggage from the hotel.”

“Okay, yeah. That would be good.” He flagged down the waitress quietly. “Can I get the check? Thank you so much.”

She handed over the seafoam green order slip, to which was paper clipped a crisp white receipt. He scanned the total briefly and handed it back with his card tucked inside faster than you could even move to pull out your wallet. You pulled it out anyway, feeling a bit flustered. 

“What do I owe ya, Doc?” you joked, flipping through the cash in your wallet. 

“Don’t worry about it,” he responded, the pitch of his voice rising ever so slightly. “My treat, Y.N. Besides, isn’t it normal for a gentleman to… well, not that this is a… um, never mind.” He looked back to your now-forgotten checkers board, his lips narrowed together in concentration. 

You grinned, hoping that you had heard him right. “I love a breakfast date. Even better than a coffee date, really.”

His tongue brushed over his lower lip and he looked back up at you before responding. 

“What about dinner and… well, it’s not a movie, but I happen to have an extra ticket to a poetry reading on Thursday if you’d like to join me and…”

“I’d love to.” You smiled at him, feeling absolutely giddy at the prospect of a romantic date later in the week.“We can figure it out while we wait at the airport.”

His whole face lit up, and he followed you out of the restaurant. A couple of hours later, your head would come to rest on his shoulder while you napped on the flight home, and Spencer would feel very pleased indeed that he’d switched straws with Morgan to get this extra time with you

[eleiszon-blog]

Extradimensional Chess (3/3)

The following is an analysis of the various players and moves made throughout Part 18, the final episode of The Return. It is the third entry in a trilogy, the prior entries covering Lodge-relevant events from Parts 1, 2 and 17. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We open on Mr. C seated in the Waiting Room. His eyes have partially reverted to their earliest cloudy state. He is in flames. I believe this fire is the ultimate, primordial state of a doppelganger and, indeed, all negative energy. A long-troubled David Lynch script, Ronnie Rocket, has had many of its ideas recycled into The Return. One of these ideas makes no explicit appearance but I believe it exists within Twin Peaks. “The entire stage is filled with a wall of fire 200 feet high.  Within the fire are thousands of souls screaming out silently . . . only the roaring of the fire.” - The first line of the script of Ronnie Rocket. I believe this fire of voicelessly wailing souls is what Mr. C shall join. Windom is there too. Chet Desmond, I believe, is also there. And I believe that fire is the metaphysical core of JUDY, the purest formation of negative energy. 

Mr. C is gone. We see MIKE salvage his gold core and, with a spark of e-lec-tri-city, join it to a bit of Dale’s hair to forge a new Dougie tulpa. This was at Dale’s request to satisfy Janey. Nice guy.

We cut to Jackrabbit’s Palace. Dark, empty. Dale was escorting Laura. She vanished. He is alone now - but not for long.

The Waiting Room. MIKE and The Arm. “Is it the story of the little girl who lived down the lane?” -- Audrey said something similar to this earlier. This post isn’t about Audrey but I think that line has to do with her. Another entry, that. 

Dale moves into a hall and beckons a gateway open. He has grown powerful in the Waiting Room. And with the scheming doppelgangers and BOB gone, he finally can go out.

Here in Glastonbury Grove, he meets up with a relieved Diane. This is the ‘curtain call’ at which he promised to meet her. I also believe this moment echoes across time: The appearance of the curtains at this moment is what Hawk witnessed back in Part 2. “Someone is here.”, MIKE said. It was Hawk.

“Almost exactly 430 miles.” -- 430 miles out is where Dale will cross. The Fireman told him this in a dream back in Part 1.

Diane is uncertain and urges pause to consider their options. Everything could change. Dale knows this. He is resolute. They kiss. They continue onward.

At a hotel, Diane witnesses a duplicate of herself. At this point, I must diverge briefly into The Secret History of Twin Peaks and more particularly the life and Work of Jack Parsons. Per the text, I believe Jack Parsons was destroyed by the fires of JUDY via the Black Lodge. He is in the howling wall with Windom, Mr. C. and others. Now, Jack Parsons once initiated a ritual he believed would summon an ‘elemental’. Immediately afterward, he met a red-haired woman whom he regarded to be this entity. For Twin Peaks’ purposes, I believe Diane to be such an entity, her hair deliberately reminiscent of the Waiting Room’s red drapery. I do not believe that this was always the case but that she became ‘touched’ by otherworldly influences throughout her ordeal shelled up as Naido. I believe that while Diane herself remains human Diane -- is it future or is it past -- this duplicate is a ’yet-to-come’ entity, wholly of the Other Place. As Jack Parsons did, we may call her the Scarlet Woman.

Cooper invites Diane to join him in the motel. The door is marked 7. As I’ve noted previously in an entry about Jeffries’ path through FWWM and The Return, 7 symbolizes seeking, searching for truth...In that entry about Jeffries, I offer that the numbers associated with Jeffries increase as his ‘rank’ in Twin Peaks’ world increases. He is ever more enlightened and knowing. This same applies here: What Dale does in this room will elevate him to a higher space than where he was before.

Dale and Diane lay together. He lies largely still while she seems to be desperate to obscure his face. Some believe this to be residual trauma about Mr. C violating her. I think it is simply the ever-encroaching memory shift. Diane is beginning to forget the ‘unofficial version’ and so what was a consensual matter with a man she loves is slipping into a strange and much darker territory as those memories fall apart.

The distress plain on her face is her realization of this slipping remembrance, her desperation to try to remember despite it, her shaky determination to continue despite the mounting fear of this ‘stranger’ taking her and the fear itself. Yes, this is a bad scene for Diane. Why does it occur? As noted previously, she has been marked by the energies of Another Place.  What is the end result of intercourse, generally speaking? Sperm shot into a womb which births new life. Diane’s ‘marking’ by those energies occurred during her stay in the Generator, a negative-creative space which (at least at first) bordered the positive-creative space of the Eternal Ocean. Metaphorically and also metaphysically, Diane is a womb comprised of pure creative energies. Add DNA (courtesy of Dale) to that and you get one hell of a conception.  “When will the new universes be born?” “Soon...” - That’s the ending dialogue of Ronnie Rocket. I find that idea fits exactly well here. 

Dale awakes in a different bed. He is alone. He finds a letter addressed to ‘Richard’ from ‘Linda’. She does not recognize him anymore. He should not look for her. Indeed, Diane’s memory faltered fully in the end and she has no recognition of this man anymore nor even who she was -- she’s “Linda” now. Or is she? Truthfully, I believe as Diane’s memories of the ‘unofficial version’ gave out, she lost the names she knew for herself and Dale, merely writing whichever ones came to her mind instead. Hm? Yes, my interpretation of this sequence is kinda seriously dark, thanks for noticing. I didn’t go looking for it to be though!

Dale exits his room. The hotel at large has changed as well. It bears some slight similarity to the hotel area of The Dutchman’s but I checked. They are not alike. 

Dale goes for a drive. He passes a diner which invites ‘Eat at JUDY’S!’ Many view this as a sign that this is a pocket dimension devised by JUDY to trap Dale. I do not follow. However, it may well be a sign that this space is innately nearer to JUDY. (Remember, the Fireman-JUDY conflict is one of balance VS. lack thereof.)

In the diner, Cooper deals with some antagonistic fellows in a decidedly un-Zen manner. Much has been made of this. I consider it only a personality-shift of some degrees. I once equated this change to processes of alchemy, the final stage of which is a balancing of opposites. He is more aggressive as Mr. C yet he operates slowly and repetitively as Droolcoop. The balanced result is a no-nonsense character of highly deliberated method. He’s still a good guy but he has much less patience fucking around with the bad guys. THIS Dale would’ve slapped Albert in the face for his uppity attitude back in season one.

After taking care of business, he obtains the address of an absentee waitress and goes on his way. Also he fried a gun which is pretty cool.

He heads toward Odessa. Texas. Yes, apparently, his new motel was also wildly relocated because he’s not too far from Texas now. Outside the waitress’ house, a familiar pole. I’ve detailed the meaning of ‘6′ before as relating to base, Earthly affairs. Carnal, animal. Black Lodge. The other numbers - with the 6 included - also match coordinates to the former site of the Trinity test from Part 8.

Now we meet Carrie Page. She doesn’t know a Laura or a Leland but “Your mother’s name is Sarah” gives her pause. Dale wants to take her to her mother’s house and, hey, she needs a ride out of town anyway.

Many note a golden ball of some sort in Carrie’s lawn. Dale’s latest pin is a golden circle as well. Perhaps a clue, perhaps not. As I’ve said before, I believe Cooper is becoming “the magician” of MIKE’s poem but perhaps in time he’ll also become one of the Dreamers living up in the Theatre.

A man dead on the couch. Headshot. A mantel with an animal statuette. “Woe to the ones who behold the pale horse.”

“I tried to keep a clean house...” This line plus her frazzled state, the ‘pale horse’ symbolism, the dead man... It reeks of a domestic abuse scene. The dead man was her husband. He was another BOB too, I’d wager. Carrie copes with bullets instead of cocaine.

The ‘Palmer’ house. And here, I’d like to note the number on the house. 708. Let’s travel back to Part 1. For a moment.

The sound of this device is the sound of Laura vanishing from the woods. Once upon a time, a particular breed of these machines was built to operate at 78 revolutions per minute. They were even called 78s. 708...0 is often a mathematical placeholder. Drop it. 78. Put it back in. 708. The Fireman’s line planted this connection: If you hear that sound, “find Laura” (per not-Leland’s instruction), go to 7-8(708). He even had a contingency plan if Laura were to be snatched - which she was.

Alice Tremond lives at 708. Sarah Palmer who? She bought the place from a Chalfont. We know Tremond to be a name borrowed from humans, as per the actual Mrs. Tremond living in that trailer Donna visited in season one. ‘Chalfont’ though is purely referential to that grandma-grandson Lodge couple. JUDY sent them to stall up whatever the Fireman had Dale set to do here.

“What year is this?” - Dale’s own memory of the ‘unofficial version’ may be slipping a bit here, or he may just be getting...Fuzzy. To reference Ronnie Rocket again, if I may, the key conflict of that script is reaching the villain at the center of a great city. The closer one got, the more difficult it became and the more ‘bad electricity’ would disorient and deter them. I consider this exactly the nature of what is troubling Dale in this scene. His ‘current’ is picking up static. Interference because yes, he is closer to JUDY.

Carrie gazes up at the Chalfont house. An echo from within: ‘Laura?’, Sarah Palmer calls upstairs to her absent daughter, from a world which no longer is but is still taking its sweet time to fade entirely. Carrie screams.

The lights go out. Inside the house but also, it seems, in the very world. It resembles, to me, the state of The Dutchman’s in The Return. And indeed, it is exactly that. From the Chalfont presence, the temporal anomaly (’Laura?’, straight out of the pilot), the darkened visual...It all connects. Indeed, we see the Dutchman flee from the store as Dale goes to meet Jeffries. If the Dutchman has taken hold of Sarah, the old Palmer house would fit for a new domain. After all, Sarah was overseer there as the Dutchman oversaw the store.The monsters set up shop here now and they clutched the fading strings of the ‘previous’ world to flood the old horrors back into Carrie’s head. But...Is it a bad ending? Well. Not really. I believe that Dale successfully peeled back another layer of this world’s cosmology. He is one ‘universe’ closer to a true face-to-face with JUDY. I think I used an onion metaphor earlier? Still counts. One more layer done. In accomplishing that, he won a battle --- but JUDY and her servants made their own moves and kept the war ongoing. 

We end on a slowed repeat of the Blonde Girl whispering to Dale. I believe the whisper is different again. An unfortunately scrapped line from the store meeting in FWWM has the Little Man proclaim “Any everything will proceed cyclically”. That is what she whispers now because, yes, there must be more cycles -- but, eventually and with perseverance, he will locate JUDY. Every cycle will bring him closer -- Jeffries’ “This is where you’ll find JUDY” is accompanied by an 8, suggesting that Dale requires one more cycle (his hotel room was marked by a 7, being the place where he would transition to that level) to achieve the Blue Rose’s aim of locating JUDY -- and thus every cycle will meet fiercer and more desperate resistance and offense...But he has made progress and can continue to do so. And so, it is a “victorious” ending in a small, optimistic-for-the-future way. Yet he must continue to fight, to struggle, to endure until he finds JUDY at the center of all. Until then, as the Fireman tells him...

[jayankles]

Sunny Spain

Pairing: Jensen x Reader

Summary: Jensen decides that his work is getting to much for him to handle so books a spontaneous trip to Spain, where he meets the reader.

Word Count: 2518

Warnings: Reader’s got a shitty past, mostly fluff, porcupine hair!jensen(defo a warning)

A/N-This is my entry for @dancingalone21 Lau’s Summer Escape Challenge - I chose the prompt Barcelona, Spain if you couldn’t already tell by the title. And thank you @salvachester who I can’t freaking tag, for checking my Spanish for me.

It was quite funny actually the green eyed man had been at the bar for at least ten minutes and still no such luck. From afar, you bit your lip, trying to stifle a laugh. He was getting frustrated, that much you could tell.

Getting up from your place on the sandy beach, you dust the sand off your butt and walk over to the bar, where the man was still shouting.

‘Please, I just want a beer! Does no one speak English here?’ Jensen wasn’t pleased.

His holiday abroad was supposed to be calm and relaxing but instead had been a lot more stressful that he anticipated.

Before booking a spontaneous trip, he should make sure that they could speak English or that he could try and learn the basics of the language.

He should really buy and carry around a Spanish to English dictionary.

‘¡Hola! ¿Cómo estás?’

Great, another Spanish speaker that is going to get served before him. Jensen without a beer when he wants one turns his inner voice into one hell of a sassy dude.

The bartender smiles at the woman, at you, and answers, ‘bien gracias, ¿y tú?’

You tilt your head head from side to side, a small smile on your face as you answered that you were fine too.

‘¿Qué estás teniendo?’ The bartender grips hold of the pump closest to him and waits for you to order.

‘Voy a tomar una cerveza para mi amigo inglés y, para mí, un vodka y coca cola.’

‘¿Un simple o doble?

‘Solo por favor’

The conversation between you and the bartender moves swiftly, he places your order in front of you and tells you the total. Handing over the euros, you wait for the change before pocketing it in your shorts.

Smiling, you turn to the English speaking man and hand him the beer that he had been struggling to order himself.

‘Quite a few of us speak English, you know,’ You smirk as you turn to the befuddled man. ‘Stressing yourself isn’t going to help it, dude.’

The tall, dark and handsome man gratefully takes the proffered beer and asks how much he owes you for the beer.

You wave your hand and shake your head, ‘I just want your name, otherwise I am going to keep calling you tall, dark and handsome.’

If it wasn’t already hot, it definitely did turn hotter. He felt it at the tips of his ears and the length of his neck.

Muy caliente, as they would say.

He swallowed a sip of his beer, the redness of his cheeks accelerating as he realised what you had said.

‘Jensen,’ he stuck out his hand, you accepted it gracefully, your dainty fingers wrapping around his larger ones. ‘But I guess you can call me whatever you want. Since I don’t know yours, you wanna do a little name exchange? You know mine but I don’t know yours. I’ll keep calling you beautiful in my head and you can call me tall, dark and handsome. If you didn’t wanna tell me who you are.

Jensen was so cute when he was babbling, he was even cuter when he screwed his mouth shut and scrunched his face together when he realised.

‘Aww, how sweet,’ you gushed, ‘a few minutes into our friendship and we already have nicknames for each other. My name is Y/N, if you must know.’

Jensen’s face turned almost a crimson colour as he blushed but he admired your subtle boldness.

He could instantly tell that you were a kind, warm hearted person and loved have fun; he loved your sassy personality – definitely a cool trait to have when meeting someone on a first meeting.

‘So Jensen, what brings you to sunny Spain? Is it the sun?’ You smirked at him, giving him a flirty wink.

Jensen wrapped his lips around the neck of his bottle and took a pull of the beer that you had so kindly ordered and brought for him.

‘I guess you’re right. The sun was pretty enticing, compared to Vancouver, but I had to get away from work and take a bit of a break. It being overwhelming and all. My work and personal life were merging a little too much and I’m not in the right mindset for that.’ He shook his head, clearing his mind a little before he asked, ‘what about you Y/N? You speak Spanish, are you from here?’

With a lick of his lips, the green eyed god in front of you awaited your response.

You took a seat on the barstool next to him, sipping at your vodka and coke. ‘I only know basic Spanish, enough to get me around. In high school, I decided to study it in my free time. I wanted to go to college and further study it but couldn’t because of my grandpa; he got sick, so we had to pay for the proper medication.’

You took a deep breath, realising that you may have divulged a little too much information but your mouth had a mind of his own.

‘I’m a journalist. I hop around a lot covering what the media thinks is important or not in some cases, writing reviews of places they send me.

‘Sometimes it pays well, depending on where I go but others I’ve had to skrimp and save before I can move on to the next thing.

‘I’ve been here for a while, deciding to take a break like you, and try to get past an incident that happened on my previous job. Nearly got me killed because they didn’t like what I had written and published; the couldn’t handle the truth. A nice older couple took me in, aided me back to health, kept me safe and I owe them my life.’

Jensen hadn’t expected you to reveal such information, he was expecting a short simple sentence or two joined together, along the lines of ‘I’m here on break from being a teacher, the kids are driving me nuts.’

He didn’t look at you with sorrow and despair in his eyes. Although he did hold sympathy for you, he knew that he shouldn’t have been the one to cause you to dive into your past, especially if it was that traumatising, revealing that kind of information to a stranger was bold and daring. He liked being that person that you could trust even if you had known each other for a short amount of time.

‘So now that we’re friends…’ he changed the subject, it was very welcome. ‘You wanna exchange phone numbers? That way you can teach me how to order my own beer.’

You held up your glass and Jensen did the same, clinking your glasses together, ‘to new friendships and ordering a beer in Spanish.’

He repeated the chant and smiled at you, taking another pull of his beer as you sipped at your drink through your straw.

You pulled out your phone and unlocked it, opening up the contact app so Jensen could input his details, while he did the same for you.

Jensen was benevolent and attentive as you continued to chat and banter, throwing out empty threats of pushing the other into the ocean but as you got to know him a little more, there was a playful side to each other that could have meant that those empty threats may not have been so empty.

A few bottles and glasses of alcohol later, the both of you had relaxed immensely, a weight lifted off both of your shoulders, laughing and giggling about everything and nothing. Your inhibitions were definitely no more as you scooted closer to each other, the two of you close enough that could see the golden flecks in his emerald irises.

‘Wow…’ you breathed, a little too close to Jensen. If he had a problem with it, he didn’t say anything and you were damn grateful because it gave you the opportunity to study his face. Freckles, both light and dark, dusting his nose and smattering his cheeks. His eyes flicked over both of yours, going back and forth in a matter of seconds.

‘What’s wow?’  He said, equally as quiet.

You squinted your eyes at him, wondering how he did it, ‘you, Jensen, you’re so goddamn pretty. Your eyes,’ you slurred, ‘they just pop and- and your freckles are so cute and then there’s this little thing you do with- with your tongue when you smile and it’s adorable. Why are you like this? Teach me your ways!’

You grabbed hold of his shoulders and shook them for emphasis.

Jensen let out a full belly laugh, so much so that his body swung back in the seat, almost falling off his bar stool.

At some point in the night, the bartender had cut you off, refusing to serve you any longer when he thought the both of you had reached your limit.

Soon after that, and and Jensen strolled arm in arm along the beach, content to stay in silence and enjoy the sounds of the crashing waves. You grew tired quickly, legs wobbling as your feet dug into the sand, you made sure your companion knew about your tiredness.

‘Jay!’ You whined loudly against his shoulder. ‘Can we stop for a second? My feet are killing me.’

‘Alright beautiful, you can take a rest or I could carry you, your choice sweetheart.’

You didn’t speak with your voice, you let your arms do the talking. You held them out and wrapped them around his neck. Jensen lifted you, his arms wrapped around your back and hooked underneath your knees.

Since his hotel wasn’t that far away, Jensen decided that it was a good idea to carry you the entire way there.

Your fuzzy mind could barely comprehend what was happening until Jensen had stepped out of the elevator and found his room. Putting you down on the ground, keeping an arm around your waist so he could fish out his keycard from his pocket.

Jensen got you into his room without another protest from your fuzzy brain self.

Waking up the next morning, with your eyes still closed, you could barely remember a thing about the previous night. Man, you really had drunk too much last night.

Your head was pounding, big mistake, you were never drinking again – until next time that is. You really didn’t want to open your eyes, well, that was until you felt a weight against the bare skin of your waist.

Your eyes shot open and you scrambled away from the weight, which happened to be attached to a gorgeous man – urgh, what was his name again. Jordan. Jason. Jensen!

‘What?’ The man shot up and you realised you had shouted his name out loud. He was still so adorable, even with ruffled porcupine hair and a dazed and I just woke up look on his face. It was disgusting.

You looked down at your body, squealing a little as you went to grab the sheet to cover your body – only clad in underwear.

‘Why am I in my underwear? We didn’t- did we?’

Jensen chuckled as you almost fell off the bed and questioned whether you got the goods last night.

‘First of all, I wouldn’t take advantage of you or anyone if they’re intoxicated. Secondly, I offered you my clothes and you took them. But as soon as you put them on and got under the covers, you kicked them off – said it was too hot, urgh, I can’t cope. I gotta take these off. They’re so restricting.

‘You took off my clothes and threw them over there.’ He pointed over his shoulder. ‘But I  was already in bed and couldn’t be bothered to get up and put them away. I also brought you here because you refused to tell me where you were staying and you wouldn’t let go of my neck, not even when I set you down outside of my room. It was pretty cute actually. You’re very clingy when your drunk and you tended to touch my face a lot too. When I asked you why, you just said I had a cute face and an ‘A+ jawline.’ Thank you, by the way. Coffee?’

Sitting on the bed, you groaned as he explained your drunk self to your sober self. Way to make a fool out of yourself, now he thinks you are loco. Good job you, extra brownie points on the embarrassment card.

‘Yes please.’

You clasped your head in both of your hands, why did you let your guard down?

Jensen came out, his palm resting on your back as he handed you the coffee he made, ‘you shouldn’t beat yourself up you know. I can take you back to the bar and you can make your way home and I won’t have to know where you live.’

‘Thank you but you’re not like the others, Jensen. I’m not rushing out of here to find the morning after pill because some ass thought it was a good idea to fuck whilst drunk.’

‘That’s okay, I’ll be your night in shining armour anyday.’ He winked. ‘Since you don’t have any spare clothes I got you one of my shirts, a pair of shorts and boxers, you’re welcome to use the shower too and because you don’t know where you are I’m going to treat you to breakfast.’

‘Jensen, you are a dream, like are you even real?’ You whispered daydreaming, if you had a man like Jensen most of your problem’s. Mostly your single life problems but they’re problems, nonetheless.

‘I can assure you that I am real and just as human as you are. I must really like you if I’m sharing my hot water.’

Your face almost split into two as you beamed. ‘I must really like you too because I really wanna kiss you right now.’

Jensen cocked an eyebrow, a cheeky grin growing on his face from where he sat next to you, his hand coming up so his knuckles brushed against your cheek before he cupped it in his large hand. ‘So why don’t you?’

And good god, you were not going to miss out on this opportunity.

You closed the gap between you and Jensen, attaching your lips together. Jensen’s brow furrowed as he deepened the kiss, his lips plump and soft as they slanted against yours.

Smiling against his lips, he pulled away, a little out of breath and pressing his forehead against yours.

‘You have really bad morning breath.’

You shoved at his shoulder, pushing him away as he cackled at you.

‘You’re a jerk.I knew you were too good to be true’ You reprimanded him through pursed lips before you grabbed your clothes that were scattered and the pile of clothes Jensen had stacked on the table next to the bed, heading straight for the shower so you could be treated to a free breakfast. You had a good feeling about Jensen, you were sure you were going to have a great vacation, especially if he was involved.

Lemme know what you think...

@thorne93

@becaamm

@you-know-whodoesthat-crazypeople

@jotink78

@love-kittykat21

@jensen-jarpad

@capsheadquaters

@kurosaki224-new-blog

@supernatural-jackles

@cyrilconnelly

@thing-you-do-with-that-thing

@iwantthedean

@ruprecht0420

@mrswhozeewhatsis

@feelmyroarrrr

@mogaruke

@pureawesomeness001

@mizzezm

@jpadjackles

@jesspfly

@urpeachess

@skybinx-blog

@deansbaekaz2y5

@plaidstiel-wormstache

@lilasiannerd

@valerieshubin

@be-amaziing

@akshi8278

@purplediamon

@graceforme86

@its-my-perky-nipples

@nervousmemzie

@percussiongirl2017

@oneshoeshort

@whit85-blog

@emoryhemsworth

@reallyverynodansi

@milo-winchester-4ever

@captainradicalpassion

@captainemwinchester

@ilsawasanacrobat

@alicat-life

@cojootromuelle

@essie1876

@dancingalone21

@iamabeautifulperson18

@dslocum89

@atc74

@misticty

@superwhomerlockinuum

@spnbaby-67

@anitalasirenita

@queencflair

@weasleywinchester-blog

@ria132love

@spn-fan-girl-173

@nightlyinsomnious

@easelweasel

@grace-for-sale

@roxyspearing

[rottenrevelry]

O’s Astral Travel Techniques

I’ve been meaning to make this post for a long time and I’m finally sitting down and doing it. I had SUCH a hard time learning how to astral travel, for a whole lot of reasons, but I finally found a book that actually helped me, and prompted me to design my own techniques for travel. The book is here, if anyone’s interested. I know that it’s not accessible for everyone, but if you get the opportunity I really recommend giving it a read through.

If anybody has questions for me about my own tips, detailed obnoxiously thoroughly under the cut, feel completely free to message me.

Reasons why people think they can’t astral travel: These are all super valid reasons to feel like astral travel isn’t for you, but if you feel like you can try to get around them I absolutely recommend doing so. I’ve definitely struggled with a lot of these and either found ways around them or accepted that they’re not going to change. -inability to sit still for long periods of time: to get around this, I recommend sitting in a chair that you can kick your legs in or move your arms in, like a tall bar chair (I do recommend something that has a back though!) it is totally okay to move your body while you’re in the astral, and doesn’t impact your ability to travel. It can actually help! -inability to keep hands still for long periods of time: similarly, it’s totally alright for you to fidget with a toy while you travel. It’s a good way to quiet noisy hands and focus more on your brain for a little while. I sometimes roll a marble or a d20 around in my hand! Just make sure it’s something that won’t bump you out of the astral if you drop it or something. -inability to clear the mind for long periods of time (or at all): this is fine! Just like in meatspace, it’s okay to have a busy mind when you’re in the astral. There are a lot of “clearing the mind” activities you can try, but if it doesn’t work, that’s not the end of the world. Most of the time when I’m astral traveling, I talk to myself in my head as though I were journaling, or even narrating, as I go. It helps me pay attention to what’s going on, and gives my internal monologue something to do rather than just talk about whatever. -difficulty seeing: I think there are some people who can really SEE what’s going on in the astral, as clearly as if it were happening in day to day life, but i don’t think I’ve ever met one of these people. It’s way more common, in my experience, that you see things more like you’re imagining, with fuzzy, dreamlike visuals the longer you’re in the astral and the deeper into the trance state you get. -difficulty hearing: again, it’s not necessarily so much that you’ll “hear” them as if they were speaking to you in the same room. You’re much more likely to get conceptual sentences like loud thoughts, and they may be mumbled, or have to be translated a couple times into a language you can understand. -noisy brain: I’ll occasionally put on noise generators for when I go into the astral, to give my ears something to focus on. Putting on wind or rain generators, for example, may affect the weather in your astral plane, but this isn’t a bad thing. Worst comes to worst, it’s okay to have a song stuck in your head while you’re in the astral ;)

What to do with your body: Sit in a comfortable position, with your back against a wall or chair. Feel free to use blankets, pillows, or whatever else to make yourself more comfortable, but try to avoid distracting textures. Try not to be too warm or too cold, and wear loose, soft clothing if you’re able.

Sit facing a cardinal direction. I always sit facing north if I can help it. This isn’t absolutely necessary, but it helps the transition from astral plane back to meatspace be less disorienting.

If you want to put on a noise generator, now is the time. Close your eyes. If you’re distracted by lights at all, like me, turn the lights in the room off and shut the blinds. Find a breathing pattern that is comfortable to you. It doesn’t matter what it is, but breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth is helpful. Some common breathing patterns are “breathe in 4, breathe out 4, breathe in 4, breathe out 4,″ “breathe in 3, hold for 3, breathe out 3, hold for 3,” “breathe in 5, hold for 3, breathe out 7, hold for 3,” etc. It doesn’t matter at all except for what’s comfortable for you and what you can fall into a pattern of, without thinking about it too much.

Meditation:

Begin by creating an energy ball. Hold your hands apart from each other as though you were gripping a ball. Channel energy out of your palms to fill the ball, let it move and change as it needs to. Without opening your eyes, take note of everything you can about the ball… size, weight, shape, color, temperature. Does it smell or taste like anything? Does it make a sound? Keep this in mind. The ball is made of your own personal energy… like an aura, kind of. Things on the Astral plane will have their own energy “signatures,” and the ability to keep track of your own will help you weed out misinformation, as well as check in with yourself if you get disoriented.

Make sure you’re still breathing in your determined pattern, more or less.

Hold on to the ball you’ve created, letting it move and flow however is natural and comfortable. Slowly, extend your view forward, past the walls of the room you’re in, past the walls of the building, out into the world. You don’t have to know exactly what’s out there, but practice reaching your consciousness out across the street, and then a building away, and then a block away, and then a mile away… the farther you go, the fuzzier and weaker it’s likely to be. Don’t push yourself too hard! Practice in other directions too… backwards, side to side, and up and down. Don’t be afraid to use your imagination… it doesn’t make you “fake.” Astral travel, for most people, feels a LOT like imagining. When you feel like you can successfully reach your consciousness out pretty far, bring it back.

Check again that you’re breathing in your pattern.

Focus on your energy ball again. When you feel ready, imagine the ball flattening into a disk… thinning out, wider and wider as you lower it down onto the floor of the room (you don’t have to actually move your body!) and lay the circle down. Imagine it however you’d like, as long as it’s a protective ward. You can picture a ring of salt, a round glass wall, a mosquito net… whatever is easiest for you to visualize. This is a barrier, to prevent any harmful spirits from getting to you. Astral travel is, for the most part, a safe practice, but without precautions one can be hurt by things in the astral – not to mention, one can accidentally bring things back when they leave, or even leave something behind!

Note how dark it is, behind your closed eyes. That’s okay! You’re not “supposed” to see anything just yet (however, if you can, that’s not a bad thing either). This is the part that you’re actually going to use your imagination for.

Picture yourself in an enclosed space with defined exits into the world beyond it. You’re allowed to completely create this area. It’s not a part of the natural Astral plane, but a composed “spawn point” to give you a gateway. The area can be anything: An elevator, a cave, a hotel room, a grove of trees, a bus stop, a subway station, a ring of stones… as long as it’s something you can create with your mind, it’s gonna work fine. Take as long as you need to really come up with how this place looks. Practice “seeing” it (again, you are probably not going to get pictures with your eyes… it’s more like a daydream or a passing thought, at least this early) and imagine what might be there.

The things that happen here are entirely your own creation. If you try to “scan” the area, you’ll probably notice that it’s all made up of the same kind of energy that you put into your ball when you started. Because of the circle you put down, nothing that’s not your own creation can get in here unless you allow it. If you’re just starting, feel free to stop here. You can come this far, and get acquainted with the made-up area, and then leave again, as many times as you need in order to become comfortable with the idea. It’s a good exercise for visualization as well as for “stretching your astral muscles” before trying to explore the Astral plane.

Entering the Astral:

Once you’re comfortable with your “spawn point,” you can try stepping out of your imagination and onto the actual Astral plane. It’s important that you don’t try to imagine what the area outside of the one you created will look or feel like. Just let it come to you as if you were exploring a new physical place (because you sort of are!) There’s no “right way” for it to look… the Astral is a HUGE place.

Take a step outside, using the defined exit of the place you imagined (a gap in the trees, a door, the mouth of the cave, et cetera). If you imagined yourself in a subway station, bus stop, or similar, you can even catch a ride to another place! You may learn to create bus lines, for example, that you can “program” to take you to the specific places you want to go. Let information come to you at its own pace and in its own form. Start walking around, and take in the things you experience. See what you can do here!

If you didn’t “see” like a photograph in your imagined space, you probably won’t here either. It’s probably going to be easy to move around for a while, too, before you get the hang of it. It may help to picture it like a first-person video game or a virtual reality ride, as though your sensory input were on a screen in front of you that you can control the perspective and motion of.

Energy signatures:

The longer you’re in the astral, the more likely and more clearly you’re going to be able to take in sensory input, but it’s not always straightforward. In my own experience, things in the Astral are not always easy for our brains to make sense of… and our “mind’s eye” is not always perfectly accurate.

One reason to start with the energy ball is because you, like most things, have an “energy signature,” a particular type of matter or energy that you’re composed of which is individual to you. This is your Astral fingerprint, and in a place where your imagination and your sensory input are otherwise indistinguishable from each other, being familiar with that fingerprint makes it possible to know what’s “real” in the Astral, and what you’ve created.

More often than not, these energy signatures have to be processed by your brain and your experiences… to “see” (and I am still using “see” loosely here) the Astral world, you have to have recognizable shapes to work with. If you run into something with an energy you recognize as A BUILDING, you probably have an image of A BUILDING stored in your memories that you can project onto the energetic input. If you come across an energy you recognize as A PATH, your brain might substitute the pictures it already knows for DIRT ROAD, TRAIN TRACKS, HIGHWAY, or even CANAL… It’s usually based on the context and on what’s going to make you (and your brain) more comfortable in the moment.

Sometimes this leads to interesting encounters. When I went into the Astral for the first time, for instance, I ran into a flock of birds which pretty instantly registered as birds. However, as I’d been playing a lot of Pokemon GO earlier that day, the first birds my brain could pull up a picture of were pidgeys. On realizing this, I assured myself that these were likely not actual pidgeys, reassessed the energetic signature, and found that what I was actually looking at was something closer to a sparrow.

There’s a guy I run into sometimes on my trips who I honest-to-any-god cannot tell whether he’s a grown man or a cricket. All I know is we often see each other across the cab of the train that I take, and that he’s a generally friendly person/bug.

My fiance, once upon an astral excursion, ran into a lovely animal which appeared to be a combination of a squirrel monkey and a bird of paradise. We’ve theorized that, whatever the creature actually is or looks like, it was probably a small and tropical tree-faring animal which gave of “vibes” (or an energy signature) of being exotic, elegant, and theatrically showy.

Some things you can try:

There are a lot of things you can do in the astral… some are harder than others, but anything’s possible with enough effort and practice.

-Find a mirror. Your astral form might be different from your form on earth. If you can find a flat source of water, a sheet of glass or metal, or anything else reflective (you might even be able to find an actual mirror), take a minute to check yourself out!

-Find a guide. Sometimes there are guides, like spirits, animals, or other people, who might be around that would be willing to lead you somewhere, or at least pass off some directions. If you’re not sure where to look, try shouting!!! Be wary of the people you meet, but remember that people there are a lot like people here. And remember to say thank you! If you start following the first animal you see, though, be careful. Not all animals are Animal Guides… sometimes, they’re just animals. (I’ve followed a random goat for like a mile and a half before realizing he was just a goat.)

-Practice your superpowers. Try doing more visible, harry-potter-style witchcraft! It’s easier to visualize the results of your magic if all of your sensory input is visualization! Try moving things with your mind, controlling the elements, manifesting objects… See what’s possible and what isn’t!

-Get around. There are a lot of ways to travel in the Astral. Once you’ve created a mental map, which takes time and exploration, there are quick ways to get around like teleportation, flying, hitchhiking, and public transit. See what you like best, and where each one can take you.

-Build a house. Many people will suggest creating a “home base” in the Astral where you can rest, have guests, contemplate, or just be alone. There are plenty of guides for this, using different names and techniques. This house, unlike your created entryway, really does exist in the astral, but is similarly entirely your creation. You can put up wards there, too, in order to keep unwanted entities from entering without your consent.

-Make friends. There are lots of spirits, people, animals, and other sorts of beings in the astral, and some of them might even be personable! Be careful, of course, but it’s absolutely okay to reach out and try to befriend somebody. There are politics in the Astral plane like anywhere else, and there are parties, churches, and community gardens too! See where you can meet folks, participate in discourse, and learn more about the things around you.

Leaving the Astral:

When you leave the Astral plane, while it is (usually) easier than entering, be sure to try to go slowly and gently, rather than all at once. You may get jolted out, either from something that happens in the Astral or something that happens on your own physical realm, and that’s okay. It happens all the time. It’s just not the most pleasant way to do it, usually! The best thing to do is usually to sit somewhere safe and comfortable in the astral (your home, if you’ve made one, is a very good bet, but you can also create another imaginary space or go back to the one you made before) and “meditate” again. Pay attention to your breathing, close your eyes, and picture “projecting” back into your physical form. It should be a much easier return trip,  but take it slow.

If you are disoriented, dizzy, nauseous, or sore upon returning, that’s okay! In my experience, that’s actually pretty normal. I wouldn’t recommend falling asleep immediately after returning; instead, journal everything important that happened that you can remember (astral experiences, like dreams, can sometimes fade quickly from one’s memory) and make yourself a cup of tea. Drink some water. Do whatever self care needs to be done.

If you’re a beginner, you’re going to get better with time. Astral travel is different for everybody! Feel free to discuss your experiences with friends and fellow witches, but remember that you’re probably not going to have the exact same experiences and you don’t need to worry about the validity or quality of either.

[hotokeiki]

Week 127: J-pop              (St. Patrick’s Day special – IRISH~ish)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj-6P-jMT_g

Happy St. Paddy’s Day!

I’m not gonna throw in the minna this time. That was weird…. yes it was.

Anyway, it’s now been over a month since my last post. Cuz that was Valentine’s Day, and White Day was Tuesday. Mou~ Kurisu no BAKA!!

I don’t feel like I’m obligated to explain, but I want to, so I’m gonna. Basically, I’ve been super stressed lately, and feeling overwhelmed by all the things I have “to do”.

My mind set hasn’t been great, and I’ve just felt like I don’t have time to do anything, which isn’t true. I’ve had a lot of time, but I tried to take my mind off my stress by watching Youtube videos, and then I ended up binge-watching. I wasn’t watching much anime, because those are longer than most of the videos I was watching. The problem is that when you binge-watch Youtube, it takes more time than watching a couple episodes of an anime.

I probably shouldn’t have gone on that road trip for Spring Break. My thinking for Spring Break was that I needed to catch up on school work and sleep. Josh has kept me on campus later more times than I care to count. We left campus when they were closing the buildings at 11:30 pm! So, I thought a change of scenery would be good, and I’d be able to catch up on sleep and school. Yeah, I didn’t know what I was getting into.

I’m in the process of making an update that will explain the whole trip in detail (look out for that), so I will summarize here.

I thought that we were going to drive down to Kansas City, and stay there for the duration of the trip. A couple of days with some intermittent activity, and time for me to catch up on sleep and do some homework. The details were a little fuzzy for the whole thing, and he said that we would play it by ear to a certain extent, which we did.

It was by no means a bad trip. I had a good time. It was kind of hectic at times, but a refreshing change of scenery.

We spent one night in each hotel, and spent a lot of time driving. And in some cases, we ended up at the hotel fairly late, so I slept in as much as I could. We also didn’t spend much time in any of the hotels, so I didn’t really have time to do any homework. We left on Saturday and got back on Thursday night.

When I got back, I ended up doing what I had done previously, and didn’t get anything done over the remainder of the break.

Anyway, long story short (Linda: Oh, we’re WAY past that point ;p)

.. shut up, Linda XD

I haven’t been very productive, but I’m doing better now. I feel like I actually have time to do this post, and get my homework done. Plus, this blog is important to me, and I think it helps me resolve things. It’s just good to get my thoughts out.

Anyway, it’s St. Paddy’s Day. Oh boi George, it’s that toym again.

As Oi’ve mentioned before, Oi’m a wee bit’Irish. O’Costelle on me mother’s mother’s soyd.

(I just watched this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwf08LmchUY&feature=share)

So, I kept the Irish and the Japanese separate this time. XD

Or did I?

Linda: Oh no..

So, let’s get to the post, let us.

XD

Clover♣Kakumation by Triple♣Feeling is the first opening to Sansha Sanyou.

I haven’t watched the show, so here’s a summary from the Wikipedia article:

 The story revolves around the everyday life of three high-school girls who all have a kanji "葉" (literally "leaf") in their names, and have different features - hence the translation of the title, "three leaves, three colors".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Leaves,_Three_Colors

 (Not much to go by, but I’ll definitely watch it at some point.)

 So, just like my first post this year (Week 126: PUNCH☆MIND☆HAPPINESS), I found this song on that really long list video of kawaii anime openings.

 Here’s the link again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAFwFJ9gJnk (It’s number 26)

 Seeing that little bit from the video was really exciting, because I’ve never heard anything like that before. It had quite an impact, so I found the full version, cuz that’s what I do.

 And after listening to the full version, I said I am going to post this for St. Patrick’s Day!

I was actually plannin’ to post this next week, since I missed the Monday-to-Wednesday window, but I can post on a Friday if I want. Especially if it’s St. Paddy’s Day, by jaysus!

 The beginning of the song and the verse have a quicker feel, and some of the singing has a fast rhythm. The chorus also has the same feel. Parts of it remind me of river stomp. And the instrumentation also has bit o’v an Irish feel to it, ya know? It just sounds like Irish J-pop to me, and I love it.

 While keeping the Irish feel, this song also switches feels. The verse has a completely different feel to the lead up to the chorus, which both have a different feel than the chorus. And the bridge sounds completely different, and sounds the least bit Irish, but it works so well (fusawashii~) and is so refreshing (sugasugashii~). The voices also blend very well with each other while being quite different.

 The transitions are flawless, and my main complaint is that it’s too short! It’s just a really fun song that’ll keep your attention with its great instrumentation, good harmonies, and rhythmic melody.

 Have I mentioned that I really like this song?

 Linda: Yes.

 (*sigh* that was supposed to be rhetorical, Linda.)            

 Now, as the Wikipedia article mentioned, the three girls have the kanji "葉" in their names.

 “Sansha Sanyou” in the original kanji is 三者三葉

 breaking it down:

 三 - Onyomi: “san” (three)

 者 - Onyomi: “sha” (person)

 葉 - Kunyomi: “ha”, Onyomi: “you” (leaf)

 (I don’t see anything about 者 meaning color. So it could be very seldom used, or it’s another case of English titles making no sense. I hope it’s the former.)

 The (sansha) “three people” (and the members of Triple♣Feeling) are:

 1. Futaba Odagiri (小田切 双葉) -> Odagiri Futa(ba): 小田切 双(葉)

- Onyomi: “ba”, which is how you pronounce “ha” when preceded by a vowel.

 2. Teru Hayama (葉山 照) -> (Ha)yama Teru: (葉)山 照

- Onyomi: “ha”

 3. Youko Nishikawa (西川 葉子) -> Nishikawa (You)ko: 西川 (葉)子

- Kunyomi: “you”

 (Switched to family name followed by given name to relate to the kanji.)

 I think it’s cool that they all have the same kanji in their names, but it’s pronounced differently in each!

 And also, incorporating that into the title. Well done, Arai Cherry! Up ya boyo! XD

 I’m definitely gonna check this out at some point.

 Oh, right. Here’s the full version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evEV3IzWJfA

 You thought I forgot? Nah, I’ve been listening to it on and off for the last hour or so. That’s usually how these posts go. It’s really fun! XD

 I also think it’s really cool that they worked every aspect of the full song into the opening, including the bridge. It perfectly captures the song!

 Also, if you want lyrics, THAT ARE WRONG, here you go:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRsh_vbaVvY (WRONG LYRICS)

 Did I mention THESE AREN’T THE ACTUAL LYRICS? I can’t stress enough that THESE LYRICS ARE WRONG!!

 After watching it through and racking my head, because I knew, with the little Japanese I know, that the lyrics were wrong.

 I was so confused that I looked up the lyrics. There isn’t really an English translation of the lyrics that I was able to find. Let me know if you find any, but I was surprised to see that the word SATAN is in the lyrics.

 … Maybe, I shouldn’t’ve posted this on SAINT Patrick’s Day. XD

 And Kissanime doesn’t appear to have subs on the opening, so we’re doomed. XD

And here’s a really cool orchestral version that I found.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewt7ldiufhc

 This guy does some really cool stuff, and I found out that two of the songs that had been reposted on SoundCloud were from his channel! Both songs were arrangements of songs from Madoka Magica.

 It’s been a really interesting day. XD

 Album: TV Anime “Sansha Sanyou” Opening Theme Clover♣Kakumation Track: 01 Lyricist: Ogura Asuka Composer: Ogura Asuka Arranger: manzo Artist: Triple♣Feeling

- Futaba Odagiri (CV: Mai Kanazawa)

- Teru Hayama (CV: Ayaka Imamura)

- Youko Nishikawa (CV: Yuu Wakui)

 (I just wrote the kanji for Lyrics, Composition, and Arrangement in Google Translate, because the words were embedded in the page. The things I do for J-pop.)

 Well, I thought this was going to be a short post.

 Haha XD, I’m naïve

 Well, it feels good to get back in the swing of things. And I will make an asserted effort to post on the regular schedule, as well as just make better use of my time and stress out less.

 It’s been a while, but you know the drill. If you have any questions or requests, please let me know.

 You have oodles of ways to find me… and kill me.

Never mind, this isn’t Taken. XD

 Alright, I’ll catch ya next week.

 Ja!

 (Note: It is now after midnight, so this is not goin’ up on St. Paddy’s Day. XD)

 (By jaysus, did I make a right hayms o’ this post? XD)

 - Chris  ——————————————————————————- Minna, gokitai kudasai!!

[rallamajoop]

A Unified Theory of UNCLE -- Napoleon/Illya WIP snippet 3

Anyone remember this thing? Posted a couple of WIP snippets last year, then spent all the months between now and then having terrible luck with betas. But it’s finally back from the beta and down to needing a few final edits before I can post, so this seems like a good time to finally throw up the last of the preview snippets I had sitting in my drafts. (Previous two, with more introduction, here and here)

Anyhow, have a thousand odd words worth of fluff and UST with a convalescing Illya. <3

The other half of the trouble with Napoleon is that no matter how many women Illya may have had to watch him woo, there are still those moments that make him… wonder. For a man so incurably fond of flirting with each and every member of the opposite sex to cross his path, Napoleon sometimes seems to forget to stop flirting when there isn’t a woman in sight.

“I am afraid,” Napoleon announces, buttoning his cuffs in front of the mirror, “that I will have to deprive you of my fine company for a few hours. Do you have everything you need?”

Illya frowns, upsetting the balance of the ice-pack resting on his brow, and forcing him to shove it back up out of his eyes. The only woman he can clearly remember meeting today had been a THRUSH medical technician holding the syringe. He tries to recall whether there’d been any attractive nurses back at the hospital earlier in the afternoon, but his head swims with the effort. “When did you manage to line up a date in all the excitement?” he asks, suspicious.

Napoleon’s smile is rueful. “The only date I have lined up for this evening is with the town mayor. I’m told he wants to know on whose authority people have been detonating explosives within reverberation distance of his constituency. UNCLE has deputised me to smooth things over.”

“Ah.” Now that Illya looks again, Napoleon isn’t dressed for an evening out. He needs that second look – everything in his field of view is still fuzzy around the edges, thanks to whatever they’d given him in the hospital to help bring him down. “How lucky they had someone so uniquely qualified to explain how that came about.”

Napoleon catches his eye in the mirror. “He may have some questions about reports of a nearly-naked man attempting to make a getaway over a rooftop too, of course,” he adds, which Illya supposes is much the retort he’s been subconsciously waiting for for some time. But if Napoleon wants to laugh at him, he’s probably earned it.

“Then you can tell him his nearly-naked man has been reunited with his pants and is recovering comfortably in your hotel room,” Illya suggests. Not the same pair he’d been wearing this morning, admittedly, wherever those might be now. Lost in the blur that is nearly everything after his THRUSH captors had wheeled him into the boardroom on a gurney is the key detail that would explain why he’d been down to his underwear when Napoleon finally got to him out on the roof. Perhaps the lab techs had wanted him to look vulnerable? It’s certainly possible. Illya thinks he’d rather prefer that to be the case, when the alternative is that he’d rid himself of his pants later, on his own initiative – for reasons he has little hope of reconstructing now, and even less desire to try.

A captured UNCLE agent must have seemed the ideal subject for a live demonstration of their new fear toxin: after all, if the drug could reduce a professional enemy spy to a paranoid wreck, it could surely do the same for anyone. Having experienced first hand the devastating effects of Gervaise Ravel’s own fear agent, Illya would hardly have been inclined to argue the point, and had resigned himself to the inevitability of another such experience – at least up to the point where his adrenaline-fuelled thrashing had overcome the restraints holding him to the gurney, leading to an altercation in which he had apparently wrestled a gun away from a guard and wounded at least three people before climbing out a window. It was probably for the best he was out of bullets by the time Napoleon got to him with a syringe full of the antidote – by then camped out under the overhang of an access stairwell on the roof, glaring blearily out into a world that was bright and sharp and over-full, and he himself distinctly under-dressed.

Here in the present, Napoleon raises his eyebrows in amusement, and it’s only when Illya sees his expression that it occurs to him that the part about ‘recovering in Napoleon’s hotel room’ probably came out sounding more suggestive aloud than it had in his head.

“You’ll understand if I might word that one a little differently in case there are any little birdies still hovering in our vicinity.” Napoleon’s eyes faintly glitter with amusement. “I should probably check in with the clean-up crew while I’m out.”

“Let me know if they’ve found my dignity in the rubble,” says Illya, who is too mature to attempt to hide under his pillow from the train-wreck that has become of his day, but only just. “I suspect it will be right at the bottom, probably in several pieces.”

Napoleon winces, and has the decency to look fuzzily sympathetic. “You know I would have offered you my coat for the way down…”

“If you wanted to complete my image of the neighbourhood flasher lurking in the bushes behind the playground, certainly.”

“I don’t know that it’s so bad as all that,” Napoleon tries, his wince settling into something more in the vicinity of a pout.

“I’d argue with you, but I honestly don’t remember much of it,” Illya admits. “I’m going to have to read your report just to find out what I’ve been up to all day, which I can’t say I’m looking forward to.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” says Napoleon, straightening his tie. “Agent Kuryakin performed an admirable diversionary service, shaking off the effects of the latest THRUSH paranoia toxin to disable at least three guards before making his escape, leading them all on a merry chase across the rooftops and providing Agent Solo with ample time set the charges and plan their exit strategy.”

Illya shoots another look at the mirror, though it’s far too high up to reflect his own face from where he sits on the bed. He must look truly dire if Napoleon is working so hard to lift his spirits. Perhaps for once, defensive pessimism has done its job. “So. No date then?”

“None lined up at this time.” Finished with his tie, Napoleon pats him on the ankle as he passes the bed. “But you never do know how the evening may turn out.”

Illya feels uncomfortably certain he can see the shape of his own already. “If the mayor has a beautiful daughter, I’d advise you to leave her alone.”

“And risk having to admit such poor behaviour to our superiors, after? Illya, you wound me.”

Napoleon, Illya decides, is far too chipper for a man whose own partner had very nearly taken him as an enemy plant earlier that day. “One would almost think you’d spent enough time wrestling nearly naked people to the ground for one day.”

“Or vice-versa,” Napoleon comments, or mumbles, in an off-hand sort of way that Illya is less than sure he was supposed to have heard at all. From the depths of the crowded fog of his recollections, a memory stirs. Illya experiences a sudden and vivid flashback to what may have been his first moment of clarity in what had felt like countless hours of being hunted across the rooftops of the compound by a seemingly infinite army of armed THRUSH enforcers, dogging his footsteps and imitating the voices of his friends. Then, in the midst of all that fury, the terrible realisation that what he’d taken as an enemy impostor posing as Napoleon was no enemy at all but the real thing, in incalculable danger from an untold number of THRUSH snipers peering from shadowy stealth helicopters over their heads, if Illya couldn’t get to him right now…

“Please tell me I didn’t.” Sense memory is a vicious thing, and Illya fervently hates it.

Why the thought of Napoleon having to tackle him in order to stab him with the syringe of the counter-agent should be the less mortifying option is beyond him to justify; all Illya knows is the very organic fear this could be one he’ll never manage to live down.

Stopped in the doorway, Napoleon looks back over his shoulder with a playful smile. “Illya,” he says, tapping the side of his nose, voice pitched low as if sharing some particular secret, “a gentleman never tells,” and leaves Illya alone in their hotel room with a bag of ice on his head and a warm, fluttery feeling in his gut he’ll later try to blame on the cocktail of drugs working their way through his system, or perhaps indigestion – anything, really, except the sinfully low pitch of Napoleon’s voice as he flirted shamelessly to reassure his convalescing partner.

[driftwork]

watching terrible events unfold - an epee-graph told from the future - appendix 5

She was making tea when he arrived back from Edinburgh.  After a while she began to tell him  about her day and how it was a little like a job she had done years ago in Osaka.  They were by this time always talking about their personal histories, speaking of the things that they could not, dared not share with anyone. As she told him about this moment of her life, her language was as fuzzy as it could be and remain understandable. (Earlier today, lying on the hillside, thinking about the sense of deja vu, the already-seen, thinking that it has happened  before. Even though Osaka was very different. The explanations of what they'd be doing,  whilst you were in Edinburgh and I was working and watching, didn't feel reassuring as I looked down from where the field turns into woodland watching through the scopes.)

My trip was planned in fine detail. I arrived in Kobe and rented a car for five days, the clerk was bored. You can leave it at any Hertz office she told me. The light was beautiful, the pylons on the highway were clearly visible even in the early evening. The landscape c.   was featureless, it was November and the vegetation was very sparse and grey. In Osaka she/I left the car in the overflow carpark and went into the hotel. She tells him that I found him in the bar, he seemed like precisely the kind of disposable commodity I needed to distract herself  [...] I don't remember anything about him, he asked her what she thought about it. It wasn't easy finding any words. it was late, tiredness  weighed upon me. I wanted to go to sleep but he wanted to stay awake and have sex again. I would have preferred to sleep as I had to leave early in the morning to drive into Osaka. I remember looking out at the lights of the bay, a dry breeze was blowing out past the hotel towards the bay. It was November and cold. There were three or four people on the terrace of the hotel two floors below the bedroom windows. He was stroking my back, tracing the lines of the tattoo. He was talking about going to the modern art museum tomorrow. It was late and he was tired as well, he must have thought I was going to go with him,   occasionally he'd pause searching for the right word, and in those lapses she thought about driving at dawn towards Osaka. I listened to the owls calling outside as he became more insistent in his stroking and speaking, holding my right breast. He spoke of the klees and the massons in the museum. I told him that I was looking forward to it. The lapses in words and sentences as her attention wandered more, in her life life avoiding surveillance. (I lay back and almost enjoyed myself. When he was asleep I injected him with the anesthesia. I had a shower, laid out clothes for the morning. And then slept on the sofa. (he smiled at her, you and sofas)) He hadn't moved all night, I got dressed, checked his pulse which was slow but even. Handcuffed him to the bed. Took his car keys, wallet and left him. Putting a do not disturb notice on the door.

I understood, understood perfectly, thinking that he would eventually forget.

[Actually I remember that the  man had spent a long time in a country that was a police state. I drove towards Osaka, occasionally thinking of the man chained to the bed in the hotel. it was five in the morning. The man who is left behind in the hotel, confusedly told a version of this story to the police later that day. In amongst his long ex-cursive  rambling, painstakingly recorded by the two detectives who mistakenly decided he had been robbed by a prostitute, he did not tell them about the tattoos, in fact it was this simple absence from his description which made the detectives file the recording as minor theft. The man told his stories to himself word by word, sentence by sentence, editing and contracting, and he wrote a novella which he published in japanese and english, in a way one might say it was written in his memory and then committed to paper. 

[>> Did you read the story ? << >>  No, just the first couple of pages, he seem to think that his female protagonist was ill. << ]] I  was long gone by then, vanished back into Tokyo.

She/I parked the car in the drive of the big empty house in Osaka.________.______  and went and watched the house of the target. On the other side of the low wall at the back of the house. There were birds feeding outside the kitchen windows. Thesus and his wife Penelope occasionally came into the kitchen to make tea and take small hammers and knives deeper into the house. I watched the birds and them until after lunch. Took the gun and went over the low wall into the garden and the house. Looking round the house she/I found the teenager in chains on the floor. I left Thesus and Penelope dead in the bathroom. Packed the girls fingers in ice, bandaged the girls hands and drove her to the accident and emergency in the NdA hospital in Osaka before driving out of Osaka on the E2A. My father was furious at me for not killing the girl, everyone, you were told everyone, he screamed. She was supposed to die not be rescued. Nobody told me about the girl, only about them. She explained unheard in the torrent of abuse. He swings his hand to slap her face, she moves backwards,swaying to the side refusing the slap. She didn't say anything, suffering the abuse as she had for twenty years. In this  there are two actual truth events: I thought about harming my father for the first time as he shouted, and the money that was not paid because the girl lived may have caused the war that followed later and brought me here. Later that month I killed Achilles in Seoul [...]

[ >> He said.My biggest regret from before is a case where  I arrested a woman who killed her husband. She is still in jail and shouldn’t be. The person I am now, living with  you would ensure she was not arrested. << >> Why, the change? << she asked. >> We are a war machine, somehow that means we need to be ethical, whereas before i was merely police, a representative of law... << She smiles at him - >> You are my bag carrier.<< She said.... >> Always, you know that don't you. << He said.  She smiles >> Only as a war machine can we counter the world machine we live within << >> or live at all... <<  He responded.]

(I was lying on the hillside, thinking about the sense of deja vu, the already-seen, thinking that it has happened  before. The explanations of what they'd be doing,  whilst you were in Edinburgh and I was watching and didn't feel reassured as I looked down from where the field turns into woodland watching events unfold through the scopes.)  The already seen and lived  endured, perhaps it was stronger than I was seeing. A filter sprayed over the surrounding reality, the woods, field, gardens and the detached houses. I felt a touch of vertigo and was tempted to let go and fall into it not knowing what her automatic responses would act like, but only for a moment. Remembering Osaka and all that had been set in motion, the strange metamorphosis that ended with my lying here. A corrupted assassin. The deja vu marked the differences between her then and now, the euphoria of that realization.  The thought of the lack of melancholy, and I wondered if my psychopathology meant that she/I could never be melancholic. This sense of finite liberation however... I was lying down in a hollow on a ground sheet and covered by another one that is pegged down, her feet are slightly lower down than her head and shoulders. About 75 feet higher than her primary target. The police she is watching are in a house, and they are in turn watching the house opposite. It amuses me that they were watching the suspected murderer whilst I watched them. I imagine that they are getting a warrant  to enter the house later today or tomorrow. I watched, interested in the processes of police surveillance. It is remarkably labour intensive, I thought. Eight hour shifts,  Three shifts a day,  two people plus visitors per shift. [>>That is not how they are surveilling us, with us they are using long term passive surveillance, probably imperceptible. <<  >>People and things close to us? she asks  << >> yes.<< ] At that moment there are five police in the house. One is watching the house, and presumably the street, one is talking to the DCI, and the DCS, there is also a DS. The DCI and probably the DCS will leave to collect the warrant. So later tonight they will enter the house she imagines. She doesn't understand why there is not a human manned observation post along the treeline watching the rear of the house.  Through the other scope she can see the head of the young woman perhaps its a teenager that they are torturing. The woman is in the room at the moment. ( I wondered if you would mind me breaking into the house and harming the man and woman. The whole point of the exercise was watching. But it would be quite nice to hurt them, possibly permanently.) She only has a few hours before she must leave and go home. Perhaps she should break in and force the police to act act act.  I have become such an angel she thinks, what i really need is a decent rifle to put a bullet through that woman’s head or better still that man's body as he is standing outside the patio door smoking a cigarette. An Angel. perhaps i should simply rescue the girl it would be quicker and more certain than waiting for the police. The sense of finite liberation as she thinks about the options she has,  which is like understanding  something she'd known all along, since Osaka at least, but didn't really want to know.  The already-seen was telling her her that even as she was psychopathically inclined to not care about others, this life she was leading meant she was perhaps beginning to care, capturing it in a future about to be lived.  She watches a red kite wheeling through the air above her. She has been here since 4AM, about twelve hours. He will be leaving Edinburgh soon, perhaps he already has, on a train and she needs to be back home in time to make the house look lived in. She smiles at such an absurd thought. She watches the police and thinks she should hurry this along so she can have a shower before he gets back, she doesn't want to leave the two people torturing and possibly killing the girl because she left it to the police. Eventually and reluctantly: she packs her bag, remembering packing a different bag in Osaka and  puts on the shoulder holster beneath her leather jacket, reties her boots, checks the gun. Packs up the ground sheet. Puts the scopes in their case and sits cross legged with her bag beside her. Sighs, relieved in knowing that he'd forgive her whatever she did.  She picks up her phone and sits cross legged. "Hello Frank it’s Park...Don’t hang up. Put me on speaker, Hello Jean. She can hear people moving. "I am watching the man and woman in no 38 torture a young woman. Can you go in and rescue her or do you need me to enable that.  Frank is asking about where the young woman is. She tells him. He speaks with Jean, they agree. She thinks they’ll shout at him tomorrow. He says could you make sure they can't escape from the back whilst we go in the front. OK, I'm sorry Frank, you can shout at me on saturday. He hangs up. She watched them go in. Nobody came out the back. Sounds of violence, more police arriving, ambulances...  [He said "That's good,  for if we'd had to leave it would have been like Thomas in the Peter Stamm novel and I don't think we could do that now..."] As she drove along the road amongst the beech trees that was taking her  back towards the house, she knew that at a certain point she'd see a rusty old iron sign on which the direction and distance to her destination was written. And that she'd follow the direction, nothing was clear but she hadn't hurt anyone.

Now they were sitting on the sofa, the TV playing some inane French movie about a histrionic murderess. The sound was off. He asked her "What happened to the girl in Osaka?" "I was wearing a singlet, I had a single dragon tattoo at the time, with dark glasses and a baseball cap on, I half carried her to accident and emergency, gave them her fingers on ice. Told them I was her guardian. Said her name was Osaka and that I'd fetch her documents. She became protected, our responsibility. My family never forgave me for that either. After that i don’t really know. she left i think"