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asthmark · 4 years

Text

❝ comfortable ❞ l.mk

synopsis → “oh, i’m mark. mark lee.” he gives her a lop-sided grin, reminding you of a high school boy. the kind you would have a crush on.

word count → 3k

a/n → instead of admitting to the fact that this has been in my drafts since october what if i just said i was watching superm interviews and got inspired.. would anyone believe that??? anyway superm on the ellen show was a fever dream lol

your leg bounces nervously as your makeup artist touches up your look and you stare at the tv screen in anticipation. you were finally making your television debut. you knew you were blessed for the wonderful opportunity, especially for how new you were to the music industry.

you had started like nearly every other artist; posting covers on youtube. these were well received and gained a good amount of views and likes but your career really took off when you began creating original content. every time you would release a single, it would make it on the trending page thanks to your growing fanbase and exposure to the general public, who seemed to like you. soon enough, requests to interview you whether it be on radio, tv, or magazines were high and, thanks to your managers, you found yourself in los angeles, backstage in a studio, waiting for the ellen degeneres to introduce you to her live audience and thousands of viewers at home.

“don’t move so much, miss l/n,” the woman trying to apply your highlighter comments. “you’re smudging your makeup.”

you force yourself to sit still as you apologize. “sorry. pre-show jitters.”

the woman smiles, emphatically. “i understand, sweetheart. i would be nervous too.”

you’re quiet for a moment, debating if you should continue conversing with her. “can i be honest?”

she hums as she dabs a beauty blender into your cheek. “go ahead.”

“i am so nervous that i’ll mess up or say something stupid. the only thing close to an interview i’ve ever done was a q&a on my youtube channel. and at least i could edit stuff out then.” you huff. “if i make some kind of mistake on my tv debut, my career will be over before it even started.”

“well, think of it this way,” she says. “you went from a moderately popular youtube channel to the ellen show. that doesn’t happen for no reason. there are people out there who really admire you.”

you chuckle in disbelief. “it’s crazy to think about people actually wanting to see me. i still can't believe it.”

she giggles, softly. “they know there's something worth seeing.” at seeing your small smile, almost as if you were barely realizing your own star status, she laughs. “you seriously gotta wake up, girl. you’re famous!”

you smile at her, finding humor in her words. “thanks for the wake up call.”

you both direct your attention to the tv placed backstage that broadcasted what was happening on stage. you listen in to ellen’s monologue as she tells jokes and addresses current topics. before long, there’s a knock on the doorframe. you half expect a staff member to let you know that you’ll be on soon but instead you hear a quiet, “hello?”

you and your makeup artist both turn to the boy standing in the doorway. he's wearing a black jacket paired with dark, ripped jeans held up by a belt. he goes to bow, then remembers that korean etiquette does not apply and decides to wave as a greeting instead. you reciprocate the gesture. he stands with only one foot inside the room, almost as if he’s too polite to enter without being given the okay.

“did they send you to get your makeup done?” the woman who had done yours says.

he nods. “they said something about concealer and bb cream, i think?”

she smiles. “yeah, it’s basic stuff. come on in. what’s your name, dear?”

“oh, i’m mark. mark lee.” he gives her a lop-sided grin, reminding you of a high school boy. the kind you would have a crush on.

“well, mark lee, i’m lily. i’ll be doing your makeup, making sure you look pretty for the cameras.” she motions to you. “i'm just about done here so i’ll be right with you.”

“okay, thank you.” he shuffles in, his eyes glued to you and you hold his stare. he nods, a wordless greeting as he settles in next to you. in return, you throw up a peace sign and he smiles at your casual behavior.

“you know what? somebody used all the setting spray. i’ll be right back, i’m just going to steal some from my co-workers.” with that, lily darts out of the room.

it’s pure silence between the two of you until you spark conversation. “i didn't get to introduce myself but i'm y/n.”

“i know,” he responds, quickly. “i'm kind of a fan, actually. i mean, it’s practically impossible to not be. you’re all over the place. especially with the new single you dropped... which is a bop, by the way.”

you smile at his simply-worded praise. it was a nice switch up from the professional reviews you received from critics. “that’s so cute. i’m honored.” you miss the way mark’s ears turn slightly pink at your words. “but enough about me, what do you do, mark?”

“oh, me? i’m in the k-pop scene.”

you hum. “that’s a good genre to be in. which group?”

“right now i’m promoting with superm, it’s kind of like a side project. but originally, i’m in a band called nct.”

you lean forward at hearing the familiar name. “nct? as in, nct 127?”

mark’s eyes light up. “yeah! you know us?”

you nod, enthusiastically. “oh my god, yes! you collabed with ava, right?”

“we sure did. are you guys close?”

“i help her write lyrics sometimes.” you lower your voice down to a whisper for dramatic effect. “i wrote the chorus to ‘sweet but psycho’.”

the way mark’s jaw drops is almost comedic. “no way! that song got her famous, dude!” his lips curve into a playful smirk. “just because of that i’m gonna have to get you in the studio.”

you return the mischievous look. “is that a promise?”

“i’m back!” lily announces, giving mark no time to respond. she gives no warning as she spritzs you with the bottle she had gone to retrieve.

you cough, choking on the mist. “no heads up?”

“sorry, dear. you’re on in two minutes, no time to waste.”

you feel a chill go up your spine. it was finally time.

mark nudges your arm. “you okay?”

“a little nervous.” that proves to be the biggest understatement of all time because in reality your heart is doing somersaults.

“hey.” you stare at him, his brown eyes boring into you. “you’ll be fine. there’s nothing to worry about. you got this!”

you smile at his words of encouragement. he cared about you and you find that your heart is pounding for an entirely different reason now.

“i'll be here to cheer you on while you’re out there and i’ll be back when you’re done to tell you how amazing you did, okay?”

you nod.

“now get out there!”

“well, we have a great show for y’all today,” ellen says, clasping her hands together, having just finished her monologue. “i mean, it’s always great but the exciting thing is we have two musical guests today.”

the audience that cheered wildly is shown on screen. you almost forget about the knot in your stomach when you see some people in the crowd wearing shirts with the cover art and quoted lyrics of your last single.

“i see you guys are ready so, without further ado... let’s get started. our first guest is a soloist who has made quite a big name for herself in such a short period of time. she currently has three singles on the billboard charts, her most recent music video is number one trending on youtube, and she has a new ep coming out soon. here for her television debut, please welcome y/n l/n.”

you walk out from behind the stage, a huge smile on your face. the crowd screams and you wave to them until your hands become too occupied hugging the hostess who greets you with open arms and a proud smile. once the hype dies down and your entrance music fades out, you take a seat, opposite of ellen.

“how have you been y/n?”

“amazing,” you respond, letting your hands fall neatly in your lap.

“and why is that?”

you sigh, wistfully. “everything has been going so well for me lately. i mean, i feel like all these doors are opening up for me all of a sudden. i think i finally made it.”

“you’re just barely realizing that?” ellen exclaims.

you laugh, along with the audience. “kind of, yeah. it just all happened so fast.”

“is there an experience that comes to mind where you finally realized how famous you are?”

you try to think for a few moments before your eyes light up. “okay so, i was at a mcdonald’s like, last month and i went through the drive thru and ordered some nuggets and fries. so, i pull up to the window to pay and it’s around 2 a.m. so the cashier guy is super out of it, like he’s not even paying attention to me. finally, he goes to grab my card and he gets a good look at me and just freezes. like, full on shuts down. so i ask him if he’s okay and he nods so i try to hand him my card again but he goes, ‘no, you’re famous, you don’t have to pay’. and in that moment i just knew.”

“hold on, pause,” ellen announces, dramatically. “you’re telling me that you have been nominated as artist of the year, gained over ten million followers on social media and made your national television debut but the thing that really made you say ‘wow, i’m famous’ was a couple of chicken nuggets?”

“ellen, c’mon,” you begin, seriously. “it was a twenty piece.”

“oh, well, that changes everything,” she says, playing along with you, as the audience erupts into laughter.

the rest of the interview goes smoothly, running on jokes and sarcastic energy. you discuss your young age (thus resulting in some of your baby pictures finally being revealed to the world), millennial culture (the crowd went wild when you explained terms such as netflix and chill to ellen who claimed she didn’t understand yet her sly smirk said otherwise) and your upcoming ep (that you would be giving a sneak peek of later on in the show).

you continue chatting once the commercial break is announced and ellen showers you with praises, commenting how young talent never failed to amaze her, although it did make her feel old. you get to thank the hostess and tell her how much you appreciated her sweet words and the opportunity she had given you before the crew is dragging you backstage so you can prep for your upcoming performance.

you’re greeted by a “that was awesome!” and a high five one you get backstage.

you flash mark a full smile. “couldn’t have done it without my hype man.”

just then lily walks in to touch up your makeup.

“and my hype woman!”

she just rolls her eyes and chuckles as she reapplies gloss to your lips.

“seriously though, y/n. why did you have to be so perfect? the bar is all the way up here now.” to emphasize his point, mark raises his arm as high as it will go.

“hey, i only tried hard because you’re up next. you’re a hard act to beat, mark lee. i mean, you’re charismatic, charming, witty; basically every talk show host’s dream.”

he scoffs yet you see how he avoids your gaze, your compliments obviously flattering him to the extreme.

a staff member walks by, cutting your conversation short. “y/n, you’re back on in one. superm is on right after.”

you and mark turn back to each other, speaking the same two words at the same time.

“good luck.”

ellen introduces you again, only this time you hold a guitar and stand in front of a microphone once you’re back on the stage. you perform a never before heard song but judging by the roaring applause and standing ovation you receive by the end of it, it’s another successful hit.

you bask in the amazing response and then you’re ushered backstage for the last time. you catch sight of the staff placing more seats on the stage as you exit and you smile eagerly, knowing exactly what’s to come. you search the hallways for your new friend, hoping you can catch him before the show goes back on air. you’re almost about to give up when you hear your name being called.

you lock eyes with mark who stands a couple feet away, barely hidden from the audience’s view. even from where you stand you can tell he has a nervous smile on his face. you jog towards him and to your surprise, he envelops your figure without a second thought. in return, you tentatively wrap your arms around him.

“great job,” he murmurs, breath fanning your ear. “i really did cheer you on.”

“i’ll make sure to do the same.” you hesitantly pull away from his embrace, holding him at an arm’s length away. “go get ‘em.”

he gives you a determined nod and you watch him rush on stage, the audience’s wild cheering increasing. their energy didn’t fade once throughout the interview and just as you had suspected, mark was doing wonderfully. he clearly thrived in interviews; his awkward, boyish nature enchanting everyone in the studio, yourself included.

ellen crosses her legs and clears her throat. “so, i have to ask you something, you know, for the fans.”

the group leaned forward in anticipation, awaiting her next words.

“are any of you dating?”

the crowd released noises of amusement at hearing the very personal question. you can’t help but feel intrigued although you knew ellen has always been quite the invasive person. you watched as the seven boys looked around at each other, unsure what to say but before their silence can become suspiciously long, mark ends up taking the question.

“why are you always so curious about this, though?” he blurts.

the audience absolutely eats up his response, cheering at his bluntness. even you find it humorous, shoulders shaking with a chuckle. that’s definitely gonna become a meme, you think.

“it’s my job!” counters ellen. “why are you so defensive?”

the crowd is very responsive to ellen’s rebuttal, ‘ooh’ing in amusement.

mark’s silence only pushes the hostess to continue teasing him.

“does it maybe have anything to do with y/n?”

your smile drops. had she seen you two? you’re not sure why you feel so exposed; after all, you had just been talking.

ellen’s lips adorn a sly smile at mark’s stunned reaction. “you seemed to be getting very comfortable with each other backstage.”

the black haired male stumbles over his words before he gets a semi-coherent sentence out. “we just, um—we just met.”

“oh really? you two looked like you had known each other forever.”

mark chuckles breathlessly, eyes glued to his lap, obviously at a loss for words. ellen stares at him expectantly so he mutters, “i like making friends.”

ellen, the audience, and even some of the band members laugh at his response.

“well, i’m sure there’s a lot of fans out there that wish they were your ‘friend’.” her tone makes it clear she doesn’t buy his excuse but she prods him no further, instead turning to stare into the main camera. “when we get back superm will be performing their title track ‘jopping’. during the commercial break, please feel free to place your bets as to how long mark and y/n will remain ‘friends’.”

the camera pans to mark for a couple seconds; his ears are bright red and his cheeks are dusted light pink, his makeup doing nothing to help hide the blush. his eyes dart around, anxiously and then they cut to commercials.

you shake your head, smiling at the entire situation and just how big of a dork mark was.

you attentively watch superm’s two performances, eyes mostly glued to a certain rapper. you sit patiently in the makeup room, waiting for mark to return backstage so you can congratulate him but he never appears. you try to conceal your disappointment, even when lily enters the room, smiling brightly.

“well, the show’s over, doll.” she removes her makeup stained apron and glances at you as she places it on a nearby rack. “hey, why the long face?”

you stare at your reflection in the mirror, no longer bothering to hide your pout now that your frustration had been made known.

“you did great, if that’s what you’re worried about. just ask mark.”

“he left,” you mumble. “i thought i’d be able to catch him before he left and we could… i don’t know, talk a bit more? i just really—” you trail off.

“like him?” lily suggests, too loudly for your liking.

your head snaps towards her, eyes wide, only confirming your feelings.

“don’t worry, dear, you can say it. i won’t tell ellen,” she jokes.

you sigh and slump down in your seat. “yeah. i like him.”

“well, then, i have good news for you.”

you half-heartedly hum, allowing her to continue.

she waves a piece of crumpled paper in front of your face. you grab it from her, staring at it curiously.

“what’s this?”

she nods her head at it, encouraging you to find out for yourself. “open it and see.”

you obey, unfolding the tiny item. your eyes struggle to read the words inside but if you squint, they become clearer.

please call, me i would love to become closer ‘friends’.

(xxx) xxx-xxxx

it’s mark btw :)

you can’t contain your smile at the cute little note.

“he’s adorable,” you say, mostly to yourself but lily audibly agrees.

“he ran into me as he was leaving and begged me to deliver that message to you. which reminds me, i’m supposed to let you know that he wishes he could have stuck around but his schedule is ‘crazy tight’ so he had to ‘dip’. his words not mine.”

you nod, grin widening. “thanks, lily.”

“my pleasure. nothing like young love.”

you give her a glare although it’s all but threatening.

she folds her arms, teasingly. “so, are you going to give him a call or what?”

you’re sure she sees the phone in your hand and the way your fingers press the numbers on the keypad, excitedly but nevertheless, you decide to answer.

“i’d be crazy not to.”

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wiltingpierrot · 4 years

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Gem Glow: Part 1

Welcome! Well, this isn’t really made to entertain. I’m just doing this to recover from trauma and get a good grasp of the show’s lore while having my girls react with me. Feel free to tag along.

We’ll be watching four episodes a day and react only to the major events as tackling all of them is a toughie.

Sharpie: “I want to see real tears, Wilt.”

Wilt: “Tears? At the very first episode?”

Sharpie: “Yes. Otherwise I’ll make you cry by some other means.”

Wilt: “I have these tear marks. Those count, yes?”

Sharpie: “Real tears, I said.”

Wilt: “Ahh, how iconic.”

Spinel: “The area around the lighthouse is lacking a lot of flowers. That’ll change someday!”

Sharpie: “Yes, after a lot of blood, ink and tears had been shed first.”

Spinel: “Here we have a shot of the show’s hero, lamenting the discontinuation of a certain ice cream snack brand.”

Sharpie: “Is this triggering your PTSD yet?”

Wilt: “Not really. I thought it would but surprisingly I’m still okay.”

Lars: “Well, if you miss your wimpy ice cream so much, why don’t you make some with your MAGIC BELLY BUTTON?”

Spinel: “Hey Sharpie, let’s make foodstuff with just the energy in our gem.”

Sharpie: “And you still owe me 86 years’ worth of happiness.”

Wilt: “What is this civil conversation you’re having? That’s not how I wrote you two.”

Sadie: “Uhh Steven? Do you want to take the freezer with you?”

Spinel: “Think what would’ve happened if Sadie didn’t let him take that freezer home.”

Sharpie: “Does… does the cat’s face looked different to you?”

Spinel: “I love the lighthouse. The view up the top is always so breathtaking.”

Sharpie: “I’m not so happy with our roommate though.”

Wilt: “…I might have to draw this someday.”

Spinel: “Don’t you just love it when your pets greet you as you enter your house? I wish you would greet me whenever I fall asleep.”

Sharpie: “You’re just my nightmare.”

Amethyst: “’Sup, Steven.”

Spinel: “AME!!!!”

Spinel: “I AM IN LOVE.”

Sharpie: “You can stop replaying this 5 seconds worth of Pearl now.”

Spinel: “It’s 4 seconds worth of Pearl, you heathen.”

Spinel: “HOOO MAMA. Remember when Garnet kicked our ass?”

Sharpie: “She kicked your ass. She kicked your ass so much I had to start a switch to intervene. Now that I think of it, I shouldn’t have done that.”

Sharpie: “Being sliced open is one thing. Being pulled apart is another.”

Spinel: “It’s good that we’re stretchy.”

Sharpie: “I can disable that function and tear you apart like that, actually. Ever wondered why it doesn’t hurt when others pull at you like taffy but I can?”

Spinel: “I can do the same and prevent you from escaping my hugs.”

Sharpie: “*sigh*… I hate you.”

Spinel: “Ahaha! Pearl is so cute!”

Sharpie: “Ahaha! I love this technique.”

Wilt: “It’s good for breaking a hole through walls in maximum security prisons, yeah.”

Amethyst: “Uhh you guys, these things don’t have gems.”

Garnet: “That means there must be a mother somewhere nearby.”

Sharpie: “That’s a fascinating thought.”

Wilt: “It’s similar to how Pearl can project figures that can maintain itself while independent of the source. In this case, the main centipeedle can project independent but smaller versions of itself.”

Sharpie: “How come 2nd Projections aren’t like that, I wonder. Like we can’t have separate bodies or anything…”

Wilt: “Probably because the 2nd Projection has a personality of its own and it stems from the original gem, while Pearl Projections and mini-centipeedles are pre-programmed projections that would act accordingly to the original’s commands. Like, if Spinel makes a projection separate from her, it wouldn’t be you.”

Sharpie: “Fair enough.”

Spinel: “Speaking of Pearl Projections…”

Sharpie: “No.”

Pearl: “Steven, until you learned to control the powers in your gem, we’ll take care of protecting humanity. Okay?”

Spinel: “I want Pearl to snap my neck like that.”

Sharpie: “As if impaling you wasn’t enough.”

Spinel: “PFFFTT-“

Amethyst: “We went out and stole a bunch!”

Spinel: “That’s my Ame.”

Pearl: “I went back and paid for that.”

Sharpie: “That’s…. that’s very Pearl of her.”

Steven: “He left his family behind!”

Spinel: “AHAHAHAHAHA”

Sharpie: “What’s so funny about that?”

Sharpie: “Oh my stars. I hope we don’t have to bear another one of those.”

Wilt: “It’s catchy. I like it.”

Sharpie: “What a happy little family. It’s a shame that they’re doomed to a life of madness onwards.”

Amethyst: “Quick! Try and summon your weapon!”

“Awww, no weapon.”

Wilt: “He’s struggling. A sign of a well-rounded character. The progress is dramatic if we compare this episode to the last ones. And it only took him a few Earth years.”

Sharpie: “And it took us like what, 86 years to get this far and we’re still inferior to most we meet in our travels.”

Spinel: “God I love Pearl.”

Sharpie: “Can you even pay attention to anything that isn’t Pearl?”

Spinel: “I’m capable of paying attention to a lot of things and to nothing at the same time, Sharpie. Be amazed.”

Steven: “Can one of you just explain how to summon a weapon?”

Pearl: “Oh! I’ll go first.”

Wilt: “I love Pearl.”

Spinel: “I love Pearl.”

Sharpie: “…”

Spinel: “AUUGH! Pearl is so beautiful.”

Wilt: “This is so anime.”

Spinel: “This scene makes me wanna stand underneath a cherry blossom tree with her in a Friday afternoon and confess my love.”

Sharpie: “God both of you disgust me.”

Pearl: “Pay attention to these petals, Steven.”

Pearl: “The petal’s dance seems improvised, but it is being calculated in real-time based on the physical properties of this planet.”

Wilt: “HELL YEAH, I LOVE PEARL.”

Pearl: “With hard work and dedication, you can master the magical properties of your gem, and perform your own dance.”

Pearl: “Like so.”

Spinel: “HELL YEAH, I LOVE PEARL”

Sharpie: “So… Pearl’s approach is tuning into the technical reality of the universe to tap into her gem’s energy,”

Amethyst: “Listen Steven. All that practice stuff is no fun. Whenever I need to summon my weapon, it just happens.”

Sharpie: “And Amethyst’s approach is just winging it. Considering Ame is a gem made for war, of course summoning a weapon is natural instinct. Pearl however… She had to learn serious fighting, something most Pearls aren’t made for.”

Spinel: “We’re the same, ain’t we? Spinels ain’t made for violence but we can whoop butt just fine.”

Sharpie: “We just got lucky… and incredibly unfortunate at the same time.”

Sharpie: “Gems are such nuisances. So much that in other places of the world, a group of humans actually built little Distortion Bombs capable of disorienting corrupted gems to a point of repelling them away. Unfortunately those things are powered by tiny bits of gem shards, which is obviously not an easily obtainable source of power. The project was discontinued.”

Spinel: “The invention worked on us, too, which is kind of impressive!”

Sharpie: “The best those little bombs done to us were to irritate us, or temporarily disable our senses. Corrupted gems have warped sentience I think, so they would rely more on instincts and run away from the source of irritation as much as possible.”

Sharpie: “They say if enough energy is given into the device, it’ll have high enough amplitude to potentially dissipate a gem’s physical form. But this is just a fever dream. There’s no way they have access to that amount of energy without slaughtering a Diamond first. Still, props to the engineer who thought that was a good idea.”

Spinel: “So instead of using gem shards, he decided to use us by writing the function into Springy. If we poof, we can give bad gems nearby a head ache and make them go away. We can protect people even if we die in battle! He basically turned us into heroic suicide bombers against corrupted gems.”

Sharpie: “Necessary, considering every time we poof we somehow cause part of a building to catch on fire, killing the people we’re supposed to protect in the process.”

Spinel: “Uh huh… yeaaahh….. I mean, where else is the excess energy supposed to go?”

Sharpie: “I dunno. Some other harmless form of energy apart from heat? The sparkly dust clouds were already perfect and you just had to change it into something deadlier. Thanks to you, seven people that stood close to us turned into soup.”

Spinel: “Well, there was that one time where the fire storm actually saved us from a meanie who wanted to crush us. We can’t just ignore that.”

Sharpie: “Seven people died, Spinel. Seven people that happened to be our allies.”

Wilt: “Please stop. We have to finish this episode.”

Steven: “So I’m supposed to work really hard and not try at all at the same time?”

Garnet: “Yes.”

Garnet: “Or…”

Garnet: “You can link your mind with the energy of all existing matter, channeling the collective power of the universe through your gem.”

Garnet: “At least that’s my way of doing it.

Spinel: “C’mon, kiddo. It’s not that hard to understand. It’s how Springy lived for the past 40 years. If she can do it, so can you.”

Sharpie: “I bet this makes the most sense to you, huh Wilt?”

Wilt: “It does. Considering we are all just ripples of energy on the surface of the large lasagna we call the observable universe.”

Sharpie: “What a nerd. Also we’re half-way through the episode. You better cry, Wilt.”

Wilt: “I’m saving this shot for reference.”

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timextoxhajima · 4 years

Text

HOSTIS, Chapter XVI: Adsumo, Claim

Previous Chapter (XV: Vetus Flamma)

Member: Lee Hyunjae (tbz) ft younghoon and eric

Genre (by chapter): drama, angst

Category: Short Novel/Long Series

“i knew i wasn’t the person you needed”

kim young hoon.

you remember the way he always offered to carry your bag or books, though you were well aware he’d rather not.

younghoon was always known for his cold, aloof demeanor.

that is, until you start talking to him.

the first time you met younghoon, this strange feeling of queasiness and anxiety wrapped itself around your stomach, and it really wasn’t great timing when it was right after a full meal you decided to stuff yourself before extra class.

being at a buffet just a few days earlier had literally poisoned your blood and your system; it was just hidden for this period of time.

so when the food you had for lunch poured out through your lips because of the food poisoning you were yet to be made aware of, only to land on younghoon’s shoe in school, it would’ve been the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you.

if you hurled on lee hyunjae, you would’ve been happy to be be diagnosed with food poisoning.

but this was kim younghoon.

his popularity was matched with lee hyunjae though he was nowhere near as intelligent -- or scheming.

girls around him started shooting you looks of disgust and low whispers of you being inappropriate or inconsiderate began to drown your senses out.

the regurgitation also forced out a lot of your energy, and your legs were slowly turning into jelly with every passing second.

but before you could make a second stumble that would’ve allowed gravity to pull you into the concrete floor, younghoon holds your arm and keeps you upright.

watching him crane his neck down and lower his back to see your vomit painted chin was both reassuring but terribly harsh on your pride.

“are you alright?”

the loss of ego keeps your head hung low, and he takes it as a sign that you really weren’t feeling well.

ignoring all the girls staring at him dragging the smartest girl in school across campus to the medical bay was such a sight to behold, even for lee hyunjae.

you wish you could’ve seen it for yourself from a third person perspective.

not many people were aware of your little crush on younghoon, but you were always too busy trying to outdo lee hyunjae to even spare a second to day dream about him.

sometimes you felt shallow and materialistic for choosing younghoon to wear your emotions on, since you haven’t really spoken to him.

but if he didn’t know, it didn’t matter.

there was an expectation for younghoon to stay clear of you, especially when you were already known as one of two areses in school. yet younghoon found reassurance in that, in the way you stood out from the crowd against your will.

younghoon’s face and personality did it for him.

your competitiveness and ability to be the only person who could stand up against lee hyunjae did it for you.

lucifer had the best of both worlds, which made him all the more hate-worthy.

younghoon’s choice to invest in your friendship with him came as a surprise, but it felt like sunrise after a long night.

for six years you’ve been wasting your energy on proving yourself better than lee hyunjae, so having younghoon becoming both a source and and outlet for your energy to channel to and from...

it was nothing short of magical.

there was absolutely no way you could’ve forgotten the satisfaction that filled your lungs and your heart when the school found out you were dating the kim younghoon.

you never really figured out why it was such a shocker, though you were pretty sure the school was just surprised you chose kim younghoon, a not-so-smart student, in comparison to your must-top-the-class persona.

most of the time spent with younghoon was either spent tutoring him or having nonsensical conversations with him before you slept. those were the times you felt relaxed, you felt loose, you felt like you didn’t really need to win.

there was nothing to win anyway, not with younghoon at least.

you had convinced yourself that younghoon was sick and tired of your never-ending battle with lee hyunjae, one that drove a scandalous picture of you and the lab teacher all over the internet like it was a freeway.

younghoon must’ve known that the picture was just edited, for the teacher never got into trouble for it, only mild investigation.

but at least he was smart enough to save himself from the walking fire of fury, that was you, and he used this chance to run.

love was never really a priority in your life until younghoon came along, so even when that beautiful, flowery garden part of your life had gone, your priority naturally fell back on beating lucifer at his own game.

or a game that the both of you thought was a great idea to start.

love was just a fickle thing, and all it did was to make you weak.

and if you were fighting ares himself, you had to be your best ares.

ares is not weak.

ares is brutal and cruel and you had to be just that in order to beat another.

sitting across younghoon, five years later, in your favourite cafe with the evening sun disappearing behind the buildings of the city, felt like a fever dream.

a dream you yearned had happened five years ago, not now.

two bowls of soup and a bowl of truffle fries get served to your table, and younghoon thanks the waitress with a slight nod. the waiter recognises you, so she just gives you a small smile.

younghoon being the gorgeous man he is, catches her attention again, and you smile at your food when you felt her reluctance to leave the table.

“i must say,” he hands you a soup spoon after checking it for shitty cleaning. “i have high expectations for this chowder.”

“i just had this yesterday,” the pepper bottle shakes in your hold. “surely that must mean something?”

the slightly amber lamp dangles above your table, and the heat from the lightbulb was making the skin on your nose and forehead feel warm despite the early autumn wind gushing about outside.

the pillars inside the cafe make it feel like you were in a warehouse, so every time someone appears behind a pillar and walks somewhere in your sight, younghoon would always look up to see if you were looking at anybody you knew.

there was a bell hung on the door of the cafe near the cashier’s counter; which was located behind the wall you were sitting against.

the sound makes you wait for someone new to show up in your span of vision, and if nobody appeared, you’d know that they ordered takeaway.

“how’s working at the hospital? i heard you say you’ve been working with uncle for about a month?”

“i think it’s about five weeks or so, yeah,” the tiny circles of oil on the soup gets pushed around while you stir it, and younghoon adds pepper to his serving after tasting the truffle fries. “it’s alright... i mean, it’s just everything i expected.”

“so, no surprises?”

surprises.

“oh,” a snort runs through your throat as you take one mouth of your soup. “there was one big surprise--”

“lee hyunjae?”

the name strikes a chord in you, and you weren’t too sure why.

“god must hate me to put me in the same room as him... we started working for the hospital on the same day, and his office is right next to mine.”

“huh,” younghoon hums, blowing on his spoon of soup before having it. “you must’ve been really upset when he showed up.”

“‘upset’ isn’t a strong enough word to describe how much i wanted to shove a pen down his throat. consider disgusted, angry, furious, disappointed, resentful, hateful--”

“should i be worried you work in an environment where those feelings should not be involved in--”

generous laughter escape your lungs and younghoon’s smile encourages you to return to your food.

“but otherwise, it’s a blast. i love my patients, i love my mentors and the nurses and the colleagues-- they are all so endearing and patient.”

he nods while chewing on the ingredients in the chowder.

“what about you? what are you doing now? i mean, we haven’t spoken in five years.”

“i’m a salesman, guess i figured out a way to use my face to the best of my ability.”

“oh, god,” a chuckle rings in the air between you as you dip your spoon into the bowl again. “that must’ve worked in some magical ways. has anybody tried to get your number?”

“do i really want to answer that when you already know?”

a cheeky smile greets you when you look up from your food, and you shake your head when you realise you could still read his eyes the same.

“i don’t suppose you’re romantically involved in anybody now?” he asks. there was an absence of... care and concern he used to have back then.

he wasn’t nonchalant about it, but you could tell that five years was adequate for your relationship with younghoon to turn completely stagnant.

there was no longer any hint of love in it, even if he did still care for you.

he could still love you, but if he was, he was doing a damn good job at hiding it.

but that question.

what does ‘romantically involved’ really mean to you?

on one hand, you believed your heart belonged to the lovable, enthusiastic intern who was going to leave in about three weeks.

yet your body resigns itself to another man, one whom you’ve hated nearly half your life, the same man who took younghoon away from you, even if it wasn’t completely his doing.

“uh... define ‘romantically involved’.”

younghoon looks at you with slightly furrowed brows and confused eyes, sending one piece of truffle fry into his mouth.

“...it worries me that you had to ask that. i’ll rephrase it; do you have anybody you’re interested in?”

“well, there’s this really cute intern working at the neuro-research department.”

“intern? he’s younger?”

“age is just a number.”

“fair play.”

the jingle of the bell hanging on the entrance door rings gently, and your eyes travel down to the soup.

“he’s super enthusiastic and there’s just something about him that’s so... comforting. i see him and i think about nothing but sunshine and warmth and laughter. he’s just... so cheerful, compared to whatever i’ve been used to.”

a pause, and you look up at younghoon, your peripheral vision not seeing anybody walk out from the wall you were sitting against.

“he sounds like someone you really want in your life. i’ve known you long enough to know what kind of person you’d might be attracted to. i guess the man’s lucky enough to have attracted someone with a complete opposite personality.”

eric’s face comes to mind, and your heart starts to do tiny flips when you recall the way his eyes fold when he smiles. the warm rumble of his voice when he speaks. the harmony that he sings when he laughs.

“that sounds strange, doesn’t it? we kissed at a party once and--”

“you kissed the intern?”

“it was at a party and we were all slightly drunk--”

“i don’t recall the last time you had enough to be drunk--”

“let me live, younghoon!” you feign a hit across the table, and he chuckles softly, dodging your little attack.

the bell rings again, and a teenage couple walks in this time.

“frankly, i am surprised about one thing,” half his bowl was empty now, and you reach over to jab at some fries with a fork.

“what is it?”

he pushes his air out from his eyes and presses his fingers into his cheek, leaning one elbow on the edge of the table.

“that you didn’t end up with lee hyunjae.”

the scoff that came out garnered the attention of that young couple, but you couldn’t care less.

“lee hyunjae? of all people, why would you think--”

“because he’s the only one who was ever able to be on the same... pedestal as you.”

pedestal. potential. day one.

“without him, i don’t know if you would’ve pushed yourself so hard. i know you always had a thing against your parents not spending enough time with you, i thought you’d break the tradition of becoming a doctor because of that.”

“yeah, well...” the chowder calls out to you. “hyunjae or not, i would’ve become a doctor anyway.”

silence.

it drags on long enough for younghoon to finish nearly the rest of his soup, and there was a weighted feeling of... fear in your chest.

your heart was thumping, though not at a fast pace.

eric’s smile was floating around in your head, but the way younghoon looked at you when he said that name planted a seed inside you.

you worry for awhile if that seed meant anything at all.

“y/n, i have to be honest with you about something...”

the truffle bits melt in your mouth as you sit back.

“i didn’t dump you because i believed you were with the teacher.”

“oh,” a gentle giggle exits through your lips as you lean forward to get another fry. “i know that. you dumped me because you were sick of me always at lee hyunjae’s throat and we were always fighting--”

“no, i dumped you because i knew i wasn’t the person you needed.”

the muscles and nerves in your body halt, and your eyes slowly travel up from the fries to his.

“and i highly doubt this intern is going to be it either.”

the words come together in your head, but they felt so alien on your tongue.

“but you just said that he’s someone i want--”

“i was not what you needed, and he isn’t either. you want him, but you need someone else.”

a gulp pushes itself down your throat and your temples tighten as you pull away from the bowl of fries, and your eyes return to the bowl to finish whatever was left in it.

“i’ve got no clue how neither of you saw it, but there’s literally nobody else better for the two of you than each other.”

your lips either remain entertaining the spoon that was travelling in and out of your mouth, or pursed so tight, you cut off the blood circulation to them.

“the only reason why the two of you could do so well in school was because you had each other to push both ends. i had my fair share of interactions with lee hyunjae, i’m well-aware of the kind of person he is when he’s not trying to get one score higher than you, even when you’ve already scored full marks.”

“do you still want the rest of the fries? i--”

“y/n,” he pulls the leftover fries away from you, and you hiss childishly at his move.

“so don’t listen to me, but you’ve been avoiding talking about lee hyunjae for the last twenty four hours and believe me when i say this, if this was five years ago or any time before that, you wouldn’t have missed a second trying to convince me that he’s the shittiest person on earth.”

“maybe i just decided he’s not worth my time--”

“so why were you wearing a male’s dress shirt yesterday?”

oh, fuck.

“it could’ve been someone el--”

“and the foundation on your neck doesn’t do much under this lighting, especially since it’s been a long day for you.”

your face was heating up not because of the lamp above the table, but the fact that younghoon was able to see right through you.

even you couldn’t see through yourself.

“but whoever said it was him who di--”

“there’s literally nobody who would have the damn guts to do things like that to you besides him. i’m pretty sure not even your sunshine intern would do it if he’s as cheerful as you make him to be.”

stop.

“if it’s anything i learnt about you, it’s that you wouldn’t let a man do anything to show that he claims you.”

please stop talking.

“but someone’s gone ahead and did just that... and when i heard uncle talk about a doctor lee yesterday, it just... hit me.”

stop. talking.

he finally stops and returns you the fries that you no longer had the appetite of finishing.

“so, it wasn’t hyunjae. you haven’t said one bad thing about him since i saw you yesterday. tell me that if this was you five years ago, you would’ve done the same.”

i wouldn’t. because i hated him.

the silence starts to eat you out when the confusion sinks in even further.

why must he say all those things to mess you up even more?

there was nothing he said that wasn’t true, though you wished you could flat out deny everything.

but he’s seen it all without even telling him anything, and you start to wonder if it’s been there all along, but you chose to ignore it.

all you wanted was an aphrodite, but why does she seem like she’s drifting further and further away?

by the time younghoon returns you back to the safety of your house, he was well-aware that the conversation from before had some effect on you, for he pulls you into a tight hug after walking you to your door.

his scent wafts through your nose and you shut your eyes to take it all in.

what would it have been like had hyunjae not torn him away from you?

then again, younghoon was the one who tore himself away from you on his own accord.

“call me if you need anything. anything at all.”

he releases you, hands still on your shoulders.

“i’ll still love you the way i always did, but i know for a fact that i’m not the one you need in your life.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter XVII: Et Universum Parallel

A/N; welcome to hell guys this is where shit starts to roll i hope you guys are ready cause my ass isn’t LMAO.

#the boyz fanfic #the boyz #hyunjae #younghoon #timetohajima hostis

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adoregoldenharry · 5 years

Text

Wrong People Sometimes

A/N: Kinda of stuck in a lot of places right now. Trying to get a few negative thoughts out of my head onto here. Please let me know what you think. lots of love. [not my gif]

Have you ever been in love?

Have you ever felt like meeting the one person that you know in your heart is the last person you will every romantically lay your eyes on?

That was how I felt.

The two of us were singers in a world of media and heartbreak. In a overcrowded city with too many cars, and too much pollution. The city of cameras and red carpets. The city of rumors and regulations, according to where exactly you lived.

In this city I met Harry. He was one of the purest people I had ever met. I mean that mentally of course. I had heard things about him and how experienced he was and that he was no stranger to females in the industry. I didn’t like to look at him from that angle. The same one in which everyone looked at him. He was more than that and I knew it from the moment we both saw each other.

I had met him at a small cafe in Los Angeles where I lived. I was aware he lived there too but I just had never seen him previously.

I remember walking in prepared to order some drink my friend from yoga had been boasting about since our first class. I ordered rather quickly that day hoping not to be seen by anyone because I was tired of trying not to break my body in my morning yoga class. I turned to move out of the way and bumped into someone swishing their coffee from their hands onto the floor.

“I am so sorry, oh my gosh,” I blabbered while reaching for some napkins nearby as I had gotten some of his now spilled drink on his shirt. I felt so bad for ruining this mans nice and very stylish tee shirt. “Don't worry about it love its fine,” a deep voice rumbled through the man. Whether he was singing or having a normal conversation most people would be able to tell who he was. I sure was able to.

“Harry? Harry Styles?” I spoke lowly, not trying to blow anyones cover.

He looked around and then back to me nodding. “Yeah, wait a second. You’re Y/N, I love your new album it’s fucking amazing. Shit sorry,” Harry apologized. I giggled and stuck my hand out to him.

“Thanks, I love yours as well.” He grinned and showed off his immaculately shaped dimples.

We had a short conversation outside after I insisted on buying him a new drink to which he continued to refuse. I bought it for him anyway. We talked a little bit about our busy schedules and upcoming plans for our careers. Something us celebrities usually did upon seeing each other in public, weirdly enough.

After about fifteen minutes we had given out numbers and promised to keep in touch. We absolutely did that.

For months to come we had hung out multiple times every month. From dinners to movie nights in on the couch. Harry was my breath of fresh air. He was the person I chose to spend all of my extra time with and he did the same with me. Or so I had hoped anyway. He was always the first to call and ask if we could see each other. It made me feel like he cared and he wanted me like I had eventually wanted him.

Speculation occurred in the media after so many photos of the two of us spending all this time together circulated. His fans jumped right on it trying to dig up anything they could. Both of us stayed rather quiet about our friendship. We thought it was a little humorous to see what everyone would come up with.

“Wont you just come with me please Y/N. It will be so much fun,” Harry whined. I rested my hands on my hims with a smug smile on my face. It had been about a year and half since the beginning of our close knit friendship.

“Harry I can't, I have to finish up the last couple of tracks at the studio.” I watched his face twist into a pout, making me giggle. He was like a little puppy that wouldn't take no for an answer. He would always do this. Make me drop everything for him, yet I always let it slide.

“Please baby,” Harry whimpered. I tensed up at his words. He had never used that pet name before. Mostly because we have a platonic relationship and because he just hadn't. “Harry I-”

I looked at him before I could finish my sentence I saw that adorable, pleading look on his face. I sighed and nodded. To which Harry jumped up from the couch dancing around my living room carpet. “You are such a doofus.” I agreed to go with him on a two week long trip to Italy for a much needed getaway. Harry said I needed to go because he needed to show me something special he had come across last time he had been.

That two week vacation was everything with him. There was one night in particular that I would never forget but I wish I could. He had taken me around the beautifully lit streets of Venice during the night. We had a candlelit dinner in one of the fanciest restaurants between brick walls.

Harry was acting weird that night. He was fidgeting and his hands would shake here and there. I asked him if he was okay and he told me ‘he would be’.

After the dinner he led me to a small bridge. I leant against the railing looking down on the water where gondolas floated by with people sharing romantic moments. He came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist, resting his chin on my shoulder. I smiled and brought my hand up to his hair playing with his curls. “Come on.”

We walked down to the small dock. I gasped when I realized what we were doing. “Ready?” I nodded stepping in after him into the small boat. A man soothingly singing Italian tunes behind us while steering us down the canal. I giggled and clapped my hands together like a little girl. Harry chuckled at how excited I was. He placed his hand at my side and pulled me close into his side. I looked at him with big eyes. A smirk adorning his beautiful face.

His hand came up to my chin and pulled my face close to his. In a split second our lips met. The second they touched everything changed. I knew that and god did I love it, but I also feared it.

I deepened the kiss and let him hold me.

That night we had become different people. Now that I think of it, it was just me who had changed. We had officially become one that night. It all felt like a fever dream. My life felt perfectly made. I had the career, the money, and the man that I wished for all of my life. I felt like I filled what was missing.

Every night after was like the last. We had come out as a couple not too long after Italy. Everyone seemed to have an idea that this would be coming with how much we had been hanging out before then. The internet ate us up with every moment from when we stepped out of our houses together. Pictures of us slapped onto the internet from all over I smiled every time I saw a cute picture of us smiling and holding hands.

I thought I was in love.

“That’s not where you said you were going,” I huffed. Harry sighed and raked his hands through his hair. “Not this again Y/N.”

“Why not, you drill me about other men. Why can I not do the same?” I took a sip of my water in a glass. Harry was becoming visibly more frustrated with my interrogation. He was pictured roaming around LA with one of his exes. I would not have a problem with it as long as he had told me about it. Yet he decided to ignore the thought I guess.

“Jus’ please get over it okay. It’s done, what do ya want me to do? Text you about it now? I presume not,” Harry stomped to the kitchen. Heading toward the fridge to put his now leftovers away from his secret lunch. “I just don't understand what was so hard about sending me a quick text. I had food made for us here as well. Would’ve saved the serving for another time.”

“Fuck Y/N sorry okay!” Harry shouted making me jump and drop my glass. It shatters all over the floor. I mutter and ‘shit’ and bend down to pick up the shards with a towel laying on the counter. Harry bent down helping me clean up the mess. “I think I'll just head back home now,” I grabbed keys from the dinning table heading towards the door.

“No Y/N wait.” I ignored him gently shutting the door behind me.

Things only got worse from that day. We didn't speak for about two weeks. I was hurt that he didn’t try and contact me all that time. I didn't try to call him either but I assured myself it was because I was busy with my next album. I was missing one more song. I was having the worst writers block.

It was a Friday night and I had been surfing through entertainment channels. I stopped upon one of the more popular ones. They were talking about the latest behind the scene montages for new movies. I hadn’t been paying much attention until they started a new story.

“Has the world’s most loved former boy band singer found another romance? What happened with him and Y/N L/N?”

My heart stopped. They showed pictures of Harry walking down a cobblestone path with a blond in an all too familiar place. One that I had been to months ago, with him. It was her. The one who he had seen at lunch two weeks ago. I almost kept myself together until the next picture dissolved onto the screen.

It was Harry and the girl on a small boat floating down the same canal that we shared our first kiss on. Silent tears fell down my cheeks. I wiped them quickly and sniffled. I stood up with my blanket wrapped around my shoulder. I grabbed my small black notebook and headed up my stairs to my bedroom to let the lyrics flow freely.

I remember getting texts from Harry endlessly that same night. He had seen the news and he wouldn't stop calling. He send message after message saying that he was sorry. That he didn't know what he was thinking by taking her there. Harry said that he regretted every decision he had made that ever ruined us.

I never replied to him.

I turned off my phone and set it on my nightstand.

He may have ruined us, but I wrote a song that would ruin him.

I guess I was never really in love.

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moonwaif · 4 years

Text

Do not waste your pearls for me

Summary: Lan Wangji is rescued by a young human with a talent for woodwind instruments, a gorgeous smile and eyelashes that go on for days.

Or, that one time Wei Wuxian snuck a whole-ass fish person into Lotus Pier.

Words: approx. 9,000

Tags: trauma, abuse, healing, mermaid!lanwangji, wangxian, unresolved romantic tension

Rating: G

(Originally posted on Ao3)

Lan Wangji remembers the hollow echo of agony and death. He remembers the violent jolt of the wreckage, of finally spilling out into open water only to be too weak to swim. Then he remembers the sensation of strong arms wrapped around him, of being torn and tugged until at last breaking through to the cool night air.

Next he remembers a rocking sensation. Coarse cloth. The sound of lapping water. Someone carrying him. Opening his eyes to a ceiling of shadowy wooden beams above him.

After that, he remembers nothing.

These are Lan Wangji’s most recent memories when he regains consciousness. The past, however, is no longer his concern. As his mind clears, so does his understanding of his current situation. He is in a dark room, sitting in a too-small wooden tub filled with water, his fins poking over the edge. He doesn’t know this place. The panic is instant, as is the pain. Gripping the edge of the tub, he tries to raise himself up, tail flopping and splashing wildly.

“Woah, woah--easy there.”

A voice, gentle, speaks from beside him. Lan Wangji’s head spins frantically in its direction. A human man is crouched beside the tub. His hair is long, his face is handsome, and he smiles in a way that Lan Wangji can only assume is meant to be reassuring. Cautiously, eyes never once leaving Lan Wangji’s face, he reaches a hand out towards him.

Droplets fly as Lan Wangji’s arm flashes out of the water, snatching the man’s wrist with the speed of a viper.

The man’s smile falters, but he doesn’t try to pull away. “It’s okay. I don’t want to hurt you.” He raises his other arm, showing the small pouch clutched in his hand. “I need to apply this medicine to your wounds.”

Lan Wangji has heard cautionary tales of jiaoren who had the misfortune of encountering humans—of how they were taken captive and disassembled like furniture, their body parts sold in human apothecaries1. Growing up, he saw peers who wandered too close to the shallows punished and beaten, the elders exchanging one act of cruelty for another in the hope that it would save future lives. So when this man says that he wants to heal Lan Wangji, to help him, Lan Wangji knows it is a lie.

If he were at his full strength, Lan Wangji would blast him with spiritual energy. He’d drag himself from this washtub, strangle the man to death, scratch out his eyes--anything to get away. But he has spent the last several days and nights sitting in a barrel of his own fetid water. He’s been beaten and drugged. The gash in his fin burns, enough to distract him from the numerous other wounds on his body. Even if he did somehow manage to make it back to the lake, he doubts he could even swim.

Eyes narrowed, Lan Wangji reluctantly loosens his fingers.

The man laughs stiffly. He flexes his wrist. “Damn--your grip is like a vice! Just try to relax, okay? I promise I won’t hurt you.”

Lan Wangji's entire body is rigid, eyes tracking the man's hand as it draws closer. He prepares himself for an attack, but none comes. The man merely presses his fingers to a wound on Lan Wangji's chest. The paste he gently massages in feels soothing and cool. Lan Wangji's tension slowly melts into confusion.

Is this human really trying to heal him?

Lan Wangji knows this can't bode well. Perhaps the man is trying to cure him for some sinister purpose. Maybe he intends to keep Lan Wangji alive in captivity, to force him to weave jiao xiao sha or produce pearls like some sort of livestock2. Or maybe he wants to sell him to a rich noble as an exotic house pet, like his original captors had planned on doing. But the pleasant sensation of the man's ministrations gradually stills the flow of Lan Wangji's anxious thoughts. By the time the man reaches his torn fins, Lan Wangji has slumped back into the washtub in a state of half-miserable, half-relieved stupor.

He's too tired to be afraid anymore.

"These wounds may take some time to heal," the man explains. "Especially the one on your fin. It looks infected. It's best if you stay here for a while. Ah, are you cold? You're shaking. Your fever is still pretty high, so I can't warm up the water too much, but a little should be all right . . ."

Still babbling, the man reaches into his robes and pulls out a slip of something that looks like very thin, fragile cloth. There is writing on it, but Lan Wangji doesn't get a chance to read it. The man slaps it on the side of the washtub, and the water suddenly heats up. A soft moan passes through Lan Wangji's lips.

The man's face breaks into a smile. Lan Wangji is dazed by how bright and genuine it is.

'So lovely,' he thinks groggily. 'Is this another kind of medicine?'

¤¤¤¤¤¤

Lan Wangji spends the next several days tormented by strange dreams. Sometimes he is back on the smugglers' ship, and they're dissecting him alive. Sometimes he sits cradled on his mother's lap, her hands guiding his as she teaches him to weave jiao xiao sha, her whisper warm against his ear, 'Like this, A-Zhan.' Sometimes it's that human boy, laughing and smiling and talking about who knows what. Other times it's the sensation of cool water running down his throat, or a spoonful of warm, salty liquid passing through his lips. And then sometimes it's gentle music, a kind that Lan Wangji has never heard before. It reminds him of birdsong, or the whistling dolphins he heard the one time he traveled far from the lake with his brother, when they followed the hidden channels and ventured out to sea.

"You snuck back a whole-ass fish person!"

These half-whispered, half-shouted words abruptly wrench Lan Wangji back into the present and anchor him there. His eyes snap open. He is still in the same room, in the same washtub. The same young man is also there. This time, however, he is accompanied by another human, one in purple robes and bearing a scowl that immediately sets Lan Wangji on edge.

"Do you have any idea what would happen if my parents found out about this?" the second man continues in a strained voice. "They'd beat you until the discipline stick cracked in half!"

The first man sighs. "Jiang Cheng. You worry too much. Entire days have passed since I first hid him here, and so far no one else has found out. You really think people would wait this long to get suspicious? Everything will be fine. We just need to act like nothing is out of the ordinary."

The man named Jiang Cheng seems unconvinced. In fact, his eyes look like they are about to bulge out of his skull. "Wei Wuxian--!"

"Shh! If you keep shouting, someone will definitely hear. Is that what you want?"

Jiang Chiang's face screws up like he's chewing sour eels, but he doesn't protest further. Wei Wuxian, apparently satisfied, turns away. His eyes land on Lan Wangji.

'Oh,' Lan Wangji thinks. 'That smile again . . .'

"You're awake!" Wei Wuxian declares. He scampers over to the washtub and plops down on the floor, crossing his legs. "Did you rest well? How are you feeling?"

Lan Wangji purses his lips. He glances at Jiang Cheng, who's eying him with equal wariness, then back at Wei Wuxian, whose smile fades in the ongoing silence. He coughs lightly, then reaches for a tray on the low table beside him.

"My shijie made some soup for you earlier. It's still warm--mostly. Are you hungry, young fish lord?"

Lan Wangj bristles. Young fish lord ?! Jiang Cheng, meanwhile, snorts.

"Why do you bother talking? He probably doesn't even speak our language."

"You don't know that! Besides, what kind of host would I be if I didn't try to make pleasant conversation? Fish brother," he says, and Lan Wangji's eyes harden in the fiercest glare he can muster, "would you like some soup?"

He holds up the tray, mimics eating from the bowl. Lan Wangji stares coldly.

Wei Wuxian's face scrunches up in a disappointed pout. He sets the tray back on the table. "Maybe later, then. Oh, I still haven't introduced myself. My name is Wei Ying, courtesy name Wei Wuxian. But you can just call me Wei Ying if that's easier. Wei Ying. Wei Ying. Got it?"

No one has spoken to Lan Wangji in such a condescending tone since he was a small child. His webbed fingers clench into fists.

"This guy over here is my shidi, Jiang Cheng," Wei Wuxian continues. "Courtesy name Jiang Wanyin. His parents are the leaders of the Jiang clan, and this is their headquarters--Lotus Pier. Fish brother, you must have really great luck, because the Yunmeng Jiang sect is definitely the best cultivation sect in the human world. Trust me, you're in great hands."

Lan Wangji knows of the Yunmeng Jiang sect. His brother Lan Xichen, as well as several other high-level members of the Lan sect, occasionally disguise themselves and venture out into the human world to trade for goods. Even more importantly, they gather information. Unlike most freshwater jiaoren, who have long since been driven out from their natural habitats by human settlements, the Lan jiaoren of Yunmeng lake have managed to survive thanks to the careful tabs they keep on the local human activity. This activity of course includes the Yunmeng Jiang sect. Now, sitting in a washtub at Lotus Pier, Lan Wangji releases tension in his shoulders that he didn't even know he was holding.

When he’d been trapped on the smuggler’s boat, he wasn’t sure how far he had traveled or where to. Now he's so close to home, he can taste it. Maybe this situation isn't completely hopeless after all. Maybe, just maybe, he'll make it out alive.

"Those smugglers . . . They did bad things to you, didn't they?"

Wei Wuxian's voice is low. A burning sensation builds in the back of Lan Wangji's throat. He blinks, and blinks again, then looks away. This non-response seems to confirm something for Wei Wuxian, because his expression grows suddenly angry. He makes what must be an attempt at a chuckle, but it comes off as a cold sneer.

"Don't worry. They're in a place where they can't bother you anymore--or anyone else, for that matter."

The edge in his voice takes Lan Wangji off-guard. Wei Wuxian’s face quickly softens back into a reassuring smile.

"I managed to salvage some things from the wreckage," he says. "I've been wanting to show them to you, but you wouldn't wake up!"

He stands and walks over to a long, flat chest in the corner. Lan Wangji's curiosity stirs. He wonders, as well as hopes, until Wei Wuxian finally finishes rummaging. He holds up what Lan Wangji knows is a neatly folded robe. He knows because he recognizes the fabric. It is white, translucent like a pearl--the same color as Lan Wangji's scales. Pale aqua embroidery shimmers on the edges.

"Are these yours?" Wei Wuxian asks, and Lan Wangji is barely able to stop himself from nodding. "Either way, you should put some clothes on."

Horror pierces Lan Wangji like a spear. Amidst all the chaos, he's overlooked the most obvious: he is completely naked in front of two strangers!

Lan Wangji crosses his arms and sinks beneath the water in a desperate attempt to cover himself. Wei Wuxian smirks and lays the robe on the edge of the tub. Lan Wangji waits until he has finished strolling back over to the chest before snatching up his clothing and yanking it on. It's difficult to wrap the layers around himself in such a confined space, but he does manage to make himself somewhat decent.

"Oi, Wei Wuxian. What do you think you're doing?"

Jiang Cheng, who up until this point has been hovering like an irritable mother duck, rushes forward. Lan Wangji's gaze follows him, and what he sees fills him with a mixture of shock, then relief, then confusion, and finally anger.

Clasped in Wei Wuxian's grubby, human hands is none other than Lan Wangji's sword, Bichen.

"I'm giving him his sword back," Wei Wuxian answers easily. "Why? Do you feel left out because I don't have any gifts for you, too?"

"Why the hell would you give him a weapon?!"

Wei Wuxian rolls his eyes. "Really, Jiang Cheng? We're the two prides of Yunmeng. He's a half-dead fish person. Sword or not, you really don't think we could take him?"

Jiang Cheng grits his teeth. He darts a sharp look in Lan Wangji's direction, sizing him up. Lan Wangji tries to inject as much hatred into his expression as he can muster.

"Fine,” Jiang Cheng relents, “but don’t come crying to me when he drags himself across the floor to slit your throat! What makes you so sure it's his, anyway? Those thieves could have stolen it from anyone.”

Wei Wuxian leans forward conspiratorially. He raises the sword for Jiang Cheng to better see, and just barely unsheathes the blade. Bile rises in Lan Wangji’s throat. This Wei Ying--how dare he!

“See?” Wei Wuxian whispers. “Look at the blade.”

Jiang Cheng blinks. “Is that . . . ?”

“Mhm. Pearl.”

Jiang Cheng reaches out, caressing the blade with his fingertips. “How unusual . . .”

An indignant splash draws their attention. Lan Wangji is sitting ramrod straight in the washtub, his eyes like smoldering coals. Chuckling sheepishly, Wei Wuxian sheathes the sword.

“Here,” he says, laying it on the low table. “Just don’t try to kill me, all right? I spent so long trying to heal you. If we fight, I’ll be forced to injure you, and all that time will be wasted. Now I have just one more thing of yours, but I think it might be broken. I swear it wasn’t me, though! It was like that when I found it.”

This “thing” Wei Wuxian turns out to be Lan Wangji’s guqin. Just seeing Wangji laid out on the table beside Bichen is enough to make a warm, pleasant ache blossom across Lan Wangji’s chest.

“How is it broken?” Jiang Cheng asks. “It looks fine to me.”

Wei Wuxian plucks a string. Lan Wangji darts a glare in his direction. Jiang Cheng, meanwhile, frowns.

“Why is there no sound?”

Wei Wuxian shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe the tuning got messed up, or the instrument was damaged somehow. Either way none of the strings will make a sound.”

Lan Wangji’s nostrils flare. If he wanted to, he could explain away their confusion. But he doesn’t want to, so he sits in silence as they babble speculatively. In the meantime he tries to puzzle out what Wei Wuxian can possibly mean by returning Lan Wangji’s belongings. All three would fetch a pretty price. Why not try to pawn them, or hoard them in a treasury? And if Wei Wuxian means to sell Lan Wangji or imprison him, why offer him a weapon?

None of it makes sense.

Lost in thought, Lan Wangji’s gaze wanders. Suddenly, he spots something familiar. He leans forward so quickly that water sloshes over the side of the washtub.

There, lying on the floor just in front of the open chest, is the Lan clan forehead ribbon!

Wei Wuxian follows his gaze. Spotting the ribbon, he bends down to retrieve it, crumpling the fabric in his hand. Lan Wangji’s stomach curls and his ears grow hot. Wei Wuxian, however, is blissfully unaware of having violated any taboo. He even has the audacity to look a bit pleased with himself as he holds the ribbon out to Lan Wangji.

“Is this yours? Sorry, it must have fallen out of your robes when--”

Lan Wangji wrenches the ribbon away with such vehemence that he nearly scratches Wei Wuxian. Startled, Wei Wuxian backs away.

“Fish brother!” he exclaims. “I’m trying to help you. Do you really have to be so rude?”

Lan Wangji stares hard at the ribbon clutched in his hand. He has always been brought up to honor the sincerity and generosity of others. Now, acting so fearful and suspicious, he is ashamed of his own behavior.

Wei Wuxian, however, has already recovered. “That’s all I was able to find. Sorry again about your guqin. Maybe when you get back home, the other jiaoren can fix it for you.”

Lan Wangji looks up at Wei Wuxian, so stunned that he accidentally lets the cold mask slip from his face. When you get back home?

Jiang Cheng nudges Wei Wuxian’s shoulder. “Come on. We’ve been gone long enough. If we don’t go back, they’ll notice.”

Wei Wuxian nods in agreement. Both of them shoot uneasy glances Lan Wangji’s way. Wei Wuxian, however, is the only one to actually speak.

“I have to leave now. I’ll be back later to change your water. Don’t do anything stupid. Okay, fish brother?”

He speaks slowly, with elaborate gestures. Lan Wangji, of course, says nothing.

Jiang Cheng sighs, shakes his head. “Come on,” he says again, and drags Wei Wuxian from the room.

Alone, Lan Wangji sinks into the water. Wei Wuxian’s words reverberate in his mind with aching persistence: when you get back home.

Could this human truly mean to release him?

¤¤¤¤¤¤

Over the next couple of days, Wei Wuxian visits regularly. He comes in the morning, before the sun has risen. He comes midday, clothes rumpled and stinking of sweat. And then he comes once more at night. Each time he always brings something, never once empty-handed. Sometimes it's drinking water and fresh fruit, sometimes porridge or a more flavorful dish. Although Lan Wangji never reacts, Wei Wuxian seems to enjoy introducing him to new human foods.

"Wow, you really cleaned out that last bowl! So you like steamed wuchang fish after all, eh? Fish brother, you really are lucky to end up in Yunmeng. Just think, you could've gotten stuck in a different part of the human world where the people eat boring food, haha! My shijie is making rib and lotus root soup tonight. I'll definitely save some for you! If you liked the last dish, just you wait . . ."

Lan Wangji still isn't sure how he feels about human cuisine. Some of the spices are a bit too strong for his liking. In truth, he is homesick for the plain, reed broths of his own home. But Lan Wangji has always been taught not to waste food, and he has to admit, there is something comforting about being looked after so conscientiously.

One day, Wei Wuxian brings a bottle of oil and a comb.

"For your hair," he explains, running the comb through his own locks to demonstrate. The movement is charming, as is the little awkward laugh that follows it. Lan Wangi’s tongue suddenly feels too thick for his mouth. He realizes he’s staring, and Wei Wuxian must realize it too, because his cheeks redden slightly. But then Wei Wuxian is striding over to the washtub, his gait confident and without a care in the world.

“I thought you might want to spruce up a bit,” he says. “No offense but you’re looking a little rough these days.”

Lan Wangji has never been a vain person, as pride in one’s own physical appearance is forbidden by the Lan sect. He is, however, fastidiously disciplined in keeping himself neat and orderly. He glances at the long, knotted strands of hair hanging over his shoulders and feels a wave of dismay. Has he ever neglected his own appearance this long before? Why didn’t Wei Wuxian say something sooner?

“Not that you look bad or anything,” Wei Wuxian says quickly. “You’re still the most handsome fish brother out there. If it weren’t for me, you’d probably be the most handsome person in Yunmeng, too.”

He laughs at his own joke, face splitting into a wide grin. Lan Wangji, momentarily distracted from his own self-inspection, swallows thickly. On the one hand, he is disgusted by Wei Wuxian’s vanity. On the other, he is . . . unsettled. This Wei Wuxian with his long, unruly and yet somehow silky black hair; his sharp, mischievous features; and his hard, lean physique under purple robes--this Wei Wuxian thinks Lan Wangji is handsome.

‘He’s just joking,’ Lan Wangji scolds himself harshly. ‘Don’t let mere teasing put you in turmoil.’

But Lan Wangji can’t help but startle when Wei Wuxian lifts a strand of his hair, fingertips barely brushing the ends of his forehead ribbon. Panicking, Lan Wangji smacks the hand away. Wei Wuxian grumbles something about “only trying to help,” but doesn’t try to touch him again.

When Lan Wangji finishes combing his own hair, Wei Wuxian brings him a bronze hand mirror. Lan Wangji almost expects to see a different face staring back at him, but no--the reflection is his own. It’s strange, to have gone through so much and yet somehow still be the same person. Strange, and grounding.

Wei Wuxian props an elbow on the edge of the tub. “See? Now you’re definitely the handsomest.”

¤¤¤¤¤¤

As more time passes, Wei Wuxian continues to talk to Lan Wangji. He talks about Lotus Pier. He describes what the pavilion looks like, as well as the training field. He describes the number of disciples, who is who and what they’re good at. He tells Lan Wangji about the tiny mishaps that occur during that day’s practice, such as Jiang Cheng accidentally stepping in a pile of horse shit on their way to the archery range (Lan Wangji isn’t sure what a horse is, but apparently it takes massive shits). He tells Lan Wangji, in great detail, of his own prowess with the blade and bow. He shows him his sword--“Suibian,” Wei Wuxian says proudly, and Lan Wangji gives him a blank expression, because nothing would surprise him at this point--and even twirls it around, showing off a few moves.

As he talks, Wei Wuxian is hardly ever still. Sometimes he is crouched at the low table, preparing food or medicine. Other times he is pacing, gesturing animatedly. And then sometimes, when it’s late and everyone in Lotus Pier has already gone to bed, Wei Wuxian pulls open one of the screen doors to let in some fresh air. Leaned against the doorframe, either standing or sitting with his long legs stretched out, Wei Wuxian continues speaking. His profile is sharp in the moonlight, the lake black in the distance behind him. Sometimes he has a jar of wine with him, which he always offers to Lan Wangji, who always silently refuses. Other times he brings out a small, black musical instrument--something he tells Lan Wangji is a dizi. Lan Wangji closes his eyes as Wei Wuxian plays, letting the music carry him far from this small shed, far over the lake, into the sky with its last fading notes. But sometimes he keeps his eyes open to watch Wei Wuxian; watches his legs--how they cross or uncross, raise, bend, lie flat--or watches his face. He’s never seen someone whose smile could look so sad, who with a tilt of their head could almost beckon hither. ‘Come,’ his closed eyes seem to say. ‘Listen to my song, and I will tell you . . . I will tell you . . .’

Lan Wangji is not sure who he prefers: this still, pensive Wei Wuxian, or the Wei Wuxian who skips and bounds, who laughs with sincerity and without restraint.

In addition to talking and telling, Wei Wuxian asks questions. He does it in odd places, almost like he’s trying to trick Lan Wangji into answering. “It’s the season for lotus pods. I think I should steal some from the neighbors. What do you think, fish brother?” Or, “I can’t believe Jiang Yanli is still gonna marry that peacock! I really can’t stand it, fish brother. Even if he prayed for five thousand years, Jin Zixuan wouldn’t come close to deserving my shijie. By the way fish brother, what’s your name?”

Lan Wangji considers answering. Is there really any harm in it? But the thought of talking to Wei Wuxian after having stayed silent for so long makes his stomach roll. He feels a little ridiculous, really. So Wei Wuxian talks, and Lan Wangji continues to listen. It can be annoying, especially if Lan Wangji is trying to eat. A few times Lan Wangji closes his eyes and pretends to fall asleep just so Wei Wuxian will shut up. He even considers using the silencing spell. But after a while, Lan Wangji grows to expect it. Eventually, he stops noticing altogether.

And then one day, Wei Wuxian does not talk at all.

He arrives at night, later than usual. Lan Wangji straightens in his tub, waits for the customary greeting and subsequent tirade of small talk, but none comes. Wei Wuxian simply brings the tray in his hands over to the small table. He doesn’t once meet Lan Wangji’s gaze.

Lan Wangji’s concern is instantaneous. He scrutinizes Wei Wuxian’s face, observes the dark circles under his eyes, the dryness of his lips, the flush of his forehead and cheeks. Has he fallen ill? If so, he should be resting, not taking care of Lan Wangji. Or perhaps something has happened to a member of the Jiang family Wei Wuxian cares so much about. Or maybe he suffered an injury during training. Or--

Wei Wuxian suddenly leans over, interrupting Lan Wangji’s thoughts with a steaming bowl of soup. During this exchange, their eyes finally meet. Wei Wuxian blinks, taken aback, then offers up a weak smile.

“Sorry--I’m just tired today,” he says gently. “Are you hungry? I hope I didn’t make you wait too long.”

Lan Wangji feels the muscles in his jaw relax. He looks down at the bowl in his hands, pretending to be interested in its contents. Wei Wuxian watches him for a moment, then lays both forearms on the edge of the tub, chin drooping until it is propped atop them.

“It’s kind of embarrassing, actually,” he mumbles. Lan Wangji glances at him from the corner of his eye. “I got in trouble this morning for talking back to Madam Yu. Jiang Fengmian is away at a discussion conference, so she beat me a little bit and then made me kneel in the hall of the ancestors for hours. What am I, a little kid?”

Lan Wangji uses the spoon to scoop up some broth and vegetables, but he doesn’t really feel hungry anymore.

“Actually, fish brother . . .”

Lan Wangji glances at Wei Wuxian more fully this time. Wei Wuxian’s lip quirks, somewhere between a grimace and a smile.

“I have a confession,” he says sheepishly. “Since you can’t understand me, it’s okay if I just tell you, right? When I got in trouble today, I caused some problems for Jiang Cheng and shijie. I felt really bad about it, so when Madam Yu released me from the Ancestral Hall, I snuck a jar of wine back to my room and drank it all. Then I took another jar and I drank that, too. That’s why I was late bringing you dinner. I really am a bad caretaker, aren’t I? Please forgive me, fish brother. I promise to do better in the future . . .”

He trails off in a yawn. Lan Wangji is feeling less sympathetic now. He gives Wei Wuxian an exasperated look, but Wei Wuxian’s eyes aren’t open to see it. Even so, he continues talking, his voice an exhausted slur.

“Do you miss your family, fish brother? What am I saying, of course you do. They must miss you, too. You’ve been away for so long now. Don’t worry--you should be able to go home soon. You’re getting better every day . . . You’re doing a really great job . . .”

Lan Wangji sniffs--the closest thing he’ll allow himself to a chuckle. But he’s not really sure he finds anything about this situation funny.

Wei Wuxian snores softly while Lan Wangji drinks his stew. He’s still snoring when Lan Wangji leans over the edge of the tub to set the empty bowl on the floor. Lan Wangji wonders if he should wake him. As he ponders, a crease forms between Wei Wuxian’s brows. A shudder runs through his shoulders. Is it cold, Lan Wangji wonders? It’s hard for him to tell, with all of the warming talismans Wei Wuxian leaves plastered to the washtub. Lan Wangji hesitates, then slowly begins to remove his outer robe. Weaved from jiao xiao sha, the fabric is dry, despite having been in the water all day. He lays it across Wei Wuxian’s shoulders. The crease between his brows smooths. Satisfied, Lan Wangji settles back. He watches Wei Wuxian for a while, then lets his own eyes slip shut.

When Lan Wangji awakens in the morning, Wei Wuxian is gone, and the robe is folded neatly on the low table beside a bowl of porridge.

¤¤¤¤¤¤

When the door opens that afternoon, Lan Wangji expects a chagrined Wei Wuxian to greet him. Instead it’s Jiang Cheng.

The look he gives Lan Wangji as he slams the tray down on the table is anything but friendly. He doesn’t say anything, either. Lan Wangji wants to ask him why Wei Wuxian isn’t here--if he got sick or if he was punished again. But his aversion towards this arrogant human is far greater than his curiosity, so he remains silent.

Before he leaves, Jiang Cheng pauses at the door.

“Wei Wuxian may trust you,” he snaps, whirling around, “but I don’t. And if you do anything to hurt him, I’ll chop your fins off and fry them! G-got it?!”

His threat is undermined by the slight stammer at the end. Reddening, Jiang Cheng whirls on his heel and slams the door behind him.

Lan Wangji takes a moment to process this. Him, hurt Wei Wuxian? How? His sword, of course, is still kept within arm’s reach, but what motive could he possibly possess? Despite his confusion, Lan Wanji can’t help but feel that this interaction serves as a reminder. He and Wei Wuxian are not the same, and Lan Wangji will never truly be safe here. He’s let himself get too comfortable.

Lan Wangji is still brooding when the door opens again that evening. This time it actually is Wei Wuxian. He’s carrying a large bucket of fresh water and a satchel slung over his shoulder.

The satchel is moving.

Wei Wuxian sets the bucket of water down with a grunt. “Sorry I’m late! Did Jiang Cheng give you trouble?”

Lan Wangji’s eyes narrow, staring pointedly at the satchel. Wei Wuxian grins.

“Hehe. So you noticed, huh? Do you want to see what’s inside?”

Without waiting for an answer, Wei Wuxian crouches down and removes the satchel. He opens it just barely. Intrigued, Lan Wangji peers inside.

Two red, beady eyes blink back at him from within the softest, furriest white face he’s ever seen.

“I brought a friend!” Wei Wuxian declares. He scoops the creature out, holding it up for Lan Wangji to see. “Isn’t it cute? Have you ever seen one of these, fish brother? It’s called a rabbit. That peacock brought some for my shijie today to keep as pets. Hmph. Such a suck-up. But that’s why I was late. I was helping shijie take care of them. It’s so soft! Feel.”

Lan Wangji’s hand, which up until this point has been gripping the edge of the tub, is suddenly snatched up by Wei Wuxian. A strangled protest rises and dies in Lan Wangji’s throat. Wei Wuxian’s fingers are rough and warm, like driftwood in the sun. He guides Lan Wangji’s hand, pressing it gently against the creature’s back. The rabbit, too, is warm, but also shivery and frail beneath its fur. The pink eyes swivel in Lan Wangji’s direction. Its nose twitches. Lan Wangji strokes it softly, slowly, afraid of startling it away.

‘What strange fins it has,’ he thinks. The back fins are long--almost as longs as its entire body. Lan Wangji suddenly realizes that he has never seen Wei Wuxian’s fins. They are always covered in dark leather boots. What must they look like?

He suddenly feels Wei Wuxian’s eyes on him. He’s watching closely, an absent-minded smile on his lips. The expression is too fond, too open. It makes Lan Wangji’s stomach twist.

“Do you want to hold it?” Wei Wuxian asks.

Lan Wangji cradles the rabbit in his arms while Wei Wuxian empties the tub and changes out the water. This procedure is always an ordeal. The first time it happened, Wei Wuxian had actually carried Lan Wangji out of the tub.

"I'm going to pick you up now," he'd said, entirely serious, and Lan Wangji had been so aghast he'd almost asked Wei Wuxian if he'd lost his damn mind. The next thing he knew one arm was around his waist, fingers digging into his ribs as Wei Wuxian pulled him up and out of the tub. When he actually slid his other arm beneath Lan Wangji's tail--the space right below his rump--Lan Wangji almost threw up. It was humiliating to be so defenseless, to be manhandled so easily. It was revolting. It was exhilarating. It was the smell of freshly washed skin, of wine and citrus. It was being close enough to see a blemish on Wei Wuxian's chin, to see the shadow cast by his long eyelashes.

Ever since then, Lan Wangji climbs out of the tub by himself, even if he has to drag himself across the floor like a literal fish out of water. It doesn't stop the thoughts though--the thoughts of Wei Wuxian, and how it felt to be in his arms.

Wei Wuxian always has to make multiple trips before the tub is refilled. It never seems to bother him, though. Today he is in an especially good mood, humming to himself and sneaking Lan Wangji amused glances as he passes to and fro.

“There!” he says at last, smacking the side of the washtub. He sets the empty bucket down and plops onto the floor beside Lan Wangji, huffing and puffing dramatically. Their shoulders brush.

“That little guy really likes you,” Wei Wuxian says after a moment’s pause. “I think he might like you even more than me. After I fed him all those carrots, too! Hmph. So ungrateful.”

Wei Wuxian tugs on the rabbit’s whiskers, making a face. Lan Wangji hesitates. Does Wei Wuxian covet the rabbit? Perhaps these creatures are of some great significance to humans. Jiang Yanli’s suitor did bring them as gifts, after all. Lan Wangji may have been greedy, keeping it to himself for too long. Hesitantly, Lan Wangji leans forward. Wei Wuxian’s face goes momentarily blank with surprise, hands instinctively raising to take the rabbit as Lan Wangji passes it over to him. Lan Wangji then sits back, watching Wei Wuxian’s face carefully for a reaction. A moment passes, and then Wei Wuxian snorts. His face is amused, like Lan Wangji has just told a funny but particularly ridiculous joke.

“Er, thanks, fish brother. You’re very thoughtful.”

Lan Wangji gazes upon Wei Wuxian’s smile just a fraction longer than necessary before dropping his eyes back down to the rabbit. Thankfully Wei Wuxian doesn’t seem to notice. He’s already talking again.

“Do you like animals, fish brother? If so, I can bring the rabbit to visit you again tomorrow. Although maybe I shouldn’t. If I do that, he might start to get attached, and then he’ll be sad once you’re gone. He’ll probably stop eating. That’d be no good. If he stops eating, he’ll get too thin, and then he won’t be as tasty.”

Lan Wangji’s eyes snap back to Wei Wuxian’s face in shock. The mischievous twinkle in Wei Wuxian’s eye brightens.

“This guy is gonna make a really good rabbit stew. Do you want to try it, fish brother? I’ll tell shijie to make it tomorrow so you can--”

“No!"

Wei Wuxian nearly drops the rabbit. Lan Wangji freezes. His voice sounds strange to his own ears after so many days of disuse. He swallows thickly, afraid to look at Wei Wuxian but also afraid to look away. The room fills with the chirps of crickets and the lapping of distant lake water.

Wei Wuxian bursts out laughing.

“Seriously?!” he croaks. “You could understand me all this time? Fish brother! Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

Lan Wangji averts his gaze. “You wouldn’t stop talking.”

Wei Wuxian snorts.

The conversation that follows lasts long into the night. Wei Wuxian wants to know everything about Lan Wangji.

"What's your name?"

For some reason, he does not want to reveal his courtesy name. "Lan Zhan."

"So your surname is Lan? Is your family big? Are there a lot of Lans?"

" . . . Yes."

"Hmm. I thought so. With your sword and guqin, there's no way you didn't come from some fancy cultivation clan. So . . ." Wei Wuxian scoots closer. Both he and the rabbit stare fixedly back at Lan Wangji. "Is your home far from here? Do you live in the lake? It's the lake isn't it? I always knew there was something strange about Yunmeng Lake! Are there a lot of you? How many?"

Lan Wangji frowns. Sighing, Wei Wuxian relents.

"It's a secret? Fine, I get it, I get it." He tugs on the rabbit's ear. It wiggles fiercely against his chest, trying to escape. "Oh! Fish broth-- I mean, Lan Zhan. Is it true that your kind weaves jiao xiao sha? Is that how your robe always stays dry?"

This seems like a harmless enough question. Lan Wangji gives a curt nod. "Mn."

"Wow . . ." Wei Wuxian fingers the edge of Lan Wangji's sleeve with his free hand. Lan Wangji's entire arm starts to tingle. Wei Wuxian must notice him bristle, because he lets go, his broad, goofy grin somewhat apologetic.

"So the legend is true," he says thoughtfully. "Y'know, a guy lost a bet to me one time. He didn't have any money, but he said he could give me a cloak made of jiao xiao sha. But when it rained, that thing got soaked! It had a nice color, though, so I gave it to shijie." He bounces the rabbit on his lap, considering. "Ah! What about the other legends, like being able to transform? I thought jiaoren could disguise themselves as people so they could walk on land."

Lan Wangji looks away. "Some do."

" . . . But not you?"

"It is an arduous process. One must learn3."

"Then you should hurry up and learn! That way, you can come back to visit, and I can show you the world outside of this shed. I'll take you to the training grounds--we can even spar, haha. I'll show you other animals too, like horses, and cats. No dogs though."

"What are dogs?"

"Er, not important, don't worry about it. But Lan Zhan, I'll take you to all the best places to eat, too! There's so much good food in the human world, you won't be able to stand up after we try it all."

"To transform and enter the human world, one must first receive permission."

Wei Wuxian scowls. "Whatever. Just sneak out. We'll have so much fun, it'll be worth it, I promise!"

Lan Wangji's voice is firm. "No. This is one of the Lan sect's three thousand rules."

"Three--three thousand?!" Wei Wuxian stammers. "How is that even possible?"

Lan Wangji doesn't understand his surprise. "Do human cultivation sects not have rules?"

"Well yeah, but not three thousand of them. Lan Zhan, you must have lived a sheltered life so far. You really, really need to come back to Lotus Pier one day. I'll show you the better things in life."

Lan Wangji tries to imagine himself in a human body, exploring alongside Wei Wuxian. His chest aches for it.

"Not interested," he says.

There's a spark of genuine hurt in Wei Wuxian's disgruntled face. He leans back slightly, poking at the rabbit's chubby cheeks.

"Fine. You're definitely missing out, though! I could introduce you to some really pretty girls. If you think jiaoren girls are beautiful, just wait until you see human ones! Especially the girls in Yunmeng, haha. We have the prettiest and handsomest people of all."

"Ridiculous," Lan Wangji grits out.

"Eh? Why?" Wei Wuxian bats his eyelashes. "Aren't I good looking?"

Words tangle in Lan Wangji's throat. He glares, the muscles in his face growing tighter and tighter. Wei Wuxian drops the act. He laughs, nose wrinkling in a way that reminds Lan Wangji of the rabbit.

'Cute,' Lan Wangji realizes, and the revelation leaves him breathless.

Wei Wuxian’s questions are infinite. He asks about Lan Wangji's family--"uncle and brother"--but is kind enough to refrain from prying after his parents. He wants to know what the food is like, and each time Lan Wangji describes a dish--"reeds and raw salmon, snails boiled with fungus"--he exclaims how much he wants to try it.

"Even though it sounds a little bland," he admits. "Don't worry. I'll give you spices to take home. But, Lan Zhan--is it really true that you guys eat humans?”

For some reason this question stings. “Don’t be absurd.”

Wei Wuxian shrugs. “That’s just what I heard some people say--that jiaoren eat humans4. So it’s not true?”

“ . . . I don’t know,” Lan Wangji admits grudgingly. “Perhaps some do.”

“But not your sect?”

“No.”

Wei Wuxian’s grin brightens. “Ha! I knew it. Jiang Cheng was wrong.”

He asks more about Lan Wangji's home--what it's called, what it looks like. He closes his eyes as Lan Wangji describes the white limestone walls, the schools of carp glinting through forests of long, wavering lotus stems. He doesn’t mention the tunnels, or the caves and springs hidden beneath the bottom of the lake. These are secrets that must be guarded.

“Sounds really nice,” Wei Wuxian whispers. “What about the girls? Are they pretty? Haha, don’t look so angry. I’m only teasing.”

He of course also asks about cultivation methods. Lan Wangji is less recalcitrant on this topic. It is, after all, possible to give Wei Wuxian some basic information without revealing the Lan sect’s methodology.

“Qin,” he says. “And blade.”

“So your guqin is a spiritual weapon!” Wei Wuxian realizes. “Is that why it won’t make any sound when I play it? Does it have to be played by you?”

“No.”

"Oh." Wei Wuxian is crestfallen. "So it is broken."

"It can be played," Lan Wangji says, after a brief spell of deliberation. "But only underwater."

He looks up and holds Wei Wuxian's gaze. The silence between them is somber. Wei Wuxian's eyes flicker toward his tail. The gash in the fin is now a jagged patch of rough, newly woven flesh. He gives Lan Wangji a sad smile.

"If I take you back to the lake, will you play for me?"

¤¤¤¤¤¤

Lan Wangji watches as the faint lights of Lotus Pier recede with the shore. On the boat, a lantern hangs from a pole, illuminating the lake's rippling surface. They pass clusters of water hyacinths and water lilies. Wei Wuxian plucks a blossom and tucks it behind Lan Wangji's ear. Face twisted, Lan Wangji flings it into the bottom of the boat. Wei Wuxian responds with raucous laughter.

Occasionally they stop to pick lotus pods. Wei Wuxian eats the seeds slowly, lingering as if on purpose, until the barest edges of the horizon glow a pale, pre-dawn grey.

"Wei Ying," Lan Wangji murmurs.

Wei Wuxian pauses mid-chew. Resigned, he drops the lotus pod and lifts the oar. He rows with the grace and assurance of one who knows these waters.

"'Vast sea, bright moon,'" he bellows suddenly. "'The pearl has tears5.' Lan Zhan, don't cry too much if you miss me. You shouldn't waste your pearls."

Wei Wuxian has been rowing for some time when Lan Wangji finally speaks.

"Stop."

Wei Wuxian complies. Without further ado, Lan Wangji plunges over the side of the boat and into the water.

The boat rocks violently in his wake. Wei Wuxian grips the side, bewildered. A second passes, and then Lan Wangji reemerges a good distance away. Wei Wuxian's face relaxes. Lan Wangji dives underwater, hardly leaving a ripple behind as he swims back over to the boat, his tail like a long, white ribbon waving in the current.

"Ok, ok. I can see you're a fast swimmer," Wei Wuxian chides. "You don't have to show-off. Does it feel that good to be back in the water?"

"Mn."

Wei Wuxian clucks his tongue. Standing, he undoes his belt.

Lan Wangji's eyes sharpen. "What are you doing?"

He drops the belt. "What does it look like I'm doing?" Then the outer robes. "I'm undressing."

"Why?!" Lan Wangji demands, frantic. Wei Wuxian yanks off his boots with a wink. Lan Wangji is momentarily distracted by the sight of his fins. Except they’re not fins after all. They’re something stranger, flat and rectangular and confusing.

"Because not all of us have clothes made of jiao xiao sha,” Wei Wuxian answers. He slips one arm out of his undergarments, and Lan Wangji's stomach cramps like he's about to be sick. He turns away just in time.

The splash behind him shatters the night. Moments later, a spluttering Wei Wuxian pops his head out of the water. He grins cheekily.

Lan Wangji has heard of humans who can swim, but he has never seen it. He observes closely as Wei Wuxian’s legs and strange flins flash beneath the surface. He paddles over easily, eyes never once leaving Lan Wangji’s face.

“See?” he grins. “I can swim well too. Wanna race?”

“Qin,” Lan Wangji says simply.

Wei Wuxian’s mouth puckers in a pout, but he swims back to the boat obediently. He returns with a qiankun pouch. Lan Wangji reaches into the pouch and retrieves his guqin. It is cool and solid in his hands.

He has missed this.

“What song will you play?” Wei Wuxian asks. “A cultivation song? A folk song?”

“Listen and learn,” Lan Wangji replies, and he ducks beneath the surface.

It is refreshing to move with such ease again, to have the firm support of water against his body. Wangji, always obedient, follows his movements, sinking until it is at the level of his waste and staying there. Lan Wangji’s fingers hover over the strings. What shall he play?

As he deliberates, Wei Wuxian descends in front of him. His arms and legs look especially ridiculous treading water, and his hair floats wildly around his face. Not to mention his cheeks are puffed out as he holds in his breath. Lan Wangji hopes he can always remember this ridiculous man who has cared for him so diligently. This man whose bare chest and toned, tiny waist are bared so brazenly now before him.

Lan Wangji catches himself and drops his eyes to the guqin. He needs to still his mind. He knows exactly what song to play.

The first note is a focused ray of soft blue light. Wei Wuxian’s eyes widen, following it as it pierces through the water past him. It is followed by the next note, a falling glow that diffuses around Wei Wuxian and lingers, sparkling. Sleeves billowing, Lan Wangji illuminates the depths of Yunmeng Lake with music and light, with the words of gratitude he will never be able to say. He plays his song to Wei Wuxian, and to Wei Wuxian alone.

When Lan Wangji strikes the final chord, Wei Wuxian’s lips part, releasing small air bubbles. His eyes crinkle in a smile. Then the lids grow heavy. Lan Wangji releases the guqin and seizes Wei Wuxian’s arm just as his body starts to go limp. Pulling Wei Wuxian against him, he swims to the surface.

Wei Wuxian moans slightly as the air hits his face. His head rolls onto Lan Wangji’s shoulder.

“Lan Zhan,” he mumbles. “That song . . . What was it?”

“Rest,” Lan Wangji says, which is partly true. It just happens to be a particular variation that induces drowsiness.

“Ah,” Wei Wuxian answers quietly. “It’s nice. I like it.” He yawns, then frowns. “But suddenly I feel so tired . . .”

Lan Wangji watches as Wei Wuxian’s head continues to droop, and his eyes finally slip shut. His breath is even and warm against the crook of Lan Wangji’s neck.

“Goodnight, Wei Ying.”

¤¤¤¤¤¤

When Wei Wuxian wakes, it’s to a sapphire, cloud-dappled sky.

He blinks around himself, confused. He’s in a boat--the same boat from last night. He raises his head, peering out to see the familiar sight of Lotus Pier. Frowning, he pushes himself up into a sitting position with a grimace. There’s a sharp crook in his neck. He raises his arm to stretch when something falls from his shoulders. He glances down. It’s a white robe, one that is hauntingly familiar.

Wei Wuxian’s eyes go round. He leans over the side of the boat, glancing anxiously around the water.

“Lan Zhan?” he whispers.

He stares into the lake, as if waiting for it to answer. After a moment he leans back, heaves a bitter laugh.

“That trickster,” he mutters. He lets his gaze wander across the dock, amongst the pink and white clusters of lotus flowers. Sighing, he lays back again and stares up at the sky.

“We probably won’t ever have the chance to meet again,” he thinks aloud. “Right?”

¤¤¤¤¤¤

The sacking of Lotus Pier rocks the cultivation world. In one night, the familiar emblems of the Jiang sect disappear, replaced by red flags with golden suns. Yunmeng, once known for its lively atmosphere and bustling markets, goes silent. Civilians hurry through the streets with their heads down and their lips sealed.

However, eyes are reluctantly drawn to the appearance of an elegant young man. He is slender and robed in white, with noble features. Bystanders speculate that he is from some distant cultivation sect unassociated with the Wens. Since times are strange, they make sure to avoid him.

Weary of the stares, the man enters a teahouse. He sips from his cup, unobtrusive despite his remarkable features. As he drinks, he can’t help but pick up on the conversation from a nearby table.

“My wife’s brother was on duty that night. Her family couldn’t even recover his ashes.”

“It’s barbarism, that’s what it is. The Jiang clan always conducted themselves like true heroes. How dare the Wen clan--”

“Sh! Do you wanna die?”

Silence falls. After a few moments, the first man continues speaking. His voice is incredibly low.

“I heard Jiang Wanyin joined up with the Nie sect in Hejian. I wonder if they stand a chance.”

“If anyone does, it’d be those two. Although it’d be great if Wei Wuxian was with them.”

“Hmph. Who knows where that one is? Probably at the bottom of a ditch.”

The cultivator, who until this point has listened without expression, stills. His jaw clenches and his grip tightens around the teacup.

“Well I don’t believe it! Wei Wuxian was the rising star of the Jiang sect. I think he’s working in the shadows. He’ll definitely reappear.”

“You’re too optimistic. By the way, did you hear about the strange things happening at the Yiling burial mounds? They say that fierce corpses are . . .”

The cultivator drains his cup. He sets a few coins on the table and exits the tea house.

Lan Wangji knows that he should immediately return to Yunmeng Lake. He has already obtained the goods requested by his uncle. But Lan Wangji does not return. Instead he wanders the streets without purpose. The vendors and salesmen shrink as he passes by, although a few are bold enough to try and show-off their goods. A young woman selling steamed buns flashes him a winning smile.

“Young lord, would you like a taste?”

The scent of a meat Lan Wangji now knows is called pork tickles his throat. Words, unbidden, rise to mind:

I can show you the world outside of this shed. I'll take you to the training grounds--we can even spar, haha . . . I'll take you to all the best places to eat, too! There's so much good food in the human world, you won't be able to stand up after we try it all . . .

Lan Wangji pulls out his qiankun pouch—the same pouch that Wei Wuxian once gave him to hold Bichen and his guqin when Lan Wangji returned to Yunmeng Lake, all those months ago. Lan Wangji takes out a coin and purchases two buns. Then, with great difficulty, he meets the woman’s gaze.

“Which way to Hejian?”

FIN

NOTES:

1. This is me making stuff up for conflict and world-building purposes. It has nothing to do with the actual myth. No disrespect meant. I also want to mention that it sounds like jiaoren live in the sea, not in freshwater. But. I wanted him to live in Yumeng lake, so. Yeah.

2. These are actual parts of the jiaoren myth. The links below have more information. The Sun Jiahui link does have a story about a jiaoren who lived with humans and made cloth. However, if you read the link you will see that she didn't live in captivity and that she seemed to harbor affection for the family. So again, my story does not really line up with the traditional myth and I encourage you to read into it if you really want to know more.

Li Hongrui (2016). Mermaids in Chinese fairytales.

Sun Jiahui (2015). The Chinese Mermaid.

3. I'm back on my bullshit, making stuff up again. Who knows. Don't take my word for it.

4. Who is the person that said it? Me, when I was making stuff up to start drama. This is not part of the traditional lore.

5. This is from Li Shangyin's poem Jin Se, which is often translated as Brocade Zither. I didn't want to quote an official translation so I just kind of slapped this together using a dictionary and google translate, yeah I know it's an eyesore. But . . . I recommend you read some REAL translations of it by scholars who actually speak Chinese and know about poetry. The various translations are vastly, vastly different but there are some Wangxian feels buried there in my opinion. I recommend the following links. Either way, it sounds like some of the translations connect the tears and pearls to the jiaoren legend. Others not so much.

Translation and from Now Where Was I? A Buddhist Blog.

Translation and analysis from Dalriada Books Ltd.

Pengfei Wang (2018). English Metaphysical and Mid-Late Tang Poetry: A Baroque Comparison. This includes in-depth discussion of the poet and various translations of the poem on pages 102-109.

#wangxian #mo dao zu shi #the untamed #cql #mdzs #fanfic #my stuff #abuse tw #alcohol tw

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curiouswritinggarden · 4 years

Text

The Excuse

I am late for work! Late! Late! Late! Of all the nights to eat cheap fried rice, why did it have to be last night, I think to myself as I start the car. Eating Lee’s authentic Chinese special fried burger rice always knocked me out with fever dreams. I cringe while remembering the crazy dream about claymation Komodo dragons. Oof, I took two red lights. Hopefully I can get to the time clock before my boss notices. I finally arrive at the office building. I slam my car door shut and run through the crowded parking lot. There is only enough time to shout a frantic, “Good morning!” to the lobby’s receptionist before skidding into a closing elevator.

I take a second to catch my breath. The memory of the clay lizards whispering, “mould our faces,” creeps back into my mind. I shake my head to get rid of the weird thoughts and notice my hair is sticking out at weird angles. Great, just great, nothing says late like lopsided bedhead, I think as a try to smooth down my frizzy hair.

The elevator dings at my floor. I poke my head out of the sliding doors. The reception area is empty. The time clock gently ticks on the wall behind the welcome desk. A smug smile spreads across my face. No witnesses, perfect! I can’t believe the welcome room is empty. I speed tiptoe toward the time clock.

“You’re late.”

I jump and muffle a shriek. Slowly, I turn to face my boss, Mr. Borgman, with the most professional smile I can muster. Mr. Borgman is a tall, stern man infamously known for firing tardy employees in the office. He walks up behind me and adjusts his dark blue neck tie with the patience of a priest.

“Twenty-five minutes and thirty seconds late, Ms. Rubin,” he says as his eyes flicker to the clock and back to me. “I hope the extra sleep prepared you to welcome the clients scheduled this afternoon. You’re lucky none of them had the decency to come in early.” He regards me with a disapproving look as he passes judgement on my wicked bedhead. “Even though you are the, I assume, proud receptionist of Sleepy Time Pillows Inc., the company does not endorse sleeping in on work days.”

“There’s no reason why you deserve more sleep than the rest of our employees. Many of our workers perform outstandingly with the standard seven to eight hours of sleep every night.”

He leans down toward me, “Why should I make an exception for you?”

I crane my neck upwards as he looms over me. My smile dissolves into a sheepish smirk.

Why did my boss eat a mountain of calcium as a kid?

Taking a deep breath in, I squeeze out my words in a whisper, “I can explain sir, if you just give me a few minutes of your time.”

“You have taken more than enough time from me and the company already,” he says curtly. Then, with the grace of a confessor, his gaze shifts from judging to challenging. “But I would love to hear you try and talk your way out of this rather, sticky situation.”

He nods, in a merciful way, and eyes the time clock again, “I’ll even give you one minute to gather your thoughts.”

“Thank you sir,” I say meekly. A minute, huh? How am I going to come up with an excuse in a minute? Mr. Borgman is notorious for following the paper trails of his employees. If any employee was truly sick, he wanted them to show symptoms, have paperwork, and even a call from the doctor that treated them. He showed the same ruthless efficiency when family emergencies came up too.

How Jerry wasn’t fired after he faked his father’s own funeral is beyond me. Wait..That’s it! Jerry wasn’t fired, even after impersonating his allegedly dead father in an open casket funeral! It was proof there was a funny bone in my bosses’ thin skeleton figure. I just need to come up with a story wild enough to make him laugh, or at least crack a less sinister smile. I glance at him. His smile is relaxed yet all his teeth are showing. “Thirty more seconds, Ms. Rubin,” he says.

I rack my brain for any idea. Mould our faces, a slithery voice whispers. The dream, of course! I straighten my stance and channel all of my customer service calmness into my voice.

“There is a perfectly logical explanation of why I am late today Mr. Borgman. You see, yesterday I visited the Wynken, Blynken, and Nod Sleep Center in the hopes of convincing them to test if our Sleepy Time Pillows could improve sleep. They told me the lab would be interested, but first I would need to register with the center. As a requirement I had to volunteer in a sleep study.”

He raises an eyebrow in curiosity.

“They told me the study would monitor sleep patterns of the average adult. Not wanting to waste any time, I volunteered for the sleep study last night. Unfortunately, my volunteer papers got mixed up and I was mistaken for a participant in a different study. At least, that��s what they told me, afterward.”

Pausing, I sigh and shake my head slowly, “What I’m about to say is going to sound crazy, but it’s all true. So please, do not interrupt me.”

He nods, “Alright, you may continue.”

“Last night during the, supposed, sleep study I was taken to a monitoring room. They gave me a glass of water and told me I had to drink it as part of the study. So I drank it and fell asleep mid-yawn. The next thing I knew I woke up in a room designed to look like a flower meadow.”

My boss scowls in confusion. He tries to interrupt me, but I cut in.

“Yes, I know it sounds insane, but that is what happened. I woke up in a room made to look like a flower meadow. The walls were painted sky blue and there was green shag carpeting with silk daisies stapled in place. I should know, I yanked a bunch of the fake flowers out of the carpet and cut my foot on the staple. I was confused and stumbled back into a painted wall. Then the wall spun around and I was in a night club. There were loads of people wearing glow-in-the-dark shirts in that crowded room. All of them were dancing to rave music with a heavy base. I was disoriented and kept bumping into dancers. I felt like I was in a human pinball machine and I was the pinball. Suddenly, someone pushed me out the door of the night club and into a different room. The new room looked like a kindergarten classroom…”

As I continue on my long tale, I describe myself walking in and out of dozens of strange rooms. Some with balloons in them, others filled with hedgehogs, but all of the rooms were wacky and left me feeling more befuddled than ever. I glance at my boss and see that my story has the same bewildering effect on him. His eyes are scrunched up in confusion, his mouth is open in a lopsided scowl, and his head is cocked to the side. I decide to wrap it up when it looks like his face is going to flip to a 180 degree angle.

“…And it was just when I was running out of the trampoline bug room that I was face to face with a pair of giant claymation Komodo dragons. They were hissing at me, ‘Mould our faces,’ when I lost the last shred of my sanity and ripped the lizard’s head off. I was screaming, ‘Ok, I’ll shape your faces!!’ when a buzzer sounded and over-head lights came on. People in lab coats walked into the room. They told me to calm down, which is hard to do when you are confused beyond belief and clutching a dislocated clay lizard head. They explained that all the rooms were part of an experiment. The scientists were testing to see how people would react to dreamscapes when they were fully awake. They placed me and other test subjects in a maze filled with bizarre things to simulate a dream landscape. I was shocked and yelled at them. I had only volunteered to do a regular sleep study, not be a guinea pig for a bunch of quacks. I collected my personal effects, went back home to change, and then raced over here to start my work day.”

Mr. Borgman stands very still in the waiting room. It takes him half a minute for him to blink. He reaches slowly into his pocket; perhaps to hand me a pink slip. Instead of termination papers, he takes out a moleskin notebook and writes for over 5 minutes. Then he closes the notebook and says, “Well, your excuse is going right at the top, along with Jerry Barton faking his father’s death, as the craziest late excuse I’ve ever heard.”

I gulp, “Does this mean I’m not fired, sir?”

He gives me a satisfied smile. “I should hope not Ms. Rubin, we need you on our ad campaign team. Someone with your creativity is needed to help us sell our pillows. I believe your excuse would make an excellent advertisement for our company.”

My sigh of relief is cut off as he talks to me again.

“However Ms. Rubin, do not come in late again or I will truly fire you.”

“Yes, sir.”

As he walks into the office, he laughs softly to himself. “Mould our faces, indeed,” he chuckles.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hey there! So this short story is based off a writing prompt from Writer’s Digest’s Year of Writing Prompts. Specifically, March 4th’s prompt: You’re late for work because you overslept, but your boss hates over-sleepers. He does love entertaining stories, though, so create the most outlandish excuse as to why you were late. Writing this was a lot of fun! The most difficult part was creating the actual excuse. I needed a scenario that sounded crazy, but real enough so that it would sound believable. The idea finally came to me when I thought of the company my main character worked for, Sleepy Time Pillows. After figuring out the name, everything else in the story fell into place.

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed the story! :D

#curious writing garden #the excuse #short story #writing #long post #writeblr

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purplesurveys · 4 years

Text

990

survey by starsareonly2nd

Have you ever been to Las Vegas? No. Doesn’t sound like my type of city. I wouldn’t mind visiting the rest of Nevada though.

What did you have for breakfast this morning? Just a cup of coffee; I skip breakfast except on Sundays, when we actually sit down at the dining table and eat as a family.

Do you have any loose change in your pocket? I don’t have any pockets right now but I do have very few coins in my wallet. I used to have plenty, but I’ve given most of them away because I usually give tips to the nice people who help me get out of parking spots.

Do you like Taylor Swift? I like some of her songs, especially the ones from 1989, but I have no idea why I just can’t get into her as a person.

What's your favorite Disney Channel movie? I haven’t tuned in to that channel for a very long time now, but the movies that I got the most excited about as a kid were Twitches, Wendy Wu, Camp Rock, The Cheetah Girls, and High School Musical 1 and 2.

If you met your favorite celebrity, would you be calm or star struck? I’d be starstruck in a calm way; like I’d most likely be too shocked to get more than a few words out. I’m sure I’d come off as shy or boring haha, which is why I’ve refused to meet or interact with my favorite celebrities even if I’ve already had the chance to.

Are there any lights on in the room you're in? I have a ceiling light and a desk lamp, but both are turned off. My only light source at the moment is my laptop screen.

What's your favorite subject in school? History.

What's your favorite holiday? My birthday, if that counts. Christmas can also be great but only for the food, the reunions with extended family, and the freedom to guiltlessly cut off contact with colleagues for a couple of weeks. All other aspects of it make me miserable though.

Do you ever have to do yard work? I’ve never had to do that before.

Is your school close to your house? I mean, it wasn’t a 10-minute walk away but it’s relatively close and driving to my university objectively doesn’t take too long unless there’s heavy traffic. If there’s absolutely no barriers I could get to school in 15-20 minutes, but this is really only just for weekends where I have to go to school for some reason. If there’s traffic (and there always is), I take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half.

Speaking of school, how did you get there today? I haven’t been to my school since the first week of March, and I’ve already graduated since then.

Do you think Bad Romance is a catchy song, or an annoying one? I can honestly tell you that I have genuinely never gotten sick of that song. It’s a late 2000s classic, man. Of course it was too explicit for my 11 year old ears when it first came out, but I found it catchy nonetheless.

Do you use perfect grammar online? I always try to be correct, yes. When I use improper grammar it’s usually because I’m joking.

Are you currently using a laptop? Yup.

Do you have any live versions of songs in your music software? I haven’t used iTunes in a while and Spotify, which I do use, doesn’t work that way.

Did/do you listen to Britney Spears songs? I’ve never skipped her singles whenever I caught them on the radio and I’ve always fairly enjoyed the music she puts out, but I normally don’t voluntarily listen to her i.e. look up her songs myself on Spotify.

Is it a windy day? It is now that it’s nighttime, but it was a little humid all day today.

In the past week, have you ridden in a taxi? No. I’m not actually sure if that’s even already allowed...the possibility of public transport is still pretty murky where I live.

What shorthand do you use the most? I have no idea what this means. I did try looking it up but I dunno if I’ve ever had to use shorthand at any point in my life.

Do you ever wish on stars at night? Every now and then, but it’s just the little kid in me.

What color are your eyes? Dark brown. I feel like I answer this at least once a week.

What album is the current song you're listening to off of? Not listening to music but the last song I heard is from an album called Petals For Armor.

What are you doing after you finish this? Try not to cry/break down. Find something to watch on YouTube. Maybe play with Cooper to destress and forget about my problems for a bit.

In your opinion, what song is the most overplayed right now? Other than songs I occasionally put on repeat, I have not heard any new music for a while now.

Are you in a band? Nope, never been.

How clean is your bedroom? We just tidied it up and rearranged a few things last month so I’d say it’s clean - at least tidier than it used to be. And I’m a little proud that despite how rough life has been, I’ve managed to keep it clean. It’s the little things.

Is there a pen within reaching distance of you? Yeah, there’s one on my desk and I can easily reach out and grab it.

Are you sitting at a desk? I’ve moved to my bed for now. My back does not appreciate sitting at a desk all day.

Does your favorite band have a male or female lead singer? Female.

Do you normally shut your bedroom door before you go to sleep? Yesssssssss. We have a light source by the stairs that extends to the hallway and reaches my room, so it gets super annoying if my door is even just slightly ajar because my eyes get distracted by the faint light. My door has to be completely shut for me to feel comfortable in the privacy of my room.

Have you seen the movie Moulin Rouge? I haven’t. I loooove Lady Marmalade, but I’m just not sure if the movie itself is my cup of tea.

Would you ever dye your hair a different color? I’d love to have the chance to do that, yeah.

Are there any framed pictures in the room you're in? There are a couple.

Have you ever been to a Broadway show? Nope.

Do you watch So You Think You Can Dance? I don’t think so but I do remember watching a few episodes of Dancing with the Stars because a wrestler that I liked was one of the contestants for one season. I’m just not sure of SYTYCD also featured wrestlers in their shows; if that has been the case in the past- and I’m just not sure because my memory is a little hazy - I would’ve given it a watch.

What's your favorite movie soundtrack? The Twilight Saga churned out some bomb ass soundtracks. Other than that, I also enjoyed Interstellar’s and Requiem for a Dream’s.

Do you prefer group or individual work? Depends on what kind of work needs to be done. If a task is graphic design or video editing-heavy, I would prefer to work with other people; but if it’s gonna be heavy on something that’s already my forte, I like to work by myself.

Do you have a key to anything besides your house? Just my car.

Are you wearing anything with stripes? Not at the moment.

What time did you go to sleep last night? 9:45 I think? A little later than 10? Somewhere along that range.

Did anyone tell you you were beautiful today? No.

What show did you last watch? Friends.

Do you think you'll do anymore surveys today? I doubt it. This one is already quite longer than the surveys I usually take.

What's your favorite ice cream flavor? Cookies and cream; and more recently, chocolate chip cookie dough.

When was the last time you stayed home from school sick? Sometime in February last year. I developed a fever the night before but wasn’t able to start feeling better by the next morning, so I had to skip the one class I had that day.

Could you ever complete a 500-piece puzzle? Yes. I’m actually planning to buy a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle; it’s one of the items I’ve put on my cart recently. Depressed Robyn is also spend-a-lot-of-money-on-artsy-craftsy-supplies-Robyn, so.

If you could run a red light and not get caught, would you? Hell no.

Do you like to listen to music as you do your homework? Not usually, but sometimes I’ll put on lo-fi since that’s the only kind of music I can listen to and still keep my focus.

Did you think Adam Lambert's AMA performance was really that controversial? I’ve never encountered it, but I doubt I’ll have a problem with it if I do get to watch the performance. I love Adam Lambert and I've never found myself shaking my head at whatever he’s doing.

Do any bands flat-out annoy you? They’re a boy band more than anything but The Vamps has consistently irritated me through the years.

Do you have a mirror in your bedroom? No. I used to, but I gave it to my sister.

Was today a birthday for any of your friends? I don’t think so. With all my social media being deactivated I never get notified about birthdays anymore, but I’m fairly sure none of my friends blow out their candles every October 22nd.

When was the last time you rode in a limo? I’ve never been in one.

Do you take naps daily? No. I can’t really do that anymore since I have an 8-hour shift on weekdays, lol.

Do you still make Christmas lists? No.

Do you watch the show Dexter? I tried getting into the show because it used to always be said in the same breath as Breaking Bad, but I never got invested. I heard later seasons sucked too, so that also turned me off from continuing to pursue the series.

What's the background on your phone? I have a motivational comic that says “You’re doing really well given the circumstances” as my lockscreen. Cooper smiling is my home screen.

When were/will you be a a sophomore in high school? That was six years ago.

Are you scared of any animals? Any flying insect or bug, and I find them scarier if they come with a loud buzz.

Have you ever been to any sort of convention? YouTube Fanfest, if that counts as one. I’m not really sure what counts as a convention haha, but that’s the closest thing I’ve got.

Which song did you last listen to on repeat? Why We Ever by Hayley Williams.

Where do you want to live when you grow up? I’ve stopped thinking about that for now. My focus has since shifted to asking myself if I’ll still even be alive in a few years...ugh, how far we’ve fallen.

Are you currently using a blanket? No. It’s not cold enough for a blanket yet, but maybe in a few hours.

Are there any songs that make you cry? A lot.

How many siblings do you have? Two.

What are you doing this weekend? I have no idea.

Do you prefer swimming at the beach or in a pool? BEEEEEEEEACH. Once I took my first dip in a beach, I never wanted to swim in a pool ever again.

When was the last time you had a haircut? March.

Which musical instrument do you think sounds the prettiest? Piano, saxophone, and violin. Can’t pick a favorite; I think they all sound beautiful.

Are you in band or chorus at your school? I was never in either.

Do you know what you want for Christmas? Yeah but they’re all intangible. I want to be happy, be at peace, normalcy, etc. I’ve stopped pining for presents, especially now that I can afford my own shit.

Do you watch fireworks on New Year's Eve? Always.

Is your birthday within the next three months? Nope. You’ll have to add three more months to that timeframe.

How long is the song you're listening to? No music.

Are you anticipating anything this week? I’m waiting for a couple of very specific emails to come in, and I hope they do before the week ends.

Is your mom or dad the older parent? My dad, but only by 8 months. They were born in the same year.

Have you taken the SATs yet? I never had to take them, but I heard they’re triiiiiiiicky.

Do you watch anything on E? We never had E! in our cable service but I like tuning into that channel whenever we stay at hotels because I get to watch KUWTK, hehe.

Are you going to get off the computer now that you've finished this? Most likely.

#survey #surveys

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lit--bitch · 4 years

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On ‘The Moth Apocalypse’, by Joseph Turrent (2020)

(Disclosure: I don’t personally know Joseph Turrent. I do know Haverthorn/HVTN Press, which is run by Andrew Wells and Iris Colomb (I’m familiar with Andrew). They both seem to have an interest in interdisciplinary practice, and they do some really interesting things with form and language, kind of messing with the dimensions of how we receive language on the page, how we receive language as performance. I think those values are synonymous in the work HVTN publishes. It’s not about work that can be classified, rather the unclassified. It’s been a really beautiful thing to watch Haverthorn grow. I was published in the first issue of Haverthorn Magazine, that must’ve been about 5 years ago, maybe longer (I was a completely different writer back then, I was 17). Back then it was just a tiny collective of poems and fictional pieces. Now they’re a press, they’ve got multiple different platforms including Haverthorn Magazine, they also run Interruptions and Correspondences. Their identity is much more streamlined. Thematically I would say that the publications are varied, but I think they’re all united by a common interest in intertextuality, or multidisciplinary influences. I think it’s rare to find publishers which are so openly into the “uncategorised” in the UK. I think the UK is still publishing a lot of writing which yanks itself into a genre, like the industry is still bound by a lot of traditional canonical stuff... I think it is changing a bit, but it is refreshing and comforting to know that Haverthorn have been thinking and publishing this sort of stuff for a while.)

This debut collection from Joseph Turrent is like a fever dream. The relentless doom of oncoming death in a cyclonic-tidal-wave-storm where God is a 58-year-old man and Elon Musk is singing baby shark. How do we continue to forge and define our self-identity when the end of everything is so near? When our inevitable mortality is met by storms we can’t weather? How do we drive that message home without flying off the handle?

What I’m most flummoxed by is this text’s use of layering, and the multiplicity of that “layering”, textually, structurally... (something I’ll unpack in a while). It plays on ambiguity in words, it cracks open these weird, beautiful dualisms mirrored between reality and irreality, sort of echoing Charlotte Geater’s poems for my fbi agent except the relationship here is not a coexistence between I and the agent. Rather this is a relationship with the world, felt all over the whole world. It’s our binding relationship with the very public disintegration of our existence in a world which never fails to learn from its mistakes, from a species whose errors seem to forever *glitch*. It’s a huge headache, but it’s also crystal clear in its admonition to us, and yet it articulates the world’s end in a beautiful, complicated, mesmerising way (certain lines make me think of Crispin Best). And in its prescience, Joseph really underlines how much of this is already happening before it has happened, in analogies both profound and absurd.

So again, I thought because of some of the interesting pop-culture references and crossovers with poems for my fbi agent I decided to talk to my mother about the complexities that this collection poses, and jostle with its meaning. I think we both felt really weird reading this swirl of a text (it’s literally swirling down the page), I likened it to feeling ‘car sick’ at times, so I’m gonna start with the way the poetry is structured because I think it’s the first layer to this collection, which you need to pick at before you can bridge all this amazing, convoluted imagery.

For the sake of keeping the poetry’s structure intact, I’m going to screenshot sections from the review copy HVTN generously sent me. This way I’m not spending ten years typing it out carefully (which I usually do cos I’m normally quoting from ze printed matter), and I want people to see how Joseph works with form and shape. It’s not obvious from the first poem in the collection, ‘Moths’, what the structure is because it’s a short opening piece, but begins to imply some sort of outline, or perhaps a disintegration, where line breaks leave words hanging. I begun thinking about what moths are in this scene, their presence, when do they come awake? Part of the collection’s thematics takes it focus from “darkness”, literal and figurative, the darkness of day, the “grimdarkness” (as Joseph puts it in ‘one rain drop falls out the sky’) of a summer in February and these gruesome, seasonal abnormalities which are set to interrogate us and make us feel uncomfortable. (Let’s face it, it’s uncomfortable when there’s daffodils in January). Beginning with ‘Ending Scene’:

All the way through, Joseph’s poems zigzag and swirl down the page like this ^. I enjoy Joseph’s, I’m assuming intentional irony here, in beginning the collection at the end. He’s intimating the symmetry of our present-day predicament: living in the beginning of our world’s end. That first line propels us to our future: ‘it’s 2030, the wind is so strong it’s a geometrical pattern’. Now take a look at this extract again, look at it as a whole image. Joseph is playing out that image of a geometrical pattern through line breaks and alignment. It’s so deliberate, so exact. It feels engineered. And it’s this powerful wind, winding its way down and down the pages, which embodies a resemblance to a natural form, like the way you think of clouds travelling across a digitised map of the world on a weather channel. Half of this collection situates itself amongst ramifications of climate change, the erratic change in weather, the sky’s putrid colour, threatening and sick. We’re seeing a storm unwind in words. But when you take a look at the other references Joseph wields in his writing, you can begin to see that this visual structure intimates more subtle connotations.

Remember how I said that the collection is exploring the errors of our species which forever seem to glitch on themselves? We keep repeating the same history which evidences our end? I think this is implied by the way the text swirls, and eats on itself. Joseph says at one point, ‘this glitch is hilarious’ (one rain drop falls out of the sky), opening us up to this denial, like “the apocalypse is happening, this is surreal” laughter, but it’s also kind of like, we’re losing our minds, we’re laughing because we’re bridging the insanity of everything dissolving before us, endlessly replaying itself, over and over. I’m kind of reminded by that scene in ‘The Midnight Gospel’ from Episode 6, ‘Vulture With Honour’, when Clancy and Captain Bryce (the guy that comes to fix Clancy’s simulator), tells him his list of rules when navigating these dangerous different coloured wobbles to get to Sparkle (a cow-like creature who makes green oil which is used to preserve and keep the lantern part of a simulator healthy I guess, hard to explain if you’ve not watched the series). Anyway so they come across this little weird man creature with a hoopla head holding onto a rocket or bomb-like thing, stuck inside purple wobble, which Captain Bryce explains: that’s the kind of wobble that locks you in time. And this little man stuck inside the purple wobble is glitching like:

And then Captain Bryce says: “it’s too late for this guy, his mind is pickled” because he’s been stuck in the same second forever. And I got to thinking about how, the more acutely aware we become as a species of how we’re repeating the same mistakes, facing the same consequences, extinguishing the same forest fires, over and over, the more riddled the mind becomes, and anguished I guess. So the poetry here isn’t just like a cyclonic pattern depicting a natural form; the strange, violent weather tearing up the planet’s astro turf and rainforests. It’s also a visual representation of history’s rhythm. This glitch, this error that remains eternally stuck, jolting on itself. It really gives weight to the series of images in this writing, which repeatedly hit you in the face, but it also compounds the repetition in the writing. In ‘this is the sadness’, (and pretty much all of the poems), Joseph keeps coming back to lines like ‘I can’t stop thinking about’ and ‘I’m writing a’ pegged by a series of repetitive motifs, butterflies, 58 year old men as God, airplanes, butterflies, horror show, airplanes, horrow movie’... That repetition is attached to this glitch-affected way of writing. It’s clever and unusual, and when I started reading the structure as a message in its own right, I was amazed by how things suddenly started to make sense in terms of the writing. I could see all this incredible dualism which Joseph plays with and writes about.

So I went back and refreshed the first poem in this collection, ‘Moths’.

I’m thinking of terms like ‘cloudz’, and what clouds are, how they move, what they mean in this day and age. The obvious dualism here is the physical clouds we see and study in the sky, their changeability as they move across throughout the day, carrying rain or snow, whatever. And then there’s this more enigmatic weird concept of ‘The Cloud’ in computing, which is a homonym in and of itself. You have Sky’s WiFi ‘The Cloud’, where anyone can make an account and sign into their WiFi and they have hotspots called ‘The Cloud’ all over the UK. You’ve got ‘cloud computing’ which is this method of data storage, normally created by a single provider. They manage the data and how it’s processed/stored/encrypted and users can upload or save information there. Anyone with an Apple product automatically gets an ‘iCloud’ account where their data is automatically backed by Apple’s cloud software. This means you never have to sync up your devices with wires or buy extra USB sticks/external hard drives to back up your data. You can just set a timer on your phone, link it to your iCloud account and it’ll automatically back up whenever you want. People think of this accumulation of data in one place, (without having to personally manage it) as being an “amorphous cloud”. I’m seeing this as a poem which introduces this element of denial about our surroundings. We’re pretending its normal and trying to squish out the reminder of these seasonal abnormalities. Even if it’s stripped across the sky, ‘black with insane swirls you could drown in’ (alluding to the writing on the page itself), our denial tells us to talk us away from the indefinite scream that it’s not okay. ‘Our cloudz are dying because of u’—the way Joseph intersperses Internet vernacular/text-speech/shorthand here introduces the Internet’s presence, and our tensions between our physical reality and our artificial one. We transcribe events into our phones. We see something, we talk about it in on an online platform. The way we transfer reality from a physical realm to a virtual realm is an exchange which happens so regularly and with such rigour that it’s an indented feature to 21st century society. Every time Boris Johnson makes an announcement in real-time, journalists flock to Twitter to unpack it in an online arena which stays up for the rest of time. The fact that language is swamped by Internet culture and adopts terms once pertaining to more physical objects or tangible sensations sensations, renders language more faceted and multiplicitous than ever before. Such ambiguousness in what we mean and how we mean it, contributes to this acute confusion and fear, which compounds contemporary culture.

Other homonyms:

I’m thinking of dark as in ‘dark mode’ and ‘dark’ as in ‘disturbing’. ‘I regret not running through Wheat’ I think is a reference to that Theresa May interview where she said the naughtiest thing she ever did was run through fields of wheat with her friends, (as opposed to increased austerity and fucking up Brexit + various other shit).

‘accidentally deleting the human race’ makes a mockery of the way the world is ending, which is by no means, “an accident”. I also wonder about the dualism in ‘A tornado touched my heart & I’m crying’, is it that we’re seeing the destruction a tornado unleashes as a perturbance? Sometimes Joseph writes like the way emojis sound, does anyone get that? Sort of like a staccato, plain-text way of articulating emotion. Did an emoji tornado touch his emoji heart?

Such an incredible line: ‘I love / thunderstorms because it sounds like God is choking on grapefruit’. I’m not even going to unpack that. I’m going to leave that one to simmer. But that’s not an example of an homonym here, in this section I was looking more at the part about ‘a million weird dead bugs’. There’s the bugs that come to eat us as we decompose. And then there’s “computer bugs”. Just a few examples where Joseph’s playing on words here.

I think of these homonyms as alluding to our inability to discern between reality and virtuality. We’re unable to understand our reality as it is now, I mean if you discard the Internet and technology, we already struggle with deciphering between our own perception to another’s perception. What one perceives as being red, another might call pink, or orange, or green. The additional threat that Internet culture imposes is that, our language eventually becomes swamped by the technological vernacular of computers, of online-existence. And yet it’s inevitable, and it’s already happening. It’s interesting—Elon Musk said in 2016 about whether he thought humans were living inside a computer simulation— ‘The strongest argument for us probably being in a simulation I think is the following: 40 years ago we have Pong [the Ping Pong video game]—two rectangles and a dot. That’s where we were. Now 40 years later we have photorealistic, 3D simulations with millions of playing simulatenously and it’s getting better every year. And soon we’ll have virtual reality, we’ll have augmented reality. If you assume any rate of improvement at all, then the games will become indistinguishable from reality, just indistinguishable.’What Joseph’s showing here is the multiplicity and changeability of language, how technology burrows into its sinews, transforming terms we use to describe our tangible, physical realities into ones which you can hold in your hand and scroll down with your thumb. Language is the currency of culture which is being endowed to technology. But that’s not abnormal of language per se, I mean it’s symptomatic of how language and meaning evolve simultaneously, language’s multiplicity. Rather what Joseph is saying that it’s bridging a confusing gap, how can you tell between the tears streaming down your face and the ones streaming from your television? His poetry seems to breed flesh and wire together, forge them as inextricably bound entities of today. We can’t distinguish ourselves from our flesh to our wired online flesh.

But although set it in the future, you can tell that this collection is entirely rooted in the now, even when it oscillates between different years in the near and distant future, from 2030, to 3042, to 2076. It reads like a series of tweets, but it appears like scan-lines coursing down the page, so Joseph’s really capturing a generational voice here, that “online” voice which is stripped and clipped, where it feels squeezed into 100-odd characters. The poetry is peppered with well-known, familiar references pertaining to our present-day. And I think year dates are an artifice in this collection. The world’s end is so resolutely close to us that we can taste it in images like Elon Musk singing baby shark, Lana del Rey as the saddest superhero, David Hasselhoff eating the white wine emoji... It’s laughable. It’s funny. It’s hard. I think part of the way I read into this mesh of pop-cultural references was down to its implied superficialism. Y’know, we sort of think of our extinction as being a distant probability, but we can’t think about it without losing our minds. We barely accept the inevitable truth of our own mortality, we just can’t come to terms with the reality that someday we will sip our last cup of coffee, hug a friend for the last time. And we won’t necessarily know it’s the last time, until it’s the last time. This fear is particularly prevalent in Western culture, so we’ve barricaded ourselves with our egos, and constructed this site which vows to distract us from that not-so-terrifying revelation, that we’re all going to die. Death is natural. But we think it’s so unnatural and upsetting, that we’ve invented celebrity culture, make-up tutorials, 100K followers, emoji reactions, opinion polls, status updates, likes, Facebook algorithms, botox and red shoes as part of a sequence to distract us from the eventuality of death, thinking that these things will sustain us. It’s all artificial, it’s all blue-light, it’s all moths ever gravitate towards. Joseph humours it, (I wonder if he’s jaded at times) with a sigh:

‘There’s all sort of thunder & / lighting and it is Fantastic and important tv.’ Me and my mother both laughed when we read this, it’s more mockery of the kind of vapidity in contemporary culture. Just endlessly being like: ‘oh watch this, oh I’ll link you the video, this is so funny watch it, look at this, this is my fav clip’, it’s nauseating. And you get this nauseating feeling when you’re reading this collection as it continues, it begins to make less sense, it begins to glitch and unravel to the point where you don’t really understand what’s going on. It’s bombardment, and the struggle in making sense of what’s going on typifies the way the ‘I’ is struggling to hold onto sanity. And while the dystopia of The Moth Apocalypse makes for a terrifying read, it’s also met with such beauty, I don’t think I’ve ever read a more beautifying approach to apocalyptic writing. You can take deep pleasure in the way Joseph articulates natural disaster. From ‘one rain drop falls out of the sky’: ‘I went to see the cherry blossoms in the glowing forest / [...] / THE SKY IS PURPLE LET ME SLEEP / [...] it smells like strawberry / pop tarts outside’. This “glowing forest” alludes to a forest fire, the purple sky alludes to light pollution, making it hard to sleep. Strawberry pop tarts goes without saying really, probably one of the best examples of describing consumerist culture in a nutshell: pre-cooked, chugging in artificial colours and flavours. But when you read these sentences alone, you don’t get the impression that the world is dying awash in blood and fire, rather the violence is extinguished. It reads and feels more like a painting, this gradual description of shades and experiences. There’s something kind of Eva Figes-esque about his writing style, just the way he colours in scenes. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s glamorised, but rather, the apocalypse is beautified.

I want to bring this review full circle and come back to the collection’s title: The Moth Apocalypse. By the end, I came to think of humanity, us as being the moths, here, roused by darkness and addicted to rectangular devices emanating blue-light. We frantically flap around its notification, its constant stream of information as the world around us is plunged into dark mode. The points where you’re thinking that the collection is relenting and giving up, are actually the most profound moments where it gets up. Joseph writes it best in ‘Everything Is Peachy’: ‘if you’re / looking for a sad and hopeful story / just sit / back and watch this rain.’ This collection begs us to be present, to consider and amend, and if nothing else, to laugh wildly as you don’t remedy it. It is an incredibly self-aware read, an invaluable perception of the “way things are heading”. The composition and structure of the poetry is masterful, art in its own right. The Moth Apocalypse is a promising and brave debut from Joseph Turrent.

If this review’s piqued your interest, you can purchase The Moth Apocalypse from HVTN Press here but they have stopped postal orders for a while due to Covid-19, so you may have to hold on. In the mean time you can find more of Joseph here on Twitter.

#themothapocalypse #hvtnpress #haverthorn #press #smallpresses #ukpoetry #debutcollection #2020 #release #litbitch #currentreads #review #books #josephturrent #poetry

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noramoya · 7 years

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"THIRTH YEARS AGO , TODAY - ON AUGUST 31 , 1987 - MICHAEL JACKSON DEBUTED ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED ÁLBUNS IN THE HISTORY OF POP MUSIC : BAD , THE FOLLOW -UP TO 1982's THRILLER , WHICH HAD ALREADY BEEN CERTIFIED 20 X PLATINUM BY THE RIAA UPON ITS SUCCESSOR'S RELEASE, WELL ON ITS WAY TO BECOMING THE BEST-SELLING ALBUM OF ALL TIMES . " " Undaunted, Jackson and producer Quincy Jones attempted to outdo themselves with Bad, setting their sales goals even higher the next time around. "I heard was that [Michael] was carrying around -- I can’t remember if it was a quarter and a nickel or three dimes -- but he was carrying around 30 cents in his pocket because he wanted to sell [that many million copies of Bad]," says Geoff Mayfield, retail editor at Billboard in 1987. Jackson would fall well short of that goal -- Bad had topped out at 6-times platinum in the U.S. by the time the album's promo cycle finally ended at the close of the '80s, and was finally certified diamond (for 10 million equivalent album units) by the RIAA earlier this year. But despite the lesser sales, Bad did achieve a feat that not only did Thriller not accomplish, but that no album in history ever had before: It spawned five No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Each of the set's first five singles -- Siedah Garrett ballad duet "I Just Can't Stop Loving You," storming title track "Bad," strutting love song "The Way You Make Me Feel," anthemic power ballad "Man in the Mirror" and rock-infused backstage drama "Dirty Diana" -- made it all the way to the Hot 100's apex, breaking the previous record of four No. 1 hits off the same album, initially set in 1978 by the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. For more than two decades, Bad reigned as the lone album to notch five Hot 100-toppers, until Katy Perry finally tied the achievement in 2011 with her fifth No. 1 off sophomore album Teenage Dream. So how did an album that largely failed to live up to commercial expectation manage to do something no blockbuster album had managed before? A lot of the answer can be found through the album's surrounding context -- in terms of Michael Jackson's career, in terms of the pop landscape in the late '80s and in terms of the Billboard charts of the time. Though Thriller managed "only" two Hot 100 No. 1s of its own -- "Billie Jean" and "Beat It" -- it raised the bar for how long an album's shelf life could last. "It’s one of those few records I can think of with three meaningful Christmas seasons," says Mayfield. "When I was at Billboard [in 1984] it was the third Christmas season for Thriller, and it was still one of the records that retailers cited as a traffic builder for them, and that’s unusual." The album also set new standards for the number of hit singles that could be pulled from the same record, with seven of its nine tracks becoming top 10 hits on the Hot 100 -- a then-record. "Having seven top 10 hits [on Thriller] was important," says Larry Stessel, senior VP/marketing for Jackson's Sony-owned label Epic in the '80s. "Because you had all of those songs that were being played on 98 percent of the radio stations in the country, whether it was some lesser singles... as long as they’re in the top 10 or top five, they’re going to have a tremendous impact." After Thriller, albums that previously would've only spun off three or four singles were now increasingly likely to have five, six, even seven songs pulled as A-sides before the artist would move on to a next album. Tellingly, Def Leppard's Diamond-selling Pyromania set, released just a couple months after Thriller in 1983, saw only four songs released as singles, but by the time of 1987 follow-up Hysteria, that LP spawned seven singles -- with the fourth and fifth single in the U.S. ("Pour Some Sugar on Me" and "Love Bites") becoming the set's biggest Hot 100 hits, reaching Nos. 2 and 1, respectively. "'We should do a rock version of Michael Jackson’s Thriller,'" Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen recalled to Billboard of producer Mutt Lange's goals for Hysteria. Also contributing to these albums' extended lifespans was the rise of MTV. Albums like Bruce Springsteen's Born in the U.S.A. (1984) and Janet Jackson's Control (1986) were able to generate at least five top 10 hits each (seven for Born) in large part because many of their singles were accompanied by captivating music videos that were endlessly promoted on what had become the world's most influential musical outlet. And Michael Jackson, who had helped the channel go truly global with videos for Thriller's "Beat It," "Billie Jean" and the title track, was the station's unquestioned male lead. "They were so hungry for Michael Jackson videos that we could’ve put out Michael singing 'Happy Birthday' and they would’ve played it," Stessel recalls. And when Bad was finally ready for release in 1987, a half-decade after Thriller had permanently changed the parameters for pop album scaling, it was given one of the great promotional pushes in record industry history. Walter Yetnikoff, then-CEO of CBS and Sony Music, was behind Jackson fully. At the time, Columbia Records (a CBS division) had mega-selling acts Springsteen, Pink Floyd and Billy Joel on its roster, but it was clear which artist was Yetnikoff's top priority. "As much as Walter loved those [other] acts, Michael was the king at the company,” says one former Sony executive. “The push behind Jackson kept Columbia from getting to No. 1 with their records. They over-aggressively promoted Michael Jackson, because that was what Walter wanted.” (Journey's Frontiers album on Columbia stalled at No. 2 for nine weeks in 1983, stuck behind Thriller.) The Bad album -- whose progress was kept as a secret even to Jackson's label, Epic Records, until shortly before it was delivered -- was first introduced to a who's who of radio and retail bigwigs at a private dinner at the pop star's house in Encino, California. "The first thing I thought was... we have to make Michael real to the industry again," says Jim Caparro, then-head of sales at Epic. "To make him real again I came up with this wild notion that we should bring all the accounts and big radio people to Michael’s house and have him debut the album to them." “Sony brought in Wolfgang Puck, he was the chef at the house,” recalls Bruce Ogilvie, now the CEO of Alliance Entertainment and the then-owner of the Abbey Road One-Stop distributor, about the summit. “They had all the Sony senior people there and [manager] Frank DiLeo was there, and so was Janet Jackson. They didn’t spare any expense. They picked everyone up in limousines to bring us there. It floated around the party that Michael Jackson was sleeping upstairs in the oxygen chamber but would come down later.” Bad was brought to the general public via a half-hour special, Michael Jackson: The Magic Returns, which debuted on CBS primetime the night before the album was released. The centerpiece of the special was the "Bad" music video, an 18-minute short film helmed by legendary director Martin Scorsese and co-starring a pre-fame Wesley Snipes. "It was on from 8-8:30 [on CBS] and it was the No. 5 show of the week," says Stessel, who wrote, produced and directed the program (along with Don Wilson), which also featured a short catch-up film summarizing Michael's career to that point. "It was a tremendous coup... we shipped 4.2 million copies [of the album], and we sold half of it the first week." All of this set the scene for a singles rollout that built on the momentum of Thriller and attempted to take it to new heights. "The album of your career is always going to put you on a higher plateau than you were before," Mayfield says. "And I would say that Thriller did some of the heavy lifting for Bad just by making his tent larger than it ever could have been prior to that album." Not wanting to mess with the successful formula of the latter, the release strategy for Bad closely mirrored that of its predecessor. "I Just Can't Stop Loving You," with Siedah Garrett -- the more traditional pop duet without a music video -- was pulled as a single first (as the Paul McCartney collab "The Girl Is Mine" was from Thriller), followed by two more obvious modern pop knockouts with elaborate visuals to match in "Bad" and "The Way You Make Me Feel" (just like "Billie Jean" and "Beat It" an album earlier). "Everything was about, 'Let’s just do everything the Thriller way,'" Stessel recalls. "

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midnight-watch-committee · 4 years

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Story 4:lost

The Louenburg residence 3:14 am February, 14th,2019

The early mornings were always oddly refreshing. I’d flip over to a kid’s tv channel and get to catch some classic cartoons. My top 3 were probably Spiderman, Silver Surfer, and Looney toons. It was always nice to see those and escape the reality of school or “work.” Is this even a job? I honestly never know but it feels like slavery to some magical book. Every single time it opens I feel like an R rated Scooby Doo, getting the gang together to fuck the town up more. Would I be more of a Velma? I got up from the couch and went over to my laptop bag near the wall. It had been a while since Terror Eater, so everyone had started to calm down. It’s not like I INTENDED to disappear for a week, just saw some tree and was like “Oh fuck yeah.” Now that I think about it, that’s kinda sad. Just throw some trees my way and I do whatever you want. God, I love plants. I sat down with my laptop and opened it up, watching Spiderman and taking a which scooby doo character are you quiz because I’m very mature, shut up, when I spotted something out of the corner of my eye. A blinking red light out in the yard. That couldn’t have been right. I got up to get a closer look, pretending to be looking for my laptop charger. It was... a camera. WHAT THE FUCK! I almost screamed, but somehow managed to keep a level head. Was someone watching me? Who? FBI? I didn’t know what to do. I just grabbed my shit and called Mickey, knowing he’d still be up. He was, sure as day. “Hey, it’s a bad time but what’s up?” He said, he probably started his sentence before even answering. Sure enough, he was the team nurse. Took a first aid class during the summer after I broke my arm. “Hey, someone’s outside watching me, can you come get me?” I said. I heard him shoot up half way through the sentence, “What do you mean someone’s watching you?” He blurted out, he was pretty loud, probably so he didn’t have to explain to Mara where he was going. “As in someone’s sitting outside recording me!” I whisper-screamed at him. “Hey, I gotta-” He started, followed by Mara telling him to “Go, it’s an emergency, get moving!” I would’ve laughed in any other situation, but... I was honestly more afraid this person would figure out I saw them. Did they already know? If they did and brought a weapon, I don’t doubt they’d attack Mickey. “Hurry!” I whispered and hung up. I just had to play cool until he got here. Ok, I can do this. By the time my eyes weren’t breaking away from the light I realized how fucked I was. I can’t even talk to a new person without freaking out, much less let them sit in the bushes and record me for their wank collection. DING! I snatched up my phone. “I’m here, let’s go,” Don’t have to tell me twice, I shot for my bag, grabbed it, and ran! Not gonna wait for that guy to get his rocks off to scram! I hopped in the passenger seat and slammed the door. I opened his glove box and grabbed his revolver. “Hey, that’s not a toy!” he yelled. I put it back, sighing. So much for castle doctrine.

The Vallen residence 7:00 am, February 14th, 2019.

You might be wondering why I decided to get up so early. I did too, I had no self-confidence, none at all, in fact I had negative self-confidence. These are things you already probably knew. Unless trees, Beth, or adventure was involved, I’d constantly doubt myself. My Facebook time line reminded me what day it was with a picture I never wanted to see again. Me, in a sparkly red dress, and there, with their arm around me was my former lover Alex. Alex was nonbinary and a real tough lookin folk. Their wardrobe was probably the costume design for The Terminator. The dark hair and biker jacket used to turn me on... now it just hurts. They went missing a while back, no one said anything. That was about three years ago, and every year since Mickey gave me something on Valentine’s Day, the cards always calling me his dearest friend. It was nice but it didn’t change much. They were still gone. Fuck it, this time I’m finally not gonna be sad! I opened the closet and grabbed the same red dress from the photo and threw it on quickly. I ran to the bathroom and flung open the makeup drawer. Digging through it I realized how old most of the stuff was. I grabbed what little wasn’t empty or expired and threw it on. Some black eyeshadow, mascara, and red lipstick never hurt anyone! I looked up in the mirror and felt... good for once! Not because of all the pretty shit, although that never hurt, but because for the first time in a while I was taking control. I grabbed my converse shoes and threw them on quick, stole a granola bar from the pantry and ran out to the bus stop. I leaped in through the door way panting, the other kids from my stop must’ve thought I truly lost it, and maybe I have. I sat down and checked my purse. Card? Check! We were good to go. I threw on “Jessie’s Girl” and watched out the window at everything passing by.

Big Horn High School, 7:25 am, February 14th, 2019

The bus was late, so there went dropping it in her computer bag early today. Guess I’d have second period, besides, she’s busy with club stuff in the mornings anyways. How does she even do it? “Ms. Vallen!” Mr. Hadison called after me. “I know, I’m late! Trust me, I got some good photos for class-” I started, turning around to see the one, the only special agent/Uber driver Chuck Garrison. “Ms. Vallen what a pleasure-” He stopped mid-sentence, “We’ve met before, haven’t we?” Shit, girl, we’re so dead! Does he know? For now, act like he doesn’t. “No... Nope, no way Jose!” I said, immediately blowing it. “Yep, I gave you a ride! I could tell the moment you opened your mouth.” He said and honestly I wouldn’t have been surprised if he was serious. “I know we talked earlier about somethings but Mr. Hadison here said you knew anything and everything about instant cameras.” He continued. “I do, why are you asking?” My voice was shaking again. He handed me a picture, “I was wondering if you could tell me anything about who took this photo or the camera used for it?” Ha, that’s it? Man, this would be easy. I took a look at it. It was one of mine, but I knew that if I tried to wiggle out or lie, I was as good as dead. “This looks like a Polaroid OneStep, much like the one I have” I held up my camera and gave it a wiggle. “The photographer, whoever they are, knew their tool like the back of their hand, the coloring is a little off but given the date at the bottom this tends to happen with pictures that are left unprotected for a while.” “Could they have also been called a camera expert like yourself?” Garrison asked, trying to trip me up. “Well, I guess with enough time and practice, anyone could be, don’t really see how a title effects an investigation-” I paused. “Hang on!” I held the picture up to a light and a smile ran across my face. It was the cabin but there was something off. “Someone added a window and a mountain! Whoever gave this to you is bullshiting you!” I handed it back to him, “Can I go to class now, officer? Or did you have any more questions?” He looked at the picture, then me, picture again, me again. He nodded and I headed off. “How did she know that?” Chuck asked. “Told you she’d know what you needed.” Mr. Hadison answered with a slight chuckle.

Lunch, 10:45 am, February 14th,2019.

I sat down at the table with Beth, Mickey, and Mara. They had started talking about whatever plans the couple ™ had and kept insisting Beth came along. I plopped a couple pictures down and started eating. The lack of space and pockets was honestly way more annoying than I remembered. I got a jaw drop from Mickey and a “Wowza!” from Beth, so I assumed it was the dress. “Ok pervs, get it all out now!” I joked, hoping they didn’t have any more comments. “Hey, so sorry but I forgot to get you something,” Mickey said. Three years and he’s never forgotten, hell last year I literally caught him buying a card for me in the middle of January! Who even does that? “What do you mean get her something?” Mara asked, and Beth started typing the answer away on her phone. The annoyed expression on Mara’s face changed to one of guilt. “Yeah, I was surprised too when I first saw him do it.” Beth said. I kept quiet for the rest of lunch, zoning out and eating my food, making sure my pics were good and occasionally showing one or two to the table. The one benefit to a magic camera is that you never run out of film! There were maybe two hundred photos there and I loved almost all of them. The bell rang and Beth shot off, as soon as she was out of ear shot was when I remembered I probably should’ve given her the card.

After school, 2:15 pm, February 14th, 2019.

Walking to Mickey’s truck I saw a bush... sit down. The red light from last night was starting to flash. Was this person really so stupid as to try something like this in broad daylight? I walked over, ready to kick this perv in the face for putting his cameras through such abuse as to violate someone’s privacy when I noticed something glowing... my camera. I stood still, who was seeing this? I started to feel weak, so I ran, sprinting towards Mickey. “It’s-” was about all I could force out before collapsing.

Big Horn Memorial County Hospital, 6:23 pm, February 14th,2019

When I came to, I had an IV in my arm and Beth sitting in a chair nearby. “What happened?” I asked, hoping what I remembered was a fever dream. Beth shot up and kneeled down next to my bed “Hey, you’re ok.” She said in her calming voice. “You passed out, doctors think it was dehydration but I told them that wasn’t possible, I literally watched you drink before you collapsed.” I chuckled softly, “Wow, Beth, you watch me drink? Are you sure it wasn’t you outside last night?” Her smile disappeared. “What?” she seemed scared, as was I. “There was...someone outside your place last night, they were recording me all night and-” Beth cut me off by handing the Children’s survival guide to me. “Someone... or something?” Sure as shit, the page in front of me is what little I remembered seeing. A pale, tall, humanoid creature. They don’t just have cameras, the cameras are their head, constantly watching and draining its victims of all life. Rumor has it that they’re people kidnapped by monsters with magical powers turned into a monster themselves and the only way to free them is if they’re recognized by someone. Their targets are usually someone they’re close to but can also be someone who’s just met them. “Oh yes, because I’ll remember M.C. Camera face!” I said, defeated. A hospital cart rolled by, completely unattended. Beth looked over at it, watching it roll past and looking for any signs of it. She gripped my hand, I guess to keep track of me. The door flung open and the thing came in, Beth stood in between us to block it. I kept Staring at it, trying to think of who could possibly be this camera! That’s when I noticed, it was an old camera. Not just any old camera, but the camera I had used to film my first ever dance with... “Beth, move!” She turned around, “Are you insane, it’s going to kill you!” I sigh and smile at it, “No Beth, they aren’t... please just trust me.” She sighed and moved aside. The stalker got close, leaning in maybe an inch from my face. “I thought of you today, Alex.” I said. The stalker started to emit steam, warping into itself, and yet it had this look. Even though it had no face, you could tell it was giving me a “Thank you” look. Beth and I sat there in watched, tears rolling down my face. As the last of it burned, Beth came over and wiped my tears, holding me close. I spent about an hour just crying with Beth there cradling me. It was nice, but eventually I stopped crying. “Hey,” she said reaching into her purse, “I may or may not have planned something out for tonight that didn’t work because you were in the hospital. But we do have an alternative!” she said, pulling a projector out of her bag. I was pleasantly surprised. “Wait, did you stop Mickey from-” I started. “No silly, just wanted to give you mine first” She said, turning off the lights and turning the projector on. It was her, holding some note cards. It was late and she was quietly reading them from her room but you could tell she cared. “Juniper, I’ve told a million lies to a thousand people but today I have to say the hardest words I have ever said before in my life.” A picture of us went up, in place of her as she laid down next to me. “If there was ever someone I would want to be trapped on an island with, it would be you. You are funny, clever, sweet, and more stunning than you ever give yourself credit for. I knew that the first time I ever asked you for a pencil, and every time after that. The adorable way you stammer over your words when you aren’t confident in yourself reminds me I might actually have a chance to say what I want to say in person. Juniper Susan Vallen...” The projector Beth disappeared as the video ended, replaced by me and the real Beth sitting in the darkness. I felt her face turn towards me, the room barely illuminated by the hallway light through the curtains and the monitors behind me. “I...” she paused. She felt like... well like me trying to talk to someone! “I love you” she barely managed to get out. Fireworks went off in my heart. This can’t be real! “Elizabeth Louenburg...” I paused too for dramatic effect. “I may or may not love you too.” She looked at me like I just told her to go fuck herself “May or may not?” I giggled, “Ok, Ok, yes, I love you too, dummy!” She sat in my lap and kissed me. It was amazing, I didn’t want it to end. But sadly, we were interrupted by someone knocking at the door. Beth sighed and got up, checking the door. “Ok, I’ll ask her if she wants to see you now.” she said to whoever it was, them responding back and her snapping “I don’t care if you’re God himself, if Juni doesn’t want to see you, she doesn’t want to see you!” She shut the door on them and whispered to me “Some guy named Chuck is here to see you.” I gave her a thumbs up and she opened the door. “She said you have five minutes.” Beth said, knowing damn well I didn’t but probably just wanted to spend some more time with her new girlfriend. Chuck sat down, his stereotypical suit and tie looking a little less professional the way it was coming apart. “When I heard our only real witness,” he said, gesturing towards me, “was in the hospital I HAD to rush down here. Juniper,” He said, looking at me like he was losing all hope in this weak case, “do you know of anyone who may have attempted to hurt you in anyway?” I shook my head. “Then how did you break your nose? And how did you pass out in the first place?” Beth started to seem annoyed so I tried to answer him quickly, “I have no idea how I collapsed, doctors noticed a lack of nutrients so that might’ve been it, as far as my nose goes I hit the ground pretty hard so that must’ve done the trick.” And with that his faith seemed restored. “If we happened to get any more pictures from the news or wherever, would you still be willing to identify them?” I nodded and he got up. “Thank you so much! We might just have a case against these traitors after all!” He shook my hand, then Beth’s. “It was nice to meet you, ma’am. I’ll let you girls get back to whatever you were doing.” He winked at me and left. It was odd but... reassuring oddly. Beth sighed and layed next to me, refusing to leave me all night.

#short story #horror #surreal horror #lovecraftian horror #adventure #fiction #suspense #monsters #midnight watch committee #magic #horror stories #lgbtq

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thenovelescapes · 8 years

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january 2017

Happy New Year! I rang 2017 in on a beach in Hawaii surrounded by my whole family and although it was lovely, it was just as anti-climactic as last year. (When I was by myself, sitting on the couch, watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets). I've spent NYE with friends, with family, and by myself. There's no sure-fire formula to having a good year, so no matter how you celebrated, I wish you all a 2017 filled with heath, happiness and hope.

- the television -

The first pop culture item I consumed in 2017 was Sports Night. I hadn't revisited the series since I first watched it a few years ago but it is just as delightful and charming as I remembered. (And the laugh track is just as disconcerting). I had downloaded the full series to my iPad to keep me company on my solo plane rides and it ended up being an excellent distraction from my raging fever and chills. (0 / 10 would NOT recommend). I watched seasons one and two this month.

Next, I revisited another favourite that I'd been meaning to rewatch for ages - The Good Wife. It was monumentally harder to watch some scenes, knowing what's lurking in season 5. Eli Gold erasing the voicemail nearly broke me. ("MY PLAN IS I LOVE YOU"). I became re-obsessed and blasted through five seasons in only a couple of weeks, plus/or minus the days I needed a break to recover from that death.

One Day at a Time is a new show that premiered on Netflix on (DATE). It stars Justina Machado as a Cuban-American veteran living with her son, daughter, and mother. (Information about how it's a reboot). This show has so much heart. Justina Machado has a smile that could light up an entire damn room, Elena's storyline made me cry approximately 178 times, and each episode deals so deftly with huge topics - veteran benefits, immigration & deportation, coming out, sexism, divorce and more. Watch it! The Series of Unfortunate Events also premiered on Netflix this month. Now, I hated the ASoUE film. Hated it. So, I had low expectations going into the series but I ended up loving it! (MORE)

This month in the never-ending saga of "Finding Television Shows My Parents Don't Hate": Broadchurch. I'd never seen an episode, but knew enough about it to determine that it'd be up their alley. Death and a mystery for my dad. A+ cinematography and beautiful seaside landscapes for my mom. Together, we managed to watch the first two seasons.

Finally, Sherlock. My feelings about season 4 are… complicated. The first episode was awful. It felt like it lasted four hours long, and not in a good way. Episodes 2 and 3 were much more interesting but I don’t know if I enjoyed them? I think I’d be just fine if season four was the last.

- the books -

The first book I read in 2017 was A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. I bought the novel months and months ago but had been putting off reading it for various reasons. It was too long, it was too sad, etc. It was long, and sad was a massive understatement but it was also incredibly written and beautiful. I had to put it down multiple times because I was distraught and my nerves felt live wires, and it was probably not the best choice for a vacation read, but I could never put it down for long and powered through all 720 pages in four days. Next, I picked up How to Be a Person in the World: Ask Polly’s Guide Through the Paradoxes of Modern Life by Heather Havrikesky because it’s new year resolution time and I need all the help I can get. Havrilesky is funny and informative and handles every question with compassion and wisdom.

The Sun is Also a Star is Nicola Yoon’s sophomore novel and it was every bit as charming and sweet as her debut. In it, Natasha, an African-American girl who is about to be deported back to Jamaica with her family, and Daniel, a Korean-American boy struggling against his parent’s expectations, collide over and over again during a whirlwind afternoon. Her first novel, Everything Everything is about to be a movie and the trailer looks delightful.

- the movies -

I watched four movies in January. They were all terrible. The Big Short involves a lot of middle aged white men yelling about money. Autumn Dreams is an awful Hallmark Channel rom com with no life and actors with no chemistry. I confess I only half payed attention to Man Up but what I did see was over-the-top and featured Lake Bell doing an extremely bad British accent. The Meddler was marginally better than the others and Rose Byrne is always great but every time I look at Susan Sarandon now, I re-live her Twitter fight with Debra Messing and her utterly tone-deaf political comments.

- miscellaneous -

Podcasts, podcasts, podcasts! First, In the Dark. The first season of this podcast reveals how law enforcement mishandled one of the most notorious child abductions in the country - the abduction of Jacob Wetterling. It’s so interesting and the reporting is so detailed, I was enthralled and disturbed through every episode. Terrible, Thanks for Asking is a podcast about grief and love and life from Nora McInerny Purmort, who lost a baby to a miscarriage and her father and husband to cancer - all within six weeks of each other. I cry at least once an episode. Season 1 is complete and up on iTunes and other podcast platforms for your binge-listening pleasure.

I hope you all had a great start to the new year and as always, happy reading / watching / listening!

#january wrapup #2017 #jan2017

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purplesurveys · 5 years

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659

Mosquitoes find you particularly delicious. The rainy season where I live is essentially equivalent to mosquito season, so there is definitely a certain period in a year where they are more than usual; and because I like having just my windows open when I sleep (I find the aircon too cold most of the time), the mosquitoes find their way to my room and so there’d be days I’d wake up filled with new bites. I’m lucky enough to have never had dengue. You cheated on Heads Up 7 Up in elementary school. We don’t play that here. We do have a game called 7 Up and it *may* be a variation of that, but 7 Up involves running and chasing haha. You had a favorite Spice Girl. I’m definitely not old enough to have reached Spice Girls’ peak, and out of all of them I only know Victoria Beckham. You remember watching the first episode of SpongeBob when it came out. I was only a year old when Spongebob first came out, so I didn’t watch it by then. I do know what episode you’re talking about, though – Spongebob was pretty much all I ever watched as a kid. You like to draw. I was never any good at drawing, so I hate every bit of it.

You wish you had a car. Sort of? I have my own car bought by my parents, but I am aiming to get my own car when I could afford it. My dream car is the Mini Cooper Clubman. You used to want to be a model. I’m embarrassed by it now, but it was a legitimate dream of mine before, so much so that I let my dad know of my intention (then) of becoming a runway model. Idk, I had a past friend who was into VS models and reblogged them all the time, so her interest rubbed off on me and I wanted to be like them as well. I cringe every time I remember, lmao. You wanted to be on the show All That. I wanted to be on all the Nickelodeon shows that had the same theme as All That. You enjoy public speaking. I’m good at it and can enjoy it on a good day, but sometimes I’ll get anxious. You have witnessed something supernatural. Nope. I’ve had friends tell me their stories and I believe them, but I can’t say the same for myself. You believe in the supernatural. Just ghosts. I don’t believe in folk creatures, like the ones we have in our native culture. You aren't heterosexual. My survey answers in the last six or so years have made this very blatant. You think the whole transgender thing is stupid. That’s twisted and sad and pitiful. You own a dreamcatcher. Two – one mini dreamcatcher and another giant one. I’ve had an attachment to them since seeing New Moon of the Twilight Saga – there’s a part where Jacob gives Bella her own dreamcatcher at a time when she got depressed and was having nightmares every night, and I know there had been many times when I was like Bella, so I wanted one for myself as well. You'd want a boho wedding. So not my style. My wedding’s going to be minimalist and at most, pastel-themed. You think pink is the best color for cars. Not for me, no. Simple is better; I like my cars white. You've been called a free spirit. Nope, and rightfully so. I wouldn’t call myself a free spirit either. I like trying out new things, but I also like having security blankets and safety nets around. You're the same height as your mom. Yeah pretty much. She’s just a tiny bit taller. You grew up watching Nickelodean. I grew up watching Nickelodeon*, but this works too. My cousins and I just flipped among three channels – Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, and Cartoon Network.

You have a sibling who looks like you. Nah we all have our own distinct looks. There are angles and expressions wherein we look more similar, but generally it’s easy to tell us apart. You like to write in a journal. This account is pretty much like my journal, and I love using this blog for my thoughts and ramblings. You're tired. It’s Friday, it’s the end of the week, and I’m so, so, SO tired. And of course I’m celebrating by drinking two cups of coffee and staying up as late as I want, lol. You felt sick today. The last time this happened was late last year. I felt feverish while I was out for dinner with Gab, but the weird thing about it was that I felt better and as if nothing happened literally a half hour later. You're very creative. That is the LAST word I would use to describe myself. You can be disorganized. I’m organized about a lot of things, but I’m also disorganized about a lot of things. I could never maintain my closet no matter how much I put an effort to fold everything neatly and start from square one. You have a fever right now. Nope.

You've enjoyed babysitting. We never explicitly used this term but I was always the go-to elder kid to look out for my baby cousins, especially when we still lived under the same roof as an extended family, and I loved every bit of it. I was okay with being the motherly figure while everyone else played games or with toys. You want to go to New York City to visit. Yeah. I like bustling cities, so I feel like NYC would be right up my alley. I don’t care much for Times Square though and I would probably spend most of my time going to their museums. You love tea. I’m not obsessed with it; I can take it or leave it. And I don’t like the teas that come with a teabag; I drink either the traditional Chinese tea or just sweet, unhealthy iced tea altogether. You don't play an instrument. Yeah and I get sad about this like two times a day lmao. I wish I could play just a tiny bit of piano and/or violin. You used to want Taylor Swift's hair. I never actively wanted to be anything like her. You enjoyed High School Musical. Of course. I was THERE when it came out, and I stayed for every bit of the first film, High School Musical 2, and High School Musical 3. I was right smack in the middle of the HSM frenzy and it’s one of the more cherishable moments of my childhood haha. Everybody knew the songs, the steps to We’re All In This Together, and had HSM shirts, bags, pencil cases, and notebooks. You watched The Rugrats Movie in the theater. I barely remember that it had a movie, and I don’t think I ever saw it. Definitely not in the cinemas. You've performed on stage in a musical. I’ve performed on stage (as part of a big group) for annual school productions, but I think they were all plays. Hated every second of it. You've had the lead role in a musical. Certainly not. You've had cramps so bad you threw up. No, but close. A few weeks ago I had a headache SO bad I actually had to run to the toilet only to dry heave. It’s never happened to me before so I got scared and I just slept it off to see what happened the next day. You've never had Nutella. 2010 Tumblr pressured everybody to get Nutella because it was all the rage at the time and all the cool kids were having it, so I also did at some point. You have a favorite blanket. The one Gabie gave me two Christmases ago is my favorite. You own family heirlooms. I’m sure we have some but they haven’t been passed on to me yet.

You have carved and painted pumpkins before. No, pumpkins aren’t really a thing here. As far as I know, coloring/painting on Easter eggs is a more common activity. You have colored Easter eggs. Yes, I used to do this with my (second) cousins when they were younger.

You've walked through a haunted house. I always say I’m into horror stuff, but tbh I think horror movies are the furthest I can go HAHAHA. I’ve never been in a haunted house whether day or night, and I think the only time you’d get me to do it is if I got paid for it. You've dressed up on Halloween. Plenty times. I was Dora the Explorer last year :D :D You've tried to kill yourself. You've had a false rumor spread about you. In Grade 6 I had a rumor come back to me saying I was bi and was seeing my friend Andi (who, to be fair, I had a crush on at the time but I didn’t realize it yet). I just found it cool at all that I had a rumor about me considering I wasn’t a popular kid and had literally 2 friends, so I didn’t let it bother me haaaaah. You've been kicked out of a store (whether for a good or bad reason.) It was at a McDonald’s lmao. My friends were playing a card game and were yelling every five seconds; I knew people were going to get pissed so I distanced myself as much as possible even though I was at the same table jkfghdgh. Eventually an old man had had enough and asked us to leave, which I was GLAD to do. You have a favorite stove burner that you always use. I don’t have a favorite...the one I use often just happens to be my regular one. You enjoy eating at fast food restaurants. I find them dirty and nasty so I only eat there if I absolutely have to, but I do like getting takeout and enjoy fast food in general. You like arrows and feathers and peace signs. Ugh cringe, this SCREAMS 2010 Tumblr hahahahaha. I mean I liked all of these at some point, but not now. You want to wear a flower crown for your wedding. Hell no. It was cute for a while, but not anymore. You have signed someone else's yearbook. We don’t do that here. We pay tons of money for our yearbooks that it’s practically destroying them if we ever wrote on them lmao. You were shy in high school. For the first half, I was shy and pretty unpopular. By the latter part of high school I managed to gain friends and end up in the ~popular~ circle, but I was still shy compared to my peers. I didn’t take up a lot of extracurriculars (which is what the popu kids tended to do) but I managed to stay within the circle until the end of it. You're shy when first getting to know someone. Of course, as most would be I would imagine. I can warm up fast, though. You've gotten all A's in a class before. In high school, this was me with English and history. In college, this would be me with my history electives.

You had a favorite class and a favorite teacher in high school. Sure! Our biology teacher in sophomore year was evvvvverybody’s crush. She was so pretty and kind and smart; when we went to a beach for our field trip, I tried getting stung by a jellyfish just so she’d treat the bite on my leg cos she was one out of two faculty members who knew how to treat stings HAHAHAH. I didn’t get the highest marks in her class, but I enjoyed nonetheless. You were a teacher's favorite. BY NO MEANS. Gabie was, though. We were total polar opposites when it came to how we acted in class. You've won a costume contest. I...don’t think I ever did, but my mom did go all out when it came to coming up with our costumes as kids. You have a favorite Disney princess. It used to be Ariel, then I found her annoying. My present favorite is Rapunzel. You get carsick. Only if I excessively do something while in a moving vehicle, like text or read. You've flown first class. Never have. You hate inequality and wish life were more fair. Don’t we all? You've had a bad neighbor. They weren’t bad per se. Just a bit chaotic and the kids (a little older than I was at the time) clearly had behavioral issues. I was so relieved when they moved out. You've done a cannonball. I don’t think so. You have fallen and hit your head. Nope, and that sounds like the literal worst thing. You like sunflowers. Sure! It’s a popular UP symbol – every year, a few weeks before the university-wide graduation, they’d plant huuundreds of sunflowers to line up the entire road leading to my school :) We usually refer to sunflowers as a sign of encouragement to keep on keeping on, so that one day the sunflowers will bloom for us as well. You like the name Skylar. It’s alright. I like it because it’s the name of the badass mom in Breaking Bad, but otherwise it’s nothing too special for me. You've had a friend named Sarah. I have acquaintances with the name Sarah but they’re not my friends. You have an Aunt Robin. Nope. I would end up being the Aunt Robyn in a few years, hahahaha. You have an Uncle Rick. I’ve never heard of an Uncle/Tito Rick, but with how big Filipino families are I wouldn’t be surprised if I turned out to have one. You have a cousin Annabelle. No, but close. I have an Auntie Bel whose whole name is Amabel. You think flying a kite is boring. I never had fun doing it, or whenever we had to do it as a school activity. You were born in the year of the Dragon. Tiger, yo. You like your Chinese zodiac sign better than your American one. I don’t care for either. Your laptop has shut off because it got too hot. It’s never done this before, thank goodness. I try not to overwork it either. You've accidentally caught something on fire. Nope, I don’t think this has happened to me before. You make your bed every day. Aside from my mom requires me to, a neat bed makes the entire room feel much cleaner so I do it anyway. You wear a digital watch. I have a bad record of losing watches, so I never like wearing them. You have a favorite park. We don’t have a lot of parks here to even pick favorites from to begin with, which is a shame. You've hiked a mountain. I want to sooooo bad. It’s just never happened before/yet. You want to hike a mountain again. ^ You've been a slave. What the fuck. You feel like you've had your free will stolen from you. My parents were quite strict before but it never felt this bad. You speak in tongues. If you mean I can speak more than one language, then sure. You enjoy medieval festivals. Never been interested in anything medieval. Your favorite fair ride is the pirate ship. I don’t ride rides. Cotton candy isn't that good. It’s a cute concept but I wouldn’t always pay for it. Men look good in pink. Men – and anybody – would look good in any color so long as they’re comfortable with it lol. You went to youth group. Hell no. I’m glad my mom never forced me either. You were baptized in a lake. No. Just in a church. You were on Color Guard. I have no idea what this means. You went to your senior prom. We had a junior prom that I went to, and that was it for my school; but I was also asked to go to a senior ball of another school. Your first kiss was just an experiment. No, it was a legit kiss. You dated a guy you didn't like. Almost did, though. You have fallen asleep in class. Never. I never want this to happen, either. You have won an award. A few times. You type fast. Yeah, you get used to it through the years. You have a lot of dreams for your future. I still want to do a lot, yes. You've gone camping in the woods. Never, but it’d be a cool experience. I wouldn’t want to be alone though. You love to sleep under the stars. I don’t get to do this but it sounds like a lovely time. You've gone camping in the fall. I haven’t gone camping at allllllll. You own a pair of slipper socks. That sounds way too hot for where I live lmao.

#survey #surveys

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