#how many short films that were made for class could have been the most powerful thing you'd ever seen? if you'd seen them?

[sylvies-kablooie]

i do unironically think the best artists of our generation are posting to get 20 notes and 3 reblogs btw. that fanfic with like 45 kudos is some of the best stuff ever written. those OCs you carry around have some of the richest backstories and worldbuilding someone has ever seen. please do not think that reaching only a few people when you post means your art isn't worth celebrating.

[misfitcaddie]

The Misfits

Hello, everyone!

Basically, this is just short little story that found its way into my mind while I was trying to study for my last finals season. It’s fluff with angst (I mean this is about Eddie Munson and Carrie White) and I have no idea how I came up with this weird pairing.

It takes place in the Stranger Things season 4 universe, so they’re in Hawkins and the year is 1986. Everything related to Carrie is based on the novel not the films BUT she doesn’t have any special powers (sorry, I’m not that good of a writer), also her mum might be crazy, but not insane like in the book.

Also, my first language is not English and this is my first time writing a fic so if you have any suggestions or corrections feel free to leave a comment, I’m willing to learn :)

You can also read it in ao3 (link)

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summary: When Carrie experiences the worst night of her life all she wants to do is disappear but when Eddie sees her crying at the front of Hawkins High, he puts on his knight’s shining armor to help her out of that difficult situation.

words: 4,578

Hope you enjoy

The Misfits

Carrie

Carrie didn't understand how she had managed to be so dumb yet again. Hadn't she learned from all the previous humiliations and the jokes her peers had made her the butt of?

Once again, she found herself surrounded by pretty teens laughing at her expense. Classmates that had never moved a finger to fit in; it was granted to them. They had never had to work and fight to be accepted among their equals.

Unlike Carrie. For her every day was a battle. Getting out of bed, heading her way to highschool, trying to make herself little, little, little, so little while walking down the halls to her locker or on her way to class. Anything so as not to raise any eyes at her, so as to avoid any jokes on her. She'd rather be invisible.

So, when Jason, the coolest, most handsome boy and captain of the baseball team had asked her to prom, she became suspicious. She was no fool to be captivated by a few sweet nothings. She knew better than that. But she wanted to believe. And when Jason explained to her that he and the rest of his friends felt bad..

"Really, Carrie, we are so sorry. That talk about bullying prevention really opened our eyes. We were so mean to you" he had said.

.. and that he wanted to take her to senior prom to spend the evening partying with her and his friends, and just had fun all together, she had accepted.

How big of a fool she had been. She could never forgive herself after this. And certainly, she could never show up to highschool ever again.

Somehow, they had fixed the votes for prom king and queen. They had managed to shove her up the stairs of the stage to crown her queen -along with Jason who was crowned king. They had her facing the whole school from up the stage. Then, when they had her where they wanted her, they had poured two buckets filled to the brim with blood on her.

"Pig's blood for a pig!" she had heard someone shout from the crowd, but she had been unable to see who.

That had made everyone burst into laughter.

As if she was the main attraction of the circus. The old fat monkey everyone gathers around to enjoy throwing peanuts at.

The worst? They believed they had the right to do so. She could feel it.

The teachers, too afraid to call out anyone and cause even more commotion, didn't do anything to help her as per usual.

Still on stage, she covered her face with her hands out of shame. She was in shock. Only after a moment standing still, frozen like a deer in headlights, she managed to step forwards. She wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. She needed to get out of there.

So, she raced off the stage, not without almost tripping several times over her pretty long dress that she had spent so many nights sewing, and that now clung to her body like a wet cloth, drenched in the many liters of blood they had poured over her.

She ran past the crowd of teens that stepped aside as she passed by to avoid getting stained with the blood that dripped off Carrie's dress and hair.

At that point she could already see the gym's doors from behind the spaces of her fingers. But right when she was going to cross the threshold, she tripped over a leg someone had stuck out with perfect timing to make her fall to the ground.

She was not quick enough to move her hands from her face to protect herself from the impact and she let out a strangled cry as she hit the floor. It was visceral and wild, sounding more like an animal than a human, and it only made people laugh some more at her.

After some crawling, Carrie managed to stand back up to her feet and finally crossed the double doors of the gym. She descended the stairs as fast as she could, almost flying. Stepping two or even three steps at a time until she made it through the front doors of the building.

Already out of breath, Carrie kept running a bit more until her feet — that had lost her prom kitten heels during her desperate run — tangled into each other and she fell once again, this time headfirst into the green grass patch at the very front of the school.

What’s a little bit of mud on your dress when you’re covered in blood?

Tired and exhausted, Carrie rolled over, so she was facing the starry sky as warm tears began to roll down her face. The blood on her cheeks started to wash away in rivulets, creating rivers down her face as she cried.

How pathetic. How pathetic I’ve been. Dolling myself up. Styling my hair. Doing my makeup. Dedicating all those days sewing my stupid prom dress. God, I’m so pathetic.

I even bought the fabric of Jason’s favorite color after I heard him commenting on it casually with his friends in biology class.

That made her feel the worst.

Carrie wished for the ground at the entrance of Hawkins High to open wide and swallow her whole.

Shame struck again and she covered her face with her hands once more. She couldn’t help but keep crying.

God, how I wish I was dead.

Eddie

Eddie arrived at prom around 45 minutes late. He felt he needed to give them a little time to warm up to the party before he showed up to sell his green goods. After all, he wasn’t there for fun. He hadn’t even come inside, and he wasn’t planning to. Eddie had already attended senior prom the year he was supposed to graduate.

Back when his classmates didn’t consider him yet to be as much of a freak as the kids who are graduating this year. The black sheep, yes, but not a freak.

He had gone out of curiosity mostly, and also because his friends Gareth and Jeff were going as well.

Even uncle Wayne had encouraged him to attend his senior prom. They didn’t have any fancy clothes, but Wayne lent Eddie a white shirt too oversized for his own good and he also managed to find some old dressing pants and matching jacket of his that fitted Eddie quite well if you didn’t take into account their obnoxious moss color. To top it off he still wore his beaten-up white Reeboks. The result was quite a random outfit that wasn’t too bad and somehow managed to fit prom etiquette.

The night of his senior prom Eddie had walked into the overly decorated gymnasium with his friends, stayed around for a bit listening to a few all-sound-the-same pop songs, heard the murmured (and not so murmured) laughs and comments about his clown like appearance, caught a glimpse of himself at the reflection in one of the gym’s metallic doors, checked that what those kids were saying was indeed true, and right after he decided that he’d had enough. So, he left early after an hour in.

Last year he had come to trade, and he had done some good business, so he came back this year. Although neither last year nor this year he’d dared to step a foot inside. He stayed near the front of the building. Either walking in circles kicking stones out of the way, sitting on a bench, or smoking while waiting for those who occasionally came out to buy from him.

From the outside he could hear the faint music. The warm lights of the gymnasium slightly illuminated the pavement under the windows.

Suddenly the music stopped and a male voice pronouncing an unintelligible speech took its place.

Prom King and Queen time -though Eddie- Who’d be the lucky guys this year? He asked himself with a smirk on his face and a cigarette hanging from his lips. He really couldn’t care less.

Just as the presenter finished his sprees a loud cheering started. People clapping and whistling celebrating Prom King.

And now the queen.

The presenter added a bit more of his unintelligible speech onto the mic and finally announced the Prom Queen.

And then, silence. Unlike what happened with the Prom King, some doubtful seconds passed before people eventually started cheering. Loud noises of joy and celebration kept going until, as it had happened scarce minutes ago, everything stopped. And it became dead silent once again.

Only this pause was longer.

Eddie thought how odd this was. It felt as if whatever was going on inside the gymnasium kept being paused as if it were a VHS tape.

The next sound Eddie heard was laughter. Hysterical fits of laughter that seemed to be in crescendo.

He raised his eyebrows and shook his head while wandering down the path beside the school.

Hell, highschool keeps getting more and more strange.

He was finishing his third cigarette of the night when he heard the loud thud of the front doors opening. He turned around just in time to see a dark figure stomp through them in a pathetic run only to fall headfirst into the grass a few steps ahead.

Eddie looked back at the doors, confused, in case someone else followed the strange figure. But no one came out.

He wasn’t scared by however this person was. After all they had just stuck their face right into the ground, they weren't in their best shape. Nonetheless, Eddie doubted whether to approach them or not. But before he realized his curious dungeon master mind had already decided for him as he found himself walking towards the patch of grass where this person was lying.

As Eddie got close, he discerned it was a girl, with her hands thrown over her face and her dress covered in some deep red, shiny substance.

Could it be…? No… Blood?

Yes, it is blood.

Standing right beside her there was no doubt. It was blood. She was drenched in it. Eddie could smell it.

The girl didn’t/hadn’t (seemed to) acknowledge his presence and if she had she didn’t show a single care. Her hands hid her face and Eddie could hear her sobbing behind them.

“Hey… sorry” started Eddie, unsure of what to say. “Are you okay?”

The girl stopped sobbing abruptly out of fear someone had been watching her. Slowly, she spread her fingers to steal a sneak peek. She hoped with all her heart that they weren’t speaking to her, that no one else had seen her like this.

Her white orbs appeared from the spaces between her fingers and her gaze landed on a pair of beaten-up white Reeboks. Carrie looked up.

She recognized him. It was Eddie. Eddie the freak Munson. She recalled seeing him in the cafeteria. He was unashamedly himself, despite everything, despite all the shit he usually got. He even stood up to those bullies who bothered him, and specially to one in particular: Jason Carver. Eddie had put him in his place (on) several occasions. She wished she could be more like him.

From above her, Eddie saw her open her eyes to look at him. He had seen her before but couldn't place her all dirty and red as she was. Eddie looked back at her in the eyes and then he knew: Carrie. Carrie White. She couldn’t be anyone else. The butt of all jokes for the seniors, the easy target, the extremely quiet girl who looked and felt like a ghost.

How could have they done this to her? To anyone. They never had enough.

The laughter, god… they were laughing at her.

Eddie felt suddenly overwhelmed.

He couldn’t help but to feel deep sadness and worry towards Carrie, drenched in blood lying on the grass.

His face must have visibly dropped because she quickly covered her face again and started heavily crying; without caring anymore about who could hear her or not, or see her or not.

Eddie squatted beside her in an instant.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you.”

Eddie knew that playing the strategy of talking to her as if she was a wild wounded animal wasn’t the best method to get her to talk to him but, in that moment, he wasn’t capable of coming up with anything better.

In slow motion, he dug his knees on the ground and gently placed his hands on top of hers.

She was freezing.

“Carrie, I don’t want to hurt you.” Eddie said softly. “What happened in there?” The only answer he got were muted sobs.

With his hands on her skin, he was able to feel the way she was shaking. She needed to be somewhere warm.

A hypothermia is the last thing she needs now. Carrie had already had enough traumatic experiences for the night, or for the rest of her life really.

“Come with me, I’ll drive you home. You’ll freeze out here.”

“No!” screamed Carrie. She became aware of the sudden change in her tone and as soon as it had come it disappeared. Her voice weak once again.

“No, I can’t go home. Not like this. My mother…”

Carrie couldn’t get herself to finish the sentence.

Eddie’s eyes were wide with surprise.

“Okay… well… I can’t leave you here. You’ll catch a cold.”

You’re so convincing, Eddie. Now she’ll think you are trying to kidnap her.

He stopped to think for a moment. He had an idea; it was a bit drastic considering that they hardly knew each other. Maybe it’d scare her away, but it was the best he had to offer.

“Let’s go to my van for now, okay? Maybe, if you want of course, we could go to my place. You could have a shower there and I could even lend you some clothes. Then I could drive you home.”

Eddie wondered why he was investing so much time in this situation. If it had been anyone else, well, except for his friends, he would have ignored them and pretended they weren’t even there.

But with Carrie he would rather jump in front of a ten-ton trunk than leave her there, alone. Eddie was an inherently good person. He couldn’t help helping a girl who had done nothing wrong other than being a bit too shy and a bit too offbeat. Perhaps it was also the fact that he felt a bit identified with her.

Eddie stood back up while waiting for an answer.

Carrie took the hands off of her eyes slowly and let her arms rest limp by her sides. Her eyes were puffy from heavy crying.

“Okay… yeah...” she said. “That’ll be nice, thank you.”

It can’t be worse than what already happened to me, right?

Eddie reached out a hand to help her up, but she didn’t take it. Instead, she rolled to her side and with great effort she succeeded in putting herself back up to her feet.

She looked at Eddie with glassy eyes and tried her best to give him a faint smile. As an answer she received a soft smile from Eddie’s lips as he led the way to his van, hands in his pockets.

“Alright” chanted Eddie. “This’ll be your carriage for the night. A bit old and rusty but trustworthy.”

Slow down. You think she’s in the mood for some joking?  Seriously?

He didn’t hear any replay and so he turned around to check on her. Carrie had stopped walking and now she stood a few feet away from the van, nervously fidgeting with her fingers.

“Hey, you’re alright?”

“I… I’ll stain the seat.”

The blood, right.

“It’s fine. You can sit on my jacket.”

Eddie walked towards the other side of the van. As he talked, he started taking his denim, self-customized Dio vest off. Then his black leather jacket.

He opened the passenger’s door and extended the jacket over the seat.

“And, you know, it’s not like it doesn’t have any stains already. So it’s no big deal, really.”

He dedicated her a smile. Carrie gave a couple heavy nods with her blood drenched head, and with some doubts still in her heart she took her place on the passenger’s seat.

The ride to Eddie’s home was quiet except for the unusually low volumed metal music coming from the van’s cassette player and Eddie’s occasional humming to the lyrics. He had asked her whether the music was too loud, which it wasn’t, so she shook her head no and reassured him it was okey.

Carrie could feel herself calming down. Despite Eddie’s appearance, he was a good and careful driver. He was kind too. She did no longer felt like crying. Although her eyes felt heavy and tired.

She could hear the distant murmur of the tires’ friction against the road, the muted music playing in the background, Eddie’s subtle humming... Carrie felt disgusting, with the blood threatening to dry on her skin, but she could certainly fall asleep right there, in the passenger seat of Eddie’s van. She closed her eyes for a moment, just to let them rest, to enjoy this instant of peace.

She didn’t want to think ever again of what had happened —although she knew she will—, neither she wanted to face her mother and the lie she’ll have to tell her.

When Eddie parked the van in front of his and his uncle’s trailer house, he noticed Carrie’s eyes remained closed.

Is she asleep?

A mixed fear of waking up this girl he hardly knew and relief that she had at least stopped crying traversed his body in a second.

With all the self-assurance he could muster, Eddie jumped out of the van and opened her door. As he went to touch her shoulder to wake her up, her eyes snapped back open. Maybe she hadn’t succumbed to slumber after all.

“We’re here. Come on, let’s get inside” he said in a warm voice that was barely a whisper.

Eddie led the way once more and let Carrie cross the threshold of his home before him. Carrie looked worried at the black leather jacket Eddie had now hanging from his forearm, slightly stained with blood.

“Sorry...”

Eddie looked in the same direction as her to see what she was referring to. Right, his jacket. He smiled and he put her at ease assuring her that with a little help from a wet cloth it’ll be good as new. Carrie didn’t seem too convinced by his answer, but she came inside anyways, holding her long dress up so it wouldn’t drag along the floor.

“There’s the bathroom” said Eddie pointing to a door at the end of the narrow corridor.

“You can go there. I’ll bring you a towel so you can shower.”

Carrie nodded with her head hang low and directed her steps towards the bathroom.

Just as promised, Eddie showed up a moment later: in one hand he carried a white towel, in the other an old band t-shirt of his and some spare pajama bottoms he thought could fit Carrie.

She took the things he was handing her, her eyes still glued to the floor.

“Sorry agai-" Eddie interrupted her.

“Hey, no, no more sorries, okay? You’re not the one who should be apologizing".

His voice was soft, but he made his message clear. He wouldn’t accept any buts.

This time Carrie lifted her head to look Eddie in the eyes for the first time since they entered the trailer.

“Thank you, Eddie, really”

“No need to say thank you, sweetheart” He gave a warm smile as she closed the bathroom door.

Once alone, Carrie stepped into the shower and discarded all her clothes on its floor.

The warm water ran down her body, slowly washing away the blood with the help of the boyish scented shampoo she had found on the little ledge inside the shower.

The sick feeling of dirtiness sliding through the shower drain. She looked up towards the falling water with her eyes closed. Still a bit scared but overall tired, exhausted by the events of the night.

It hadn’t been a good idea resting her eyes during the ride in Eddie's van. She could have been able to trick herself into staying awake, but now she felt she could fall asleep at any moment.

Would Eddie mind if I asked him to stay the night?

No! Wait... what?

Why was she even thinking that? OF COURSE SHE COULND’T ASK HIM THAT

First of all, we barely know each other. It could even be said that we don’t know each other at all. That without taking into account the fact that I’d have to call momma to let her know I was spending the night out. And Eddie has already done more than enough for me. But...

Carrie took a moment to think about it.

If Eddie would let me stay the night here, and if I called momma saying I was staying at some friend’s house, then... maybe... I wouldn’t have to face momma's anger tonight. I wouldn’t have to go back home with my hair wet and dressed in spare boy’s clothes. I wouldn’t’ have to listen momma telling me that she told me so “Don’t go, Carrie, they’ll laugh at you. You already know.” And most importantly, I wouldn’t have to spend the night praying in the closet.

When she was finished showering, she tuned off the water, dried herself with the soft towel and got dressed in Eddie’s clothes. There was still a little bit of blood under her nails and her skin had a slight pink tint to it, but for the moment it would do. As she approached the closed bathroom door and as she rested her hand on the handle, her heart started beating with more force.

Carrie took a deep breath, preparing herself for the act of bravery she was about to perform.

“Eddie” Carrie called suddenly, standing under his bedroom doorframe right in front of him, while he was comfortably sat on his bed.

“Would you by any chance... let me stay the night?”

Eddie’s eyes widened with surprise.

Carrie has delivered her request quite confidently, but her next sentence came out a bit stuttered.

“I mean, if it’s no problem, of course. I wouldn’t want to be a bother. I just...I don’t want”

I know my mother’ll be furious at me if I go back home like this.

Eddie opened his mouth to answer her but remained silent, still unable to utter a word.

Wow, so bold of her.

He wasn’t annoyed by her request —not in the slightest—, but rather proud.

Does this mean she trusts me enough to see me as a friend? It doesn’t happen often. At least not when I first meet someone.

The thought of been seen as a relaying figure gave him a warm feeling inside.

“Sure! I mean, I guess you can stay. My uncle's working the night shift so it’s fine. I can sleep on the couch; you take the bed.”

Carrie smiled at his sudden rumbling, relieved he was letting her stay.

“No! Please, you sleep in your bed. This is your house, I’ll take the couch.”

“It’s okey, sweetheart. I actually prefer to sleep in the couch. Just in case my uncle comes back earlier than expected. Better he finds me than a stranger.”

“Oh, yeah, you’re right.”

“Not that he’d kick you out or anything though, but... yeah... you know.”

A mildly awkward silence invaded Eddie’s room, and suddenly Carrie remembered something important.

“Oh! I almost forgot. Could I phone my mother? Just to let her know I’m staying out tonight."

“Sure!” said Eddie, and happily bounced towards the kitchen where he showed her where the phone was and then he went back to his room, so she had some privacy.

Once there, he started cleaning up a bit. He picked up several candy wrappers that were scattered in his bed and emptied the ashtray that sat at his bedside table in the tiny trashcan under his narrow desk.

Jesus, a girl in my house. A girl sleeping under the same roof as me. Or, at least, the first time he remembered.

Suddenly, he got nervous in a very naive way. The same way a little kid that was about to experience his first sleepover with his friends would.

Stop it, goddammit. She just asked you for a favor, don’t be ridiculous.

He reached for his wardrobe and took out some pajamas for himself as well as a blanket to place it by the feet of the bed in case Carrie got cold in the middle of the night.

When everything in his bedroom was figured out or, well, at least as figured out as the mess that was his bedroom could be, he sat on the bed. Listening without intending to, he caught glimpses of Carrie’s murmured conversation. Hey, the trailer was small he couldn’t help it.

“Yeah... No, momma, I” he heard Carrie explain. “Yes, a friend..., no... no... ‘ll be back in the morning momma...night”

The phone call ended leaving Carrie relieved. Her mum had been quite comprehensive. She hopped she’d still act the same way tomorrow morning.

They found each other back in Eddie’s room. The trailer was mostly in the dark, engulfed in the blackness of the night with only the yellowish streetlamps of the trailer park illuminating the room.

The prospect of sleep and their own tiredness had them speaking in whispers, as if someone was already asleep in the house.

Eddie stood.

“Here you go, a comfy bed just waiting to be used.”

As soon as he finished the sentence he panicked.

“Wait! No! Agh, sorry that just sounded so bad. What I meant was... you know... yeah I mean...” —he sighed— “I mean good night.” he put an end to his nervous rambling while scratching the back of his neck.

Carrie giggled.

She giggled.

Eddie smiled.

“Good night, Eddie. And thank you again, really, I could never thank you enough for the way you’re helping me.”

“You don't need to thank me, Carrie.” Eddie said fondly in a warm, comforting voice.

She didn't know why, but the fact that he had pronounced her name and the way he said it made her feel seen.

He then left his bedroom and headed to the living room that was basically the kitchen. Or was the kitchen basically the living room? Whatever, it didn’t matter.

Eddie changed into his pajamas and laid on the couch, now turned into a bed.

What a night.

He let his mind recap the night’s events. He hadn’t made any money tonight. It hadn’t been a waste of time either though, at least he had been there for Carrie.

His eyes started giving up to drowsiness.

She’s safe now. But... what about next Monday when she’ll have to face highschool again?

Finally, Eddie fell asleep. Meanwhile, in his own room, Carrie started dreaming too.

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Hi! So you made it to the end, nice ;) Please consider leaving a comment if you liked it, and if you didn’t you can also tell me why (ain’t nothin’ but a heartache, tell me why, ain’t nothin’ but a mistake, tell me why)

[maroonghoul]

Thoughts on Slashers

While Horror in general as a film genre seems to be more popular then ever before, for the specific subgenres with it, that’s a little more complicated. I’ll admit, of all of them doing a resurgence both commercially AND critically, I wouldn’t have expected the Slashers being among them. 

Let’s face it; even during it’s first heyday in the 80s, they were kind of seen as the lowest, most creatively and ‘morally’ bankrupt type of films there, whether by critics or parents. They were the punching bag; the stereotype, because they had the gall to make the source of the horror, not something as eloquent as the vampire or as metaphorical as the radioactive dinosaur. No, these films, new for their time, said that a person putting on an outfit and mindlessly killing people was all it took to make plenty of films around for artistic consumption. 

I will say, I wasn’t always the biggest fan of it either. Even now, I currently have a love/hate relationship with the Friday the 13th movies. (The ones anyone who doesn’t watch horror movies think ALL of them are like). I’ve only seen three Friday movies (4, 5, and the remake), and I plan to seen more. There’s nothing intentionally deep over the one’s I’ve seen and that’s fine. I am now in the frame of mind where I can enjoy them enough as they are, a fun way to kill an hour and a half. Though I guess for non horror fans, it’s just jarring to have an antagonist as figurately and literally blunt as Jason Voorhees. A character that makes no profound speeches, has no large plans, and whose motivation quickly loses sympathy the more he attacks just anyone he comes across. Offbeat mask aside, compared to the tentpole movies villains like Darth Vader and Hannibal Lector, he seems banal and uninteresting.

But, living through these past ten years or so reading news on the kind of hellscape our country either turns into and reveals itself to have always been, we realized that the villains of the real world ARE banal. They are not nearly as smart or sympathetic as they see themselves to be or even compared to the most infamous of fictional villains. Even the most interesting they get is how far short they prove to be at that. (Look over at the newest owner of Twitter for a good recent example). And well, what do you know,  there’s too many psychos in costumes killing people by the dozens here too. They just use M15s instead of machetes.

I’m not saying, villains intended to be sympathetic are bad or lesser then. But, I feel we’re at a point where a lot of us are more attracted to villains less interested in trying to be complex and more one’s looking to cut to the chase. They are confident in themselves if nothing else, but that goes a long way. Okay, that’s a bit contradictory, saying the most effective villains were one I was calling banal a second ago. It’s more like they know how to prioritize. Motivation can matter a bit, but not as much as how they kill, I feel. 

Michael Myers’s original debut and his return in the most recent trilogy was way more successful to audiences then the Rob Zombie remakes, primarily because the knew there was no possible reason to reveal or explain why he kills people that people would buy or thought was worth looking into. He’s horrible not because what made him snap or that he was evil all along. But that when he did decide to kill, everything he needed to kill the people he did were all easy to get. We don’t just admire the creativity of the kills, but appreciate the warning about how these mundane things in our lives could kill us.

I think that’s it. Most monster movies before Halloween and such, has it so while the monster is scary, it just meant we should be really be scared of who or what created it, Whether it’d be the mad scientist avoiding responsibility or radiation spread about by uncaring military powers. Most slashers are caused by something more mundane; middle-class suburbia. Michael’s the obvious example. Jason and his mother turned their back on the world because he was mistreated to the point of extreme negligence by more privileged children. Freddy was already a monster made way worse by careless bureaucratic mistakes and mob justice. The Ghostface reveal in the original Scream (plus the sequels minus three to a lesser extent), still hold up BECAUSE it’s just two entitled white boys who took more lessons on life from the friggin’ movies then their own parents. Candyman...just everything about Candyman, really. Even in cases where a slasher is from a more out-there source, he find his way into an environment like this and he’s able to kill more efficiently because of it’s structural rules and beliefs have a blind spot. (’Alien’ in that it was the characters own employers that invited the monster in, ‘The Terminator’ in that no one will help fight it because everyone was raised not to believe in killer robots, etc.)

I don’t think this deep meaning was intended for every slasher film, not even ‘Halloween’. (Though I think Wes Craven did intend it in just about all his films). Some of them, especially the ones who behind the Friday films, were just looking to make some popcorn movies. It’s just that they were using a core idea they didn’t need to overthink. Though any additional thought is not unwelcome as long as they stay off the soapbox.

In the end, they are monster movies like Frankenstein. It’s just that the role of the Doctor is filled by not by the outsider, nor was it done via mad science or Satan worshippers. They are created by the society occupied by middle-class America’s indifference and entitlement. WE created the monster.

No wonder parents were pissed. They were being directly called out. And no wonder Slashers came back in popularity. We were receptive to the warning again.

And that’s not even getting into the Final Girl. But that’s a rant for another day.

[jimskeen]

An essay on regrets, of which I've had too many.

I spend a lot of time – perhaps too much time – thinking about mistakes I’ve made in my life. The honest mistakes I can forgive; it’s the mistakes of character than I cannot let go.

The earliest one I can remember – and the one that gnaws at my conscience the most – occurred in elementary school. I was walking down a hallway with a friend when Beth, a gangly, freckled redhead with a short bob haircut, was walking towards us. My friend started called Beth “Godzilla” and pressed himself against the wall as he passed her. Me, being a total jackass, did the same. Later in class, our teacher said that Beth was in the office, crying. She told us about how it was tough for Beth because her mother had passed, that she and her dad were just getting by, that Beth often had to make her own clothes. I’ve been walking on this planet more years than I care to reveal, and I can tell you without a doubt I never felt so small in my life.

Looking back at this episode I’m appalled at my gall to judge someone else’s beauty. Who the hell am I? Cary Grant? Brad Pitt? Oh, hell no. I’m reminded of the lyric from the Sparks song Johnny Delusional: “Some might find me borderline attractive from afar

But afar is not where I can stay and there you are.”

Is being thick headed at times a character flaw? Surely a lack of courage is, and also, I think, not being in tune with those around you. My next big regret was not being alert to the feelings of a girl, Samantha Wilson, in junior high school. We sat together in the back of math class, talking when the teacher wasn’t looking, passing notes, having a laugh, and, occasionally, I’d help her with math problems. What I didn’t notice, and didn’t realize until decades later, was that she “liked” me in that junior high school way of early romance. I liked her too but was too afraid to say anything. And so we sat, side by side, each in a state of what we thought was unrequited love.

I have many other regrets – not studying harder (or at all) in school, taking way too long to finally go to college, not asking the Army recruiter about journalism jobs (picking military police instead, leading to yet another regret – being a terrible MP), and, well, too many others to mention.

So many cases of “would’ve, could’ve, should’ve,” what comedian Gary Gulman calls the Holy Trinity of Regret.

So, what to do with all of this regret? Well, I’m trying to do what pro football players do after losing a game – look at the film, analyze the mistakes, and try not to repeat them.

When we first see a person, all of us make snap judgments regarding their physical appearance. We make judgments about their looks, whether they appear to be someone of means – in short, whether they would be a good mate (in the reproductive sense of the word). That’s buried in our genetic code. But after that quick evaluation, we need to look deeper, or at least I do. You might be doing that already, being of better character than me. The world is rich in differences of appearance, and I should try to marvel at that, rather than being a boorish judge of looks.

As a professional wordsmith, I need to remember that words are powerful tools that should build someone up, rather being used as a weapon of thoughtless, cruel abuse. I am a craftsman of words and, if I may paraphrase Stan Lee’s Spiderman, with great power comes great responsibility.

In short, I’m trying – perhaps not always succeeding – to be a better person.

I’m also trying to be thankful of where this meandering path through life has led me. I’m in a very happy place. I have a wife whom I adore – which I will tell to anyone who stands still long enough for me to do so. The two of us have three lovely daughters and six great grandchildren. Despite all the regrets, would I change anything that could result in losing that? No, of course not.

For my family and friends, perhaps I should embrace the Edith Piaf song “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien.”

Non, je ne regrette rien (no, I regret nothing)

Car ma vie, car mes joies (because my life, because my joy)

Aujourd’hui ca commence avec toi (today it begins with you)

For your listening pleasure, Edith Piaf and Sparks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixdvm8-MdUs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCxLpte5loY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5jtqCo43WM

#Regret #Sparks #EdithPiaf #kindness

[xgryffinwhore]

september nights

request:  i was wondering if you could write another soft bill smut? i don’t really have a specific plot in mind, we’re just really lacking content on tumblr rn :( in some really precarious place where they don’t want to get caught

warnings: soft smut, like i mean very soft.

word count: 2118

before your lips met bill denbrough’s, love was always, to say the least, a conundrum. lets be real for second, boys wasted your time, and you let them. only the cute ones of course. you are a hopeless romantic, drunk off of molly ringwald and john travolta films. you wanted any relationship you had to be just like the movies.

through your heart breaks, your best friends stood by you, your losers. eddie, richie, bev, stan, ben, and bill. for each tear you shed a punch was thrown to the man who caused it, they were protective over you. bill the most though, he always got so defensive when you were in the mix. all throughout middle & high school, bill has had to deal with every guy who even dares to think about breaking your heart.

“its not fair bill” you wailed into your pillow. he stroked your back and hushed you, his eyes welling with tears. “im never fucking good enough for any guy and its so fucking sad!” your complaints being cut off mid sentence by a choked out cry. “y-y/n. all of y-your boyfriend are i-idiots. anyone w-who would d-d-do this to you isnt w-worth your t-time. anyone w-would be the luckiest in the w-world to have y-you in their life” you picked your head up and looked at him with swollen lips and blood shot eyes “there no one out there for me bill, no one.” 

he bit his lip, fighting back any tears dripping from his eyes “they j-just dont see how p-pretty you are. how g-gentle and caring and s-s-sweet, and h-how your face c-can light up any room. theyre f-fucking idiots, and you d-deserve m-more.” you clearly thought he was being nice, because you could take a MOTHER FUCKING GOD DAMN hint, so you replied “i wish there was someone out there like you, for me, that thinks of me the way you do.” 

he furrowed his brows, tossing his head back and running his fingers furiously through his hair. “d-dammit y/n!” he cursed “cant you s-see what ive b-been trying to say? w-w-what ive been t-trying to say f-for the last f-five years!?!” your expression was bewildered, your brain was going a mile a minute trying to figure out what he meant. his frustration got the best of him, he got up and stormed out the door,  feeling embarrassed and stupid for trying to make you understand how he felt.

he was half way out your front door, fuming for his keys lodged deep into his front pocket; when suddenly:

“bill!”

his head turned at the call of his name, “y-y/n please i d-”

smack.

your lips locked with his, he rain pouring heavily outside. bills lips stilled at the contact, but this lasted briefly, he deepened this kiss by pulling you in to his abdomen by your mid back. your bunched the front of his base ball t shirt with your fists, and he did the same but with your hair.

the rest is basically history.

now six months later, and you couldnt have been happier. bill knew how to treat you, nights out twice a week (you always wanted to pay but bill insisted,) holding your hand to and from classes, he let you borrow have his varsity baseball jacket, which smelt just like him and was a little too big for you. 

when he would drop you off and your classes, he would always grab your hand and transfer a tiny piece of paper into your palm. when you got into class to unfold it, it was always a cute little message about his love for you. 

bill had it bad for you, everyone knew that, and you loved every minute of it. he met every and any standard you had, and exceeded your expectations. 

it was september, still warm enough in derry to wear shorts, so you and your friends thought of a last hurrah for the ending of the summery weather.

“camp out, its nearly perfect” Richie exclaimed. eddie rolled his eyes “like youve ever been near anything perfect toizer, do you even know what perfect means?” richie shoved eddie “yeah eddie i actually have. have you seen amanda’s tits?”

 you tuned out richie and eddies bickering as you’re boyfriend cleared his throat. “you g-gonna go?” he said into your ear, “only if you promise to wear bug spray bill, you know how bad-” he cut you off with a kiss, his mouth forming a small smile at how cute you were. “get a room, honestly” stan poked, pda wasn’t his favorite... “at least i h-have something to k-kiss aye s-stannie”

you arrived at the edge of the forest, parking your car at the last parking ish space. you walked toward the sounds of ben and richie fighting, and came to see that richie really went all out. three tents, sticks for a fire, and more snacks than anyone needed. 

you all spent the remanence of the daylight dancing in the light sky, sharing stories, and eating waaaay too many chips. it was dark now, you all huddled in a circle near the fire; making small talk and trying not to admit you were all very tired.

“ok folks, im off to bed” richie yawned “me stan eddie n’ mike will take the green tent, bev and ben in the red.” richie paused and smirked over at you and bill, you were tangled in his limbs, golfed in his navy blue pull over. “and uh- heh- billy boy and y/n in the yellow tent eh?” you could practically feel bills eye roll, god richie was so immature.

“w-we dont have to s-sleep in the s-s-same tent, i c-can ask ben if he’d s-switch” you look up at bill and reassure him “bill no- its not a big deal, right?” he tucks your hair behind your ear and kisses the side of your temple “c-course not.”

you both went into the tent, bill began to unroll the blankets you both had packed tightly into your bags. You both set up your makeshift bed, bill leaned against a pile of pillows while you hugged his side, your face buried in his neck. his smell was absolutely intoxicating; his skin had remanence of his milk and honey body wash, but it was slightly overpowered by wintergreen, clove, and his bourbon cologne. 

you were like this for around an hour, the orange crank-powered lantern being the only source of light. you switch positions though, you now laid your head on his lap, reading a magazine you stole from the hair salon. he watched your eyes scan every letter, when you read something funny you’d huff to yourself, and when something was intresting you stuck your tongue out from between your teeth. he adored you.

“d-dont stay up t-too late” he stroked your hair off your shoulder “we have t-to have you w-well r-r-rested.” you sat up from beside him, as he adjusted the pillows and took off his pull over, then his pants. he got under the covers and waited for you.

“nice donut boxers” you laughed. “s-shut up” he blushed and regreted not changing them when he had the chance. you turned around took off your shirt, you were shy about how you looked, but it was just bill. it was just bill. you heard his breath hitch, his eagerness radiating off his body onto yours. the air became tense as you unzipped your pants and threw them to the corner. you turned around, bills pupils growing until you were completely facing him.

“yeah i know. mine are boring” you laugh nervously, brushing your hair behind your ear and getting under the covers next to him. he didnt respond, he couldnt take his eyes off of you.you began to sit up again “i can go put back on-” “n-no!” he interrupts, his blush taking up his entire face.

“i j-j-just cant b-believe i g-get to see something s-so special” he gulped “s-so b-b-b-beautiful.”

you grabbed him by his shoulders and kissed him, hard. youve been with boys before, i mean youve dated plenty of people. but no one ever called your body special. hot, yeah. nice, yeah. beautiful, sure. but no one ever thought that it was special. 

bill was a kind boy, the most you two have ever done is get each other off with your hands, always clothed. bill never asked to see more, he felt lucky enough just to make you feel good, and that was enough for him. so when you felt the heat of his hands hovering over your body but not touching it, you new you’d have to call the shots tonight.

“bill,” you laid down “just touch me everywhere, please.” he crawled in between your legs, kneeling so that he could lean over your face “m-my pleasure.”

he traced your collar, leaving small, delicate, kisses to make up for what his fingers left behind as they trailed. he kissed the valley between your breasts, licking slow striped down your skin. he picked up your upper back a little and cocked his head to the side, you nodded and he unclipped your bra. he sat their with his mouth open, taking in the view. you blushed and muttered “hey, keep that mouth to good use.” he dipped down and sucked on your nipples, his mouth felt so good against your skin grazed with goosebumps. he was gingerly with his tongue, it was sexy, it was romantic. he kissed down your stomach, his fingers sweeping down your sides. you could see his member pressing against his boxers, the pressure made him wince every once in a while. his fingers met your panties and he hooked them. again, he looked up for permission, you nodded once again. 

he brought your underwear down your legs and off, looking back to see what he had relieved. he licked his lips, getting ready to please you more than he already did. but you felt bad, bill always gave gave and gave. “its ok, im ready right now.” bill looked up at you in shock, he wasnt expecting you’d want to go all the way. “y/n, y-youre sure?” you lean up and kiss his lips, swiping your tongue against his bottom lip “please.”

he pulled down his boxers eagerly, his member sprung out to hit his stomach. he lined up with you, checking once more that it was ok. then he pushed in, bottoming out. he felt bigger than you thought, of course he was well endowed, but he filled you up so well. you mewled, the pain and pleasure making a delicious feeling that made your toes curl.

he waited, but began slowly moving after a bit. he grunted, feeling you wrapped around him was something he’d never be able to get out of his head he thought to himself. he grunted “f-fuck this feels g-good’ he grunted, his breath becoming heavy and full of lust. with every stroke, you felt yourself get more and more lost in the bliss he made you feel. “youre making me feel so good  bill” you moan, the sound of his name coming out of your mouth driving him absolutely crazy. he speeds up, loving the view of your face contorting in pleasure and your body moving with his. 

he couldnt help but feel admiration to you, your hair formed a halo around your head, and the sweat that coated your skin made you glisten in the orange light. “im t-the luckiest in the world” he husks, holding your cheek. 

you felt the knot in your core coming undone, “bill im close” you strain, trying not to be too loud so you dont wake your friends. he moved your leg up to his shoulder, hitting you from a different, deeper angle. his fingers went to your clit, making you bite your had to stop you from screaming. “you l-look so p-pretty y/n, t-taking me s-so well. making y-you feel so good.” “so good bill” you repeat, drunken off his cock and fingers. 

without warning, you came came, your legs spazzing as you moaned “fuck bill” he followed, his hips stuttering, as he cried out into your shoulder. he pulled out and laid next to you, both of you breathing heavily and coming off your highs. 

“y/n” he looked at you “t-that was really j-just wow- thank y-you.” you kissed him, chaste and sweet “that was great yeah?” “it w-was perfect babe. t-thank you f-for t-that. i love you y-y/n.”

“i love you too bill.”

he sat up, his fingers dancing on your inner thigh.

“y/n?”

“yeah?”

“c-can we p-please do t-that again?”

[coeurdastronaute]

Nerd 14

Previously on Nerd

There weren’t many things considered as decorations in the house on the corner of Inglewood Street. The old stone house, with its black shutters and manicured lawn hid behind a stately oak and the polished Porsche in the driveway, glowed as a beacon in the neighborhood, of perfection and wealthy modesty. Inside, it was less populated than one might expect, never fully lived-in, at least not to the casual observer. 

Clarke moved her way down the stairs as she balanced the bag on her shoulder, fully prepared for work and then studying with her girlfriend on a fairly boring Saturday night. For the first time in a long time, she looked at the sparse frames of pictures of her family. 

Unsure of what made her pause, she furrowed, pushing her eyebrows tightly together and leaning into the image of her mother and father on a random date when they were together in college. They were carefree and at some bar trivia night. Abby hugged Jake’s bicep and nearly hid in his shoulder as he leaned forward, other arm lifted to interject an answer. He was smiling wide despite his eagerness, the flash ricocheting off part of his large glasses. His hair was floppy and fully, swept to the side and neatly arranged, while Abby was brimming with life. Clarke loved the candid picture because sometimes she looked at it, and these were two people who had entire lives and experiences and she forgot that. They probably got butterflies like she did when Lexa smiled at her. They probably spent hours excitedly waiting to see the other. 

In that picture, her mother wasn’t the person she was now, though both seemed insanely far away from Clarke. This college-aged person was alive, vibrant, in-love, awake, eager, and not cheating on her husband. The body language alone showed how much she adored him. 

In that picture, her father was the funny, charming man she remembered, not the angry, frustrated man who was skin and bones, who couldn’t eat, who couldn’t swallow, who had difficulties moving most days and remembering his own daughter others. He was alive as well. He was the man everyone wanted to sit beside for some reason, for som inexplicable reason he had this… he had a spark that drew those to him like a moth to a flame, except he was that flame, and he shared his light eagerly with those around him. 

Clarke relaxed her face after a few moments of looking and seeing and trying to find some kind of detail in that picture that would indicate that the couple in it would know what their life would like like two decades later. There wasn’t a single indication, and that terrified her. 

“Did you finish you math?” her mother’s voice called from the hallway, hearing her daughter shift and move to look at the next picture without seeing her first. 

“Yes.” 

The next image was a very tiny Clarke on her father’s shoulders and her mother hugging his waist as they all stood beneath a redwood tree. They had hiking gear, shorts, sunglasses, hats and sunscreen. They were all smiling. They were a family. 

“Did you email me that draft of your personal essay for applications?” 

Clarke gave up perusing, no longer feeling the yearn for that family unit that was far away. She rolled her eyes and stomped her way down the steps to find her mother sorting through envelopes and mail. 

“No.” 

“Why not?” Abby didn’t look up as she flipped.

“Because I’m a junior, and I have five months before applications are due.”

“That’s no excuse not to be prepared. Maybe if you didn’t spend so much time chasing after some gir--”

“Who am I chasing after?” Clarke scoffed, crossing her arms and peering at her mother. “Do you mean helping Lexa on her submission for film school? Do you mean tennis practice? Do you mean working part time? Do you mean having a social life?” 

“Considerate that you can help someone else get into college.” 

“It’s going to take her months to edit, which I can’t-- I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

That did it. Clarke knew it would. Clarke new an overt expression of her own independence would trigger her mother. She knew arguing and not appearing to care about college would give her the satisfaction of a righteous fight. She wanted it. It’d been brewing for about a week and a half, ever since Clarke said she was going prom dress shopping without her. Ever since Clark forgot to tell her about spending the night camping with Lexa and the film crew while the powered through the project. Ever since Clarke didn't’ come home for dinner last Tuesday and then raved about Mrs. Woods’ garlic chicken. Tiny things Clarke did with spite because she didn’t know what else to do, because she couldn’t do anything else. 

Abby’s nostrils flared and Clarke jutted her hip, shrugging to herself as she dug for her phone, ready to go to work and escape the house and the persistent smell of medical equipment and cleaner that haunted her until she was about two blocks from the house. 

“I’ll be home around midnight.” 

“Like hell you will. You’ll be home right after your shift.” 

“No,” Clarke paused as she turned to leave. “I’m going over Lexa’s to study. We’re watching a Cary Grant movie.” 

“You’re under the misconception that you get to make your own schedule and plans without asking permission. But that is not the case, Clarke.” 

“I’ve been doing fine.” 

“You’ve barely been home. Your father is--”

“Right there, in that room, asleep. I know this because I spent the morning with him. We made pancakes and played a game of cribbage. We talked about school and Lexa and I showed him pictures of the past week of my life. And I helped him with his meds because he’s having a bit of a flare. I told him I’d see him in the morning for omelettes because we’ve been watching cooking shows together and he wants to try the french style. I know exactly what is going on with my father.” 

She hadn’t meant to, but her voice began to raise as she spoke. Clarke felt her fist shake. She felt her muscles tighten and her jaw clench. She was okay with being considered lazy and unmotivated, but to be accused of negligence was uncalled for, especially from someone like her mother. 

“Don’t you raise your voice! You are greatly mistaken as to the nature of our relationship. I am your mother, and I am sick of your attitude, and your priorities not being your father and your family or your education.” 

“Lexa has nothing to do with any of that. Are you just mad I’m dating a girl? Or that I don’t care what you think anymore?” 

Slightly taken aback by her daughter, by her words, by her actions, by her entire demeanor over the past few months and frankly just sick of dealing with being the bad guy. 

“I don’t even know who you are anymore,” Abby shook her head. 

“I could say the same thing.” 

The two stared at each other before Clarke shook her head and adjusted her bag. She toyed with her keys in her pockets before checking her phone again. 

“I’m going to be late for work. I’ll be back tonight.” 

“You’re not going anywhere,” Abby insisted again. “You’re grounded indefinitely.” 

“Except I’m not,” Clarke sighed and shook her head. “I’m not because I don’t care anymore. I genuinely don’t.”

“You’re going to. Give me your keys and your phone.” 

“No.” 

“I’m not joking, Clarke. You’re going to need to readjust your priorities and attitude.”

“I think you should take your own advice,” Clarke insisted as she reached the front door. “Or are you too busy fucking Kane to realize that there is no more family here?” 

With a satisfying slam, she yanked the door shut. The anger that was stationed in her shoulders dissipated with the noise and movement. Clarke stood there in the quiet of her perfect neighborhood, the flapping of the flag lazily moving in the spring breeze was all she heard at first. Then the birds came. Then a lawnmower started in the distance. 

Clarke felt lighter than she’d felt in a long time. She also felt emptier than any other time in her life. It was officially the end, and now she had to deal with that because the anger and the hurt and the betrayal was all she’d had in her for what felt like months. It hadn’t made anything better, and it certainly ruined everything, but Clarke took some solace in the fact that now she could try to fill herself up with something else. 

XXXXXXXXXX

The party at Bellamy Blake’s house was in full swing by the time Lexa made her way up the winding driveway and into the belly of the beast. She wasn’t sure how she ended up there exactly, except that her girlfriend texted and said to show up. That seemed to be enough of a reason, though Lexa wasn’t particularly prepared. They’d had plans. Quiet plans. Private plans. Movie plans. 

And now Lexa was going to her girlfriend’s ex’s party. 

She shoved her hands in her pockets as she moved through the crowd, clearly not getting the memo that jeans were not entirely good enough attire, and in fact she seemed to be extremely overdressed. Her eyes bugged slightly as she watched a girl from her physics class walk by in a very tiny, very teeny lime green bikini. Lexa became suddenly aware of the appeal of such things, as if she hadn’t noticed them before, but then MIchelle who sat diagonally in front of her third period looked like that and she gulped. 

The music thumped loudly. The beats were rattling the walls and shaking the windows while the screams and giggles of her classmates sought to shatter glass. It wasn’t like the other parties she’d been to with Clarke. It wasn’t even like thrones Anya dragged her to when she visited. This was a night of debauchery and she hadn’t had time to prepare. 

And as much as she saw everyone else wearing bikinis, she hadn’t thought about Clarke wearing one. She’d seen Clarke’s boobs before. That was nice. But there was something to her girlfriend in a bikini that was… good. Very good, even. 

Lexa pushed her glasses up slightly on her nose and stared. 

“What are you doing here?” Gus asked, approaching quietly. She didn’t move or say anything else, just stared from across the pool, the steam billowing upward to ward the sky while everyone seemed to glow blue and green and red, the lights alternating around them, the flames of the fire pits dancing to keep everyone warm. The warm glow of the lights inside were lost on the white-blue shade to the water. 

“Lexa, focus,” he snapped his fingers in front of her face. “What are you doing here? Your sister would kill me if she knew you were at a Blake party.” 

“How is it different than any other party?” 

“It just is.” 

“Because of the pool? I’ve been to pool parties.” 

It hadn’t been since seventh grade and didn’t look like an episode of a CW show, but still, she’d been to a pool party with many of the same cast of characters that were currently on display. It was before puberty, but still. 

“We need to get you home.” 

“Clarke invited me.” 

“It doesn’t matter. This isn’t your scene.” 

“I can be in any scene. I’ve watched every John Hughes movie.”

“This is more of an episode of Euphoria than an 80s teen flick,” Gus sighed and took another swig from his cup. “And I fully believe you would fit in fine with Molly Ringwald.”

“That’s very kind of you to say,” Lexa nodded. “I’ll be fine.” 

She took her eyes off of her girlfriend long enough to assure her friend that she was perfectly fine now. She was dating the head cheerleader. She’d been to parties and seen--

“Gus-- is that cocaine?” 

“Okay, yeah, we have to get you out of here,” he shook his head and tossed his empty cup into a flowerbed. 

“Is it really?” she asked, craning her neck as he pushed her forward. “I’ve never see that in real life before. People actually do that thing with the credit cards and dollar bills? Astounding. Where does one get cocaine?” 

“You don’t need to know that.” 

“I’m not going to do it. I’m just curious.” 

They only made it a few steps before the ran into a sopping body. A tall, muscular, tan, perfectly chiseled and dripping body. It was the body of an actual god. It was the body of the perfect specimen, with biceps and the long swimmer cuts that pointed firmly toward his… his-ness. 

“Gus, long time, man. How you been?” Bellamy Blake grinned before slipping his cup in his teeth as he hugged the other football player. 

“Not too bad. Heard you’re heading to Oregon in the fall?” 

“Yeah, partial scholarship. We’ll see what happens,” he shrugged. “Staying close?” 

“Yeah, St. Johns, about three hours away.” 

“Full ride?” 

“Yeah. I got offered half to OSU, but would rather not have to pay anything.” 

“No, that’s smart.” 

The whole time they spoke, Lexa watched Clarke’s ex intently. She frowned to herself and wondered how her girlfriend broke up with him. He was effortlessly cool. He was huge. He looked like he knew how to go down on a girl, and Lexa was still apprehensive. She wished she could fast forward in life until she was really good at sex. 

She watched him grin and sip from his red cup, meeting her eyes curiously as Gus explained something about his college recruitment process. 

“I don’t think we’ve ever met before. I’m Bellamy.” 

He held out his hand. And though she didn’t want to do it, she sighed and shook his hand. 

“Sorry, I should have introduced you. This is Lexa.” 

“Lexa… Lexa…” He mulled. 

“Anya Woods’ sister.” 

“Wow, you’re Anya’s little sister?” 

“Yeah.” 

“How is she? I forgot she had a little sister. I remember her little brother died-- oh shit.” 

“Yeah.” 

“We were just heading out,” Gus interrupted. 

“I was actually just going to go talk to Clarke.” 

“Why would you--”

Before anything else could be said, before anything else could transpire between the two of them, before Gus had to interrupt again, Clarke appeared, launching herself into her girlfriend’s arms, wrapping her own around her neck, her body still slightly damp from the pool she must have just climbed out of during the awkward introduction. 

“You’re here. I’m so happy,” Clarke hummed against Lexa’s warm neck. She buried herself there, suffocating herself happily, slightly tipsy. 

“I told you I’d stop by.” 

Clarke kissed her girlfriend’s neck. She leaned most of her body against her there and giggled, oblivious to the eyes, too drunk to care about anything else happening. 

“I am have the worst day. Maybe the worst week. Maybe the worst year ever. No, wait. Definitely the worst year, and today I finally told my mom everything and then left. So Yeah. It’s been terrible. I got drunk.” 

“Not the healthiest coping mechanism.”

“Not a bit,” Clarke grinned, agreeing eagerly and with a wide grin. She leaned forward and kissed her girlfriend despite her words. 

“You can be healthy tomorrow,” Lexa offered. “You okay?” 

“As okay as can be.” 

There was some throat clearing that happened behind them, and Lexa felt a burning in her ears and chest at the display, unaccustomed to it all. 

“So this is your new girlfriend?” Bellamy asked, looking at the pair. 

“Lex, I suppose you’ve met my ex,” Clarke gestured. 

“Kind of.” 

“Is this party a little much?”

“If I remember correctly, this was exactly the kind of thing you liked. We went to many a party in our tenure,” Bellamy shrugged, lazily leaning against a counter. “Things changed since I left, I guess.” 

“I enjoyed not thinking,” Clarke offered. “You were great for that.” 

Gus and Lexa looked between the two and then at each other. She was almost certain she didn’t know what was happening, but that certainly, something was, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about it. 

“You moved on quick, huh?” 

“Hey, step back,” Gus interrupted as Bellamy took a single step. “This is Anya’s sister.” 

“Woods?” he furrowed. “You’re dating Anya Woods’ kid sister?” 

“Yup,” Clarke nodded. 

“I heard she was--”

“Standing right here,” Gus finished. 

Lexa felt Clarke’s hand move into her own and she smiled despite the fact that she was picking up a drunk girl at her college guy ex’s party. There was a lot in that sentence she wasn’t happy about, now that she thought about it. 

“You ready to get out of here?” Lexa asked innocently, ignoring the rest. 

“I think we still have a few more shots lined up, Clarke,” Bellamy smiled and Lexa understood the need to punch. 

Noticeably torn, she looked at her girlfriend and back at her ex before realizing that she was actually drunk, and that wasn’t good. Lexa smiled softly and rubbed her girlfriend’s back. She kind of imagined how it must have felt to implode and take her mother down with her. Lexa remembered the feeling of telling her father she was gay and sad. Clarke’s implosion didn’t seem as successful as her own, and Lexa was more than happy to try to help in whatever way she could. 

“Can I stay at your place tonight?” 

“Yeah,” Lexa nodded quickly. “I’ll text my mom to let her know.” 

“You’re seriously leaving?” The college football player and terrible ex scoffed. “The night is still young. It’s barely after eleven.” 

“Thanks for getting me drunk, but I should probably go do something better.” 

“Thanks for showing me around,” Lexa offered nodding her head slightly toward the host before he could argue. “Have a good night. I’ll see you on Monday, Gus.”

“Get home safe,” the linebacker warned. 

Slightly dumbfounded, Bellamy Blake stood there, hands on his hips as he watched his ex weave through the crowd of people and disappear. As much s everything stayed the same, he couldn’t shake the sinking feeling of change, and how averse he was to it. 

XXXXXXXXXX

“Here, you can, uh,” Lexa quickly moved through her bedroom, leaving her girlfriend standing by the bed. “I have some old sweats if you want.” 

Already, Clarke began taking off her pants, and Lexa quickly looked in the drawers of her dresser. She felt the tips of her ears burn slightly as she looked over her shoulder, her girlfriend slumping into the bed, pants lost to the floor. 

“I knew I shouldn’t have gone to that party. I knew it,” Clarke sighed, rubbing her face with both hands to ride herself of the spinning. “But I didn’t care. I just wanted to… you know…”

“You had it out with your mom. You just anted to go far away. I get it.” 

“Don’t be nice to me. I knew better than to go, especially to anything involving Bellamy Blake.” 

“Why?” 

“He doesn’t care about any of it. Just has drinks. I should have called you or like done something else.” 

“You’re allowed to want to take a night off from a giant secret after a huge fight. And you don’t need my permission,” Lexa reminded her girlfriend, offering an old shirt. 

“It was stupid.” 

“Do you feel better?” 

Gingerly, Lexa tugged at Clarke’s shirt, pulling it over her head until she flopped back down on the bed, her hair fanning out against the pillow. Agitated at herself, at her clothe, at the unfathomable uncontrollability to the entirety of her life, Clarke growled to herself as she tugged off her bra, tossing it to the side and gracelessly pulling on the shirt Lexa offered. 

“I don’t feel better at all.” 

It was certainly a pout, and Lexa did her best to ignore it. Instead, she slicked off the light beside the bed, and slid between the sheets next to Clarke. Lexa laid there until Clarke turned to face her, until she placed her hand on her neck and cheek. 

“I’m sorry you had to pick me up.” 

“It’s okay,” Lexa whispered. 

“It’s not. I’m not like this… I don’t mean to be… I mean--”

“It’s okay.” 

Clarke leaned forward, shifting beneath the blankets until their knees were touching. She moved to only push the hair from Lexa’s forehead and she paused before kissing her lips. She tasted the warmth of the tequila there and she didn’t care. Lexa signed. 

“Please don’t give up on me anytime soon,” Clarke murmured. Stunned from the kiss, Lexa blinked in the dark and shifted closer. 

“I wouldn’t ever.” 

“I know you wouldn’t. I just had to say it out loud.” 

“Okay.” 

Lexa was certain she was going to get another kiss, but instead, Clarke dug her forehead under her girlfriend’s chin and pressed their bodies together, hugging her tightly and disappearing, being overwhelmed, anchoring herself to a steady force. Lexa rubbed Clarke’s back for a few moments until she fell asleep, and then she allowed herself the option of sleep.

NEXT

[royivia]

The Neighborhood

Sibyl Campbell wasn’t even mad when she woke up on a hot ass May morning in her room, drenched in sweat. Instead, she bypassed anger and went straight to resignation because the HVAC system in the Robert Moses Houses was broken — again — and she didn’t have the time or the energy to bitch about it. In fact, the heating and cooling stayed shutting off across Groundview Gardens. It had become a predictable kind of disappointment in the neighborhood, more so than flooding during superstorms or the fact that no matter which part of the neighborhood you were in, you could feel the rumbling of the shuttle every seven minutes.

Sibyl had spent all night coughing and turning in her bed from the claustrophobic heat that agitated her asthma. Her mother had already gone to work, otherwise, she would have heard Mildred Campbell yelling in indignant patwa over the phone at an Arcadian Realty & Management representative “to fix the damn AC” before she threatened to call 311 on their ass, and report them to the city. Both Mildred and the AR&M rep knew it was an empty threat, but to shut her up, they’d call someone who’d tinker with the system and the air would come back on for a couple of days or so, before it chipped out. And then, the routine would start again.

Sibyl checked the weather. It was already ninety-five degrees. She took a puff from her inhaler and scrolled through her timeline. The same picture of a little girl with a big bright smile captioned with different variations of “RIP Destiny’’ and prayers for her family flooded her feed. Sibyl forced herself out of bed. The sweat on her body made her feel uncomfortable. She hauled a clunky, old portable air conditioner out from her closet and plugged it into the wall. Management would fine them for the spike in their energy use, but she didn’t care. She pushed the power button on, and waited for the box to cough out some hot air before it eventually cooled the room down from a humid haze to a lackluster lukewarm.

#

SOIL had been trying to meet with AR&M, the neighborhood’s collective management company, about the HVAC problem with little to no success for close to three years. They had circulated petitions. Tried shaming them in the local news. They even considered organizing a rent strike, which would have done nothing because everybody who lived in Groundview Gardens received subsidies from the city that made rent practically free. And as much as people were pissed about freezing their asses off in the winter or not being able to breathe during the summer, nobody was tryna fight free rent. So, SOIL decided to annoy the shit out of their landlords instead. On their way into their coolly ventilated corporate office buildings, occupying their lobbies, picketing in front of their luxury condos, and most effectively, managing to damage one, or two, of their solar-powered generators in the hottest month New York City had ever seen. A few arrests and some pissed off rich people later, management finally agreed to hold a town hall to hear from their tenants, which meant SOIL’s next plan of action was to convince as many people as possible to show up. Nefi Ramos saw it as a challenge that they could surely accomplish. Her neighbors were like camels to water in a desert. They were thirsty, and had learned to go without for as long as they needed to, but lead them to a watering hole, and they would drink.

“It’s too fucking hot,” she shouted into her megaphone. She was standing in front of one of the many large screens around Groundview that cycled between ads for things they couldn’t afford and AR&M’s infamous “neighborhoods of tomorrow” promotional video. Most people just used the screens to check train arrival times and the air quality. The next shuttle was two minutes away, and the air was currently “unsafe for vulnerable groups.”

“Are we just supposed to take this shit?” Nefi asked. “We don’t deserve to live like this.”

Around her, the rest of SOIL handed out cold bottles of water, popsicles, and fruit cups from coolers filled with melting ice, along with flyers to people walking towards the train platform. They walked past the demonstration uninterestedly, only stopping long enough to take a bottle of water. Everyone had gotten used to Nefi shouting at them to care about things beyond their control, and learned to tune her and the rest of her angry SOILders out, taking their flyers every now and then only to chuck them into the nearest trash can. This morning, a few people did stop to listen for a second or two, the heat getting the better of them, before they saw the time flicker on the screen behind her, and realized that they’d be late for work.

Sibyl, her camera always strapped to her body, snapped a few shots of her neighbor. Nefi was like a loud older cousin who wasn’t afraid of a little trouble, or frankly anything. She both awed and terrified Sibyl.

“It’s time for these slumlords to sweat,” Nefi went on. “We need to organize. Our voices are stronger together — ”

“What makes you think anyone gives a shit about what happens to us down here?”

Mr. Solomon had been on his way to the bodega to buy his morning loosie, but stopped to sit in his walker, taking a moment to catch his breath.

“That’s exactly what they want us to think, vecino.” Nefi softened her voice in that way she did when she was trying not to shout. “The more we believe that we can’t make them pay attention to us, the longer they get away with treating us like shit.”

“I remember when they first moved people into Groundview.” In the midst of reminiscing, Mr. Solomon started coughing aggressively, prompting someone to hand him a bottle of water which he drank quickly before continuing. “We were protesting and shouting in the streets, but they didn’t care then. They’re not gonna care now.” The history lesson quickly turned into yet another heated debate about neighborhood politics between him and some of the other SOILders trying to convince him to take one of their flyers. Sibyl used the opportunity to catch Nefi’s attention, who waved her over enthusiastically.

“Yo, did you hear?” Nefi handed her a fruit cup. “We finally got a meeting with the overlords! Are you gonna come?”

“Nahhh, Nefi. You know that’s not really my thing…I’m not an activist.” Nefi was always trying to recruit her for some radical ass shit that just never seemed worth the trouble of explaining to Sibyl’s very Jamaican mother.

“Nobody said you had to be. You live in this neighborhood, and have just as much say about what happens in it as the suits who own it.” Nefi sensed Sibyl’s hesitation. “Please Sib! Come so we have more people in the room. You don’t have to say anything. We just want those dicks to see that we have power. People power!”

Nefi was very proud of the fact that she had an uncle, or it might have been a second cousin, who had been a member of the Young Lords and, drawing on their legacy of fighting for the liberation of Puerto Ricans, was always going on about the oppressive nature of renting, and self-determination for poor people, and community empowerment, and, and…

“Aight — I’ll go,” Sibyl assured her, trying to cut her sermon short. Nefi hugged her and thanked her a million times before shoving a stack of flyers into her arms to pass out and post up around the neighborhood.

#

The singular garden in Groundview Gardens was usually ten degrees cooler than anywhere else in the neighborhood. It was created — not by the architects who had designed New York City’s newest development, but instead — by the community out of desperation as an escape from their cramped apartments. During the days, the older folks used it to grow their herbs, medicines, and flowers for their healing practices. The local farmers grew produce that fed the community. After school and on the weekends, all the kids hung out at the community center at the heart of the garden where they learned to dance, make art, and play music.

By the time Sybil got there later that night, Groundview’s collective of artists had already transformed the greenspace into their Saturday night hangout. One of the DJs was spinning records. People were dancing, drinking, smoking, having a good time. Dante, Sage, and Felix had bottles in their hands when Sibyl joined them at their usual spot. Their clothes were covered in colorful patches of spray paint.

“Did you finish it? When do I get to see it?,” she asked them excitedly. She hadn’t seen her friends in about a week, which meant they were either done with their latest mural or were taking a break before they disappeared for another few days. “Soon.” Dante looked tired, but excitement danced in his eyes. “Shoot anything good lately?” He leaned in reaching for her camera, but she quickly pulled back from him.

He laughed at her and took a sip of beer. Dante was her oldest friend out of the trio. There was a quiet protectiveness between the two of them Sibyl hoped they could always maintain.

“It’s been a minute since I last checked.”

“How come?” Dante asked.

Sibyl usually couldn’t wait to hold herself up in the darkroom at the community center to develop her film, but she had been putting off her latest batch. She’d fallen in love with photography while taking classes at the center as a kid. So much so that one day, her mother came home with an old film camera and Sibyl never put it down. That first summer, she ran around the neighborhood asking to take people’s photos. It felt so natural to her, though it had taken a while to gain people’s trust. Take their pictures for what? What was she going to do with them? Skeptics, but curious, they eventually agreed. They’d uncomfortably pose or force a smile, and then immediately ask her to see it because if they didn’t look good, she’d have to delete it. Then she’d explain how film photography worked, and they’d cuss her out for wasting their time.

Weeks later, she’d find them again — at the corner store, or at the People’s Garden, and give them the glossy prints she’d developed. Through her lens she could see they were secretly afraid she’d see the things they’d all spent so much time and concern trying to hide. But those things would all melt away when they’d see themselves — some for the first time — with the same worth and value she saw in them. After that Sibyl didn’t have to ask. They booked her for quinces and graduation parties and engagement photos. People would stop her when they saw her around. “So you not gonna take my picture? Girl, you know I look good today. Quit playing and snap something quick,” and they’d pose with more pride than before, as if to officially celebrate the triumph of living, something they didn’t know they had accomplished until they saw proof.

After seeing so many of her neighbors’ pictures, some of which she took, circulate in online memorials, something lodged itself in the pit of Sibyl’s gut. She couldn’t fully identify what it was, but it left her with little energy to feel or do anything else outside of going to school and work. But she didn’t know how to explain that to her friends without being weird or bringing down the mood, so she just said, “Been busy with school.” She quickly changed the subject before anyone tried to press her on it.

“Are ya gonna go to the town hall?”

“What town hall?” Sage asked.

“The one with management. About the HVACs.” Sibyl handed them flyers from her bag. “I promised Nefi I’d go, but I don’t want to go by myself. Someone come with me?”

“Pass,” Felix snorted.

“I’ll go. Should be fun,” Sage said with a smirk on their face. “I wanna hear what those assholes say their excuse is for not fixing shit.”

“I’ll save ya the trip. Sorry, you’re too poor for us to care,” Felix mocked. “It’s not like they’re all of a sudden gonna have a conscience ya know.”

“You mad negative bro,” Dante said.

“What?” Felix asked animatedly. “You really trying to spend the rest of your life down here? We all need to focus on getting the fuck up outta here instead of asking them to fix some janky ass vents.”

It’s not like anybody was trying to spend any part of their lives in Groundview, but lately it seemed like the rest of their lives wouldn’t take so long. The sound of the shuttle, more muffled than anywhere else, reverberated throughout the garden.

“I’m out the first chance I get,” Dante admitted. His answer wasn’t surprising to any of them, but this was the first time Sibyl heard him say it out loud. Dante was one of the more talented and disciplined artists in the collective. It would only be a matter of time before he blew up and left.

“What happens when ya leave though?” Sage was upset. “You get out, but what about the rest of us? Not everybody can up and leave right? Shouldn’t we try and make shit better for everyone.”

“That’s a trap, Sage. Shit’s not gonna get better,” Felix said harshly. “Does it ever hit ya, like really hit ya that there’s no future for us here? Everybody’s so busy working to get by, we don’t even have time to realize how fucked up everything is.”

“I’m not saying it’s perfect.” Sage shot back. “I just don’t think we have to turn our back on our community. That’s fucked up.”

“Don’t take it so personally, Sage,” Dante cut in. “Nobody’s turning their backs on anyone.”

“Besides, no offense to Nefi n ‘em,” Felix said, “but everybody’s wasting their time if they think those suits are gonna fix anything.”

Sibyl listened quietly. Groundview was all they ever knew. She had never considered leaving it, and yet she also was afraid to admit that she thought Felix might be right.

#

The middle school auditorium only had like fifteen people — half were members of SOIL — in there that Tuesday night, which was more than Nefi had expected. The handful of people who told her they wanted to go to the town hall, but couldn’t, were either working, or would get home too late from work and would have to cook dinner or iron school uniforms for the next day. Everyone else couldn’t be bothered; like Felix, they thought it was a waste of time. That nothing would come from it. Sibyl didn’t show. No one who attended the town hall actually thought anything would come from it either. If AR&M had wanted to do something, they would have done it a long ass time ago. The people who did show up were mostly Nefi’s elderly neighbors who were always ready to spit their anger into a mic because if they weren’t going to get a solution, they would at least get to cuss someone out, and have an audience to witness it.

Nefi worked her way around the room to thank people for coming. These things always felt like family reunions to her. Old friends hugging and catching up because they hadn’t seen each other in a minute, with work and family and life moving everybody in this or that direction, even though they all still lived in the same neighborhood. She finished up her greetings and joined the rest of SOIL, huddled at the front of the room. They went over the order of speakers, before Benjy, the group’s designated peacemaker for the evening, asked everyone to quiet down and get seated so they could start. He reminded everyone to keep it civil. Then one by one, people got up to the mic to direct their anger at the empty faces in tailored suits, sitting at the table in front of them, who could all care less about the people shouting at them. There was a lot of finger snapping, and “that’s right” and “tell-em’s” from the crowd throughout.

Finally about half an hour in, a young woman, with a little girl clutching on to the left side of her body, got up to the mic.

“My name is Mercy Brooks, and this is my daughter Angelique.” Her voice was shaking, in that soft, angry, pissed off kinda way that warranted attention. Nefi hushed the crowd down so that she could speak her peace without interruption. “My daughter’s asthma acts up almost every day. She can’t breathe. Ya should be fucking ashamed of yaselves. Our babies are dying down here. Is that what we deserve because we can’t do better? We just supposed to take that shit. You ever thought about what it’s like to live down here, huh? I’m sure ya don’t cause if you did, you wouldn’t think it was right to keep people living like this. Or do ya not care cause it’s not your kids?”

There was silence from the table, which was worse than feigning any sympathy or remorse. It set the room off into chants, which meant it was over from there. AR&M security shut that shit down quick right on cue, and if you weren’t arrested that night, you were brusquely escorted out. Management promised to set up some vague kind of task force with representatives from the neighborhood, but it led to nothing. A fucking disappointment, that’s what that shit was. And it wasn’t a surprise to Nefi or anyone else, but it hurt all the same. A few weeks later, that same woman who got up and spoke, her daughter Angelique died because they couldn’t get her to the hospital in time after she had an asthma attack. AR&M still hadn’t fixed the vents in their housing complex. And they still didn’t change the filters or fix the ducts in the other housing complexes so that it wouldn’t happen again after that. SOIL kept trying to drum up some kind of anger. Anything to get people to feel something. To do something.

Murals of Destiny, Angelique, and every other person who had died that year quietly popped up around the neighborhood. Vigils and altars with flowers and prayer candles accompanied them. But as much as people were upset or sad, no one knew what else to do except mourn and move on because it was clear to everyone that no one gave a damn about them. And so, what was the point?

##

They called it the Subterranean Housing and Inner-City Tunnels project, or S.H.I.T. for short. A plan to provide affordable housing for everyone who had experienced the worst housing crisis New York City had ever seen. People were evicted left and right. Families were priced out of their homes and neighborhoods. The shelter system, swelled beyond its limits for decades, finally collapsed. The streets and subway were overrun with people in sleeping bags and blankets. So nothing new, but it finally annoyed enough people to warrant action.

Naturally, the city contracted its most blood thirsty developers, AR&M, to help solve the problem, which was kinda like asking an arsonist to put out a fire they had proudly started. To no one’s surprise, they didn’t want to forfeit any of their luxury condos that sat empty while people slept on the streets. Instead, they struck a deal to create the largest scale of public housing of its kind, in exchange for absolute, unregulated freedom. The only problem was there was literally no land left for them to develop because they had already bought it all. And then one day, the chief architect of S.H.I.T. had an epiphany when he felt the uptown 6 train rumbling beneath his feet. There was an entire part of the city he had yet to consider. Where a majority of the people who needed housing were already living. Sprawling housing complexes with multi-unit apartments appeared overnight 150 feet underground, with the pilot site in the South Bronx. A new subway station and miles and miles of foot tunnels connected New York’s newest neighborhood to the world above it.

There were protests, anger, outrage! That the country’s most progressive city could so blatantly, and quickly!, shove all of its poor people out of sight only seemed to bother the poor people because everyone else praised S.H.I.T. as the most innovative solution of the 21st century. New York City had done the impossible, and housed every single person. That was grounds for celebration and federal funding. Plans were quickly announced to roll S.H.I.T. out across every major city in the country. To ease people’s concerns, the mayor at the time, eyeing a presidential run, promised that his own city’s underground neighborhood would just be temporary — transitional housing at best. Transitional to what, no one could answer. Temporary until when? Until they could think of something else. One year became five, became ten, etc., etc.

In time, AR&M and the city eventually added a couple schools, a hospital, a library, and a sad excuse for a park that residents eventually turned into the People’s Garden. Folks opened up bodegas, 99 cent and liquor stores, and made themselves at home. It didn’t take long to accept living where they did as another fact of life because they had no other choice. Over time, the plan to move everyone back aboveground disappeared from the city’s housing briefings. Then, the briefings disappeared altogether. The high rates of asthma and chronic bronchitis that seemed to come from living in Groundview occasionally made the nightly news, but not enough to cause major concern or stop neighborhoods like Groundview from popping up across the country.

There were still those who remembered life before Groundview, and vowed to move out of the neighborhood as soon as the opportunity arrived. They kept the dream close to their hearts. And if it didn’t happen during their lifetimes, they’d make sure it would happen during their children’s. More realized it was a fool’s dream and moved on. Eventually though, everyone adapted to the vibrations of the shuttle inside their kitchens. The white, fluorescent lighting that lit every corner of their world like a harsh, artificial sun. The damp, muggy air that arrested their chests if they tried to breathe too freely. And the humming of the massive ventilation systems that heated and cooled their cramped, windowless apartments — when they decided to work.

#

An Artist’s Treatise on Survival

I don’t know how we do it sometimes. That is, put up with all the shit that life throws at us. Work jobs that exhaust us with little in return. Take care of our families with little to no support. Do so much with so little. And still be able to smile or laugh in the midst of it all. Then, I remember: it’s because we have to. No one else is gonna pay our bills if we don’t. No one else is gonna put food on our tables for us. No one’s gonna bail us out. Naturally, you learn to hustle. To channel your frustrations into working around the way things are because trying to fix things that were built broken takes time you don’t have when you’re just trying to get by.

What gets me even more is how we’ve perfected survival itself as an artform, and created whole new types of living from abject desperation. We wasn’t supposed to, much less find reasons to enjoy life, but we did anyway. Some even take on the added challenge of trying to make life more bearable, more enjoyable, for the rest of us. For example, sometimes when it felt like there wasn’t much to appreciate. That you were resigned to the fate of being alive and not living and didn’t deserve any better. You’d see a mural. On the way to the laundromat. Or the corner store. While you were running errands. Or walking home, bone tired, from the train after another long, shitty day at work. And like all good, beautiful things, it reminded you to breathe. You didn’t always know who created it. Or couldn’t remember if it was there the day before even though you’ve walked that way millions of times. You just knew that it was, in its own way, encouraging you to make it to tomorrow. Bright bursts of color and story interrupting the mundane, tiresome every day you’d come to accept with no protest. After a while, it becomes easier to accept a simple truth about living. That we can still manage to find a reason to laugh, to enjoy life, despite it all, and that we can be the source of our own power. It’s kind of audacious of us to still try and find joy even if it means creating it for ourselves. Maybe that’s why we do it.

#

At first, it started off as harmless tagging, and they kept it up chasing the thrill of not getting caught. Then they tried to outdo each other. It became a sport: who could paint the better mural. Get the most buzz around the neighborhood before they got painted over. But the better they got, and the more the murals looked legit, the longer they stayed up. Until they stopped painting over them altogether because people loved them so much. They didn’t belong to the creators anymore. They belonged to the neighborhood. And before they knew it, they’d created something much bigger than any of them could have imagined.

The tunnels just seemed like the next natural step for the graffiti artists in Groundview. Miles and miles of blank walls? Dante, especially, saw something to keep him busy after his brother died. Besides, painting murals felt like the only thing he could do. He’d stopped going to school. He’d just paint. When he ran out of ideas to paint, he asked Sibyl to see her portraits, and he started replicating them across the neighborhood. He was relentless — portrait after portrait. Sage and Felix started helping him out because they worried he would lose it, spending all that time in the tunnels by himself. He was grasping for something, but he didn’t know what it was. Until he saw it, lying on the ground near a garbage can.

The Groundview Residents’ List of Demands

The People of Groundview Gardens demand financial and social restitution for all residents, especially those who developed chronic health issues from living underground and/or have lost loved ones because of it.

The People demand New York City move all Groundview residents back above ground into rent subsidized apartments.

The People demand New York City disband all underground housing policies so that no one else has to live in Groundview Gardens or any other housing project like it.

Until the first three demands are met, The People demand Arcadian Realty & Management fix the HVAC systems in every single housing complex it owns and regularly maintain them.

Once Groundview Gardens is fully evacuated, The People demand New York City turn the entire neighborhood into a public memorial to commemorate the loss of life, preserving the art and The People’s Garden.

After the town hall, and the supposed task force, proved to be a bust, SOIL had created the demands to deliver to the city. They circulated leaflets with the five bullet points, but no one would take them seriously. Dante himself, admittedly, had checked out, and had ignored SOIL’s literature, up until that point. The demands appeared overnight on the walls of the tunnels in bold white paint for everyone to see. They were the last thing everyone saw coming into Groundview and the first thing they saw from the shuttle on their commutes leaving the neighborhood.

#

Nefi kept waiting for the moment when her neighbors would suddenly realize that they were angry — very angry. They’d decide they were fed up once and for all and refuse to settle for less anymore. They’d riot in the streets. They’d protest in front of AR&M’s offices. They’d refuse to go into work until something changed. Their anger would get everyone’s attention. Her own rage had burned intensely inside her for as long as she knew herself. She learned to channel it through SOIL trying to make Groundview a better place, even though everyone told her it wasn’t worth it; it wasn’t possible; it was a waste of time. But it was either that or literally set some shit on fire. But, it didn’t matter how many rallies, tenant meetings, town halls, or demonstrations SOIL organized. Nefi learned that she couldn’t have a revolution without people. And the people? They were tired and overworked. They didn’t have time to overthrow anything. And, even though no one would admit it, they were also afraid — afraid of change, of what they could lose, of realizing that something greater than what they had come to know was possible. So to save themselves, and Nefi, further disappointment, they rebuffed her again, and again: Nefi you need to chill. Girl you’re doing too much. Don’t waste your time. Nothing’s gonna change. After the town hall, and years and years of holding hope, the fire inside Nefi dulled until she couldn’t recognize herself anymore. She conceded her rage for high-functioning hopelessness. She withdrew from her friends, from her neighbors, from SOIL, only tapping into enough energy to wake up, go to work, and make her way back home. The days bled into each other, so much so that when the night Nefi had been waiting for eventually came later that August, it caught her completely off guard. It caught everyone off guard because it wasn’t the HVACs or the deaths of toddlers, or even the wrath towards AR&M that finally set people off. But it shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone who’s lived in New York City long enough because it was the one thing that could incite the level of large-scale anarchic rage Nefi had been holding out for — and that was the MTA.

#

The night in question, the air was hot, muggy, and heavy with potential. Like any other evening, people were heading home from work, the collective exhaustion weighing down on their bodies, stamped into their faces. They waited together, huddled in a sweaty mass on the sweltering Third Ave-138th St. platform for a train that felt like it would never come. When an empty shuttle finally did arrive in the station, the doors opened to the grating sound of a man’s voice coming through the train’s speaker system:

“Attention passengers. This is your conductor speaking. Due to unplanned construction up ahead, we are disbanding all trains to Groundview Gardens at this time. I repeat, we are disbanding all trains to Groundview. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

This shit had happened plenty of times before. A disruption of service that made it difficult to get home. Everybody was so used to it and had even come to expect it. The inconvenience of being poor and powerless consistently working against them. It too had become a predictable kind of disappointment. Even the audible, collective disapproval was muted and slightly rehearsed, nothing more than a reflex. They would have to find their way home, some two-odd miles on foot, through the tunnels. But that night, Ms. Claudette, who had been on her feet all day at work taking care of her elderly patient and still had to go home and iron her scrubs for the next day, was fucking tired. She had paid her fare. And, she had paid her taxes. She had also paid her dues in this country — twenty-seven years worth of struggle and debasement — for what? This could not be it. Life could not just be disappointment. The least she expected was that the train would get her home like it was supposed to. She decided that she was going to let the conductor have a piece of her mind.

“This is nonsense. Tell me, just tell me, how am I supposed to get home?” Her boisterous St. Lucian accent traveled well beyond her.

Folks who heard her echoed in agreement, hyping her up. “They have the nerve to raise prices for this shitty ass service,” someone said loudly. They all collectively decided to board the empty train. The construction workers in their hard hats and massive boots, the women with their large tote bags and their tiredness neatly folded away into themselves. They were all going to sit on the train, until it started up again. It was going to take them home.

The conductor was tired too. Nothing as deep-seated as his passengers, but something not too far removed. He had no skin in this game though, and his job didn’t pay him enough to care. He was annoyed; they were keeping him from clocking out. And so, after listening to a bunch of people passionately curse him out, he told them to, and I quote:

“Write a letter.”

It happened so fast. I mean, when I say shit popped off before anyone could swallow their spit. Someone knocked over the trash cans on the platform. Someone else, set them on fire, with what to this day no one really knows, but their latent anger seemed to have ignited what they didn’t know was inside them.

The riots lasted for weeks. People boycotted the MTA and didn’t go to work.

The restaurants aboveground shuttered because they were understaffed. Construction on all the new developments stopped because the workers, a lot of whom lived in Groundview, refused to show up. People aboveground had to stay home because their nannies and house cleaners weren’t able to come and relieve them like they had come to rely on. Groundview had forced the city to come to a complete stop. The mayor held a press conference saying she didn’t condone the behavior of the vandals at the train station. SOIL led protests and demonstrations in front of city hall until she had to hold a second press conference to apologize for her statements at the first press conference. She promised she was going to make sure that it would never happen again — not just the riots, but the unnecessary deaths in Groundview, the resentment the residents felt towards the city. They were going to fix the HVACs, and the MTA! They were going to heal the great divide the city had long thrived on once and for all, if, and only if, the workers called off the strike and went back to work. It sounded so sincere, everyone wanted to believe it. Tired of holding all the power, they asked SOIL to represent them at the bargaining table. Deals were made. Hands were shaken. And things went back to a semblance of normal with a few slight adjustments.

#

Sibyl was heading out of her apartment when she saw a piece of yellow paper on her front door.

60 DAYS NOTICE TO INCREASE RENT

Mildred Campbell 207 167th St. (GG), Unit 10E

Beginning September 1, 2041, the monthly rent will go up an additional 5% for all units located in the Robert Moses Houses. Please make the appropriate adjustments within the AR&M digital payment system.

We appreciate your continued tenancy.

Sincerely, Arcadian Realty & Management

Pieces of yellow paper were taped to every single door she passed on her way to the train. It had been a year since the last time the heating or cooling had stopped working. Everyone held their breath celebrating, just in case that was when the heat would shut off or the air would decide to stop working again, but it never did. The number of deaths and hospitalizations went down, and everyone seemed content enough after the strikes and boycott ended, to go back to work. The trains even went back to running as efficiently as possible for the MTA, always teetering on the edge of collapse, but never actually approaching it for fear of recreating another opportunity for mass rebellion.

On her way to the shuttle, Sibyl saw a group of people congregating near one of the murals. She clutched her camera in her hand, ready to raise it to her face, when she heard a voice she didn’t recognize shouting through a megaphone. It belonged to a man she had never seen around the neighborhood before, and he was walking backwards while talking to a group of people Sibyl also didn’t recognize.

“Groundview is the latest up and coming neighborhood in the city,” his voice echoed. “Some of the most promising young artists have gotten their start in this urban — ”

She didn’t stick around to hear more.

After the riots, small groups of tourists descended regularly on Groundview like vultures to see the murals they had seen in viral photographs. They’d rudely block the paths from the train platform, or take up way too much space on the footpaths of the tunnels posing in front of the murals for pictures. Not long after that came the opportunistic hacks who had never stepped foot in Groundview before, running “culture tours’’ around the neighborhood. The residents felt like they were stuck in some sick and twisted museum. Out of annoyance, they banned the tours and non-residents from the People’s Garden, preserving their one last sanctuary in the community.

Sibyl had been in the middle of it all the first night of the riots. She was on the subway platform on her way home from classes and started snapping pictures once she realized what was going on, catching the fervent energy better than anyone could describe to everyone else who wasn’t there. She had no idea her photos would end up everywhere. But they did, and they not only helped draw attention to the plight of her neighborhood. They also drew attention to the wealth of talent germinating underneath the city. Her photos of her friends, their murals, and the other members of her neighborhood, had also attracted a lot of attention that felt good to the young artists who all of a sudden saw opportunities previously unavailable to them right at their doorsteps.

The shuttle arrived on the platform before her. Sibyl boarded the cool air-conditioned cart; the beads of sweat on her skin quickly evaporated. Nefi had warned them to be careful early on. “These things always end up having you exploit your own people for a cheap come up, and it’s never worth it.” Everyone thought she was trippin’. There Nefi was again just looking for another cause to fight now that her crusade against A&RM had seemed to come to an end. Even Sibyl thought she was overreacting at first. People were finally paying attention to Groundview. If she and the rest of the artists could help show the world how important the lives of the people who lived there were, maybe things could change for the better.

The train disappeared into the tunnel towards the 138th St. station. A lot of things had quietly changed over the last year and a half. Many of the families who had lost loved ones, including Dante’s, received settlements from the city and moved out of the neighborhood, leaving a sizable number of the apartments empty. Leading to perhaps the most visible addition to the neighborhood. AR&M had a couple of the younger artists looking for their own big break paint over SOIL’s list of demands and replaced it with a more “aesthetically inviting” message for the new visitors to the neighborhood: Welcome to the Mural District. Sibyl had only heard the tour guides call it that, in an unveiled attempt to rebrand Groundview. It didn’t take too long to find out where they got it from. The name and the welcome sign led to intense debates between the artists in the collective, including her friends, about people selling out and what they owed to each other as artists and their neighbors, which led to a few people splitting off and doing their own thing. The mural made Sibyl sick to her stomach, and she tried her best to avoid seeing it on her commutes. Then one day, someone started covering it up with black graffiti making the message unreadable.

No one knew who it was because they never got caught, but it didn’t matter to AR&M. Like clockwork the next morning, they had cleaners paint a fresh welcome message over it in time for the daily tours at noon. When the welcome message started appearing on the AR&M screens, the screens started getting covered in graffiti too. After a few months, Sibyl expected the guerilla painters to give up and move on, but they didn’t. Fresh graffiti kept appearing over the mural and on the screens, prompting AR&M to deploy their clean up crews, and then the routine would start again. Sibyl looked out the window in anticipation. “OURS.” The word, written over and over again across the mural, quickly came into view and then vanished out of sight.

[link4eva]

Kiro’s Satisfaction Date Translation (完满之约) [CN] Part 1/2

Hey, everyone! I have a couple of short but important notes to give before reading.

I don’t actually know any Chinese so this translation was done through the power of Google Translate.

This translation contains spoilers for Kiro’s 2021 Birthday Date in the CN server. So if you wish to not be spoiled, please don’t look below the cut. There is a R&S to go along with this date which has been translated by the lovely @keliosyfan​ . I’ll put the link to it here! I definitely recommend reading that first before reading this date.

I tried posting this date earlier but Tumblr doesn’t seem like it can handle all the Kiro goodness in one go. So, this date is split into two parts to try and manage that. You can find the second part here! The call that comes with this date can be found here!

Hope you enjoy!~

*Spoliers for future content below!*

The melodious violin sound filled the lecture hall.

Kiro closed his eyes and the tip of his left finger pulsed gently on the strings of the violin, pulling out beautiful notes.

I stood behind the cameras in the last row of the lecture hall. As I was looking at him through the camera, I couldn’t pull my gaze away.

Kiro’s birthday was finally here, but this year, it is a bit more special.

He was invited by his high school alma mater to come to California for a special performance on his birthday.

And this also happened to be the site of Kiro’s special live birthday broadcast.

Kiro: I am very happy to be back today. I know that you must be very sleepy listening to the song just now, so….  

Kiro raised the corners of his mouth, turned his head back and nodded slightly to the pianist on the side, and then lightly plucked the strings with his right hand; a crisp echo coming through.

Kiro: Let’s be happy. 

The brisk piano sounded, and “Canon” flew in through everyone’s ears between Kiro’s fingertips and the plucked strings.

The students sitting in the lecture hall opened their eyes wide; it was almost as if the notes were like tiny birds flying around in the soft sunlight. *Took some liberty here.*

But this was just the beginning.

Whether it is “Caprice 24”, “Carmen Fantasia”, and other classical pieces, or adaptations of popular songs--

They were all under the influence of Kiro’s fingertips, full of vitality.

It seems that the light of the entire world is focused on him at this very moment, bright and dazzling.

The last piece performed seemed to be a little different from the ones previously. Kiro looked a little cautious. He looked at me from a distance and a smile slowly appeared on his face.

Kiro: The last piece is one that is special to me. It’s a bit rusty as I haven’t played it for many years. 

Kiro: I hope you don’t mind.

He raised the bow, quietly stood still for a few seconds, and then began to play the first few notes.

The tune of this piece is very slow. It seems a bit lonely without the piano accompaniment.

Perhaps no one knows the meaning of this song except for Kiro. We are all his sharers, listening to him tell a story with only a melody.

Listening to this piece, I quietly looked at Kiro’s face and thought of the gift I had prepared for him. I fell into deep thought.

Soon, the piece was over.

Kiro bowed very formally and finally sat on the edge of the stage amidst the applause with his legs swinging in the air, holding the violin and looking at the audience in front.

Kiro: In fact, your principal invited me to come, hoping that I would tell you about my experience and give some advice.

Kiro: But I think you guys don’t want to listen to all that! After all, when I was a kid, I didn’t really like listening to other people’s suggestions. 

In the end, his mumbling was infinitely amplified by the microphone, and the students sitting below laughed together.

Kiro: It’s everyone’s first time coming to this world. Just be happy and be yourself. 

Kiro: I never felt that I was such a special person. Although, everyone would laugh at me when I said this.

Kiro: But I always think, I just have the most love and precious things in my life for me.

He lowered his head and looked at the violin in his arms then hummed a song and looked up in the direction where I was.

Kiro’s whole body seemed to be bathed in the sun, and his smiling eyes met mine.

Kiro: I don’t know if you have encountered it.

Kiro: For me, it has always been with me in countless moments of silence. 

Kiro: It illuminates me and gives me the courage to keep going forward. *Took some liberty here.*

Kiro sat there quietly, peacefully, and sincerely.

Kiro: Today is my birthday. Thank you for your blessings. I also want to share this blessing with you.

Kiro: I wish you all find what you love the most, and stay true to yourselves.

Kiro: I wish that you will always be yourself.

[Second Part]

Kiro: MC, how did I do just now!

After making sure that the students had left, Kiro jumped off the stage and rushed to me.

The bangs on his forehead were drenched with sweat and they stuck together, revealing those bright and beautiful blue eyes.

MC: It can only be said that it is better than the best. As expected of Kiro! 

After hearing my compliment, his eyes curved with a smile like a bear eating honey. He wiped the corners of his mouth with satisfaction.

Savin contacted the school club week, filming and other activities that Kiro participated in during this California trip.

I calculated Kiro’s limited time and pulled him into a corner.

MC: Happy birthday, Kiro!

Kiro: You wished me so early this year. And it also seems that you have something secret to show me.

MC: Actually, I did prepare some special birthday arrangements ahead of time.

MC: But after seeing your performance just now, I suddenly changed my mind.

Kiro was taken aback when he heard me and blinked in confusion.

MC: Last year, you used the treasure map to let us relive all the precious times together. (MC’s referencing Treasure Hunt Date which will be released April 6 on the ENG server)

MC: So now, I really want to ask what Kiro wants to do on his birthday today.

MC: This time I’ve come back to visit the school where you studied. Here are four years’ worth of your past and memories.

MC: Is there anything that Kiro did not realize at that time, or what Kiro wants to do here?

MC: I can help satisfy you. 

Kiro stood firmly in front of me with the bright light hooked onto his face, quietly showing the heedfulness and expectation in his eyes.

Kiro: ….Really?

MC: Of course! Today is your birthday, so naturally, you are the most important on your birthday!

MC: So, I will accompany you in whatever you want.

Kiro smiled.

He tiptoed backstage and took out his violin bag. After exchanging glances, we looked towards Savin and retreated towards the door.

As soon as he stepped out the door, Kiro took my hand and staggered out of the lecture hall.

(Cut to outside)

I didn’t know where Kiro was taking me. But as long as he is holding my hand, I am willing to accompany him wherever he goes.

Kiro ran ahead of me, turning his head back with a smile.

Kiro: Actually, when I first came to California, I was not used to many different things.

Kiro: So for my first birthday here, I was very impressed with all the choices. At that time, I had a lot of things I wanted to do. But in the end, I didn’t do them for various reasons. 

Kiro took my hand and pulled me around the corner across from the playground on the campus. He pushed away a tree branch that was casting a shadow and came to stand under a high wall at the edge of the school.

Kiro: First, I wanted to do this--

In my confused state, Kiro stretched out his right hand pretentiously and raised his palm in the air.

Kiro: Skip class. 

The air seemed to stand still for a few seconds. I looked at the high wall, then turned my gaze back to Kiro who was eager to try and couldn’t help laughing.

Kiro: Okay, I know it’s a little immature.

Kiro: When I was in class, the school was super strict. When I made a wish on my birthday, I had one wish in mind--

Kiro: “Ah! I really want to skip class.”

MC: Have all the big stars ever had this idea?

Kiro: Kiro was not a big star back then, and that big star was also an ordinary person. 

Kiro looked at the high wall with excitement, the scattered sunlight fell on him through the lush green leaves.

I seem to be able to see Kiro, who was 14-years-old, laying his head on the desk, looking at the sky.

The sky is so wide; it seems like you can go anywhere.

MC: It seems a bit difficult to climb but we can try.

I was about to try. Kiro had already stepped on the small holes of the wall, stretched out his arms methodically, and climbed onto the wall in the blink of an eye.

MC: ….?!

Kiro: Sure enough, it’s not as difficult as I had imagined. I will teach you! 

While talking, he jumped back down silently and came back to me.

He pointed to the hole in the wall and demonstrated it again in front of me.

Following his direction, I stepped swiftly on the wall like a clumsy gecko.

Kiro: Miss Chips, give me your hand.

I raised my head and habitually stretched out my hand in response. In the next second, I felt that I was being strongly pulled and I fell into a warm embrace.

MC: Why were you so scared of skipping class?

Kiro: This is just the beginning.

The distant school building faced Kiro’s back. He raised the corners of his mouth and winked his left eye at me.

I suddenly thought of myself; 14-year-old me and 14-year-old Kiro.

I’m in Loveland City and he is abroad in California.

I dozed off at my desk in the warm afternoon, and he was probably humming a gentle tune among the stars.

At that time, we hadn’t become adults and we were separated by a distant time; like two parallel lines that would never meet at all.

But these two lines seem to overlap at this moment.

Kiro: I’m ready to climb.

He whispered in my ear, and before I could react, he gently pulled me towards him and hugged me.

MC: Kiro! Kiro, you….! 

Kiro: In fact, I have imagined skipping class many times.

Kiro lowered his face and the sun was behind him. A golden outline was drawn on his body.

Kiro: But none of this is what it is today.

As he lightly pushed his foot, I couldn’t help but hug his neck tightly.

At that moment of flight, the whole world was silent, leaving only two intertwined heartbeats with similar rhythms to be heard.

Kiro: Sure enough, MC’s existence can revive my imagination. 

[Third Part]

Kiro: The next thing is-- 

In an empty fast food restaurant, Kiro bought two “actually real” meal sets and sat with me in front of the window facing the street.

Kiro: Eat junk food! 

MC: Pff, why are all the things you wanted to do so cute?

Kiro: It’s okay, just laugh if you want, hmph.

Kiro: Since I debuted, I hadn’t touched any junk food. Potato chips were the first things I had finally eaten when I first met you many years later.

MC: Well, what did you do when you were craving junk food?

Kiro: Restrain, hold back, pretend there was a gun to my head. *Translation came out a little weird here so I hope this is right.*

He muttered, opened his mouth and took a bite of the burger, and sighed particularly contentedly.

MC: Why don’t you restrain yourself now then? 

Kiro: It’s different now. 

He answered without hesitation and quickly finished the burger.

Kiro: Because you are here.

MC: Are you trying to say that I seduce you into committing food crimes? 

Kiro: That’s right!

MC: You!

Kiro: But of course it is more than that.

Kiro: Because you are here, it’s okay to indulge a bit. 

He propped his head with his right hand and looked at me sideways. A spot of light fell on his defined eyelashes like he had a secret full of mischief.

With a straw in his mouth, the soda gurgled. As it gurgled, it seemed to have filled my heart at the same time.

MC: Then I will help you sneak some more snacks in next time?

Kiro: Although that sounds very exciting, I still want to have more opportunities to be handsome in front of you.

Kiro: Compared with “snack-loving Kiro”, I’d rather you have “handsome Kiro” in your heart. 

He snapped his fingers, his eyes gleaming.

Looking at him like this, I subconsciously followed along and laughed.

MC: Of course you are the most handsome Kiro in the world!

We were sitting in front of the shop window; I was eating a burger and Kiro was telling me about his time in California.

Some difficult lectures to sit through, baseball games he had to participate in, exquisite violin decorations, yellow balloons from children….

He traced the past for me, like an old movie that spans over a long period of time.

Under the immersion of time, with some nostalgia mixed in, the pictures in the memories appear more vivid and beautiful.

After leaving the restaurant, Kiro rented a car and waited on the side of the road. 

(Cut to the highway)

We are cruising along the highways of California and the endless highways spread to the distant sky; it was almost as if we could reach the edge of the sky.

I suddenly thought of a memory from when I first came to California a long time ago and Kiro seemed to think of the same memory as me.

Kiro: I have checked the car, again and again, this time. It will definitely not break down! (He’s referencing his Los Angeles Date which is a sweet and funny one. Definitely recommend. It’s been released on the ENG server already.)

MC: Are we going to Santa Monica this time?

He shook his head mysteriously at me and jingled some special keys in his hand.

Kiro: This time, I want to take my dazzling pearl to another dazzling place in my heart. 

The scenery along the highway was quickly left behind by us. It also seemed that the time that was always moving forward quickly and impossible to stop was left out of the scenery.

The tides rolled on the coast and the seabirds used their wings to draw a neat arc in the air, in the sea and the sky.

There is a boat anchored quietly by a small port beside a bay.

(Cut to beach)

After getting out of the car, Kiro took the girl by the hand and moved towards the coast. The sea breeze blew her hair gently. He had never felt that his heart had been so at ease.

Here, the excitement is like a flood. And with it is more peace of mind. *Translation came out wonky here.*

The girl stood in front of him, watching him quietly.

At that moment, he seemed to see the blossoming of his dreams.

Many years ago, he had seen himself on a stage amongst the stars.

And now, it is once again full of his entire world.

The third thing is--

He said softly in his heart.

Bring my favourite person in the world to my home in California.

I watched Kiro raise the corners of his mouth, the brilliant light fell into his smiling eyes, but he didn’t speak.

MC: Is coming here the third thing you wanted to do?

Kiro: Bingo! The third thing is-- 

Kiro: Come to this bay with you.

MC: Liar, you didn’t know me at the time, how could you think of coming with me?

Kiro: Of course it is because I reserved a place for you very early on.

MC: Then I am really honoured! Let me guess, this was your secret base in high school, right?

I looked at this “secret base expert” confidently, but he shook his head unexpectedly.

Kiro: This is my home. 

Here is Part 2! 

[chiseler]

The Mysterious Death of a Hollywood Director

This is the tale of a very famous Hollywood mogul and a not-so-famous movie director. In May of 1933 they embarked together on a hunting trip to Canada, but only one of them came back alive. It’s an unusual tale with an uncertain ending, and to the best of my knowledge it’s never been told before.

I. The Mogul

When we consider the factors that enabled the Hollywood studio system to work as well as it did during its peak years, circa 1920 to 1950, we begin with the moguls, those larger-than-life studio chieftains who were the true stars on their respective lots. They were tough, shrewd, vital, and hard working men. Most were Jewish, first- or second-generation immigrants from Europe or Russia; physically on the small side but nonetheless formidable and – no small thing – adaptable. Despite constant evolution in popular culture, technology, and political and economic conditions in their industry and the outside world, most of the moguls who made their way to the top during the silent era held onto their power and wielded it for decades. Their names are still familiar: Zukor, Goldwyn, Mayer, Jack Warner and his brothers, and a few more. And of course, Darryl F. Zanuck. In many ways Zanuck personified the common image of the Hollywood mogul. He was an energetic, cigar-chewing, polo mallet-swinging bantam of a man, largely self-educated, with a keen aptitude for screen storytelling and a well-honed sense of what the public wanted to see. Like Charlie Chaplin he was widely assumed to be Jewish, and also like Chaplin he was not, but in every other respect Zanuck was the very embodiment of the dynamic, supremely confident Hollywood showman.

In the mid-1920s he got a job as a screenwriter at Warner Brothers, at a time when that studio was still something of a podunk operation. The young man succeeded on a grand scale, and was head of production before he was 30 years old. Ironically, the classic Warners house style, i.e. clipped, topical, and earthy, often dark and sometimes grimly funny, as in such iconic films as The Public Enemy, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, and 42nd Street, was established not by Jack, Harry, Sam, or Albert Warner, but by Darryl Zanuck, who was the driving force behind those hits and many others from the crucial early talkie period. He played a key role in launching the gangster cycle and a new wave of sassy show biz musicals. At some point during 1932-33, however, Zanuck realized he would never rise above his status as Jack Warner’s right-hand man and run the studio, no matter how successful his projects proved to be, because of two insurmountable obstacles: 1) his name was not Warner, and 2) he was a Gentile. Therefore, in order to achieve complete autonomy, Zanuck concluded that he would have to start his own company.

In mid-April of 1933 he picked a public fight with Jack Warner over a staff salary issue, then abruptly resigned. Next, he turned his attention to setting up a company in partnership with veteran producer Joseph Schenck, who was able to raise sufficient funds to launch the new concern. And then, Zanuck invited several associates from Warner Brothers to accompany him on an extended hunting trip in Canada.

Going into the wilderness and killing wild game, a pastime many Americans still regard as a routine, unremarkable form of recreation, is also of course a conspicuous show of machismo. But in this realm, as with his legendary libido, Zanuck was in a class by himself. He had been an enthusiastic hunter most of his life, dating back to his boyhood in Nebraska. Once he became a big wheel at Warners in the late ’20s he took to organizing high-style duck-hunting expeditions: the young executive and his fellow sportsmen would travel to the appointed location in private railroad cars, staffed by uniformed servants. Heavy drinking on these occasions was not uncommon. (Inevitably, film buffs will recall The Ale & Quail Club from Preston Sturges’ classic comedy The Palm Beach Story, but DFZ and his pals were not cute old character actors, and their bullets were quite real.) Members of Zanuck’s studio entourage were given to understand that participation in these outings was de rigueur if they valued their positions, and expected desirable assignments in the future. Director Michael Curtiz, who had no fondness for hunting, remembered the trips with distaste, and recalled that on one occasion he was nearly shot by a casting director who had no idea how to properly handle a gun.

But ducks were just the beginning. In 1927 Zanuck took his wife Virginia on an African safari. In Kenya Darryl bagged a rhinoceros and posed for a photo with his wife, crouched beside the rhino’s carcass. Virginia, an erstwhile Mack Sennett bathing beauty and former leading lady to Buster Keaton, appears shaken. Her husband looks exhilarated. During this safari Zanuck also killed an elephant. He kept the animal’s four feet in his office on the Warners lot, and used them as ashtrays. If any animal lover dared to express dismay, the Hollywood sportsman would retort: “It was him or me, wasn’t it?” Zanuck made several forays to Canada with his coterie in this period, gunning for grizzly bears. Director William “Wild Bill” Wellman, who was more of an outdoorsman than Curtiz, once went along, but soon became irritated with Zanuck’s bullying. The two men got into a drunken fistfight the night before the hunting had even begun. In the course of the ensuing trip the hunting party was snowbound for three days; Zanuck sprained his ankle while trailing a grizzly; the horse carrying medical supplies vanished; and Wellman got food poisoning. “It was the damnedest trip I’ve ever seen,” the director said later, “but Zanuck loved it.”

Now that Zanuck had severed his ties with the Warner clan and was on the verge of a new professional adventure, a trip to Canada with a few trusted associates would be just the ticket. This time the destination would be a hunting ground on the banks of the Canoe River, a tributary of the Columbia River, 102 miles north of Revelstoke, British Columbia, a city about 400 miles east of Vancouver. There, in a remote scenic area far from any paved roads, telephones, or other niceties of modern life, the men could discuss Zanuck’s new production company and, presumably, their own potential roles in it. Present on the expedition were screenwriter Sam Engel, director Ray Enright, 42nd Street director Lloyd Bacon, producer (and former silent film comedian) Raymond Griffith, and director John G. Adolfi, best known at the time for his work with English actor George Arliss. Adolfi, who was around 50 years old and seemingly in good health, would not return.

II. The Director

Even dedicated film buffs may draw a blank when the name John Adolfi is mentioned. Although he directed more than eighty films over a twenty-year period beginning in 1913, most of those films are now lost. He worked in every genre, with top stars, and made a successful transition from silent cinema to talkies. He seems to have been a well-respected but self-effacing man, seldom profiled in the press. 

According to his tombstone Adolfi was born in New York City in 1881, but the exact date of his birth is one of several mysteries about his life. His father, Gustav Adolfi, was a popular stage comedian and singer who emigrated to the U.S. from Germany in 1879. Gustav performed primarily in New York and Philadelphia, and was known for such roles as Frosch the Jailer in Strauss’ Die Fledermaus. But he was a troubled man, said to be a compulsive gambler, and after his wife Jennie died (possibly of scarlet fever) it appears his life fell apart. Gustav’s singing voice gave out, and then he died suddenly in Philadelphia in October 1890, leaving John and his siblings orphaned. (An obituary in the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent reported that Gustav suffered a stroke, but family legend suggests he may have committed suicide.) After a difficult period John followed in his father’s footsteps and launched a stage career, and was soon working opposite such luminaries of the day as Ethel Barrymore and Dustin Farnum. Early in the new century the young actor wed Pennsylvania native Florence Crawford; the marriage would last until his death.

When the cinema was still in its infancy stage performers tended to regard movie work as slumming, but for whatever reason John Adolfi took the plunge. He made his debut before the cameras around 1907, probably at the Vitagraph Studio in Brooklyn. There he appeared as Tybalt in J. Stuart Blackton’s 1908 Romeo and Juliet , with Paul Panzer and Florence Lawrence in the title roles. He worked at the Edison Studio for director Edwin S. Porter, and at Biograph in a 1908 short called The Kentuckian which also featured two other stage veterans, D.W. Griffith and Mack Sennett. Most of Adolfi’s work as a screen actor was for the Éclair Studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey, the first film capital. The bulk of this company’s output was destroyed in a vault fire, but a 1912 adaptation of Robin Hood in which Adolfi appeared survives. That same year he also appeared in a famous docu-drama, as we would call it, Saved from the Titanic. This ten-minute short premiered less than a month after the Titanic disaster, and featured actress Dorothy Gibson, who actually survived the voyage, re-enacting her experience while wearing the same clothes she wore in the lifeboat. (This film, unfortunately, is among the missing.) After appearing in dozens of movies Adolfi moved behind the camera.

Much of his early work as a director was for a Los Angeles-based studio called Majestic, where he made crime dramas, Westerns, and comedies, films with titles like Texas Bill’s Last Ride and The Stolen Radium. In 1914 the company had a new supervisor: D. W. Griffith, now the top director in the business, who had just departed Biograph. Adolfi was one of the few Majestic staff directors who kept his job under the new regime. A profile in the February 1915 issue of Photoplay describes him as “a tallish, good-looking man, well-knit and vigorous, dark-haired and determined; his mouth and chin suggest that their owner expects (and intends) to have his own way unless he is convinced that the other fellow’s is better.” It was also reported that Adolfi had developed something of a following as an actor, but that he dropped out of the public eye when he became a director. Presumably, that’s what he wanted.

Adolfi left Majestic after three years, worked at Fox Films for a time as a staff director, then freelanced. During the remainder of the silent era he guided some of the screen’s legendary leading ladies: Annette Kellerman (Queen of the Sea, 1918), Marion Davies (The Burden of Proof, 1918), Mae Marsh (The Little ‘Fraid Lady, 1920), Betty Blythe (The Darling of the Rich, 1922), and Clara Bow (The Scarlet West, 1925). Not one of these films survives. A profile published in the New York World-Telegram during his stint at Fox reported that Adolfi was well-liked by his employees. He was “reticent when the conversation turned toward himself, but frank and outspoken when it concerned his work. Mr. Adolfi is not only a director who is skilled in the technique of his craft; he is also a deep student of human nature.” Asked how he felt about the cinema’s potential, he replied, with unconscious irony, “it is bound to live forever.”

III. The Talkies

In spring of 1927 Adolfi was offered a job at Warner Brothers. His debut feature for the studio What Happened to Father? (now lost) was a success, or enough of one anyway to secure him a professional foothold, and he worked primarily at WB thereafter. Thus he was fortuitously well-positioned for the talkie revolution, for although talking pictures were not invented at the studio it was Sam Warner and his brothers, more than anyone else, who sold an initially skeptical public on the new medium. After Adolfi had proven himself with three talkie features Darryl Zanuck handed him an expensive, prestige assignment, a lavish all-star revue entitled The Show of Shows which featured every Warners star from John Barrymore to Rin-Tin-Tin.

Other important assignments followed. In March of 1930 a crime melodrama called Penny Arcade opened on Broadway. It was not a success, but when Al Jolson saw it he sensed that the story had screen potential. He purchased the film rights at a bargain rate and then re-sold the property to his home studio, Warner Brothers. Adolfi was chosen to direct, but was doubtless surprised to learn that Jolson had insisted that two of the actors from the Broadway production repeat their performances before the cameras. One of the pair, Joan Blondell, had already appeared in three Vitaphone shorts to good effect, but the other, James Cagney, had never acted in a movie. Any doubts about Jolson’s instincts were quickly dispelled. Rushes of the first scenes featuring the newcomers so impressed studio brass that both were signed to five-year contracts. While Adolfi can’t be credited with discovering the duo, the film itself, re-christened Sinners’ Holiday,remains his strongest surviving claim to fame: he guided Jimmy Cagney’s screen debut.

At this point the director formed a professional relationship that would shape the rest of his career. George Arliss was a veteran stage actor who went into the movies and unexpectedly became a top box office draw. He was, frankly, an unlikely candidate for screen stardom. Already past sixty when talkies arrived, Arliss was a short, dignified man who resembled a benevolent gargoyle. But he was also a journeyman actor, a seasoned professional who knew how to command attention with a sudden sharp word or a raised eyebrow. Like Helen Hayes he was valued in Hollywood as a performer of unblemished reputation who lent the raffish film industry a touch of Class, in every sense of the word.

In 1929 Arliss appeared in a talkie version of Disraeli, a role he had played many times on stage, and became the first Englishman to take home an Academy Award for Best Actor. Thereafter he was known for stately portrayals of History’s Great Men, such as Voltaire and Alexander Hamilton, as well as fictional kings, cardinals, and other official personages. The old gentleman formed a close alliance with Darryl Zanuck, whom he admired, and was in turn granted privileges highly unusual for any actor at the time. Arliss had final approval of his scripts and authority over casting. He was also granted the right to rehearse his selected actors for two weeks before filming began. All that was left for the film’s director to do, it would seem, would be to faithfully record what his star wanted. Not many directors would accept this arrangement, but John Adolfi, who according to Photoplay “was determined to have his own way unless he is convinced that the other fellow’s is better,” clearly had no problem with it. His first film with Arliss was The Millionaire, released in May 1931; and in the two years that followed Adolfi directed eight more features, six of which were Arliss vehicles. He had found his niche in Hollywood.

One of Adolfi’s last jobs sans Arliss was a B-picture called Central Park, which reunited the director with Joan Blondell. It’s a snappy, topical, crazy quilt of a movie that packs a lot of incident into a 58-minute running time. Central Park was something of a sleeper that earned its director positive critical notices, and must have afforded him a lively holiday from those polite period pieces for the exacting Mr. Arliss.

In spring of 1933, after completing work on the Arliss vehicle Voltaire, Adolfi accompanied Darryl Zanuck and his entourage to British Columbia to hunt bears. Arliss intended to follow Zanuck to his new company, while Adolfi in turn surely expected to follow the star and continue their collaboration. Things didn’t work out that way.

IV. The Hunting Trip

It’s unclear how long the men were hunting before tragedy struck. On Sunday, May 14th, newspapers reported that film director John G. Adolfi had died the previous week – either on Wednesday or Thursday, depending on which paper one consults – at a hunting camp near the Canoe River. All accounts give the cause of death as a cerebral hemorrhage. According to the New York Herald-Tribune the news was conveyed in a long-distance phone call from Darryl Zanuck to screenwriter Lucien Hubbard in Los Angeles. Hubbard subsequently informed the press. The N.Y. Times reported that the entire hunting party (Zanuck, Engel, Enright, Bacon, and Griffith) accompanied Adolfi’s remains in a motorboat down the Columbia River to Revelstoke. From there the body was sent to Vancouver, B.C., where it was cremated. Write-ups of Adolfi’s career were brief, and tended to emphasize his work with George Arliss, though his recent success Central Park was widely noted. John’s widow Florence was mentioned in the Philadelphia City News obituary but otherwise seems to have been ignored; the couple had no children. 

V. The Aftermath

Darryl F. Zanuck went on to found Twentieth Century Pictures, a name suggested by his hunting companion Sam Engel. One of the company’s biggest hits in its first year of operation was The House of Rothschild, starring George Arliss and directed by Alfred Werker. The venerable actor returned to England not long afterwards and retired from filmmaking in 1937. In his second book of memoirs, published three years later, Arliss devotes several pages of warm praise to Zanuck, but refers only fleetingly to the man who directed seven of his films, John Adolfi, and misspells his name.

In 1935 Zanuck merged his Twentieth Century Pictures with Fox Films, and created one of the most successful companies in Hollywood history. He would go on to produce many award-winning classics, including The Grapes of Wrath, Laura, and All About Eve. Zanuck’s trusted associates at Twentieth-Century Fox in the company’s best years included Sam Engel, Raymond Griffith, and Lloyd Bacon, all survivors of the Revelstoke trip. Personal difficulties and vast changes in the film industry began to affect Zanuck’s career in the 1950s. He left the U.S. for Europe but continued to make films, and sporadically managed to exercise control over the company he founded. He died in 1979.

In 1984 a onetime screenwriter and film critic named Leonard Mosley, who had known Zanuck slightly, published a biography entitled Zanuck: The Rise and Fall of Hollywood’s Last Tycoon. Aside from his movie reviews most of Mosley’s published work concerned military matters, specifically pertaining to the Second War World. His Zanuck bio reveals a grasp of film history that is shaky at times, for the book has a number of obvious errors. Nevertheless, it was written with the cooperation of Darryl’s son Richard, his widow Virginia, and many of the mogul’s close associates, so whatever its errors in chronology or studio data the anecdotes concerning Zanuck’s personal and professional activities are unquestionably well-sourced. 

When Mosley’s narrative reaches May 1933, the point when Zanuck is on the verge of founding his new company, we’re told that he and several associates decided to go on a hunting trip to Alaska. The location is not correct, but chronologically – and in one other, unmistakable respect – there can be no doubt that this refers to the Revelstoke trip. From Mosley’s book:

“There is a mystery about this trip, and no perusal of Zanuck’s papers or those of his former associates seems to elucidate it,” he writes. “Something happened that changed his whole attitude towards hunting. All that can be gathered from the thin stories that are still gossiped around was that the hunting party went on the track of a polar bear somewhere in the Alaskan wilderness [sic], and when the vital moment came it was Zanuck who stepped out to shoot down the charging, furious animal. His bullet, it is said, found its mark all right, but it did not kill. The polar bear came on, and Zanuck stood his ground, pumping away with his rifle. Only this time it was not ‘him or me,’ but ‘him’ and someone else. The wounded and enraged bear, still alive and still charging, swerved around Zanuck and swiped with his great paw at one of the men standing behind him – and only after it had killed this other man did it fall at last into the snow, and die itself. That’s the story, and no one seems to be able to confirm it nor remember the name of the man who died. The only certain thing is that when Zanuck came back, he announced to Virginia that he had given up hunting. And he never went out and shot a wild animal again, not even a jackrabbit for his supper.”

VI. The Coda

Was John Adolfi killed by a bear? It certainly seems possible, but if so, why didn’t the men in the hunting party simply report the truth? Even if their boss was indirectly responsible, having fired the shots that caused the bear to charge, he couldn’t be blamed for the actions of a dying animal. But it’s also possible the event unfolded like a recent tragedy on the Montana-Idaho border. There, in September 2011, two men named Ty Bell and Steve Stevenson were on a hunting trip. Bell shot what he believed was a black bear. When the bear, a grizzly, attacked Stevenson, Bell fired again – and killed both the bear and his friend.

That seems to be the more likely scenario. If Zanuck fired at the wounded bear, in an attempt to save Adolfi, and killed both bear and man instead, it would perhaps explain a hastily contrived false story. It would most definitely explain the prompt cremation of Adolfi’s body in Vancouver. Back in Hollywood Joe Schenck was busy raising money, and lots of it, to launch Zanuck’s new company. Any unpleasant information about the new company’s chief – certainly anything suggestive of manslaughter – could jeopardize the deal. A man hit with a cerebral hemorrhage in the prime of life is a tragedy of natural causes, but a man sprayed with bullets in a shooting, accidental or not, is something else again. That goes double if alcohol was involved, as it reportedly was on Zanuck’s earlier hunting trips.

Of course, it’s also possible that Adolfi did indeed suffer a cerebral hemorrhage. Like his father.

John G. Adolfi is a Hollywood ghost. Most of his works are lost, and his name is forgotten. (Even George Arliss couldn’t be bothered to spell it correctly.) Every now and then TCM will program one of the Arliss vehicles, or Sinners’ Holiday. Not long ago they showed Adolfi’s fascinating B-picture Central Park, that slam-bang souvenir of the early Depression years in which several plot strands are deftly inter-twined. One of the subplots involves a mentally ill man, a former zoo-keeper who escapes from an asylum and returns to the place where he used to work, the Central Park Zoo. He has a score to settle with an old nemesis, an ex-colleague who tends the big cats. As the story approaches its climax, the escaped lunatic deliberately drags his enemy into the cage of a dangerous lion and leaves him there. In the subsequent, harrowing scene, difficult to watch, the lion attacks and practically kills the poor bastard.

by William Charles Morrow

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

My sources for this article, in addition to the Mosley biography cited in the text, include Stephen M. Silverman’s The Fox That Got Away: The Last Days of the Zanuck Dynasty at Twentieth-Century Fox (1988), and Marlys J. Harris’s The Zanucks of Hollywood: The Dark Legacy of an American Dynasty (1989). For material on John Adolfi I made extensive use of the files of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Special thanks to James Bigwood for his prodigious research on the Adolfi family genealogy, and to Mary Maler, John Adolfi’s great-niece, for information she provided on her family.

[storygirl000]

ML Fic: Never Had A Friend Like Me

Summary: Lila’s making good on her promise, and Marinette is finding herself increasingly isolated from the class. At least she still has her best friend by her side.

Ao3 link here.

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A/N: So guess who’s sick of Alya and Nino getting the short end of the stick in salt fics?

Seriously, guys. “Chameleon” was a poorly-written episode in regards to every character it featured, but everyone still treats it like it’s the final word on what Alya and Nino are like. All I want is ONE salt fic where they actually support Marinette throughout Lila’s reign of terror.

And then I thought, “Well, if you want something done right...”

So enjoy this rare pro-Alya salt fic!

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The day after Lila had threatened her in front of the school, Marinette opened the bakery door to find Alya there, tears streaming down her face.

Marinette brought her inside, asking her what had happened, and listened intently as her friend poured her heart out to her. In a way, she wasn’t that surprised by what she heard.

Apparently, Alya had finally thought to do some research on Lila, and (naturally) had discovered that all of her claims of meeting various celebrities were false. This had led to her deleting Lila’s interview from the Ladyblog, posting a lengthy apology to her readers, calling Nino (who had been equally horrified by the revelation), and concluding that she was an irredeemably horrible person who didn’t deserve the friendship of someone she threw under the bus for a stranger.

Touched, Marinette told her that she forgave her, and that they could still be friends as long as she’d truly learned her lesson. Alya accepted that, and the two of them spent the rest of the day eating cookies and discussing various things.

Like how they were going to break this to the rest of their classmates.

00000

Four weeks after Lila’s threat, school had become more difficult.

On the upside, most of the class accepted the evidence Alya had provided and cut ties with Lila. And as it turned out, several of them were close to discovering the truth themselves beforehand.

On the downside, Lila still had several members of the class (Kim, Max, Ivan, Mylene) and several teachers under her thumb. And Ms. Bustier’s “set a good example” policy meant that if any of them tried to argue with Lila or question her authority, they’d get punished.

And frustratingly enough, Adrien still stuck by his original mindset. No matter how many times the others tried to convince him, he kept insisting that Lila wasn’t doing any harm and that they were in  the wrong.

Needless to say, his friendship with Nino and Marinette’s crush on him disappeared.

But, for all the friends they lost, they gained some new ones. Aurore and Mireille became a part of Marinette’s inner circle after she designed some outfits for them. Nathaniel and Juleka brought in Marc and Luka, respectively. Kagami joined them as well, slowly being eased into the idea of having friends. And – most surprisingly – Chloe and Sabrina joined them, both having long seen through Lila’s facade. While there were still the occasional clashes, Chloe’s relationship with most of the group soon became a vitriolic friendship (and maybe a little more with Kagami, though she wouldn’t admit it for a long time).

Alya was confident they could make it through Lila’s reign.

00000

Two years after Lila’s threat, Alya discovered that her best friend was Ladybug.

Hawk Moth and Mayura’s attacks had only gotten harder to deal with over the years, and it didn’t help that Chat Noir had become a horrible hero, refusing to help out unless Ladybug gave in to his increasingly unwanted advances.

The heroine needed some permanent help. Someone she could turn to when the times got tough, someone she could trust with her secret identity. Someone who could help when Chat Noir refused to.

She chose Alya and Nino.

Now, Rena Rouge and Carapace regularly joined Ladybug on patrols, helping her fight akumas and sentimonsters. The Ladyblog quickly received a boost in popularity, thanks to the increasingly common interviews with the heroes themselves.

As the time passed, more and more heroes would come and go – the indomitable trio of Queen Bee, Ryuko, and Good Girl, the brother-sister-sister’s girlfriend team of Viperion, Tigress, and the Pink Princess, the genre-savvy Gallus and Chevre Blanc, the crowd-pleasing Cloudjumper and Souris, and the ever-mysterious time-traveller Bunnyx – but the core trio of Ladybug, Rena Rouge, and Carapace remained.

Chat Noir’s popularity dropped like a stone. Alya made sure of it.

00000

Six years after Lila’s threat, Marinette finally launched her brand.

With the help of a website designed by Alya and positive word of mouth thanks to Jagged Stone, MDC Designs quickly grew in popularity. Soon, celebrities across the world – ranging from the children of the popular businessman Bruce Wayne to singers like Clara Nightingale and Austin Moon – all wanted an MDC Original in their closets.

Eventually, Gabriel Agreste himself reached out to her and asked to do a business partnership. Not only did she refuse, she went on to do an interview detailing exactly how badly Gabriel’s heir and his girlfriend treated her in high school.

Adrien Agreste and Lila Rossi became the biggest punchlines in the entertainment business since Lindsay Lohan. Marinette, meanwhile, met the love of her life doing a commission for the president of Okumura Foods, who introduced her to one of her close friends.

All in all, Alya figured they were doing well for themselves.

00000

Eight years after Lila’s threat, Chat Noir lost his Miraculous on live television.

From what Alya could piece together, Chat had seen Marinette and Ren interacting while the former was in-costume. Naturally, the entitled brat had decided to seek out Ren and threaten him, all while spouting his beliefs that Ladybug was destined for him.

Hawk Moth promptly took advantage of Ren’s anger, creating one of the most powerful akumas the team had ever fought.

The akuma had immediately gone for Chat, stripping him of his ring in front of a live news crew and revealing to the world that he was none other than Adrien Agreste. He then verbally tore into the former golden boy, revealing every horrible thing he’d done as both a model and as Chat Noir.

The team managed to purify the akuma and rescue Ren, but Adrien escaped in the struggle and disappeared. Not that it mattered; they had the Cat Miraculous back, ensuring that he wouldn’t be able to misuse it anymore.

Five days later, the public was introduced to Kuro Neko.

Two days after that, Hawk Moth publicly announced his and Mayura’s retirement from supervillainy.

One week after that, Monarch and Pavone Cristallo took their place.

Life went on.

00000

Ten years after Lila’s threat, Alya was in Los Angeles, watching the Oscars live.

Marinette had been nominated for Best Costume Design for her work on a movie that had been nominated for several other awards, and she had invited Alya, Nino, and Ren to come with her to the ceremony. Naturally, they’d accepted.

As the various announcements and performances went on, Alya thought over what the past ten years had been like for her and her classmates.

Rose and Juleka had gotten married practically as soon as high school was over, and their wedding had been a gothic fairytale straight out of a Grimm Brothers book. Juleka eventually became one of Marinette’s top models, while Rose became a teacher, striving to be better than the one she had in high school.

Marc and Nathaniel had started publishing their Mightillustrator and Reverser comics, which soon became popular for their positive portrayal of a gay couple and the general lack of angst most superhero comics at the time had. A movie adaptation was currently in the works.

Chloe had taken over her father’s hotel business, and was still doing her best to become a better person with the help of Kagami (her girlfriend, now a world-class fencer) and Sabrina (now a politician on the campaign trail). She also modeled for Marinette on occasion.

Luka was currently on tour as one-half of the musical duo Fangs, alongside his fiance (a lovely girl named Avril that Alya was, regrettably, not well-acquainted with). Their wedding was scheduled for next year, and everyone was dying with anticipation.

Aurore and Mireille had also gotten married, and both had become regular models in Marinette’s lineup. Aurore had also gotten a job as TVi’s weather girl, and Mireille was the new host of KIDZ+.

Alix had become a popular street artist, with her art regularly being featured in Parisian museums. She’d also taken over as Collège François Dupont’s new art teacher after Mr. Haberkorn’s retirement, which kept her in regular contact with Rose and Juleka.

The ones who had followed Lila’s word to the letter back in high school eventually managed to break free from her influence, though they knew nothing would ever be the same between them and the rest of the class. Kim and Ondine had gotten married, and they now worked as coaches in the same school as Rose and Alix. Max had managed to get a job as a scientist for a major computer company, and worked hard on various projects. Mylene and Ivan had also gotten married, the former becoming an actress on a popular TV show.

Lila and Adrien had both opted to stay out of the public eye after all the scandals they’d been a part of. Alya had no idea what they were up to these days, which was probably for the best.

And Alya herself? She was quickly climbing through the ranks as a journalist, and the Ladyblog was as popular as ever. She and Nino had finally tied the knot last year; he’d become a successful DJ, and was recently breaking into directing, with Nath and Marc’s film being his first job.

Her musings were interrupted by a cry of joy coming from her right.The winner of Best Costume Design had finally been announced.

As Alya watched, Marinette walked up to the stage to accept her award, tears pricking the corner of her eyes. Everyone in the hall started applauding her – Alya, Nino, and Ren doing so the loudest.

She took the statuette, cradling it in her hands, and started on the speech she’d been rehearsing before they’d gotten here.

“The first person I want to dedicate this to is the person who’s stuck by me all these years, through thick and thin,” she said. “My best friend, Alya.”

Alya felt Nino’s hand on her shoulder, and she smiled.

They made it. Together.

[mrsmaddiebobaddie]

MCYT High School Teacher AU

I don’t know if this has already been done but with student teaching on the brain this was invading my subconscious.

Phil: Principal

The most chill admin you’d ever find (He kind of has to be with the staff at the school)

Will let most things slide if you ask nicely

Has a quiet space in his office for students to take a moment to calm down after acting out. He’ll offer them candy and talk through the situation with them. 

Started out as a counselor at the school, so he still holds a similar mentality when it come to talking with students and staff. 

Always takes the side of his staff. The district is usually in the wrong anyway.

He knows the teachers are the experts, screw whatever requirements the state has, he lets them run their classrooms whichever way is best for the students’ learning

Technoblade:  Literature & Composition

One of the most engaging teachers at the school

Most students love him because he’s real and he’ll tell it like it is. 

Has a coffee machine in his room. It’s rare that he’s not holding a mug in his hand while he teaches

Has high expectations for his students

Rarely gets angry. Even when he’s upset he still comes across as calm.

Usually stays at the school late making sure to give the best possible feedback on papers and reports. He genuinely wants each kid to learn something from his class.

Tommy: Speech and Debate

It’s only his second year of teaching

The students would run the classroom if not for Tommy basically being a student himself

There’s a strong chance his class will be off topic at any given point. It’s always an adventure walking past his door, you never know what you’ll hear

Somehow still gets high scores on average from his students

Keeps students after class when he notices them struggling with school or life in general to talk with them. The conversations are always beneficial.

Will 100% fall asleep during professional development meetings.

Karl: Biology

Tries to act hip, fails most of the time.

Always has the most energy in his lessons, finds unique ways to teach the concepts other than slides and worksheets.

Usually the first one in the building each morning

Will give students different options for final projects so they can chose the best method of showing their evidence of learning. 

Gets lower scores than he should on observations because he doesn’t do well under the pressure. One year Phil didn’t announce when he’d be coming in and watched from the door to give a more accurate review. 

Wears a sweatshirt to class more often than he should

Quackity: Spanish 

Hands on learning whenever possible

Uses the home ec. room to make authentic Mexican dishes with his students when they cover the food and restaurant unit

Will just forget that the kids don’t speak Spanish fluently and ramble on until someone interrupts him.

Slow grader, you get your scores when you get them.

Known to be a bit chaotic with his teaching style, it works for some kids but he does need to reteach certain sections every now and then

One time a kid feel asleep in his class so he had all the other students leave and they had class outside to freak the kid out (They were right outside the classroom window, he could still see the sleeper, he told Phil)

Skeppy: Algebra

Like’s his job, pretty much your average teacher

Can’t stand freshmen, but tolerates them since that’s half the students he has. He prefers teaching advanced algebra to upper classmen

His lessons are always formatted the same, starting with a lesson on how to do that days math, with the remainder of the period being free work time

Holds math challenges with his class and gives out prizes. It’s usually candy, though one time he gave out cash. He made his kids promise not to say a word about it. 

Very good at teaching the same math concepts in different ways to help struggling learners

Always one minute away from being late for first period, but makes it just in time every morning.

Dream: Health/Football and Assistant Basketball Coach

Took the teaching job mainly to coach sports

Still cares about making connections with his students, he uses his class to teach life skills and promote positive social and mental health.

If any of his players are in his class he will pick on them. He has no mercy.

Dreads sex education because no one can be mature about it. He gets revenge by making the students film a “how to say no to sex” video with someone in the class.

His wheeze laugh is iconic. You can hear it from down the hall.

If you meet with him and are honest when you’re struggling, he’ll work with you to pass his class. He isn’t going to ruin your GPA over a project on the negative effects of smoking.

Wilbur: History & Geography/Theater 

The teacher who sits on his desk when he lectures

Is very sarcastic with his students, but knows who can take the teasing and makes sure not to make anyone feel uncomfortable.

Prefers class discussion over solo work time, he likes hearing student’s perspectives and ideas.

Turtlenecks

One of the teachers most likely to be the crush of teenage girls. 

Not afraid to mark you down for sloppy work. You use a black ink pen and draw precise lines when turning in maps and graphs or you redo it.

Speaks in musical references 

George: Physics

The chillest teacher by far

Due dates? Don’t worry, he’ll accept an assignment literally months after it was supposed to be turned in

Makes difficult topics seems simple when he describes them

He doesn’t really care if you have your phone out in class as long as you’re paying attention and learning the material

The students straight up call him George, he doesn’t seem to care

Placing near the top for the most crushed on teacher

King of multiple choice questions

Eret: Economics & Government

Makes any student in his class feel welcome

One of few teachers who can lecture the entire period without students falling asleep. He always has interesting stories

Let’s kids chose where they sit

Freshmen are always caught off guard by his voice when they hear him for the first time

Spends too much of his own money on supplies for his students and classroom (Honestly most teachers have to spend their own money on necessary supplies, he just goes about and beyond.)

There’s always a group of students who eat lunch in his classroom 

The Union Rep at their school, will fight tooth and nail for the staff members

Tubbo: Band Director

Super cheerful whenever he’s teaching

He rarely has any free time before or after school because he has so many one-on-one lessons and meetings with students

Likes to have practice outside when the weather is nice

Does his best to make his students feel comfortable and relaxed whenever he does performance based assessments. 

He’s also a new teacher, but you honestly wouldn’t be able to tell

He will be in tik toks if you ask him to, and he’s familiar with all the pop culture trends

Let’s the students chose a song to play at the last band concert. Some years have been less chaotic than others, the worst (or best, depending on who you ask) being when the students voted to play Deja Vu from Initial D.

Fundy: Computer Science/Coding 

Begins each class with a cheesy computer joke. Every class.

Everyone knows you can’t get anything past him technology wise. He can see that headphone in your ear from across the room.

Isn’t afraid to assign extra work when students are disrupting class

Once took up an entire class period showing his students how he coded different difficulties in Minecraft. He wasn’t ashamed to admit that he plays the game in his spare time. 

About half the students in his class aren’t really interested in computers, they just want to have him as a teacher since everyone says he’s cool.

Known to hack school computers to bypass restrictions

Sucker for pizza parties. Has at least one per semester  

Sapnap: PE/Basketball Coach

Hella competitive 

Abuses his power of having a whistle. Someone should really take it away from him

Gyms shorts every day. Even in the winter. Sometimes he wears sweats, but never jeans.

Doesn’t let anyone sit out of activities

Tries to set up fun tournaments for each activity they do, makes sure to balance the teams so no one has too much of an upper hand.

He’s usually the teacher who mans detention, he tries to make it as positive as it can be though.

Keeps extra sets of gym clothes to give to students who forgot or can’t afford to buy them

Schlatt: Calculus and Stats/Business  

You either love him or are terrified of him

One of the only teachers who can have an “aggressive” teaching style and still connect with students

You will learn something from his class, he makes sure of it. 

Doesn’t accept late work unless you have a really good reason why you couldn’t turn it in

Wears a tie every day

If another teacher needs a last minute sub during his prep period he’ll cover them. Doesn’t matter what subject, he can wing it

He was the reason the school started offering business studies as an elective due to some vague threats towards the district

Niki: Art/German

Teaching voice is so soft

You can’t tell whether or not she’s giving you constructive criticism because everything she says sounds so positive 

Let’s her students lead learning for the most part, she will cover topics that most interest them while still trying to hit the district required standards (luckily teaching electives gives her a bit more freedom with her curriculum)

Her classroom always smells lovely

Will bring in homemade goodies each Friday for the staff room

Holds art galleries at the end of each semester to show off the arts since they often go unappreciated. It has turned out to be a super popular event for students and staff.

Bad: Special Education

This man has endless patience. It’s crazy

Even after the longest days when none of the students are cooperating, he still has a smile on his face

If he hears cursing in the halls he will call you out in front of everyone. Teachers included. 

Makes sure to keep a list of all his students favorites so he can surprise them with gifts on their birthdays or around holidays

He works closely with the other teachers to make sure his kids can be as involved in general education as possible.

Always wears something fun, be it a tie, socks, shirt, or even a full outfit. His students love seeing what new wacky garment he’ll be wearing that day. 

More Head Cannons

If someone brings food for the staff room Tommy WILL take it. Sometimes he’ll come back for seconds, there will be none left by the end of the day. He’s not as bad as Skeppy though, who will literally pack it up to take home for later.

For the past few months the staff members have been receiving anonymous email chains with photoshopped pictures of each other. Everyone was sure Fundy was behind it, Eret thought he saw him teaching his students how to use the program by editing their favorite teachers into stupid situations (they’ve all been school appropriate of course). Fundy did in fact start it, but now so many other teachers have joined in that it can’t be traced back to one person anymore.

All the teachers love going to sporting events. They’ll join in with the student section to cheer on the teams. If they know there’s a kid who doesn’t have family that will come to watch them they’ll make shirts with that players number to show support for them.

Wilbur, Niki, and Tubbo work together on musicals. Niki does the sets and costuming, Wilbur directs, and Tubbo leads the pit. There are plenty of long nights during tech week that devolve into chaos (especially when Niki isn’t there)

Spirit week is very intense, to say the least. The teachers are assigned a grade to be advisors to, and they get into it. For the duration of the week they practically become rivals with whoever isn’t in their assigned grade. They’ll pull pranks on each other constantly, especially when the students can see. It’s all playful of course, but it gets the kids more excited about spirit week when they can support their teachers and watch the amicable rivalries carry out.

Technoblade once joked that he knew every detail about every classic novel. His students took this as a challenge, and tried to find the most obscure and specific trivia questions they could ask him. He has yet to be stumped.

Dream and Sapnap had a running streak of about four weeks where they made everything into a competition. Who could enter their grades into the computer fastest? How many cups of coffee did they drink that day? Who got to school first that morning? There was a tally board in the staff room and the teachers had a betting pool going. Phil finally ended it when they accidently broke the school’s copier trying to see who could scan the most documents in five minutes. Dream was ahead by three points, Sapnap never lived it down.

In service days are incredibly boring, so the staff tries to make those days a bit more entertaining. They order in pizza or sandwiches for lunch. Since there aren’t any kids in the school they’ll do everything they’re no supposed to, like racing office chairs down the hallways and blasting non-school-appropriate music in their classrooms.

Wilbur accidentally started a black market of sorts when he took all the new whiteboard pens from the supply closest. He used this to his advantage, getting people to do him favors in return for the good supplies. When Dream found out he not-so-jokingly threatened to slowly steal everything from Wilbur’s classroom until he released the pens. The next day the closet was replenished once more

Quackity and Tommy are co-emcees for the school assemblies. They hold class competitions between the grades, including spirit chants and ridiculous games. Think minute to win it style, but way crazier. Everyone gets super into it, the upperclassmen usually win. The two have good chemistry and a fun energy.

George has a unit where students make bottle rockets and launch them outside on the soccer field. And every year Karl brings his class out to watch claiming that “it’s science, I teach science, I’ll have them write a paragraph about what they learned”. Really he just wants to watch rockets go brrr

For Schlatt’s birthday one year, Wilbur and Techno printed off shirts with his face on it for all the staff to wear. Schlatt was super confused when he came into work and all his colleagues were walking around with his face plastered across their chest. He got back at Wilbur for it by putting salt in his coffee for a week straight, but Techno never got his comeuppance. It’s debatable whether Schlatt just didn’t know he was in on it, or if he knew better than to mess with Techno.

Lesson planning and curriculum building is quite the process. Some departments can stay on task better than others. Schlatt and Skeppy get in, plan out the term, and get out. The math department has everything on lock. Social studies are also pretty good at getting pre-planning done. They tend to spend most of their time having discussions that aren’t necessarily related to the tasks at hand though. The English department is a mess. It’s really Tommy who’s a mess, he just projects that onto everyone else. Karl and George work well together to map out science curriculum. Even though teachers who teach electives aren’t required to collaborate with each other, they still get together and bounce ideas off each other and get feedback.

I have plenty more if people want a second part. I also only listed the MCYTs that I’ve watched enough to know their personalities at least a little bit, but if you wanted to see another person I may expand the staff list!

[scottymcgeesterwrites]

Final Fantasy XIII Review

Year: 2009

Original Platform: PlayStation 3

Also available on: Xbox 360, PC, Android, iOS

Version I Played: PlayStation 3

Synopsis:

On the planet Cocoon, those who come into contact with anything from the planet Pulse are purged to that planet. Pulse is a feared planet full of monsters and strange creatures. Both planets are ruled by fal’Cie, mechanical godlike beings who sometimes brand humans as their servants for specific tasks, called a focus. Those who fulfill their focus are turned into crystals and obtain eternal life. Those who do not fulfill their focus turn into mindless monsters. Lightning is a former soldier whose sister, Serah, is branded by a fal’Cie and taken to be purged. Lightning sets off to rescue her.

Gameplay:

Going to say this now – the worst gameplay in the entire Final Fantasy series.

The battles are Active Time Battles but instead of you inputting individual commands, there are what’s called paradigms. Paradigms are somewhat like Job Classes from the old Final Fantasy games, except less fun and more automated. You can switch to a Medic paradigm in battle and every time you press “Auto-Battle” your character automatically performs a series of necessary cure and restore spells, based on what’s going on in the battle. The Sentinel paradigm specializes in keeping the enemy at bay. The Ravager paradigm uses magic. The Commando paradigm uses physical attacks. You get the picture.

As a result, the gameplay could be best described as:

With occasional switching of paradigms whenever you see fit. You can set up a number of combinations across the characters. Two Commandos and one Sentinel. One Sentinel and one Ravager and One Commando, etc.

The party automatically heals after each battle – you can even press start during a battle and restart the battle.

I probably only used an item once or twice. I honestly don’t see why they bothered putting any items if you hardly ever use them.

You can upgrade your weapons with pieces and junk you find after battles. You find so many of them that you hardly ever think about what you’re upgrading so long as whatever you make upgrades your stats. Is this better? No? What about this? Okay, good. Moving on.

Like Final Fantasy X, the game is linear. Much more linear. You follow a long hallway for about 30 hours of the game before you can do sidequests. The sidequests involve completing other people’s focus. That’s about it. There are no towns, no inns, no villages. You are entirely on the road, constantly in battle (Okay, there’s like one time where Sazh and Vanille are in a casino or something but that’s about it).

I wrote a blog piece a while back about what exactly was wrong with Final Fantasy XIII, and it’s not that it’s linear. We play really great linear games all the time. It’s the automation – the feeling that you’re not really doing anything.

There isn’t an ounce of customization. Leveling up is similar to the Sphere Grid of Final Fantasy X. It’s called the Crystarium but it follows a strict path. You can’t actually stray anywhere or customize anything. If that’s the case, why bother making you open the menu to level up through the Crystarium? Why not just automatically do it? I guess they want to give you some ounce (more like a milligram) of control over the game.

Basically – you’re watching a long movie and occasionally get to move the people around. That’s how I see it.

Graphics:

PLAYSTATION 3 HD GRAPHICS HOMG DO YOU HAVEA BONER YET? LOOK AT THIS. FIRST FINAL FANTASY GAME IN GLORIOUS HD.

Everything is pretty in this game. Everything. There is nothing wrong with this at all.

Story:

The characters appear to reference those in Final Fantasy VII. Director Motomu Toriyama wanted Lightning to essentially be a female Cloud Strife. She’s a no-nonsense, athletic female lead. While Cloud and Squall were introspective and antisocial, Lightning is slightly different by actively ordering people around. She comes off as a dick to everyone, and that’s due to her ex-soldier background. Think of your stereotypical ex-cop/ex-CIA/ex-military action movie hero, like Liam Neeson (Bryan Mills in Taken) or Bruce Willis (John McClane in Die Hard). That’s basically Lightning.

Can we go on a short tangent for a moment to talk about how weird it is that Lightning was also used as a model for advertising in Japan?

Here she is driving a Nissan.

And wearing Louis Vitton.

Cool? I guess? Unless you start to realize that Toriyama wanted to design his own personal waifu, and that he’s completely obsessed with her. That gets really weird. And sad? A little? Anyway.

Vanille has some reminiscent of Yuffie from Final Fantasy VII, although with more character via her inner monologues and narration. Fang is vaguely like Vincent Valentine. Sazh takes the place of Barrett as the token black dude, except instead of being aggressive he’s more like the comic relief and wants nothing to do with anything. Every time you control him, jazz music plays, because black people I guess. Hope doesn’t appear to be reminiscent of anyone – he’s just this boy who yells and complains a lot with Lightning. Snow meanwhile is a ripoff of Zell from Final Fantasy VIII, except somehow even more annoying.

(Every time I see his picture I think about your typical dude bro at a frat.)

The story starts of a bit choppy as you follow almost each character separately, then they run into each other, then separate again, then join again. The first 30 hours or so gives flashbacks of 13 days prior- BECAUSE IT’S FINAL FANTASY XIII GET IT? Vanille actually narrates some events but it’s not exactly clear why or from when – but that’s a spoiler. Along the way, I got really confused because I didn’t know why some people were fighting each other when they were on the same side a moment ago. The concept of the “focus” is really weird and sometimes confusing. People with a focus simply have visions or a general idea of what they’re supposed to do, but they don’t actually know for sure unless they actively seek it. If the gods granted them a focus, wouldn’t it make more sense if the gods just told them what to do? Seemed to work in Final Fantasy XII. 

In short, the narrative weaves around a lot. If you stop playing in the middle and pick up the game again months later, you’re bound to forget what’s going on. I know I did.

The characters didn’t annoy me as much as you would think they would on paper. They all have character development and that’s good. The only character that effectively got on my nerves was Snow. Snow is Serah’s fiancé, and Lightning hates him because of course you need some family drama. I don’t blame Lightning though. Snow shouts cheesy lines left and right, like “Heroes never die!”. He shouts Serah’s name the same way Christian Bale shouts Rachel’s name in the Christopher Nolan Batman films. Snow is quite possibly the most irritating character of all the Final Fantasy games. He will not shut the fuck up about what it means to be a hero.

The rest of the cast works well in that their motives and desires clash with each other. But I’m still sore about the wasted potential for a great character in Jihl Nabaat. Sazh wants his son Dejh back, who was taken to be purged by the sinister and extremely hot Jihl Nabaat.

 Goddaaayyyum. Seriously, look at her.

Too bad, because she’s only featured in a handful of scenes and then dies. Her death isn’t a major spoiler, at least one that I consider, because she hardly does anything except get in the way for a moment. You don’t even fight her. How lame is that?

Then you have this annoying bastard – Primarch Dysley.

When I think of him, I think of Mitch McConnell.

Old. Disagreeable. Been in power for too long. Always in the way of progress.

Primarch Dysley happens to be as annoying as Seymour from Final Fantasy X, so expect to be overjoyed every time you run into him.

Overall, the story isn’t as bad as you’d think. You just have to pay close attention. The gameplay is far worse than the story. I could easily slip into a coma while playing this game and still make it pretty far.

Music:

Final Fantasy XII saw the departure of Nobuo Uematsu (well with the exception of the pop song “Kiss Me Goodbye”). Final Fantasy XIII continues to head into the unknown without the beloved longtime composer. This game’s score is composed entirely by Masashi Hamauzu, who if you haven’t been paying attention, already partly worked on Final Fantasy X.  I immediately saw how “Saber’s Edge”, the boss theme, is similar in nature to the boss theme of Final Fantasy X.

Final Fantasy XIII made the most radical changes to the score. There are no signature themes from the series. No “Prelude” theme, no “Main Theme”, no “Victory Fanfare” theme. Instead, we get a theme called “Fabula Nova Crystallis”.  It plays frequently throughout the game, and almost acts as Serah and Snow’s love theme. In some portions of the game, some woman is singing along. Yes – this is the first time where you roam around a world in a Final Fantasy game with actual pop music playing in the background – “Sunleth Waterscape” to be exact. Final Fantasy XIII’s music gets pretty poppy.

Not saying it’s a bad idea.

Just.

You got pop music playing in the background now.

“Lightning’s Theme” is pretty sick. Her theme plays during the battles in a rendition called “Blinded by Light” – HA GET IT BECAUSE SHE’S LIGHTNING. SO CLEVER.

But Hamauzu was a good choice – the entire score holds up well and sounds like a movie score, with varying motifs running across. It can be a bit more subdued but that’s how contemporary instrumental music is nowadays, especially with film composers like Hans Zimmer.

 Notable Theme:

“Blinded by Light”

Really epic, unique song. I always scat along to it as it plays.

Verdict:

Uff. 

Look, if you just search on YouTube for all the cutscenes, there you go. That’s the game. And it’s entertaining to watch. But it has the worst gameplay that doesn’t feel like you’re even doing anything. No sense of customization or originality.

Direct Sequel?

Yes, two.

Final Fantasy XIII-2.

I started it around the time it first came out, but I’m still in the middle of playing it and I have no idea what’s going on in the story. NO idea. NONE at all. They use time travel but none of it makes sense. Apparently changing things in the future can change the past. I don’t know how. I only understand a vague semblance of a plot with the bad guy Caius. While it doesn’t tarnish the dignity of the original like Final Fantasy X-2 did, it’s still offbeat with its metal (yes, metal) music and utterly confounding story. It’s infamous for this metal rendition of the sweet and innocent Chocobo theme.

Then there’s the third game, Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII

I plan on playing it after I finish Final Fantasy XIII-2, if I don’t already die from an aneurysm by then. It’s supposed to be better than Final Fantasy XIII-2 but lacking in graphics.

[swiftiesang]

hello! i’m peyton (19, they/them, discord: peyton#2067) & i’ll be writing for moon eunsang, professional fishboy and wannabe tiktok star who happens to be on a path to self-discovery.

stats  /  plots  /  pinterest  /  spotify  /  bio

history

born february 8th, 2001 — has spent all twenty years thus far in yunhwa, hasn’t even ventured outside for vacation. a notoriously nosy kid who wanted to hear all about everyone else’s vacations, though: if everyone else in the class was telling you to shut up and stop bragging, moon eunsang was the one pressing for more details.

never spoke if he didn’t have a reason to, though, and wasn’t the type to strike up conversations. all lasting childhood friendships he has were initiated by the other side; ran with a noisy crowd, but was always the “token good kid”, the one that teachers liked, the one that made the rest of the group look good. tbh he was just as bad as them, he just didn’t have the boldness needed to seek attention 24/7

thought to be a kid who studied hard because he kept his head in books — really, he just wanted an excuse to avoid conversations with people who weren’t his friends. good grades came naturally, so he coasted by in life without ever trying very hard, didn’t think about his goals because he thought everything would “fall into place”.

long story short: life’s more complicated than that. details in his full biography once i get that written, but some shit happened & left him in a very confused and tumultuous place mentally. grades fell, he flunked exams, didn’t even bother applying to university.

so that’s how he got to where he is now: freshly 20, working full-time as a fucking swordfish mascot because what else is he qualified for? not much, and it’s not like there are job openings posted on windows 24/7. (plus, he kinda likes hiding behind the fish costume)

dad thinks he’s a loser, but in a mostly loving way? he’s not a mean parent, he’s just realistic and as it turns out, he doesn’t want to see his youngest son pursuing fame on tiktok and wearing a fish costume under the blaring sun while his oldest is in... law school...

(meanwhile, every time one of eunsang’s tiktoks gets more than 2,000 likes, his dad’s sending it to the mayor like LOOK AT MY BOY! while the tiktok is talking shit about how the town could really use a strip mall?)

tldr: former gifted kid turned aimless adult who transforms into an indie/alt boy for tiktok.

personality

many, many, many layers. the kind of person you can be friends with for three years  &  still be surprised by regularly. 

he’s mellow in public, the type to stick to walls and keep his head down, meanwhile he goes home to film tiktoks dancing to pitbull songs like 🕺 forget about your boyfriend 🙄 and meet me at the hotel room 😏

daring online, but irl he takes two hours to pick an outfit and finally comes out like “don’t you think this is too much? i think it’s too risque” (the too much: a v-neck sweater... not even a deep v) & changes into one of the boring, plain ass 3 outfits he rotates as if that’s all he owns. basically has an entire wardrobe of things he only wears for TIKTOKS!

seems really shy / sheltered, but he’s not. a 20 year old man who will not swear & is the “good example” his friends’ parents/grandparents compare them to but he’s definitely hotboxed his dad’s car more times than he could count.

here for a good time but like... a really lowkey good time, which is mainly because he’s a really awkward / anxious person. he misses social cues a lot, tends to be very offbeat, always saying or doing the wrong thing. to avoid embarrassing situations, he doesn’t go outside his comfort zone. he sticks with people he already knows, goes to places he already knows (which is really all he can do in this town anyway LOL), does things that he already knows the outcome of. he isn’t a risk-taker

big on parties & clubbing, but only if he has friends with him. the second he’s left alone at a party, his confidence disappears </3

type of person who is down for absolutely anything IF he’s got the power of friendship pushing him. will he go to the market by himself? no. will he go cliff-diving as a last-minute plan with a friend? yeah ofc

he’s currently trying to become more than just a side character in his own life. his counselor told him that he should let himself do one (1) bold / outside the comfort zone thing per week (even if he has to do it alone!), so that’s how he’s trying to live rn but it’s a slow climb

feels reallllly really lost, but he’s trying to find his way... kinda

patience of a saint. he can take so much shit until he loses his temper, so a lot of people view him as a pushover but once he snaps, he’s mean af

passive-aggressive. doesn’t like direct confrontation, so he’ll suggest that something’s wrong and then be like “no everything’s just fine :)” when you get the hint

has a lot of knowledge that no one gives a shit about. he can tell you anything you wanna know about bugs or the history of clocks.

plots

i was gonna put fun facts here but decided to do that on his stats page because this is already getting long as hell so! here are some bare bones plot ideas that i didn’t include on his actual plots page (update: this ended up being longer than fun facts would’ve been </3 f):

ONE  (older than ‘01)  /  your muse is older than eunsang, but he’s more responsible so he’s taken on the role of an older sibling.

TWO  (local, ‘00 or ‘01)  /  your muse’s parents considered eunsang a good influence, so they would let your muse do anything/go anywhere if they said that eunsang would be there too, but nine out of ten times they were really just hotboxing his dad’s car.

THREE  (anyone)  /  your muse really wants to make the fish mascot talk, so they make small talk with him every other day & he just nods along while holding the fishing hut sign.

FOUR  (anyone)  /  your muse is convinced that the fish mascot is flirting with them (spoiler alert: he is) but he doesn’t even speak, so all their friends think they’re batshit crazy.

FIVE  (’93 or older, local)  /  your muse used to babysit eunsang. he was upset when he found out that they were being paid to hang out with him, but now he’s the one trying to pay them to hang out because he’s bored & they were cool ten years ago. 

SIX  (anyone)  /  eunsang made a clout-chasing tiktok without your muse’s knowledge and they’ve gone viral, so he should probably delete it before they see. however... most of the comments are going on & on about how cute they are together, so one more tiktok couldn’t hurt, right?

SEVEN  (anyone)  /  your muse doesn’t have a car, so they’re frequently asking eunsang to drive them places & he always agrees even though his car is constantly on the brink of breaking down. at this point, they’re really pushing their luck.

EIGHT  (anyone)  /  your muse’s family absolutely adores eunsang, so he’s invited to all of the family functions. at this point, he’s basically an honorary family member.

NINE  (anyone)  /  your muse recognized eunsang on the streets because of his tiktok presence, so it’s only natural that he begged them to pretend to be a crazed fan so that his dad will finally think he’s famous. (c’mon... please?)

TEN  (anyone)  /  your muse found eunsang’s tiktok page & scrolled down just far enough to find an embarrassing storytime about something that happened to them that he just so happened to witness... no one in the comments knows that it’s them, but they’re being clowned like crazy so they still want him to take it down.

ELEVEN  (anyone)  /  your muse pierced eunsang’s nose for him when they were both out of their minds one night.

TWELVE  (anyone)  /  eunsang frequently sees your muse at the beach & they always have nice conversations, but they’ve never met outside of the beach so they’ve both grown to consider it their place. it’s a little disappointing when they wait around for the other and end up sitting alone the whole time.

THIRTEEN  (anyone)  /  your muse goes bug-hunting with eunsang.

FOURTEEN  (anyone)  /  your muse plays videogames with eunsang.

FIFTEEN  (anyone)  /  whether your muse actually has any mechanical knowledge or not, every time eunsang’s car breaks down, they’re the first (and only) person that he calls. even if they can’t fix the problem, at least they can give him a ride to wherever he’s going.

SIXTEEN  (anyone)  /  eunsang doesn’t get outwardly angry very often, but your muse manages to make his blood boil so obviously... and it’s all because of trivia night. he can’t handle the way they always answer the questions just half a second before he can.

SEVENTEEN  (’95 or older)  /  your muse has more life experience than eunsang & they seem trustworthy/reliable enough, so he goes to them when he needs advice or an unbiased opinion.

EIGHTEEN  (anyone)  /  eunsang accidently hit your muse’s mailbox with his car & now he keeps offering to do ridiculous tasks to “make up for it” so that he “won’t be sued”. unfortunately, it’s just further proving that he doesn’t have many skills because yeah, sure, he’ll clean that window, but he’ll flood the room behind it in the process and yeah, he’ll go get those pastries that they love so much, but it’ll be the wrong kind.

[bigfootmountain]

Report # 1083 (Class A)

Submitted by John Green on Saturday, January 1, 2000.

William Roe account -- Highway worker has lengthy sighting at close range & records much detail

YEAR: 1955

SEASON: Fall

MONTH: October

PROVINCE: British Columbia

COUNTRY: Canada

LOCATION DETAILS: Five miles up Mica Mountain near an old deserted mine

OBSERVED: Ever since I was a small boy back in the forest of Michigan I have studied the lives and habits of wild animals. Later, when I supported my family in northern Alberta by hunting and trapping I spent many hours just observing the wild things. They fascinated me. But the most incredible experience I ever had with a wild creature occurred near a little town called Tete Jaune Cache, British Columbia, about eighty miles west of Jasper, Alberta.

I had been working on the highway near Tete Jaune Cache for about two years. In October 1955, I decided to climb five miles up Mica Mountain to an old deserted mine, just for something to do. I came in sight of the mine about three o’clock in the afternoon after an easy climb. I had just come out of a patch of low brush into a clearing, when I saw what I thought was a grizzly bear, in the brush on the other side. I had shot a grizzly near that spot the year before. This one was only about 75 yards away, but I did not want to shoot it, for I had no way of getting it out. So I sat down on a small rock and watched, my rifle in my hands.

I could just see the top of the animal’s head and the top of one shoulder. A moment later it raised up and stepped out into the opening. Then I saw that it was not a bear.

This drawing of the animal William Roe saw was done by his daughter under his direction.

This, to the best of my recollection, is what the creature looked like and how it acted as it came across the clearing directly towards me. My first impression was of a huge man, about six feet tall, almost three feet wide and probably weighing somewhere near 300 pounds. It was covered from head to foot with dark brown, silver-tipped hair. But as it came closer I saw by its breasts that it was a female. And yet, its torso was not curved like a female’s. Its broad frame was straight from shoulder to hip. Its arms were much thicker than a man’s arms, and longer, reaching almost to its knees. Its feet were broader proportionately than a man’s, about five inches wide at the front and tapering to much thinner heels. When it walked it placed the heel of its foot down first, and I could see the grey-brown skin or hide on the soles of its feet.

It came to the edge of the bush I was hiding in, within twenty feet of me, and squatted down on its haunches. Reaching out its hands it pulled the branches of bushes toward it and stripped the leaves with its teeth. Its lips curled flexibly around the leaves as it ate. I was close enough to see that its teeth were white and even.

The shape of this creature’s head somewhat resembled a negro’s. The head was higher at the back than at the front. The nose was broad and flat. The lips and chin protruded farther than its nose. But the hair that covered it, leaving bare only the parts of the face around the mouth, nose and ears, made it resemble an animal as much as a human. None of its hair, even on the back of its head, was longer than an inch, and that on its face was much shorter. Its ears were shaped like a human’s ears. But its eyes were small and black like a bear’s. And its neck was unhuman. Thicker and shorter than any man’s I had ever seen.

As I watched this creature, I wondered if some movie company was making a film at this place and that what I saw was an actor made up to look partly human and partly animal. But as I observed it more I decided it would be impossible to fake such a specimen. Anyway, I learned later that there was no such company near that area. Nor, in fact, did anyone live up Mica Mountain, according to the people who lived in Tete Jaune Cache.

Finally, the wild thing must have got my scent, for it looked directly at me through an opening in the brush. A look of amazement crossed its face. It looked so comical at the moment I had to grin. Still in a crouched position, it backed up three or four steps, then straightened up to its full height and started to walk rapidly back the way it had come. For a moment it watched me over its shoulder as it went, not exactly afraid, but as though it wanted no contact with anything strange.

The thought came to me that if I shot it, I would possibly have a specimen of great Interest to scientists the world over. I had heard stories about the Sasquatch, the giant hairy Indians that live in the legends of British Columbia Indians, and also, many claim, are still in fact alive today. Maybe this was a Sasquatch, I told myself.

I levelled my rifle. The creature was still walking rapidly away, again turning its head to look in my direction. I lowered the rifle. Although I have called the creature “it,” I felt now that it was a human being and I knew I would never forgive myself if I killed it.

Just as it came to the other patch of brush it threw back its head and made a peculiar noise that seemed to be half laugh and half language, and which I can only describe as a kind of whinny. Then it walked from the small brush into a stand of lodgepole pine.

I stepped out into the opening and looked across a small ridge just beyond the pine to see if I could see it again. It came out on the ridge a couple of hundred yards away from me, tipped its head back again, and again emitted the only sound I had heard it make, but what this half-laugh, half-language was meant to convey, I do not know. It disappeared then, and I never saw it again.

I wanted to find out if it lived on vegetation entirely or ate meat as well, so I went down and looked for signs. I found it in five different places, and although I examined it thoroughly, could find no hair or shells of bugs or insects. So I believe it was strictly a vegetarian.

I found one place where it had slept for a couple of nights under a tree. Now, the nights were cool up the mountain, at this time of year especially, and yet it had not used a fire. I found no sign that it possessed even the simplest of tools. Nor a single companion while in this place.

Whether this creature was a Sasquatch I do not know. It will always remain a mystery to me, unless another one is found.

I hereby declare the above statement to be in every part true, to the best of my powers of observation and recollection.

WILLIAM ROE

Sworn before William Clark, a Commissioner for Oaths in and for the Province of Alberta.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator John Green:

In addition to the information in this sworn statement, Mr. Roe made the following remarks regarding the sasquatch in a letter:

"The nails were not like a bear’s, but short and heavy like a man’s finger nails are. Its eyes were not light and large but small and black like a bear’s. You couldn’t see any knotted, corded muscles. This animal seemed almost round. It was as deep through as it was wide, and I believe if this animal should have been seven feet tall, it would have weighed close to 500 pounds. We have got to get away from the idea of comparing it to a human being as we know them."

I never did meet Mr. Roe and I knew very little about him, but in 1969 on a trip across Canada I met two zoologists in different cities who had corresponded with him concerning his observations of buffalo. They b

[ourimpavidheroine]

Okay, @peoniequeen, here are your stories.

How many people do you know moved across the world for love? 

Well, you all know about this one. I met my late wife online in late 1998 on an X-Files message board, we emailed and then called, etc. until she came to the U.S. from Finland in September of 1999 to live with me for a year. After the year was up we relocated to Finland, in part because she could not legally immigrate to the U.S. during that time as a same-sex partner (Finland was a huge fucking pain in the ass about it but eventually they let me immigrate there based on our relationship status) and in part because we thought Finland would be a better place to raise kids due to healthcare, schools, etc. When I arrived in Finland it was the first time I had even been to Europe, never mind the country I was going to live in and the airline accidently left my two dogs in Amsterdam instead of putting them on the plane to Helsinki and I spent my first moments in my new home sobbing about my dogs until the very nice airline lady called for my late wife over the loudspeaker and let her come back and take me in hand (much the way Mako takes Wu in hand, if you must know). (Don’t worry, the airline put us up in a hotel next to the airport and the dogs came on the next flight and came to us there in a taxi the airline made arrangements for. They were completely fine and in fact weren’t sure what the fuss was about.) It was kind of a big culture shock. The end.

Or worked as a college radio DJ? 

I did! I had a show on Tuesday mornings from 4-6 am that nobody listened to but about 10 loyal people. (Kind of like my blog here, come to think about it.) I played a lot of old blues and jazz stuff that I’d grown up listening to. My Dad worked part time as a DJ at a local radio station so I knew how to work all the equipment and such thanks to him. (I also had a two hour slot on Wednesday nights there in high school where I played stuff teenagers wanted to listen to and not the never ending country western that the station owner and manager wanted played 24x7.) Yes, this was in the late 80′s-early 90′s when I was at university so it was all vinyl. I still have a collection of albums that have the gold stamp on them saying they are not for sale, that they are for radio station play only! (Some of them the aforementioned station manager gave me since they were not country and he was basically going to toss them into the trash and some of them were albums that I might have gotten through less altruistic means.)

Or was a makeup assistant to Drag Queens? 

I took a stage makeup course while I was majoring in theater at University and did so well with it that the guy who gave the class asked me to come and assist him at the San Francisco opera while they were essentially painting all of the singers brown in a classic racist move that was pretty well accepted in the 90′s but, thankfully, would be extremely frowned upon now. As I was doing it I struck up a friendship with one of the chorus tenors; it turned out he was a drag queen who sometimes did performances when he wasn’t doing opera. He was a Madonna impersonator (not a very good one, sorry to say) and he wanted me to help him design his makeup for it. So I went to the club he performed at a few times to get a better feel for how drag queens worked and then hung around backstage and ended up doing some designs for some of the other queens. The pay was basically me getting to see their performances for free and getting fed afterwards at whatever was open at 4 am but God it was fun. Also, now I am the most Judgy McJudgerson of ever when it comes to drag makeup on RuPaul’s Drag Race. The end.

Or wrote a letter to their Archbishop when they were twelve and got a personal answer in return? 

I was very put out by the fact that boys could be altar boys but girls got shit (I was Catholic, in case you haven’t guessed) and I was talking about it to my Grandma one time and she told me I should write a letter to the Archbishop and ask him why. Now see, my maternal Grandmother was married to a labor union president (my grandfather was still the president when he died of a heart attack when I was 8) and she was a good old fashioned liberal rabble rouser. Like, she got arrested with nuns protesting nuclear power plants in her muumuus and Birkenstocks, okay? She wrote letters to EVERYONE. So I sat down and very carefully wrote the letter and my Grandma made a few calls and got me the address and we sent the letter. I don’t think my Grandma actually thought I’d get a letter back (it was more of a teaching moment, if that makes sense) but he did send me a letter back! He was very kind, although his answer was the usual Catholic BS. I still have the letter but it is packed away in storage so I very sadly will not be producing it at this juncture in time.

Or drove from Los Angeles to Philadelphia in a 20 year old Volvo? 

My friend from university was going to Grad School at Temple University and her parents didn’t want her to drive the entire way by herself. So I drove with her in an orange 1971 Volvo sedan. (In fact, I drove about 90% of the trip because she didn’t like driving.) The air conditioning fan died as we were driving through the Mojave Desert on the way to Vegas and I realized that if I floored it the cool air would actually move itself and so I floored it all the way through the desert and we are lucky that fucking ancient hulk of Swedish steel did not die and leave us stranded to be baked to death. We stopped in Vegas (which was not as impressive in 1992 as it is today, trust me) and found a guy who could actually fix the fan and spent the night in one of the casino hotels before continuing on. We did stop in Chicago to stay with her grandparents for two weeks (where so many elderly Jews kept responding to my last name with confusion as they assumed I was Jewish that I eventually started to do genealogy and found out that I am, indeed, Jewish on my father’s side) and also we saw the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer film in Des Moines and went to a cowboy bar in Cheyenne (I learned how to line dance and my friend got completely trashed and I had to practically carry her back to the hotel) and many other adventures until we finally arrived in Philly and her parents flew me back to California. It was a great road trip and short of the reeeaaaally sketchy and filthy motel room in Salt Lake City that had both a half-empty Chinese takeout box and a soiled condom under the bed we had a grand time.

Or was part of a thruple? 

I have been part of two thruples. Well. Sort of. One thruple and one wanna be thruple. The first one, with my first husband and my girlfriend was a huge mistake from the get-go. (Oh god, she was so hot and the sex was so fucking good but she was really an awful person and my ex kept trying to control the entire thing and basically forced her into living with us instead of being just my girlfriend with benefits and the entire thing blew up and while it wasn’t the reason why I divorced him it didn’t help either.) The second one was with my late wife and our mutual boyfriend and it worked very well but he had a little boy from a former relationship and his son got very ill and died and he didn’t handle it at all and he disappeared out of our lives. It’s been 20 years, give or take, since I’ve talked to him. He asked us to no longer contact him and I’ve always respected that. And before you ask, he knows where I live and my email address is the same as it was all those years ago. If he wanted to find me it would be very easy for him to do so. He clearly doesn’t and I respect that. I wish him love and peace, wherever he is. I miss him still.

Or beat up the drunk lady in the hallway to get back a little girl’s keys?

Ah, I’ll tell this one tomorrow.