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lifewithdavefarts · 3 years

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DaveFarts - Episode 13 “When She Finally Leaves” [Episode List] Dana spends the whole day at Dave’s place. When the girl leaves, Tim, who’s now Dave’s roommate, finds out how much gas a man can hold in just to not look gross in front of a girl.

When She Finally Leaves

In the last few weeks I’ve been spending more and more nights at Dave’s place, whether because I needed a place to work, write my essays, or simply to spend some quality time watching bad films and drinking beer. It was Dave himself to ask me to “marry him” (as he jokingly put it), basically becoming official roommates, which also meant dividing our tasks and obviously splitting the rent.

And honestly we were having a great time. We both had jobs, fortunately, which were not much but they did pay taxes for now and it was overall a great experience. Friend or not, Dave is an excellent roommate, being pretty good at cooking and organising chores; the same could be said for me actually, though in some cases we have our own preferences; for example Dave prefers cooking (the fact that I’m bad at it it’s purely coincidental) so we agreed I’ll be the one doing the dishes.

We also had our buds crashing over what is now *our* place a couple of times, which resulted in more bad films and beer, or even nerd stuff such as gaming together. Of course however, the person who most often came over is obviously Dana, Dave’s girlfriend. She’s pretty cool though we don’t really hang out with her when Dave’s not around, though as I said she’s pretty easy-going.

Tonight we’ve been watching a trash movie. Yes, the three of us. Don’t worry, I was a welcome addition today. Dave would usually just tell me to leave for a few hours if sex was on the table (sometimes literally on the table, the one where we eat our food…) as we respect each others enough to just be straightforward whenever we needed some privacy. Tonight however it was just chilling like three friends hanging out together (knowing however that Dave would just give me a signal should things get more heated up you know).

We were in the living room. I was on an armchair, working on my laptop, despite the poor wi-fi. On the long wide couch beside me, Dave and Dana chilling and watching the movie with more attention than me, my bud’s left arm around his girlfriend, sometimes making remarks on how bad it was. We all had a can of beer, because of course we did.

The couple brought some takeouts for dinner, some fast-food a few blocks from here (Dana’s idea, actually, which we were both thankful for). Dave, chilling next to Dana, was wearing his signature casual outfit: a grey shirt and pair of dark blue loose jeans, details that my gay-ass eyes immediately noticed and more than once stared at.

“Oh wow the helicopter just blew up I’m speechless.” Dave said, sarcastically.

“A Subversive Masterpiece: that’s what they were going for when they wrote this.” Dana added, and they both chuckled.

I also did my fair share of sarcastic remarks though work got most of my attention, even though it was nothing urgent, just me trying to get some stuff done as fast as possible.

“Did the shark just wink at him?” my bro commented.

“They’re best friends now.” his girlfriend explained. What a great film.

After 15 more minutes the movie ended with the three of us clapping at a shot of a man and a shark exchanging a look of gratitude to each other, as the Sun set into the never-ending ocean. Drugs played a big role into the making of this move I’m 100% sure.

“Well, that was enlightening, but I gotta head back home. The Uber’s almost here.” Dana said, as she got up and reached for her purse and some other stuff.

“You’re really sure about that? Come on, stay here for the night.” Dave suggested. “I taught Tim to play dead. We can throw food at him.” he then joked.

“I can also bring you the newspaper upstairs, tomorrow morning.” I played along.

Dana chuckled in response. “I’m sure you’ll win the next contest you two, but I gotta wake up super early tomorrow.”

The couple walked towards the front door. The entrance was next to the living room, a few steps behind the couch. Dave and I sometimes darkly joked that any assassin could easily ambush us because whenever we’re on the couch anyone could sneak into the house behind us, with enough care (we then prefer to drink about it).

“Call me when you get home.” Dave said and the two shared a quick kiss.

In the meantime I moved on the bigger (and more comfortable) couch, more or less in Dana’s spot, as I also have better wi-fi reception there. I left my laptop on the small table in front of me because apparently all of my laptops have to be shitty and take some time to even the most basic stuff. As I inspected the wi-fi icon flashing on the screen, I heard Dave shutting the door and walking back to the couch. After a few steps his tall figure was already towering over me.

“Yeah the reception is pretty bad lately.” he commented, and then collapsed next to me.

Only a few seconds and he already had that well-known smirk drawn on his face; he then quickly adjusted his position. He completely laid down, extended his demin-clad legs, with his left one resting on the back of the couch, ending right behind my neck. In a moment, Dave ended up showing off his loose, almost-sagging jeans-clad ass directly next to me, as his legs trapped me into a gentle yet strong grip. Seeing both that “wall” made of jeans and my bro’s smirk at the same time was a sight I never truly got used to. He was just lying there, next to me, with his ass pointed at me, as if it was one big prank, even though he knew exactly how much I enjoyed that.

“Bro you’re ready?” he asked, still sporting that smirk.

When even Dave goes as far as asking me if I’m ready, then I knew that the fart was going to be gargantuan. And I realized why: Dana has been with us and my bro the entire day, so it’s possible that Dave just held all of his gas in for hours. We all experienced this, then when the girl leaves, men get to “relax”. Other than that, Dave had tons of beer and junk food. I stared at that denim butt, for the first time almost scared of what my bud was capable of; I knew a fart was coming, and I knew it was going to be big.

But what Dave said next really once again confirmed how chill he is around me.

“Believe me: you might want to get closer for this one.” he said, laughing a bit.

He sported weirdly reassuring smile, Dave’s millionth attempt at saying “It’s ok, Tim.” as he probably noticed now nervous I became when he assumed that pose.

The teasing bastard then went full bully on me and simply reached for my head with his long right arm and gently pulled me down, as if I was bowing to that still silent denim-clad ass. I just heard him laugh like an idiot, as it usually happens. Despite my head being down and in front of that ass, I could still see Dave’s face and that smirk. He raised his eyebrows and half-closed his eyes as he started pushing, but he didn’t need to put all that effort into ripping that blast.

It’s like the fart was barely contained in the first place: it immediately exploded with a loud sound right into my face. Dave closed his eyes and kept his smirk as the blast probably surprised him as well. It was low-pitched and dry, a completely natural gas-eruption that sounded like an engine. The stench was unbearable, a mixture of beer and junk food, surprise to no one.

While farting, Dave adjusted his position as bit, spreading his legs bit more, with my face getting almost planted into that denim-clad butt as he effortlessly kept ripping that immense flatulence. Hours and hours of gas being erupted as if I was in front of a dormant volcano that just woke up. And I feared that “hours” was what he was going for ‘cause after 20 seconds the fart didn’t even lose power.

Dave still had this smirk drawn on his face and occasionally stared down at me as he completely destroyed my face and nose with his incredible farting skills, skills that constantly let me speechless, fetish or not. He was the fart master, a showoff with a manly talent that I could only bow to and endure in the hop-

“Sorry, I forgot my house keys.”

The fart immediately stopped and it all went silent: It was Dana.

Dave turned his head to his girlfriend, greeting her with the stupidest smile you can think of.

“Oh stay there no worries, they’re right here.” I heard Dana say as she reached for keys, probably hanging right next to the door, my face still almost planted in my friend’s denim ass. That felt surreal.

I completely froze (not that I could move) but I knew that she couldn’t see me (just like I couldn’t see her) as I was lying down. All she could see from where she was standing was Dave’s head and his right leg resting on the back of the couch, since the entrance was behind our couch.

I was terrified, while Dave was doing his best not laugh like an idiot.

“What’s so funny?” Dana asked, laughing a bit herself, definitely noticing her boyfriend being weird.

My teasing bro quickly glanced down at me, almost losing it (and still holding holding the fart in, which didn’t stop the smell from burning my nostrils).

“N-nothing’” he stuttered. That’s it, he was gonna laugh like an idiot.

“Okay” I heard Dana, not really convinced of the boyfriend’s answer though.

There was a moment of awkward silence and then we heard a car honk, thank goodness.

“Oh… it’s my Uber. Bye!” the girl said, quickly leaving the house and shutting the door behind her.

Another moment of silence followed, Dave still staring at the entrance. I was shaking, I was legitimately scared that someone was gonna find out, which was weird given the hotness I was experiencing in that moment, even without the fart being ripped.

“Ok… where were we?” Dave asked, turning back to me, with a smirk. “Oh yeah!”

And he effortlessly resumed farting, just as loud, proud and powerful as it was before the interruption, directly into my face. The terror I experienced moments before was blown away by that incredibly blast and me being rock-hard, as it usually happens when Dave showoffs his gassy talent around me, or on me.

Dozens of seconds passed and at this point Dave just played along. He nodded at me, faking a serious expression, as if he was listening to something actually interesting instead of his own loud fart still going on strong; after about ten more seconds he checked the time on his wrist-watch and acted surprised, then stared down at me as if he wanted to say “damn that is long!”. We both however actually lost the track of time and he simply relaxed as if I wasn’t even in front of his ass, all while the fart was still being blasted in my face.

Dave then reached for my head again and gently pushed it inches closer to his roaring ass, and I felt the vibrations of his rip all over my face: it was literally an earthquake.

How long was it lasting? More than 1 minute perhaps? How much gas can a man hold in? Dave certainly was pushing for a record. All I knew is that I felt privileged witnessing that, even though I was beyond being a mere witness since no particle of gas missed my eyes and nostrils.

However (finally, actually), the fart seemingly started to lose power, the once-continuous sound starting to “stutter” and turning more into a fast series of loud farts, fired back-to-back. The show (because that’s what it was: a show) ended with a loud, 5 seconds blast, and Dave’s laughter.

I slowly got up, sweaty, my nose burning, with a startled look to which my bro reacted with another immature cackle. I was now sitting next to him as I was before, and looked back at my bud, who in the meantime re-adjusted his pose. He was still lying down, still kind of showing off his loose-sagging ass, but in a less “menacing” way: now he was just chilling.

“When’s Dana coming over again?” I joked. I mustered all the courage I had left to say that. I was impressed by the fact that I could still speak considering that all of my blood probably flooded my boner at that point.

Dave laughed at that lame joke, thank goodness. “As if I need Dana to blast you like this.”

He raised one leg, again showing off his sagging denim ass in my direction. He quickly sucked some air in and after a few moments and weird noises a loud 6 seconds fart erupted. For his standards, that’s basically a weak one.

My friend just casually joking and bragging about facefarting me and then farting on command to prove it made me lose it, as I felt my boner… dampening. He didn’t notice it but he knew that I had a hard-on, that’s for sure.

I didn’t want to just rush into the bathroom so I just stared at my laptop, still on the table, in front of me: the wi-fi signal was stronger than ever. I jokingly like to think that Dave’s blast was so powerful it actually influenced the signal somehow and improved it.

I turned to my bud, still lying on his side of the couch, just checking his phone and being… casually hot.

“Thanks man.” I said, not for the wi-fi though.

He lowered his phone, revealing a blank reaction “Really?” he said, rolling his eyes, with a bored expression. “Stop being cringe and do the dishes.”

Fuck, I totally forgot about those. We had takeout food but we still used some of our dishes. I immediately got up and rushed to the kitchen, hoping that Dave was distracted by his phone enough to not notice by boner through my sweatpants.

Once in the kitchen, a place that wasn’t tainted by Dave’s gas, my nostrils could still feel my bro’s fart-stench. That’s how soaked up in his gas I was. Even my ears needed some time to adjust to the silence, now that I didn’t have a deafening fart being ripped right into my skull.

And I just knew that this wasn’t the last time this was gonna happen. I’m Dave’s roommate, and being roomies means we have to divide our tasks: he’s the farter, I’m the sniffer.

End of Episode 13

#fart story #eproctophilia #fartkink #davefarts2 #gayfart #malefarts

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moons-and-stars-and-shit · 4 years

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Hi, I love your blog! Can I request a cake, if you’re still doing them? It’s fine if you’re not though.

If you are, can you do it for a boy? I’m generally considered tall (I’m 5’7”) and I have really curly brown hair with green eyes and really pale skin. I’m Irish-American and I’m an Aries. My hobbies are; photography, reading thriller or historical fiction novels, writing fanfiction, and listening to music (specifically punk rock or really obnoxiously loud Irish rock). I’m quite shy when it comes to new situations or places and I have an anxiety disorder, so I’m usually quite anxious and generally considered quiet (which makes my music choices ironic). Before people get to know me, people think I’m a b*tch or that I’m cold because I tend to stick with the same people and not generally talk to others unless I’m forced. Even my friends have said they thought I was mean before they actually met me. I can be pessimistic at times, but I care about the people I’m really close with and I’ll defend them no matter the situation. I can be annoying, I overthink everything, and I am insecure about literally anything and everything about myself (from my body to my writing)

I’m generally considered one of the smarter ones in my friend group, usually my friends come to me when it comes to writing essays or having to read a book for class, since I’m good at analyzing things. I’m the friend that usually everyone tries to protect from things, from fear that I might “break” or something like that, which can be annoying but I know it means that they care. Though I would prefer that people be straight forward and honest with me instead of walk on eggshells or keep secrets, because contrary to popular belief, I can defend myself just fine. My friends say I have a hard time letting people in since I don’t want to end up hurt, so I have a tendency to keep people at arms length because I’m afraid to have my heart broken.

I don’t know if that’s enough information or if I over-shared (I have a tendency to do that), but if you are still accepting these kinds of requests, I hope this is enough.

🍰 for @lifewouldbebetteronmars

Hello my Aries sister!!!!

Romantic Matchup

Tsukishima Kei

How yall met

Ok be prepared to be shocked

But Tsukki needed a tutor

He was having a difficult time understanding the new topic they were doing in class

So the teacher recommended you as a partial tutor

At first he didn't really like you

It really wasn't anything you did

He just hated that he needed someone else's help

And he was kinda embarrassed about it

But as time went on he started to warm up to you

Some could even say he looked forward to your tutoring sessions

So when he didn't need you to teach him anymore

He tried to find excuses to hang out with you

He's just too prideful to say that he likes you and wants to hang out with you

And even though you knew that was probably the case

You didn't want to call him out like that

So you would just hang out with him whenever you could

And the bond between you two grew with every passing day

And eventually you guys started dating

What they love about you

He loves how intelligent you are

Tsukki is pretty smart himself

So if he thinks that your smart

Bb you're a genius

And although he resented your smarts when he first met you

He's come to realize it's one of your most admirable traits

He loves how you care so deeply for your loved ones

He knows you would do anything and everything for him

But he also knows you would do the same thing when it comes to any of your friends and family

Like he's literally seen you telling off somebody for picking on one of your friends

He made a mental note to be careful who he picks on that day

He loves how straightforward you are

Ok so this is Tsukki were talking about

He doesn't really like overcomplicated people or people he can't understand

And you are anything but that

Tsukki can read you like a book

Maybe its because hes spent a lot of time with you

Maybe it's because he pays more attention to you than other people

The world may never know

What you love about them

You love how he doesnt try to “protect you”

Now don't get me wrong

Tsukki would take a bullet for you if it ever came down to it

But he knows for the most part you can take care of yourself

So unless you specifically ask for help hell leave you be

You love that he understands your limitations

Tsukki knows you have anxiety

So he tries to make social exchanges as comfortable as possible

If he notices that your uncomfortable talking to someone

He’ll swoop in and remove you from the situation

However...

He tries to get you to step out of your comfort zone from time to time

He knows just as well as you do that being social is just apart of life

And he doesn't want you do always be dependent on him when it comes to being social

So he just gives you little nudges

Until eventually its like your anxiety never even existed

Favorite things to do together

STUDY DATES!!!!!!

Ahem anyways

Mans loves to have a good study date with you

It's really just you two doing homework and reading together

But he loves those little intimate moments with you

Late night walks

You guys take late night walks ALL the time

Once again it's nothing more than just walking round and listening to music

But Tsukki finds comfort in your presence during these times

Random Hc

The team was very very shocked when they found out you were Tsukkis gf

Like Tsukki + a relationship = error

Definitely got bombarded with questions when you met the team

He keeps some of the photos you've taken in a little box in his room

He proofreads all of your fanfics

One time it was your turn to pick the music for a study date

He was very shocked when hard core irish rock started playing…

When you guys first met there were a lot of moments when you just stared at eachother like

Because you didn't know how to talk to each other

Sometimes he acts like he doesn't know something just so he can be around you

Astrology

Aries + Libra

Compatibility 62%

However difficult it might be to reconcile these two natures, remember that this is a primal opposition that represents partners by signification.

Aries and Libra are the couple of the zodiac, as much as any other opposing signs, for they are each other’s seventh house, house of relationships.

Even more so if we acknowledge the fact that Libra is the sign of relationships in general.

Any problem they might have with each other is something to be worked on, because it shows what their personal problem with any relationship is.

When they are madly attracted to each other and fall in love, there is almost nothing that could separate them, no matter the differences.

Wouldn’t we all like to find the middle ground with our loved one? They need to work on their bond, that’s a fact, but their relationship is a promise of a perfect fit of two souls meant to be together.

Friendship Matchup

Tendou Satori

How yall met

You guys have been friends since middle school

You saw how other people treated him and you just didn't think it was right

So you befriended him!

You guys were attached at the hip all throughout middle school

Then he left for highschool while you stayed in middle school

Then when it was your turn to go to high school you had went to karasuno

So you guys lost touch

But then one day you saw a familiar head of red hair at one of your boyfriends matches…

It was Satori!

You were so excited to see him again that you practically sprinted over to him to reunite

He was so happy to see you again!

Ngl the entire Karasuno team was very confused on how you knew the guess monster of Shiratorizawa

Why you became friends

Like I said you saw how people treated him all throughout middle school…

So even though you were 2 years younger than him

You decided to befriend him

He was shocked by your kindness

And honestly a little hesitant

It wouldn't be the first time someone pretended to be his friend just to stab him in the back later

But for some reason he thought you were different

So he became friends with you

He was super sad when he lost contact with you :(

He always thought about how you were doing

But hey fate decided to bring you two together again

And it was like nothing changed

You both still had the same strong connection you had way back in middle school

What yall love about each other

He loves how out there you can be

Like there was a time where you two just blasted music in a park and just were dancing and vibing

He loves how your able to channel your creativity into your photography

He compliments every picture you take

Even if it's not a good one

He loves that how you look vs how you act are two totally different things

He won't lie to you you definitely have RBF Syndrome

(resting bitch face syndrome)

It almost reminds him how ushiwaka looks

But the difference is behind you rbf is a generally warm person

You love how fun Satori is!

Moments with him are always filled with laughs

Never a dull moment with that one

You love that he does not allow what others say get to him

Oh and on the days they do

Your right there to pick him back up and get him back to normal

Overall you guys love that you can depend on each other

Random Hc

Tsukki felt a little intimidated when he found out satori was your friend

Their rivalry during their game may or may not have had something to do with you…

You guys had homemade friendship bracelets as kids

And he kept his in his room even after you lost touch

Ironically enough he WILL NOT allow you to be insecure

He's like Insecurities we don't know her ❤️

Astrology

Aries + Libra

A friendship between an Aries and a Libra brings in the inherent polarity of the Zodiac itself.

The constellations of Aries and Libra lie opposite to each other in the Zodiac, at an angle of 180 degrees between them.

This polarity is displayed in their characteristic traits as well. Each sign has qualities that the other sign lacks.

Add to it the fact that Librans have a natural desire to be harmonious, and Aries and Libra form a relationship of great equilibrium.

The polarity of Aries and Libra could be described as self versus other.

But the differences go much further than that. Aries are impulsive, excitable, and willing to jump into things immediately.

Libra are indecisive, peace loving, and prefer a calm, quiet view of everything.

Star signs with opposite polarity often share a zealous relationship with each other.

In general, polar alliances turn out awesome when they are good, but rather challenging when they are bad.

Polarities could twist and knot together if the signs didn’t understand each other well.

However, Aries and Libra are a well balanced pair.

Libra are charming, well cultured, and have pleasing manners that could compensate for the brazen nature of Aries.

On the other hand, Aries are strong willed and decisive, which could compensate for the irresolute nature of Libra.

Aries could help Libra reach resolutions more easily and make them more spontaneous.

Libra could, at times, show Aries that they are not always as right as they think they are.

#haikyuu!!#haikyu x reader #haikyuu fandom #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu x y/n #haikyuu hcs #haikyuu matchups #tsukishima x y/n #tsukishima kei #tsukishima x reader #tsukishima headcanons #tendou headcanon #tendou x y/n #tendou hcs #tendou satori

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infertilityboss · 4 years

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This Is Not A Sprint, This Is a Journey.

If there was anything I wish someone had told me when I started IVF was this right here. Plan for a Journey. This is something you want right? This is something that you could not possibly see yourself living without. We need to take better care of ourselves and the lessen pressure we put on ourselves as women.

A little bit about me. I started my fertility journey when I was 24 years old, I am now 28. I had just started a new job, moved into a new apartment with my boyfriend. I found out shortly after getting engaged to him that I have stage 4 endometriosis and scar tissue adhered to my ovaries, colon, intestines and bladder. This is what docs like to call a “Frozen Pelvis”. No better way to start a new chapter of your life and finding out some pretty crazy news like that. We knew we were diving into a very expensive path here and decided it would be best to cut costs on the wedding. So we ditched the big fancy hall and honey moon and downgraded to a smaller hall and pocketed the money for IVF. We went to a cute little bed and breakfast for our honeymoon in PA and I received my first IVF related call that my medications were on their way. Two newly weds with some big challenges about to happen. Doctors were hopeful but not confident. I had 5 surgeries while TTC all for endometriosis. I had a very aggressive case and in between each transfer or egg retrieval I would have a bunch of endometriomas that needed to come out quick.

We hoped and prayed so much. If you would of asked me in the beginning how I thought this would turn out I would of told you I would of been pregnant after the first transfer. I was 24! 24 year old eggs what a blessing. Not when they have been damaged from 13 years of undiagnosed endometriosis.

Round 1, My PGS testing came back for my first egg retrieval, we had 3 embryos back from PGS testing 2 girls and a boy. In my head that was my two daughters and my son. Transfer 1 - Failed, Transfer 2 (embryo died on the defrost) So we transferred the final embryo, FAILED. That was the last time we found out the sex of the embryos.

That was a miscarriage in the books for me even though the boogers never stuck. women who get pregnant naturally would never know the sex of the embryo before they get pregnant. That was my first realization that this was going to be a journey and a bumpy one. It was time to save up for the next hike in this journey. I mourned my lost little cells really hard. We teared over the embryo pictures because some of the blobs looked like mom and some like dad (LOL).

Round 2, Egg retrieval 2, We gained some wisdom, we were older, wiser, and better. WE WERE READY. Jumping right in to the second round of this fight. 2 embryos made it to blast (the mature stage) out of 15 eggs. This was insane news. We were so heart broken. ONLY 2 out of 15!!. I had a long talk with my MD and we all agreed considering my history and quality of the eggs lets put them both in and hope for a miracle.

Something happened! I had a positive pregnancy test! WE ACTUALLY DID IT. Nausea was in full force my numbers were climbing. I went in for my first ultrasound at 6 weeks. We received some news. Not one baby stuck but two, One baby was beautiful and healthy and in the perfect spot. The other baby was in the entirely wrong spot (ectopic). Both babies had heart beats but the ectopic was less than 100bpm. I needed surgery and fast, I was planned for a surgery the following morning to take out the ectopic and with hopes save the viable baby. My uterus ruptured when I got home and I bled internally. I was in hypovolemic shock, my blood pressure was 74/43 my heart rate was 145 ( I am a Registered Nurse so this matters to me). I work in the emergency room that my husband took me to which was 45 minutes away from our house. I can confidently say that if I did not go in to the hospital when I did I would of died a very quick death. I was intubated and hopeless. Unfortunately the viable baby also did not survive.

A few months later after, and I was able to heal the minimal amount of time we jumped into Round 3. This time we decided to keep some secrets. NO ONE COULD KNOW, NO FAMILY, FRIENDS. NO ONE. After a huge near death experience like that we didn't want any questions, concerns or worries. Well we pulled it off and finally announced that we were 11 weeks pregnant on Christmas Eve 2019. Today we have our beautiful 7 month daughter that lights up our entire world and we are nothing but grateful for her.

See, these are just events that happened during my Journey and I wish I could say that it was even this simple. So clean cut that I could just pour every emotion out onto a piece of paper. NOT EVEN CLOSE GIRL!. Tears girl, Tears. The emotions I felt on this rollercoaster ride are almost unmentionable. That is why I am here. Lets normalize this for a second. This is something that women have to go through, but not all women have to go through. It is so secretive to TTC with help sometimes and it doesn't have to be. It is also ok for you to feel the way you do. It is ok for you to shed an eye of jealousy or feel sorry for yourself. It is only natural for you to feel discouraged after several bouts of bad news. It is time you faced this and stop beating yourself up about it. Wipe those tears. Prepare for the Journey. Its going to be a bumpy one. Take power over your journey.

#endometriosis #infertility #endo #ivf #ivfsupport #ectopic pregnancy #pcos #momlife #infertile

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bella-spil · 4 years

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2 Romeos & 1 Juliet- Part 4

Part 4- Its Buckys turn to take you on a date. Fem reader

Warnings- implied smut(not really) kissing/making out, cursing.

Word Count: 6.7k( I tried to add a lot more detail in this one so bear with me)

Taglist: @kmuir1 @angrythingstarlight @wednesday-add-em @sea040561 (lmk if you wanna join. The more the merrier!)

A/N: This would have been done sooner, but the internet was down for the past three days. I got some inspiration from GOTG vol.2( a tiny bit) and I added a lot more detail than normal. And there might be a meme or two that I took a line from(its the “so I started blasting” one”). Also the pic of the outfit is from me, amd Im sry for the terrible quality, I have a shitty camera. Also the link for the 40s slang I used is https://rkcowles.wordpress.com/1940-slang-glossary/ , if you are in the mood to learn some. I hope you enjoy, bc this one might be my fav of this series.

You had a pretty good week after your date with Loki.�� Whenever you saw the God of Mischief, you both acted like his attempted kiss never happened. You acted like normal friends. You read the note Billie gave you, alone so Loki didn't see, and she actually said she thought Loki was cute. Not hot but cute. You laughed at what she wrote, and you swore you would never show Loki.

As the week went on, Bucky was planning his date out. He had a place, one that you would both enjoy and have a lot of fun at. He had everything prepared for you, but he was still nervous.

What if it doesn't work? What if she really doesn't like me? What if I do something wrong? He thought as the week carried on. But he never showed the fear to you. He was acting all confident, bragging about how he would win you over with his charm, like how he did with the ladies in his time. You told him that you weren't like all those other girls, and he agreed. He said that he would have a challenge with you, but he knew he would win. He always won. He also flirted with you constantly, which drove Loki up the walls. You enjoyed this confident side of the Winter Soldier, you knew you were gonna see it more often.

You also tried prying the location of the date out of Bucky. But he was a Super Soldier, so that didn't work out. You gave up in about 5 minutes.

Then the day came. You and Bucky were both anxious. You had no clue where you were going, and Bucky hasn't been on a date in a while.

“Doll, we are leaving at 4 ok?” he let you know at lunch.

“Got it. Where are we going?” you asked for the 100th time. Bucky rolled his eyes and didn't answer. “Fine. What should I wear?”

“Hmm..” Bucky thought. “Wear a T-shirt and shorts, like you did with Loki. But we are going to be walking around a lot, so don't wear something uncomfortable.”

“Ok,” you said, walking to your room to get prepared. Bucky thought he did a good job, not revealing too much about the date. He liked keeping you guessing, it amused him more often than not.

~~~

As you were in your room, you paced back and forth from your closet to your bed. You were stressed with not knowing anything about tonight. But you were stressing out with the new feelings to your long time friend. You didn't know if you were feeling them because of the upcoming date, or if you were making it up. But you didn't have this on your date with Loki. You had no clue, so you tried to ignore the feelings. But they weren't letting up, getting you more and more nervous. You tried to take deep breaths, and it worked. So you focused your time on getting ready.

“What to wear, what to wear,” you muttered to yourself as you scanned your closet like a robot. After a few minutes of rummaging around through heaps and heaps of clothes, you found a cute and comfortable outfit.

You found a cute crop top that only exposed a small amount of your stomach. It was low cut, but not too revealing. It was a black t-shirt, and it was your favorite shirt because it looked really good on you, at least you thought. You always felt a bit more confident whenever you wore it, and you knew you might need it for tonight.

You also found a pair of super soft cotton shorts. They were a dark, camo-like green. They didn't have camo print, just dark green and a white lining. You adored the shorts because they were the softest thing you owned, besides another sweatshirt you owned. They were mid-waisted and were a little revealing on your ass. But you loved the way the shorts made you feel, like any man would fall for you by just looking at you.

You found a pair of black Adidas sneakers, which would be good for walking. You didn't put on any jewelry, since you weren't a big fan of it. You only wore it at the concert because it was a concert, you wanted to look decent. You left your hair down again, letting the natural curls and waves have a mind of their own. After a couple flips of your hair, you had the look you wanted.

Then you moved on to your makeup. Since you would be walking a lot, you thought you might sweat a bit, so you didn't put too much on. Only a bit of foundation to hide some blemishes on your skin, a tiny amount of blush and mascara. You didn't like wearing makeup either, since your time in the mountains saw no need for it. You didn't understand how people took hours and hours for makeup, and at the end of the night, they would have to wipe it off and do it all again the next day.

When you finished, you took one final look in the mirror and you thought you looked amazing. Your confidence soared through the roof as you checked yourself out.

“Doll, its time,” Bucky knocked at your door. “You ready?”

You got scared and flinched in front of the mirror. You were not expecting time to fly that fast.

“Yeah Bucky, i'll be down in a minute.” you answered, not trying to show that he scared you.

“Ok, I'll wait by the front door,” Bucky said. You heard his footsteps fade as he left, and you took a sigh of relief. You grabbed a small, black backpack, just to store your phone and some money since you had no clue what to expect. You checked yourself out in the mirror one last time as you put on some lip gloss. Then you put the lip gloss away and headed out of your room.

~~~

Bucky stood anxiously by the door. He wore a pair of shorts and a black Brooklyn logo shirt. The shirt was a little snug on him, so it made his biceps pop out a little more. He didn't bother covering his metal arm. He wasn't used to having it out in the open, especially in public. But he always was comfortable with his arm around you, so he thought it would be the same with you anywhere. He was not going to let strangers ruin his night with you. His hair was down and he wore a pair of black Nike’s. He had on his signature dog tags and in his pockets, he had his phone, which he barely knew how to use, and some money for the date. But, like a true gentleman, he had a bouquet of red roses in his hands. He never showed up to a date without flowers. He knew his manners and class, and if he didnt, he knew his momma would reprimand him for not being a gentleman.

“What is taking her so long?” Bucky said out loud.

“Don't get your hopes up, Wiener Soldier,” Loki said, smugly. He was hoping to mess with Bucky before it was too late.

“Shut it, you Lord of the Rings looking ass,” Bucky said, not giving two shits for Loki's mind games. Loki walked away, hoping that would do something to Bucky.

Then, you appeared from the hallway. Bucky had to do a double take because, Jesus, you looked fine. You looked so confident and proud of yourself that Bucky was in awe. He loved a woman that walked with a purpose. You looked perfect in his eyes. He smiled as you came closer to him. His heart fluttered as he realized he would be with you. The person his heart had fallen for since he first saw you.

You saw Bucky standing there, the roses in hand. Bucky's eyes looked brighter than ever, full of excitement and adventure. He looked nice in his outfit. You never saw him out in public with his metal arm showing, so it was a shock for you when it was on full display. You also saw his muscles poking out of the shirt, and you tried your hardest not to stare.

“You look like a dreamboat, toots,” Bucky gushed, using a ton of 40s slang. You blushed, since you knew what they meant. Anyone would know what those terms meant, but two years ago, Bucky taught all the slang he knew.

“So do you,” you replied, smiling.

“These are for you, doll,” Bucky said as he handed the flowers to you.

“Thanks Bucky, you didn't have too,” you said.

“Well if I didn't, I know my momma would bust my chops,” Bucky said, chuckling. You laughed with him. You loved when his Brooklyn accent came through.

“Cmon lets get going,” Bucky said, leading you out the door.

~~~

“Ok Bucky, where are we going?” you asked again in the car.

“You'll find out when we get there,” Bucky replied.

“Ok, when will we get there?” you asked, hoping for an answer this time.

“Bout 30 minutes,” Bucky answered to your relief. “Ok I wanna quiz you on something.”

“Ooo car games, I love those,” you said, gaining interest.

“Lets see how much 40s slang you remember.” Bucky said, looking at you.

“Thats easy, I’ll quiz ya too,” you said.

“You got a lotta moxie. Ladies first,” Bucky said, placing his hand on your thigh. This was the first time he had ever done this. You were a little shocked at first and froze for a moment, but you weren't asking him to move it. His warm hand felt so comforting on you. You just wanted to let it sit there forever. So you put your hand on top of his.

Bucky took his eyes off the road for a minute, just to look at you and your hand on his. If he said he wasn't over the moon right now, he would be lying. He felt like he was on cloud-9.

“Ok what does ‘beef’ mean?” you asked.

“It means a disagreement. That was easy, doll,” Bucky said.

“Go, Buck,” you sighed.

“Fine. What does ‘brown nose’ mean?” Bucky asked, his blue eyes shining into yours. You took a second to think, but you didn't remember.

“I don't know, bucky.” you sighed in shame.

“Haha! One for Bucky. Zip for Y/N.” Bucky celebrated.

“Don't celebrate too early, punk,” you teased. “What does it mean?”

“It means ass kisser,” Bucky explained, earning a “ohh” outta you.

“Name five things that mean ‘attractive’” you said.

“Are you doing this to mess with me and trick me into saying it about you?” Bucky questioned, getting suspicious.

“Yeah, now answer,” you answered, unashamed. Bucky rolled his eyes, getting a laugh out of you.

“Ok, first is ‘honey’. ‘Bombshell’ is one, so is ‘babe’. Then, ‘20-20’ and… dreamboat.” Bucky answered.

“Good job. Your turn.” you smiled.

“Since you did it to me, I'll do it to you.” Bucky mocked.

“Fine. ‘Casanova’, ‘doll’ is one, ‘drooly’, ‘glamour puss’, ‘glad lad’ and ‘heaven sent’.” you responded. Bucky took his hands off the wheel and applauded you, which you laughed.

“Good job, doll,” Bucky grinned. “Now I have two questions for you.”

“Which are?” you asked.

“First is what's your favorite slang?” Bucky said.

“I think ‘toots’” you answered.

“Second, use 5 terms to describe me.” Bucky said. He wanted to know what you thought about him, but he didnt wanna ask you straight up. He wanted to make you at ease and have fun with you before asking.

“Ok then do the same for me,” you teased.

“Fine, go,” Bucky agreed.

“‘Fuddy-duddy’, ‘hot shot’, ‘heaven sent’, ‘camp happy’ and ‘blow joe’.” you answer.

“Really? Fuddy-duddy?” Bucky sighed.

“What? It's true! You are old fashioned,” you mocked.

“Whatever,” Bucky rolled his eyes.

“Now you have to do it for me,” you fluttered your eyes to mess with him, earning a glare from him.

“‘Dreamboat’ obviously, ‘camp happy’, ‘a crack up’, ‘date bait’ and ‘divine,” Bucky said, looking at you with his hand still on your thigh.

“Aww you're so sweet,” you blushed.

“It's the truth, sugar,” Bucky smiled.

You looked out the window for a second and saw something in the distance. It was a ferris wheel.

“Bucky are we going to a carnival?” you asked.

“Yep,” he smiled. You squealed and thanked Bucky till you got to the fair. There were a ton of people there already, and you knew more would show up later tonight.

“What time are we staying till?” you asked. It was already 5:40pm and you and Bucky were walking up to the ticket booth.

“Till it closes, or whenever you get tired,” Bucky said, holding your hand.

“Till it closes. I don't think I'll get tired from all the sugar we will be eating.” you admitted. You both laughed and then you were up at the ticket counter. Bucky bought bracelets for the both of you. They allow you to stay for as long as you want and to go on unlimited rides for unlimited times. They also cost a lot of money. You tried to buy your own bracelet, but Bucky insisted on paying.

“I’m paying for dinner,” you insisted.

“No I am,” Bucky said.

“I am,” you bickered.

You bickered all the way to the entrance, where you and Bucky stopped. You stood marveling all the flashing lights and rides. You already had a list in your head for what to do. You loved how everyone here was happy and enjoying themselves. You couldn't wait for night to come, because then all the lights would be flashing even brighter. And less families would be there, which meant shorter lines.

“What do you wanna do first?” Bucky asked, looking at the lights as well.

“Lets eat, if you want,” you said.

“No, I'm always hungry too,” Bucky said.

“Great, because Loki took forever to eat.”

Bucky laughed as he took your hand. You both ran into the fair like children as you searched for food. You found a pizza stand and took two slices. Bucky found a hot dog stand and took two ‘Coney Island Chili Dogs.’ When you saw what he ordered, your mouth watered a little bit. Bucky took note very quickly.

“You know what doll? You can take one of mine and I'll take one of yours.” Bucky proposed.

“That's smart,” you agreed. You ate the pizza first and then the chili dog. The chili dog took the longest, since you didn't want to ruin your outfit. You had to lean over the platter the whole time to prevent stains.

Bucky took a different approach. Since the cooks put a lot of chili on the hotdog, Bucky found a different use for the access chili. He took the extra and put it on top of his pizza, which you looked at him in disgust.

“What?” he asked when he saw you staring at him, food stuffed in his mouth.

“Nothing,” you lied. He gave you a smirk, almost like he knew what he did, and continued eating. He finished quickly, a little faster than you. Almost like it was a competition, Bucky gave a little victory “woohoo” and you sighed, finishing your food.

“Congrats Buck, you ate faster than me,” you said sarcastically.

“Do I get a medal?” Bucky asked, playfully. You chuckled as he took your hand, leading you further into the fair.

“Whats up first, sugar?” he asked.

“Why don't we play some games? I don't wanna throw up on you in the Gravation,” you admitted.

“Sure, anything you want,” Bucky said. “Which do you wanna play first?”

“Let's do the balloon and dart game,” you decided.

“This way, doll.” Bucky said, taking your arm and leading you to the famous game. When you got there, not many people were there. Only two others were in front of you, and they were fairly quick. After they finished playing, the carnie saw you and got your attention.

“Hey there! Wanna play?” he asked.

“How much?” Bucky asked, getting to the point.

“If you want three darts, 5 bucks, if you want five darts, 8 bucks,” the carnie answered. Bucky got some money out of his pocket and paid $16 dollars in total. The carnie handed you both 5 darts and then he moved out of the way.

“Ready, set, go!” the carnie shouted. Then you and Bucky looked at each other, eyes full of determination. Bucky threw his darts very quickly, and he only missed one. Meanwhile, you took your time and got all five.

“Congratulations, you two!” the carnie cheered. “What do each of ya want?” You and Bucky looked around at all of the options.

“Which can we pick?” Bucky asked.

“The miss next to ya can pick anything she wants,” the carnie explained. “You can pick anything, just not something on the top row.” The one Bucky was eyeing was on the top row, and he sulked in disappointment. He saw a Spiderman inflate that he thought was really funny. You found a small, tye-dye teddy bear that caught your eye. You thought it was adorable, and you really wanted it.

“Bucky, if I get you the Spiderman, can you get me that bear?” you asked, with puppy dog eyes.

“Sure, toots,” Bucky smiled at you. The carnie heard you discussing and got the prizes ready for you. As you both said thank you, the carnie eyed you suspiciously, trying to figure out if you were dating or not.

“Any other games?” Bucky asked as you walked away from the game. You were about to answer when Bucky completely turned his attention to the mechanical bull a couple feet away.

“Sorry to interrupt, but I was the best at that in ‘38,” Bucky said.

“You can do it, it's fine,” you smiled. “But I'm paying.”

“No you're not,” Bucky said, before he sprinted off, trying to get there first so you wouldn't pay. You ran after him, but Bucky and his stupid super soldier serum beat you there. He got the money out of his pocket and handed it to another carnie.

“Good luck,” you said as you took the Spiderman out of his arms. He smiled back at you and headed up to the bull. The carnie counted him down and then the bull started moving. At first it was easy, Bucky had his right arm on the handle to keep him steady. But after a minute or so, the carnie made it a lot harder. Twisting and turning at high speeds, Bucky switched his right hand to the metal one, for a firmer grip. He almost fell off after one really fast turn, but his left arm still held on to the handle. His right arm was holding the side of the bull and he was able to readjust himself in time for the next spin. After five minutes, he was still on the bull. Bucky didn't even realise the crowd that was starting to form around you. Everyone marveled as Bucky wouldn't dare to fall off the bull. People around you cheered him on. Even the carnie was shocked and tried his hardest to get Bucky to fall. But it wasn't going to happen.

After another 15 minutes, the carnie announced that Bucky had beaten the record for the mechanical bull, but Bucky still wasn't going to get off. People cheered him on, but not as loud as you. Your cheers were fuel for Bucky and the more you cheered, the more he wanted to stay on. But, he didn't want to keep you waiting the whole night, so after 10 more minutes, he fell off the bull. As he walked out of the pit, people cheered for him, earning a smile out of him.

“Congrats sir, that's the best bull riding I've ever seen,” the carnie said. “Here's your prize of $200 bucks cash. Everyone give it up for.. What's your name?”

“Bucky,” Bucky answered.

“Bucky everyone!” the carnie cheered. Everyone joined in with cheers and applause. You smiled at him, full of pride and happiness. Bucky smiled and planted a kiss on your head, which you blushed at.

“How long was he on for?” you asked.

“Your boyfriend here was on for 32 minutes and 48 seconds.” the carnie said.

“Wow,” you said. “You are the best at that.”

“I know,” Bucky said. As you walked away, other guys had gone up to Bucky, giving him a celebratory high five or pat on the back. Even some girls had gone up and tried to flirt with him. But Bucky said that he was with you, obviously, but that didn’t stop the girls from at least trying to get with him.

“Now we have enough money to eat anything and play as many games as we want,” Bucky said.

“If you didn't win that, we might have had to use some of the money I bought,” you said.

“Impossible,” Bucky chuckled. “Now I think we can go on some rides.”

The night flew by, and it was already 10:30. Bucky had taken you on the Ferris Wheel, Cliff Hanger, Frisbee, Fun House, Wipeout, Gravation, Tornado and the Swings. You tried to get him to go on the Zipper, but he swore he would never get on that ‘deathtrap’ as he called it. As you went on the rides, you were able to fit your teddy bear into your bag, but the Spiderman was causing some trouble. You had to leave it outside on some rides, which you thought it might get stolen, but that luckily didn't happen. Then he took you on the Swings, your favorite ride of all. And then, he took you on the Bumper cars, his favorite ride. You both laughed and had fun the whole night, but he still had some other things he wanted to do.

“Doll, before we go, there's two more things I wanna do before the night ends,” Bucky said.

“And what might that be?” you asked.

“I wanna play the High Striker game an-” Bucky started.

“Do you wanna play that game to show how strong you are?” you mocked.

“Maybe,” he admitted and you laughed.

“I wanna do the shooting game before it's too late.” you said. “I wanna see if I can shoot better than you.”

“We already know the answer to that question,” Bucky smirked and you hit him playfully in the arm. “But we can do that after we have some dessert.”

“You read my mind.” you chuckled. “Lets eat.”

Bucky took you to some of the concession stands around the fair, which you both indulged in so much sugar that it would give you diabetes. Bucky bought both of you a plate of zeppolis, your favorite carnival food, and you bought a bag of fried oreos. You also bought a thing of cotton candy. After you thought no more eating, Bucky came back with a bowl of gelato. All of the hunger in you resurfaced and you and him ate it, licking your lips once you finished.

“That was the best dessert ever,” Bucky said.

“Agreed, now we gotta play some games, it's already 11,” you said, trying to get Bucky to move. He grudgingly got up and followed you to the High Striker game. Bucky pointed at the bell at the top, as if saying ‘watch out’.

“Wanna test your strength?” the carnie running the game asked.

“How much?” Bucky brushed off, getting the money from his pockets.

“For one swing, 3 bucks. For three swings, 5 bucks.” the carnie said.

“Three swings,” Bucky said, handing the carnie the 5 dollars. The carnie handed him a sledgehammer and backed away. The carnie told you to move back so Bucky could practice his swing, and you did. Bucky practiced his swing about three times before he was ready.

He swung his arms back and hit the pad. He got really close to the bell, just a few inches off. Bucky swore under his breath as he got ready for his next swing. The next one was stronger, but not close enough again. He grunted as he saw it didn't hit the bell.

“Cmon Bucky! You got this!” you cheered, hoping to boost his confidence. When he heard you, you were like gasoline to him, giving him the fuel to hit it the hardest. He swung down for the final time with a loud grunt. The little knob had so much force behind it that it hit the bell. Not only that, but it flew off the railing that was keeping it in place. You and the carnie looked at each other in shock. Bucky took a deep breath, and looked at you sheepishly.

“What the hell?” the carnie said. “Well, um, pick your prize.”

Bucky looked around at the options and found one that you were looking at. You were looking at a stuffed llama as tall as a counter. The llama, in your eyes, was even cuter than the bear. It had pink and blue fur in little patches. It also had little specks of yellow fur. It had a little smile plastered on its face and it just looked too adorable to be real.

“The llama please,” Bucky asked. You smiled at him and gave him a big hug, your arms wrapping around his muscular torso.

“Thanks, Bucky,” you said as your head was pressed against his chest.

“Welcome, sugar,” Bucky responded as he grabbed the llama from the carnie. You snatched the stuffed animal from his hands and held the toy in your arms, cuddling at. As the two of you walked away, you heard the carnie in the background telling the people next in line “sorry the things broken.” Then you heard an angry man yelling at the carnie, saying “That's Bullshit!” and “You just want to go home and not do your job!”

You and Bucky laughed as you headed to the last game of the night, then you would be going on Bucky's ride of choice. You ran through the crowd of teens and made your way to the shooting game. This carnie looked cheerful, more happy than the others that you have seen.

“Hey there! How's your night going for you two?” the carnie asked.

“Good, how's your going?” you asked in a cheery mood, still clinging to the stuffed llama.

“So far, no winners tonight, but maybe you and your boyfriend can change that,” the carnie smirked.

“Oh, we aren't,” you started.

“It's ok, you don't have to admit it,” the carnie asked. “By the way, the game costs 20 dollars per player.”

“What?” Bucky asked. “That's ridiculous for a damn shooting game!”

“Sorry sir, I don't make the rules. It's priced so high because you get a lot of pellets to shoot and if you win, you get a huge prize.” the carnie said.

“It's ok, I'll pay for mine and his,” you said, getting the money out of your bag.

“No I am,” Bucky said, racing to his pockets before you got your money. But you beat him and he sighed in surrender, muttering how his momma would kill him if she were alive. You handed the money to the carnie and the carnie set up the guns, ammo and targets.

“You can go first, Buck,” you said, nudging him forward. “I wanna see what exactly I'm going against.”

“You're gonna regret that,” Bucky snickered as he prepped the gun, leveling it at his shoulders. There wasn't a scope on the gun, but there was an eyeliner for him to aim. The target was a big, red star, which you laughed at in your head since Bucky had a star just like it on his arm.

Then, he started shooting at the target. The objective is to get the star completely off the target. It has to fall to the floor, off the paper completely. Bucky shot at the edges of the star trying to get the corners free. Then he circled around the star, aiming at the star with such precision that you got worried you would lose against him, and you hated to lose. Then, after a few minutes, Bucky ran out of ammo. The carnie pulled the lever, bringing the target closer for you and Bucky to see.

“You were really close,” the carnie sighed. Bucky took the target and saw that he had gotten completely around the star. But there was a problem: one of the edges was still dangling off the paper.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Bucky grunted, running his right arm through his hair. “This has to be a winner.”

“Sorry, sir. But the star has to be completely off the paper,” the carnie said. Bucky sighed and muttered something about how this was rigged.

“Your turn, doll,” Bucky said, giving the carnie a glare.

You handed the carnie your money and he set you up exactly like Bucky. Once the carnie was finished, he gave you a thumbs up and you started blasting. You followed Bucky's example, starting at the corners of the star and working your way around. You were careful to not pull the trigger too hard or else too many bullets would come out. You had something in your head that said, “you have to beat Bucky, you have to win.” Bucky was a master assassin and for him to lose helped boost your confidence as you continued to aim. The star was starting to fall off, hanging off by a tiny edge of the paper. But, luckily, you didn't have the same problem as Bucky, you had more pellets left. You used those to your advantage and blasted the red star off the paper. It fell to the ground, completely covered in bullet holes.

The carnie stood there, completely in awe at how well you had done, and you still had bullets inside the gun after you finished. Bucky was frozen like a statue. His hands were glued to his hair, his eyes were coming out of his head and his mouth was to the floor. The carnie gave you your target, and whispered to you “I knew you could beat him,” causing you to giggle as you scanned the booth for a prize. Your eyes settled on a Captain America head. Not a real one, a stuffed one. You thought it was funny and grabbed it from the carnies hand. As you and Bucky left the carnie said a congrats to you and hung your target on the wall with the other lucky winners.

As you walked, not knowing where you would be going, you got scared because Bucky hasn't said a word yet.

“Bucky you ok?”

“Yeah doll, yeah,” he said. “I just can't believe I lost.”

“Oh cmon dont be a sore loser,” you nudged him, making him laugh.

“Also I can't believe I fell in love with a girl like you, and I didnt even know she could hold a gun like that,” he blushed, brushing some hair out of his face. He gripped your hand and led you to the ride he had been waiting for since the beginning of the night.

“Wait, you love me?” you asked.

“Why do you think you're here with me, doll? Why do you think me and Loki are fighting for you?” Bucky asked.

“Well… um,” you froze. You had no clue about how you felt about Bucky yet. One part of you loved him, the way he loved you. But something else was fighting that feeling, seeing him only as a close friend. Bucky sensed your nerves and held you closer to him.

“It's ok, you don't have to respond.” Bucky said, easing your mind. “I'm gonna make you say those words before Loki gets the chance.”

You laughed at him. “I'd like to see ya try,” you sassed.

“Toots, just wait,” he smirked.

“Wait what ride are we going on?”

“Well we are right in front of it, so it's a dead give away,” he said. Without realizing it, you were right in front of the ride. It was a dimmed ride, more like a boat ride. The walls were covered in pink and red hearts and the boats were white swans. The arches leading into the ride were hearts and three words were illuminated in front of your eyes. “Tunnel of Love.”

“Oh my god,” you said.

“Cmon, it's not like anything is going to happen,” Bucky said, leading you to the swan. The carnie controlling the ride took the stuffed toys and your bag from you to leave on the side. She gave Bucky a thumbs up, letting him know nothing would happen to your belongings, but maybe for something else.

You squirmed as you sat next to him, and the carnie buckled you into the ride. A million things were running through your mind. You didn't know if you should tell Bucky before the ride starts to not try anything. You didn't know if you would let anything happen. You didn't know if, even, anything would happen. You assumed something would happen because, look who you're sitting next to. Bucky was a ladies man, and he probably took other gals on the ride in the past.

“Doll, I assure you. I won’t do anything unless you allow me to,” Bucky said, putting his right arm behind your back, for you to use as a pillow. You settled into his body and then the doors swung open, leading you inside the ride.

At first, there was nothing that would suggest anything bad would happen. There was a little romantic garden, the one that would show up in a romantic movie. There were little hedges and statues of Cupid with his love bow and arrows. There were tons of roses and smooth jazz was playing in the background.

“This is music,” Bucky smiled. The music playing tonight was mostly tons of pop music, which he hated and thought was annoying as hell. So this for him was soothing. It soothed you too, but not as much as it did for Bucky.

Then there was another set of doors, and it led you into the next part of the ride. This part was very dark. There wasn't a lot of light, and it didn't look like anything was inside. You got scared and found yourself leaning into Bucky more. He didn't mind and eased into your touch.

Suddenly, something, maybe a bat or something, you couldn't tell, popped out of nowhere. Then a hissing sound and a scream played in the background. You screamed and your head was buried on Bucky's chest.

“Hey, hey, it's ok. It's not real, it's fake. It's going to be ok,” Bucky soothed you. He took the arm you were resting on and cradled you in it as you were in fear on his chest. His right hand was rubbing circles around your back while his left was playing with your hair. You stayed there, in that sense of comfort, that sense of belonging, that sense of peace, for a little bit longer. You picked your head up at him, only to see steel blue eyes looking back at you. They seemed like a haven to you, like a home that you could rest in.

“I’m sorry Bucky,” you apologized.

“For what? You didn't do anything,” he said confused. Your faces were only inches away from each other, and you could feel his breath, smelling like sugar and cotton candy.

“When are we going to do something about this… unspoken thing between us?” Bucky whispered.

“There's no unspoken thing,” you whispered back. At this moment, you doubted that Bucky was wrong. Because this has never happened to you and him before.

“Liar,” Bucky smiled, his lips only centimeters from yours.

“Prove it,” you challenged back. The next thing he did took your breath away, literally. He leaned into you to close that gap keeping you apart. He kissed your lips tenderly, making sure you wouldn't back off. His eyes were closed, savoring every moment.

At first, you were in shock, frozen by fear. Your eyes were open, trying to process everything. But the longer he remained on your lips, you weren't doing anything to stop him, and you felt your eyes flutter shut. You kissed him back, relishing in the feeling of his plump, pink lips on yours. You were on each other for so long that you didn't realize that you entered the final room of the ride. Then you and him separated, gasping for air.

“Did I prove it?” Bucky mocked.

“Maybe,” you grinned.

And you leaned back into him. You slowly moved onto his lap, for the remainder of the ride. One of your hands cupped his cheek while the other was lazily tangling his hair. His hands were gripped on your waist. His tongue was stretching on your lips, trying to get in. You obliged and your tongues danced together to some unknown rhythm. You could taste the sugar on his tongue. As you played with his hair, he let out a moan. As he did, he could feel you smiling through the kiss.

Then, Bucky peeked open his eyes and saw the exit approaching. He didn't want people to see you making out, and as much as he hated it, he had to get you off of him.

“Doll, we gotta go,” Bucky urged. You realized what he meant and before anyone saw, you slid off his lap and fixed your hair. You both left the ride and headed to his car, eager to get home.

“Wow, that was amazing,” you sighed, settling into your seat with all the toys and your bag in the backseat.

“I have to agree. You took my breath away, dreamboat,” Bucky quipped.

“Same, and you were a dreamboat back there as well,” you grinned. Bucky placed his hand back on your thigh, and you placed yours on top of his, just like before. But it wasn't to be friendly like the first time, but something more.

“Ya know, doll, I wasn't expecting to be necking,” Bucky chuckled as you drove off.

“I gotta say, you got a lotta moxie for that,” you laughed.

“You almost gave me the hots back there, sugar,”

“Did I now?” you teased. “Well too bad you can't do anything about that.”

“Shame. Stupid bet.” he sighed.

“Oh wait, don't tell Loki about this,” you said. “He will flip and probably do something to us. Or you.”

“You got it.” he agreed. “But if he does find out, or do something, what then?”

“To get honest, I don't know. But you've still got one more date left to truly convince me. And so does Loki.”

“I didn't convince you?” Bucky gasped.

“Not enough,” you teased, laughing at him as you drove home.

Bucky helped you get the stuffed animals and your bag and helped you back to your room. You took the llama, teddy bear and your bag back. He held onto the Captain America head and Spiderman inflatable. He gave you a kiss on the forehead before you bade each other goodnight.

As the door closed behind you, you sighed, letting out a small howl, releasing all the emotions you felt tonight. Your back fell to the door, and your knees gave out, leaving you against the door.

“Wow,” you sighed.

~~~

Bucky walked back to his room with a little pep in his step. He was in a much happier mood than normal. He was singing to himself and smiling all the way back to his room. His hair was messed up, but he didn’t care.

But someone was watching him. Loki. Loki saw how messed up Bucky's hair was. He saw the things Bucky didn't. Like the lipstick that was on his cheek.

Then Loki felt angry. But it wasn't even anger. It was hatred, fury and rage. It was boiling inside him and he didn't know what to do with himself. But then, that God of Mischief mindset kicked in. And he had an idea. An evil, wicked, horrible idea. One that would change everything.

“Oh, well,” Loki talked to himself. “I wanted to play nice. But you broke the rules. And you know what happens when you break the rules. You feel my wrath.”

#bucky x you #bucky #bucky barnes #bucky fandom #bucky fic #bucky fucking barnes #winter soldier #carnival #amusement rides #first date #love #love triangle #loki #loki fandom #loki (marvel)#loki odinson #james bucky barnes #james buchanan bucky barnes #james buchanan barnes

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jaunes-erotic-world · 5 years

Text

MILF and Cookies

///Hey everyone I decided to repost this old story with a few small tweaks here and there. It's cross posted on AO3 on my Arc_rotica page. Enjoy///

............

Jaune was one of the only young man in the neighborhood where he lived. Most of the residents were girls his age or single mothers. Because of this ever since his growth spurt hit he was doing jobs around his neighbors’ houses. The general odd jobs that would be done by ‘the men of the house’. Hey didn’t complain, too much, since he usually got paid. Today he was called across the street to help Kali Belladonna with something.

When he got the he was greeted with a smile, “Hello Jaune thank you so much for coming over I really need your help with something.”

“It’s no problem Ms Belladonna I’m always happy to help,” he returned her smile.

“You are so sweet. I need to take care of something upstairs real quick so why don’t you wait in the living room while I finish up. I put out some cookies fresh from the oven so please help yourself,” she said before walking upstairs a sway in her hips that drew the eye to her amazing ass.

Jaune took a seat in the living room and took a bite into a cookie as he looked around the room. No boxes that needed lifting, the curtains were hanging properly, no sign that the furniture needed to be moved, the computer seemed to be working as did the TV, heck even the lightbulbs and fire alarm seemed to be functional, 'Why did Ms Belladonna ask me to come over,’ the young man wondered completely unaware of the attire his sexy neighbor was putting on up stairs.

As stated before Jaune was pretty much the only guy in the neighborhood, one full of single MILFs at that. Jaune had matured well over the years, a few inches above 6ft, strong muscles from some work outs he’s been doing recently, and a outline of something impressive that occasionally made an appearance when he wore tight pants or shorts. He often was the subject of the talks that women in the neighborhood would have, when his mother/ sisters weren’t around. Those talks were more frequent after his 18th birthday a month ago, finally of age and many cougars were considering taking at least a taste of the 'finely prepared meat', and Kali was one of them.

She knew he was attracted to her, every time he came to help her or hang out with Blake and their friends, his eyes were often glued to her hips or ass, just like they were when she walked up the stairs.

Kali took one last look in the mirror smirking before she sauntered downstairs to claim a treat, 'He ate the cookies I made so it’s only fair that I drink the milk he makes.’ She reached the bottom of the stairs and saw Jaune looking around the living room as she strode in. “Sorry to make you wait I just needed to get changed for what you’ll be helping me with,” she said.

“Oh it’s no problem-em-em,” Jaune stuttered as he looked upon Kali, she wore only a see through purple negligee, her nipples as hard as diamonds, she was sporting a Vacuon waxed nether regions, and a pussy so wet that her juices dripped down her plump thighs.

“You see Jaune ever since what happened with Ghira I’ve been so lonely,” Kali said pouting her sexy full lips. “My body has been in terrible pain, it begs for the touch of a man, that’s why I need help, yours and no one else’s.” She sashayed over to where he was sitting, he was still so shell shocked that he couldn't react as she mounted his leg and rubbed her pussy against it letting her juices soak into the fabric of his pants. She leaned in and kissed him, her tongue licking his lips asking for permission before simply entering his mouth without it.

His body responded and returned the kiss, even though his mind was still not yet fully back to reality. They kissed passionately as she continued to get herself off by humping his leg. When he was finally back, mentally, and was now kissing her back intensely and his hands stroking her back, lightly pulling her hair and squeezing her big heart shaped ass. The way his large hand explored her body caused her to scream into his mouth, a torrent of love juices sprayed from her tight hole and covered his left leg as she came.

Kali dismounted his leg and turned around and put her hands on the table lifting her perfect Bellabooty, presenting it to him as if she was a bitch in heat. “I’m so sorry Jaune, but I-I c-can’t wait any longer I need it now. I promise I’ll suck you off, titfuck you, give you an assjob anything you want, whenever you want, but please right now fuck my pussy fuck me like the bitch in heat I am,” she begged him like she was losing her mind.

What she didn’t realize in her begging state Jaune had stripped had already stripped naked, his cock as hard as possible and the very second she stopped begging for his rod he rammed it all the way in in a single thrust. She cried out loudly orgasming once more but ever stronger than before, her voice even louder especially since her mouth was no longer muffled by Jaune’s. Her orgasmic scream was so loud that the neighbors who were passing past the house heard and knew what was going on. Some women cheered for her, others cursed her for getting to him first, some excited that the plunge had been taken not only confirming the quality of 'the goods' but also checking he was perfectly ok with MILFs, but undoubtedly they were all jealous and horny.

Jaune's pelvis slapped hard against the faunus' perfect ass, the sound of flesh on flesh filling the room. “More fuck me more make me your bitch I love you thick cock so much fuck me till I lose my mind,” Kali’s pussy was so wet so sensitive and her hormones were going so wild that with each thrust of the young man's powerful hips it felt like a miniature climax.

“Ms Belladonna it feels so good,” Jaune moaned his cock slamming against her cervix as her pussy tried to milk him of his seed.

“Kali, call me Kali or Bitch or Slut whatever you want, right now I'm not a mother or the upstanding member of the community I've worked so hard to be, right now I am a fucked silly MILF,” she cried out. “Fuck me harder make me your slut, your naughty kitty, make me your's”

Her words tapped into something primal, the animalistic urge to fuck and breed. His hips went harder and harder slamming his massive cock into her tight hole as much as possible, he raised his hand up high and brought it down swiftly the blond spanked the object of so many of his wet dreams Kali's big fat sexy Bellabooty. The young man watched it jiggle and bounce the red handprint he left on her soft olive skin was could be seen as a brand on the woman that she was his. She seemed to approve as her pussy tightened around his cock when he did.

The stimulation was finally too much and finally it was his turn, “Im cumming,” he shouted

“Inside. Cum inside me, today is a safe day. So fill me up with your hot thick milk feed this kitty her cream,” she shouted.

Jaune did as she requested and he shot rope after rope of thick cum inside her tight wet pussy, he filled her womb and still had more for the rest of her pussy. The blast of hot man milk caused her to shiver and she came one final time. Her eyes had rolled into her head and her arms gave out causing her upper body to fall onto the living room table, she was in a puddle of her own drool. As Jaune made to pull out he felt her walls clench around him. Barely conscious, her eyes not even half lidded Kali managed to slur, “Moh I ned moh”

Whenever the women in the neighborhood asked him to do a task for them, he would do as asked till they were satisfied. But he never expected that one day he would need to satisfy one of them like this, but an Arc never goes back on his word.

Jaune proceeded to fuck Kali over and over, both of them achieving multiple climaxes times. When Kali could no longer handle anymore and finally passed out Jaune took a seat back on the couch and admired his handy work. Kali's tongue was hanging out of her mouth, her face in a puddle of drool, cum flowing out of her pussy like a waterfall pooling on the carpet, her back had received a few coats of 'white paint' and her ass numerous red marks. Jaune was extremely happy that not only did he loose his virginity but it was to an insanely hot MILF.

Meanwhile, in some of the other women where looking through their clothes, from lingerie, bikinis, their daughter's school uniforms, etc. """If Kali took the dive I will too"""

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chrsitophwaltz · 5 years

Text

MICKEY MEETS FC BAYERN (PART 1/4)

for the entire houston clownery experience click here

psa: excuse my face and the pic qualities. up until this happened i haven’t really taken pictures of myself (less than 10 in the past two years for family and work purposes and NEVER selfies) and when you meet people you’ve only seen on TV in a very unexpected circumstance, then don’t expect your brain and motor functions to work 100%.

okay. i posted part 1 of this a few days ago but i’m gonna redo it again to flush out the details. before i start, know that i arrived in houston wednesday afternoon. my original flight back home was scheduled sunday after the game (i booked my flight and lodgings months before like a good binch) but since bayern clowned again and announced the full detailed schedule really late, and put ALL the major fan stuff on SUNDAY, i grudgingly rebooked and extended one more day. how much that one extra day cost me will haunt me for a while but hey, it was more than worth it! of course, i didn’t know it would work out like that at first...

the hotel reception was around 6:30-7 pm on friday so we went there a few hours earlier to get good spots. met up with The Niko Thirst Gang (big shoutout to @screamingoranges, @saquonbrkley, and @simplyirenic! it was great meeting y’all hope we could do it again sometime) and waited patiently in the houston heat and humidity outside the hotel. finally the team bus arrived and got my shirt signed by boa, fiete, benji, leon, and thomas! made a post about it here and i also have the full reception video if y’all wanna see!

but being the greedy thirsty binch that i am, i wasn’t satisfied at all. thiago and niko weren’t there. the coaching staff were the first to go down and hansi flick, dr. broich, and even Witch Doctor™ müller-wohlfahrt were there, but NOT niko. after the bus left and all the other entourage cars were off, i was about to rage outside the hotel bc i was really banking on seeing niko that day and taking a pic with him there (my blood pressure had been raging for 4 hours and then to be let down just like t h a t...). apparently he and thiago went straight to nrg stadium from the airport for a press conference. and guess what? NRG STADIUM WAS JUST DOWN THE ROAD FROM MY PLACE 💀💀💀

anyway, come saturday and it was game day! i was so pumped since my seat was five rows behind the bayern bench! y’all know what that means: unlimited firsthand access to peak drama!!! i also had this huge ass sign asking for niko’s bottle sdhfsdjfh. the game was great (bc we beat madridies and it was just really exciting all the way) and i saw stuff that we normally don’t get from TV (e.g. ALL the angry niko antics, leon changing into his kit on the bench, etc.) at one point niko finally looked at my direction while drinking from his bottle and i’m pretty sure he saw my sign but he just kept on drinking sultrily from that goddamn bottle sjadhksfksdfdk i hate him!!!!!!!

after the game i was feeling pretty let down and desperate bc i know sunday was the team’s last full day in houston and i didn’t want my extension to be for nothing. the practice session and paulaner bbq were invite-only events (ugh) and the mall meet-and-greets won’t have niko or everyone else in them. so i set my alarm, went to bed, and decided to try my luck by randomly going to the hotel again to see if i can get something. i had no idea if it was gonna work or not. it was a shot in the freaking dark.

sunday morning. 8:30 am. i went out armed with a sharpie, my cardboarded jersey, a pack of gum, and two bottles of water.

my uber drove me to the hotel entrance and i even got the whole five star welcome sjdhfsjdfbjkds

hotel staff: ”hi! welcome to the post oak hotel!”

me: “oh lmao i’m not actually a customer i’m just here to see if the team’s still here. have they left for practice yet?”

hotel staff: “oh no problem at all. they’re still here they just finished breakfast i think”

me: “oh cool i’ll just wait here then”

hotel staff and some guy in a bayern audi fcb tour polo shirt: “it’s so hot here, though. don’t you want to wait inside?”

me:

me: “............i can do that? am i allowed in?”

bayern guy: *shrugs* yeah sure. i’ve seen you around before anyway (nice guy talk for: i know ur stalking them lmao)

just like that.

i’m in. i made it.

u n s u p e r v i s e d. totally no barriers whatsoever. with full blast A/C too!

cue happy lil me, relieved to be out of the houston heat, entering the hotel and chilling in their nice plushy seats. (if y’all have cash to burn, it looks like a real good hotel too if you get to houston sometime). i kept on looking over my shoulder bc i still can’t believe they just let me in like t h a t. i tried to make myself look as harmless and innocent as possible and saw some of the training staff milling around and chatting in german (for a moment i thought i was back in munich it was so surreal). at some point, a very sleepy and very casual javi martinez in slides came up to the reception and i nearly passed out. he looked over at me and i waved and said hi and raised my shirt (signal if he wants to sign). he shook his head no and gestured to reception and i was like “oh sure no problem!” (i was trying not to freak out even if i was sad ok)

i’ve been trying to kill time by screaming here on tumblr until about 10-15 minutes later i heard the huge ass team bus pull up out front. a few moments after that, it all started.

i saw the kitmen carrying stuff to the bus and greeted them “guten morgen!” they were so cheery lmao (idk if it’s bc they just had breakfast or bc i greeted them in german). then i saw dr. broich and hansi flick come out in their training gear (both looking hella tanned sfnsjfjsdfn) and greeted them both again. dr. broich waved, said hi, and went straight to the bus but i was able to flag hansi down for an autograph. in my excitement (he was my first catch of the day!) i forgot to ask for a pic ugh but oh well

me: “thanks hansi! and welcome to bayern!”

hansi: *handing me back my shirt and trying (and failing) to put my sharpie back in its cap* “oh, thanks so much!”

after hansi went on his merry way, i saw dieter nickles (the press conference guy) and asked him for a picture and autograph too.

me: “hi dieter! can i please have a photo and an autograph?”

dieter: “are you sure? i’m not a player...”

me: “haha i know but if it’s all the same to you...”

he seemed pretty chuffed that i knew him and happily signed and took pictures (score #2!)

that was it for a while (they were the early birds) until giovane elber himself came out. i freaked (i love him) and tried to keep my voice from shaking when i asked him for the standard photo and autograph. in my haste, the first was pretty blurry and against the light but giovane, angel that he is, was like “oh no that’s bad. let’s try again” and maneuvered me to another angle. success! i luff u, giovane ;__;

then The Voice of the Allianz Arena himself came out. i semi-shouted “stephan!” and startled him that he nearly dropped his coffee snbfsdbfsdfsb. while he was signing my shirt, i asked him if he could give me a lil soundbite and HE DID! he sounds exactly the same as he does on TV during games omfg

the younglings started to come out too. i missed a few of them because they went out in a group so i was only able to flag down sarpreet and ron. oh well! they cute af! go bayern babies! grow up and save us from clownery!!!!!!

(ignore the pen in my mouth i was multitasking lmao)

after that, the ground started to shake (just kidding) bc Big Uncle Nik was there! after i got his autograph (a very simple N.S. lmaooo) , we tried to take a picture. i say “tried,” because i’m 5′3 (and 1/2....on a good day) and he’s built like a fuckin skyscraper. in the end, since he was so nice and realized it was hopeless, he bent down to my level so we could both fit in the frame sdhfbsdjfsbdfjd COME ON SÜLEEEEE

then Pure Angel Baby Fiete came out! i already got his autograph and had a pic with him in the hotel reception, but hey, one more can’t hurt! lemme tell y’all: he looks like an angel, and IS an angel. he’s always so game for photos and even said thank you after we took the pic and i’m like “um???? no, thank YOU!!!” he laughed and i cried lmaooo

also, javi finally showed up again. i raised my pen and phone and he was like “oh sure! yeah!” my brain was fried from Beautiful Athlete Overload that i forgot NOT to take a pic from that cursed angle. javi looked like he was in a hurry though so i didn’t even try to ask for a better pic. oh well, at least here he looks like he came down from heaven (he really looked like he did huehue)

(tumblr has this stupid 10 photo per post limit thing so stay tuned for more pics in part 2!)

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ayakashiramblings · 5 years

Note

Could I get the ayakashi (your choice of who) reacting to an mc they thought was male actually being female? Like, she's pretty androgynous and her clothing is more masculine leaning. But maybe one day they walk in on her changing or maybe her clothes get ripped in a fight and it exposes her bra-clad chest.

Ask and you shall receive, anon! Hope you enjoy it!

Aoi: Finding out you are a Girl

Ok to be fair, you didn’t really need the validation.

After all, it was your comfort over others’ perception.

Baggy clothes and pants were just perfect for running around with deliveries.

You didn’t have to constantly eat hair with that boy cut you were sporting (plus you and Nachi could be twinsies)

… It was just awkward though when you knew the only one who didn’t know you were a girl… was an insecure Aoi.

Was your face really that androgynous? You had always thought the lips would give it away but then again, Aoi is the same person who always turns away from others in a huff.

Yura already knew since he is the only one with a proper recollection of the past.

Ginnojo knew the moment he touched your hand and still breaks out into a furious flush.

Koga knew because of your father

Heck, even Kuya knew thanks to Koga.

So. Why. Was. The. Love. Of. Your. Life. So. BLIND.

I mean, you KNEW he was a fine man despite others pretending to mistake him for a girl.

But maybe that was how the whole mess had started.

Suddenly, you started noticing the seer asking if he could join you on your workout after seeing you easily move some of Oji’s things for some restaurant renovations.

And there was that time he and you were engaged in a fiery debate about men’s fashion before realizing he was not considering hiding the outline of your underwear… because he didn’t know you were wearing a bra.

He had even tried to hide his interest in the stalls selling the cutest pouches, reticules and other novel accessories.

Simply because he thought he was in pure male company that would be disinterested in such things.

You didn’t know what was worse - him mistaking you for a boy or him assuming you wouldn’t appreciate bunnies.

What evil wraith possessed him to think no one would want a cute bunny holding the smallest carrot as their key chain, huh?

Well, you were about to find out when there was a cacophonic chorus of low snarls coming from a desolate alleyway.

As you reached out with your mind to find the source, a tiny figure came stumbling along your way.

His chest heaving from the exertion only possible from a marathon runner. Somewhere beyond, you could hear other voices trying to escape the ‘catcher’.

The Wraiths have found a new target, turning away from Aoi to lunge at the boy with a pocket watch you knew all-too-well.

“Masanobu, come here!”

As you tugged Masanobu towards you, Aoi fired round after round at the Wraiths conglomerating to strike the innocent child.

Masanobu would have been staring in abject terror were it not for you shielding him from Aoi blasting Wraiths into submission.

Settling the hex could wait as you and Aoi ran out to escort the child out.

Poor Masanobu. He was just really petrified and would grab onto the nearest thing(s) possible.

Koga is somewhere both chortling, crying and facepalming on behalf of his son.

Because, of course, he had buried his face right at your décolletage and grabbing each one.

Whatever it took to let him not notice Aoi was actually using a GUN.

A décolletage that Aoi FINALLY seemed to notice.

Normally, you wouldn’t be as flustered as Aoi… but Masanobu was still holding onto your left boob for dear life.

Squished almost like a stress ball.

One Aoi would probably need.

Ok, but in all seriousness, the tomato Aoi would at least help pry Masanobu and soothe him.

“Don’t worry, those were just some special effects my art school is working on.”

“It kind of went out of control. So, see Mister… I mean Ms MC saved you!”

“Mister? Isn’t it Ms MC? I thought you were her best friend who is a girl?”

As the conversation continued to spiral out of control, so did Aoi’s blush and stutter, tripping over his own words as he pointed a rigid finger at the child.

“Well, now I do, and so is that catcher coming in again with more of those black spirits!”

That did the trick as Masanobu shrieked with glee and took off, the pitter-patter of his sandals driving home of the silence that descended upon the two of you all of a sudden.

Aoi, the same ayakashi who would never hesitate to tell others what was on his mind, for once was curiously tight-lipped.

“Lemme guess, everyone knew but me.”

“Yup.”

“Wow. And here I call that deadbeat oblivious to his surroundings.”

“Oh no, but really, it doesn’t matter…”

“Finish that and something will happen.”

“You matter to me. I didn’t see a boy. I just saw you being so strong that I wondered… how’d you see me as a comrade.”

THIS PRECIOUS BABY NEEDS TO BE PROTECTED >o<

Both of you just start rambling off each other’s good qualities and occasionally diss one another, as if somehow re-introducing yourself.

Honestly, he doesn’t give you special treatment. He already liked you when you were a boy, why should you being a girl change the fact you are his friend?

He does make certain adjustments like drawing a sign for you to use when you are using the bathroom in a house full of guys.

Occasionally you do tease him with your boobs.

“Hey, so, when you saw them being squished, did you see Masanobu’s hands or yours...”

“S-SH-SHU-SHUT UP!!!”

Finally, he has someone to squeal over those cute items without being mocked, although you had assured him that even if you were a guy, you wouldn’t have.

When you feel inadequate compared to the more feminine ladies in the Capital, he angrily berates you,

“YoU are PerfEct? What, do I have to spend the rest of my life reminding you of the obvious?”

Spends the rest of his life by your side, both of you being the cutest boy and girl.

Although some think Aoi’s the girl and you are the boy.

When that happens, Aoi will pull out his gun.

Epilogue

Yura, later on, revealed that this has happened over a thousand years ago.

Only it was you mistaking Aoi’s past-self as a girl and dragging him along for some feminine bonding time.

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split-n-splice · 5 years

Photo

Oh hey! Cover image comes from a scene in this chapter. ;P Also I may have exaggerated about the dialogue. Hang in there? What can I say. :T I'm sharing this now while I’m still OK with it.

[Chapter Guide]

3. Hospitality – 2

Shego’s breath caught in her throat and her jaw went slack. Her hands trembled to her midriff as she finally faced the ugly bruise spread across her belly for the first time.

Her fingers feathered over her stomach to test just how sore it was, and suddenly she was a hundred times more tender than she had been moments ago. These days, she was accustomed to being sore and persevering through it, and until now she hadn’t acknowledged how bad her injury really was.

She’d seen such marks before and recognized the webby tendrils radiating out from the blotch splashed over her midsection, discoloring her skin to grisly shades across the spectrum, and she wondered with a cold wave of panic if she had more serious injuries like internal bleeding to worry about.

She was hardened to her own fire these days and she could take a hit – but being superhuman didn’t mean she was impervious to the deadly force.

She’d given herself this bruise.

Through her brother’s thick head, she’d managed to bruise herself with her own energy blast.

Extensively.

Her eyes stung suddenly. Frowning and fighting back tears, she squirmed and tripped out of her boots and pants and undergarments, barely holding back a torrent until she was sitting in the shower where she couldn’t distinguish if the hot liquid running down her face came from her or the showerhead.

Hot water wasn’t soothing for once, and it did nothing to ease her aches and pains today.

If she’d done this to herself…then what it did to Hugo’s brain was something too horrible to imagine. Her own brother – and she’d bet her life that she’d killed him by accident. What were his chances of surviving that? He was thick-skulled, sure, but could he withstand a blow like that? He wasn’t under any medication though to keep his superhuman qualities suppressed, so maybe – no. She’d be a sucker to get optimistic now.

As Shego miserably coerced herself into washing up as intended before the water could run cold, she reflected on her brothers left without her for the umpteenth time since running away – but now she considered the likelihood of being down a brother. Milo, in charge of the twins? That was a disaster waiting to happen. That boy would have to grow up fast, just like she’d had to. It wasn’t fair, but that was life.

She almost considered going home – but no, there was bad blood now. After what she’d done, how could they ever trust her again? She was no one’s hero anymore. Community service wouldn’t fix this.

Returning now would be to give herself up anyway, and that rotten Global Justice overseeing Team Go might never let her see the light of day again for taking down a star pupil – and that was if the government didn’t get a hold of her first to ship her to some obscure laboratory somewhere to figure out how to harness her glow to weaponize it or something. Laying low and staying here as a fugitive, she decided, may be her best bet if she wanted to keep her freedom. Not that it felt like she had much at the moment.

At some point while toweling off, Shego managed to battle her persistent sniffles into submission. Her chest ached, but she felt better otherwise. Clean, at least. It was shameful to think about, but crying herself out until the water ran icy had been relieving somehow, she acknowledged bitterly.

Out of sight, out of mind, she was glad when she could finally dress and hide the ugly blemish on her stomach. A baggy green pullover kept the pressure off. Equally baggy black sweatpants replaced the rest of her uniform, save for her sole pair of boots.

With the sore reminder hidden away, she felt ready to go on pretending she was fine, and moseyed back into the lab once she was sure her eyes weren’t so red as to betray her.

Dr. Drakken was still at his supercomputer, but he’d pulled up a seat now as he busied himself with salvaging whatever data he was after from the stolen hard drive.

Shego drifted closer until she was standing beside him, watching him read in between rapidly swapping windows, typing, pounding buttons, and shuffling around digital material. She couldn’t make heads or tails of any of it. It was pure gibberish to her. A Rosetta stone couldn’t help decipher the pages of coding written in what might as well have been a lost language. It was understandable he was glaring at it.

“I’m bored,” she announced, seeking distraction once more. She grimaced and rubbed her throat, not liking the sound of her own voice yet.

The man was too distracted himself to respond right away. Just as she began to suspect she’d been tuned out, he grunted. “Not my problem. Go paint your nails or something.”

Nail polish hadn’t been on her list of go-bag essentials, so that wasn’t an option.

Shego turned her focus down to the man’s unwavering deadpan for a minute, and tried not to smirk when he finally flicked an unnerved glance back at her as she moved to stand behind him, folding her arms on the back of his creaky desk chair.

He made another irritated noise as she plopped a hand onto his greasy hair and gave it a ruffle, and he ducked a little as if her hand weighed a ton. He was otherwise unmoved. If he thought he could ignore her, he had another thing coming.

For the moment, Shego willfully forgot he was a felon and boldly wove her fingers in and out of the shaggy mop he denied was a mullet, again working braids into it to alleviate her boredom. This time she got some satisfaction out of it, now that he was awake to grudgingly bear it.

He tried leaning forward out of her reach, but she only stooped over the back of his chair and gave him a yank that could be passed as an accident.

Dr. Drakken figured out soon enough that pretending the problem wasn’t there didn’t make it go away.

Finally he’d had enough of it and swatted her away as if she were a fly. “Mess up your own,” he hissed. “You have plenty of it.”

“It’s still damp,” she declared dismally, as if it would explain everything. Making her point, she picked up a soggy handful and gave it a flick, splattering droplets on his glasses when he made the mistake of turning to glare back at her.

“I’m working here,” grouched Dr. Drakken. “Go find something else to do.”

Shego settled for folding her arms on the back of the chair again, willingly abandoning the braiding endeavor. “You did say I can’t play with the henchmen,” she reminded.

The man grumbled something indiscernible as he wiped his glasses clean. “If I amend the rules, will you go away?”

“Maybe,” said Shego dryly.

She leaned further forward with a dreary hum, resting her chin on her folded arms as she stared over the top of his head at the giant monitor. It was still a bunch of nerd nonsense to her, but she gathered he must have located what he was after in the time it had taken her to shower, and was backing it up now.

“Is there a TV around here?” she wondered.

Dr. Drakken rubbed his eyes and sat back while the lagging computer processed his commands. In wordless reply, he heaved a heavy sigh and pointed. To the left of his desk, opposite from the corridor that lead to Shego’s room, was a simple nondescript door camouflaged against the brown stone wall.

She took the cue as permission to go see for herself, and so she finally let him be in favor of exploring a bit.

Shego prepared herself again to walk into a trap. This was a crook’s lair after all, and like it or not she was hardwired from experience not to invest much trust in his kind. She was content that there were no dirty surprises waiting for her here either though, and she relaxed just a little more.

If it weren’t for the polished stone floor and carved earthen walls with metal supports holding up the ceiling, this next hollow could have passed as an ordinary apartment. No amount of décor could detract from the fact it was a cave though, even if it appeared the man at least tried to give it a homey touch.

There were bookshelves and a few house plants, and a lamp on an end table beside a recliner. A brown corduroy couch sat before a mahogany coffee table, facing a big flat screen television ahead of its time. The entertainment center wasn’t complete without a stereo system and collection of media in the form of VHS tapes, vinyl, 8-tracks, and cassettes.

On the other end of the room was the kitchen with too much counter space and bar stools stationed around an island. Cookware hung from the back wall, but a layer of dust indicated it had been some time since more than a favorite frying pan had been used. Unless Dr. Drakken had a roommate, the dirty dishes in the sink had been sitting for maybe a week or more, a dehydrated sponge being the incriminating evidence. She sure as hell wasn’t about to roll up her sleeves and wash them, as was once her duty back home.

She scrutinized a basket of fruit on the counter, realizing she was pretty hungry, but decided not to risk it even if the apples and oranges still looked pretty good.

Shego returned to the living room, giving the couch a suspicious once over before sinking into it and sighing in relief to find it was heavenly soft. It was a pleasant surprise it didn’t smell musty at all like she might expect, and a throw pillow tempted her to lay her head down, but she resisted.

After a minute of slouching with her head thrown back, she roused herself to sit upright and pluck the remote from the coffee table. A force of habit, she whacked it on the heel of her hand for good measure before trying the buttons.

Shego spent the next half hour or so channel surfing with sinking hope, searching for news broadcasts that mentioned anything about Go City. Heck, even the east coast in general would have been comforting, but there was really nothing on this time of night. She found a weather station giving a brief update for the early-early birds, but all she could gain from that was the understanding that they were hidden away somewhere in a state shaped like a damn tortilla chip – Nevada – but northern or southern or east or west, she didn’t know.

Pang of longing twanged in her chest upon realizing just how far from home she was.

She almost left the television playing reruns of Scamper and Bitey to give herself some familiarity she hoped would soothe her, but it only served to remind her of her baby brothers, so she switched it back to paid advertisement for some once-size-fits-all diet plan that guaranteed results.

Hunger lured her back to Dr. Drakken’s desolate kitchen. She found the cabinets contained just about nothing but Vienna sausages and an absurd quantity of pickles that made her chuckle incredulously and shake her head. While the freezer was full of TV dinners and other microwavable quick fixes, the fridge held eggs and expired milk, as well as a few beakers containing colorful frothy fluids she wasn’t about to touch.

“Dude really knows how stock the place,” she grumbled to herself, letting the fridge door slam, beakers rattling inside. She eyeballed the bowl of fruit again, but again passed it up, because another door hidden in a dark crevice drew her eye.

Shego wound up sneaking out of the scientist’s personal living quarters a minute later, her cheeks flushed with a newfound unease.

A natural spring running like a brook through his room had been interesting, but it had paled in comparison to the crown jewel of the room, standing like a big square ruby. She couldn’t very well look his way now after finding a big king-sized, decked out with red satin that had made her backpedal so fast she’d slammed the bedroom door. She really wanted to believe he just liked sleeping like a starfish in luxury.

Despite her disquiet, she hazarded a glance his way, only to catch herself watching him work. He was oblivious to her perturbed stare as she wondered silently how many young women he suckered into this place. She wondered how many left.

She had a moment of doubt what she was here for.

Shego shook her head, reassuring herself that he’d yet to prove himself to be such a slimy guy. Testy and pushy, maybe – but sleazy, no. Not to mention, the rest of his digs wasn’t exactly a chick magnet, and she was sure there were brothels in Nevada if he needed a fix that desperately.

She relaxed a little. Even now, the man was all business, too absorbed in reviewing endless coding gibberish to notice her. She managed to convince herself she had nothing to worry about. If the nerd had the balls to turn on her, she wouldn’t be bashful to let him know he’d chosen the wrong gal to screw with.

It made her feel just a little better that Dr. Drakken was in his own little world at present, failing to acknowledge her even as she walked her fingers along the back of his chair as passed by behind him.

Content to be ignored for a change, she kept her unnerved curiosities to herself and left it at that.

Shego wandered back to the hall to find her bedroom. She rifled through her belongings, hoping in vain that she still had a pack of crackers left in the bottom of her bag, but no leftover car snacks were found.

She flopped down on the secondhand mattress with a huff to frown at the fanged ceiling, left to wonder when she’d be given something to do. He’d said he wanted a thief, didn’t he? So why wasn’t she out looting? This was downtime, she supposed, but that didn’t make her any less restless.

Antsy was an understatement.

Left to her own devices to occupy herself, she wasted little time before she began peeking into the other rooms.

Although it could be assumed they were off limits, Dr. Drakken hadn’t explicitly told her to stay out of them. Only to stay on this level. Besides the bathroom and her room, she found a couple cluttered storage rooms with shelves piled high from floor to ceiling and mountains of junk stacked on the floor. It was so packed full of boxes and scrap metal, papers and rolled-up plans in disarray, that she didn’t dare to step foot inside in fear of a junk avalanche. She had a hunch much of it had been simply thrown inside from the room now allocated to her.

She discovered the only other door in the corridor, a simple archway located at the very end, lead directly down a crude flight of stairs. The other floors Dr. Drakken had warned her to stay off tempted her, the echo acting as a siren’s song reeling her in. After a moment of hesitation and a cagey glance over her shoulder toward the lab, she descended.

As she wandered down the eerie staircase lit by more sconces, she wondered inwardly if the architect had put any thought into the floor plans or if he’d just utilized caverns and crevices as he found them. She supposed probably the latter.

The steps were carved into the stone, sloping through a winding fissure, and after some ways she came around a bend that opened up to a spacious office with walls lined in hefty tomes, shelves of dusty literature from floor to ceiling. A crescent Hench Co. brand office desk and matching chair sat at one end with some filing cabinets behind it, and at the other, tucked into a niche, was an unmanned surveillance system. Between them, a well-fed fireplace blazed to keep the chill off despite the fact it was still summer. The main door was just an arch carved into the stone, leading out to a dark empty corridor.

While exploring deeper was tempting, the CCTV grasped her attention instead. She zeroed in on the array of monitors, squinting up at grainy black and white feedback.

After a moment of scanning them, Shego was content to find that no security cameras overlooked private areas like bathrooms or bedrooms.

There were some henchmen about in a cafeteria, some starting their day early and others ending it. A couple were busy spit-polishing boots and hefty batons. One brute jabbed another in jest in much the same way one might snap a twisted towel in a locker room, and it became clear the sticks were more like cattle prods than something a majorette would twirl. Shego made a mental note to be wary of them.

In another grainy image, she found herself, and she almost looked back to search for the camera behind her like a kid in a grocery store.

Finally, the lowest screens were filled with feed from a handful of outdoor cameras watching the perimeter, and in one in particular, she could make out scarce white dots of a town just beyond the fence and spindly pine. It was still dark out.

She reckoned the burrow lair had been built into a hillside. If she had to, she’d guess Dr. Drakken’s first conquest would be the town it overlooked. In her short career as a hero, she’d seen the scenario play out about several times before, in Go City and in neighboring metropolises. It never worked. The longest she’d seen a city in lockdown under a madman’s rule was one week, tops.

There wasn’t much going on at this hour, vacant corridors and rooms bearing little interest, so Shego drifted away from the CCTV system. Wandering deeper into the lair was still alluring – if only for the sake of doing something she was told not to – but as she passed Dr. Drakken’s desk on her way, the stack of mail persuaded her to swing around and plop into his chair instead.

At least when it came to his creature comforts, he wasn’t so stingy. It still didn’t make up for the risky construction that could come caving in at the slightest tremor though.

Shego eyeballed the accumulation of mail and newspapers, and bit her lip as she wrangled with her self-restraint, but then she decided that an address could give her an idea where she was, so it was worth snooping a little.

The mail was originally delivered to a P.O. box. She’d expected that much. It was a shot in the dark, but she’d still held out the hope she might recognize a name. She didn’t of course. Nevada was a big state, and Las Vegas and Reno were the only places to come to mind anyway.

With a puff, she tossed the stack of bills unceremoniously back on the desk.

She almost got up and left, but something else caught her eye and made her stomach lurch. She deliberately locked her gaze on the other end of the desk, staring intently away from the newspapers screaming for her attention.

Biting down hard on her lip, Shego wove her fingers in her lap and squeezed her eyes shut tight, giving herself a stern talking-to that didn’t help settle her heart or the queasy tumult in her belly. Glimpsing Go City on the headline of a newspaper clear across the continent didn’t bode well. Her brother was dead and gone. She was ready to accept that as a fact. At least she tried to tell herself so.

She felt her chest tighten as a pesky sob tried to bubble up – dammit, she thought she was done with that – and she gulped it back and drew a deep breath.

Shego kept her eyes lowered as she reached across the desk for the unread newspaper. She looked anywhere but at the damn paper as she unfolded it, keeping her eyes on the ceiling, the fireplace, the staircase, herself on the CCVT feed across the room.

She was trembling.

She needed to know.

Her eyes darted down almost involuntarily – she caught the word stable – but she didn’t dare give herself false hope.

Breathing deep and bracing herself, she finally let her eyes focus down on the paper laid out on the desk, because she couldn’t risk holding onto it anymore without incinerating it. She still felt sick, but she was glad she found the guts to face facts.

Go City Hero Bounces Back, read yesterday’s headline of a national newspaper.

As big as the words were, it instantly became a blur as Shego set eyes on the photo featured across the front page. Although Hego was in a wheelchair, and despite an ugly welt and half his face being engulfed in bruising peeking out from his bandages, the knucklehead was grinning. Dressed in matching red harlequin uniforms, the Wego twins sat in his lap wearing weak smiles for the camera. Mego was left to push the chair, looking extra unhappy.

Shego didn’t have to read the article. She didn’t need to know anymore about the status of his recovery or what therapy he’d be undergoing. She didn’t have to read her brother’s quote pleading the public to keep their eyes peeled for the missing member of Team Go to help bring her home, or that there was an investigation underway to find the suspicious man she was last seen with, or about the search parties that were sure to be sweeping the tri-state area for the body of a young woman they’d never find.

The headline alone had told her all she needed to know.

She didn’t look at the photo of her family for more than a moment before skewing her eyes shut again, as if that would be enough to stop the tears from welling up. She couldn’t stand to see her brother looking the way he did, knowing she’d done it to him, and she hated herself that it even bothered her. How was she supposed to be expected to become a hardened criminal accomplice if she couldn’t handle a little backstabbing? He’d lived. It could have been worse. He’d deserved it anyway, hadn’t he?

She couldn’t stand another minute of feeling as if her brothers were looking up at her in betrayal from the photograph, and with a sound of footsteps coming to her attention, she folded the tear-blotched newspaper in a hurry and rubbed her eyes on her sleeve.

If she’d hoped to sneak back to her room before she was caught, she was sorely disappointed, because it happened the footsteps belonged to none other than Dr. Drakken.

And he was already halfway across the office, wearing a deep displeased frown as he caught her behind his desk. “What did I say about—oh no,” he groaned, pausing before he reached his desk. His face twisted into a grimace. “If you’re going to be having issues, take them to your room.”

“Thanks for the support,” Shego tartly grumbled past her sleeves as she patted her damp cheeks dry. Her throat was too tight to say more.

He snorted as if in disgust, but it faded to a look of akin to concern as she sulked by. “Alright, I give,” he huffed impatiently to her back. “What, pray tell, is the matter with you now?”

“Nothing.”

“What?” Dr. Drakken squawked as he followed her to the stairs, miffed and baffled. “But you were just—”

He needed to keep his stupid nose out of her personal issues before she broke it. “It doesn’t matter,” she explained, and hurried up to put distance between them. The man on her heels might have seen her at her rock-bottom lowest in the past, that didn’t mean she wanted him catching her with bloodshot eyes now.

“Women,” he scoffed in flippantly under his breath, just a few steps behind her. “One of life’s great mysteries.” He didn’t back off.

Emerging into the corridor at the top, Shego spun around to face him as she shuffled backwards. She’d had a moment to ease the tightness in her throat and will away the tears, and was keen to change the subject before he could push it. “So anyway, Doc,” she said, voice still hoarse, “anywhere I can get some grub around here?”

Dr. Drakken tripped on the top step and fixed her in an incredulous stare. His mouth opened and closed, and it looked like he was about to ignore her inquiry in favor of demanding answers to his, but he wisely gave up. “Well, usually…” he mumbled, and scratched his neck with a frown casting over his mug as he glanced back down the stairwell. He hummed uneasily to himself.

Shego surmised he was accustomed to passing off new recruits to the senior henchmen in the lower levels, letting them show newcomers the ropes. But after her wily behavior in the car with his crew, she’d blown her chances of associating with them anytime soon. Given the dubious criminal records of henchmen in general, she didn’t question the decision to keep her separate as precaution. He could have given accommodating her a little more thought, but then again, this had all been rather sudden.

“You’re hungry,” he said bluntly, requesting clarification but sounding more like he was speaking to a new unexpected pet he was realizing he was wholly unprepared for. He looked back down the stairwell, mumbled, “mess hall,” to himself and shook his head. “I have some—,” he began, but Shego was quick to interrupt.

She’d seen his pantry, and she wasn’t interested.

“Can I borrow the car?” she brazenly asked, failing to sugarcoat it. “Is there a 24-Seven around here? I could really go for something icy.”

Dr. Drakken surveyed her through narrowed eyes. “Yes to the convenience store, no to borrowing my wheels,” he said, and strutted ahead with hands clasped behind his back as if he was ready to go back to ignoring her.

“Come on,” she whined, following close behind.

“What collateral do I have? If I hand you my keys, there’s no guarantee you’ll come back,” he reasoned. “If you leave, that’s your choice, but I would like to not lose my car in the process.”

“Dude, if I wanted to steal it, I wouldn’t be asking permission,” she scoffed.

“You can go. You just aren’t going alone.”

Shego frowned at him for giving her a runaround as she followed him to the exit, the suspicion rising that he intended go with her himself rather than send a henchman to babysit her. Which she couldn’t really complain about.

Letting him lead, she was quiet all the way back to the oversized garage before she finally piped up. “You know, you’re going to have to actually trust me eventually.”

Dr. Drakken didn’t spare her a glance, but he barked a single incredulous laugh that echoed throughout the warehouse and made her jump. “You turned your back on countless people who believed you to be a hero, including your own family.” Rubbing salt in her wounds was indeed evil, but Dr. Drakken ignored her glare boring into him and he shook his head. “Whatever you did to earn that trust, I’m afraid you may have to work harder to earn mine.”

He patted down the pockets of his trousers then, finding his keys, and held them out toward Shego. She took the set with a look of suspicion replacing her scowl. She racked her brains to figure out what trickery Dr. Drakken was up to as he took the passenger seat and she climbed in behind the wheel.

“Um…I don’t know this town,” she noted as the oversized garage door groaned open at the press of a button on some remote Dr. Drakken tossed back under the seat. “So you’ll have to point for me.”

With an arrogant snort, Dr. Drakken crossed his legs and folded his arms behind his head. “No, thank you,” he said airily, and a wicked grin cracked across his face for a moment. “I think I’ll watch you figure it out yourself.”

Shego glared incredulously at him for a second, but groaned and rolled her eyes and didn’t argue. She could threaten him into compliance, but using her glow on another person right now was the last thing she wanted to do.

A henchman patrolling the perimeter met them at the main gates to open up. He must not have met her yet, because he greeted her with alarmed gawp and reached for a radio on his belt. But then Dr. Drakken leaned over and waved, and the bumbling goon proceeded to roll open the chain-link gate in haste.

Shego had to follow her intuition to decide which direction to go when she reached the road, and she was pleased with herself when she discovered she’d made an acceptable choice. Nonetheless, Dr. Drakken judged her wordlessly in the dark, his only cues being quiet hums and grunts. They rolled into town within minutes, and although Shego asked him twice and even shoved him in an attempt to bully directions out of him, he only chuckled and told her, “You’re on your own, kid.”

He was of absolutely no help, and let her drive around the sleeping town for a good ten or twenty minutes with heat rising in her face. Locating a damn 24-Seven convenience store wasn’t the most difficult task Shego had ever accomplished. It was just among one of the most recently trivially frustrating things.

She’d almost left the store without paying, but Dr. Drakken snatched her by the arm to drag her back to the register. The clerk gave the strange duo, the blue man in particular, a funny look when he rang them up, and Shego elbowed her escort to remind him that she’d paid for the last tank of gas, so he owed her. He narrowed his eyes at her, but returned the favor nonetheless.

As they left, he explained it was better not to cause a stir in one’s town of residence, particularly important when it was such a small town where everyone supposedly knew everyone.

Dr. Drakken provided directions back to the lair, but Shego took them with a grain of salt, taking an “accidental” detour and passing his driveway. She found the shoulder room to pull over, and cut the engine. She wasn’t ready to trap herself back in that stuffy burrow he called a lair just yet.

“What are you doing now?” Dr. Drakken griped as she unbuckled.

Shego ignored him, pushing open the sunroof and climbing out, taking her frozen drink and sub sandwich with her. He scowled up at her perching above him, but seemingly accepted where she’d chosen to have her meal. He didn’t drag her back down by an ankle, anyway. The whole trip, he’d been fairly consistent in his objections to eating in the car, so he broke into his own plastic-wrapped turkey sub with great reluctance.

Sipping a cold fruity drink that reminded her of home, Shego shut her eyes and imagined the briny sea breeze was blowing instead of an arid Nevada wind. Without the distant sound of waves and gulls and boats and the ever-present white-noise of metropolitan traffic, she had a hard time picturing it.

She nibbled her food and pretended she was only looking out at Go City from a different angle than she was used to, but it simply wasn’t vast enough. The sleepy town below her was nothing but a puddle of light. She quickly became disappointed because she couldn’t find any substitutes for the landmarks, and the newly-constructed Go Tower was nowhere to be seen either of course.

For a moment, it stung deep inside to accept that this wasn’t Go City. She couldn’t just walk into town and let homing instinct kick in to guide her home and back to her own room, her own bed, where she would wake up in the morning to her father telling her to drive the twins to school. She wouldn’t see her big brother’s smiling face tomorrow, wouldn’t be forced to put up with her pompous little brother’s attitude, or her baby brothers’ need for a substantial parental figure.

Her breath hitched as grief tried to catch up to her and drown her again.

A voice below her cut through the thoughts of her brothers in the next moment.

“Shego?” Dr. Drakken called up tentatively, but she had a hard time tearing her eyes off the pathetic puddle of glitter to look down at him. “Is there something you need to get off your chest?”

She swallowed thickly. “You’re not my psychiatrist,” she retorted, and took a long sip of her melting drink, but it did nothing to ease the choking sensation. She shook her head anyway and huffed, “Nah.”

“Well, something is the matter,” he acknowledged sourly below her. “I need you in working order. So if there’s anything you need to tell me, then spill it already.”

But Shego was silent. Even if she wasn’t too guarded to open up just like that, she didn’t know how to begin. As she chewed it over between bites of her sandwich, she could feel him watching her in the dark with a withering glare for the longest time.

After another moment, Dr. Drakken spoke again. “Maybe you can answer questions better,” he grumbled. “This whole thing – you taking me up on my offer and coming with me, I mean – it wasn’t just done for no good reason. So what really made you decide to come with me? And – and why were you handcuffed? What mess did you get yourself into—?” He shut his trap as she tensed under his pressing questions, and silenced himself with a dry mouthful of turkey sub.

“I’d rather not say,” Shego muttered eventually from above. “It’s personal.” A lump in her throat still threatened to choke her and her eyes still stung.

Dr. Drakken washed down the bite with his coke. “I can understand that,” he said reluctantly with a slow nod. “I just hope it doesn’t follow you here.”

It was bound to, sooner or later, but she wasn’t ready to warn him about it.

He grunted a warning for her to watch out as he stood up then, shoving her knees aside to make her move so he could awkwardly squeeze out to join her. He took a spot on the edge of the sunroof across from her to analyze her, his eyes skewed against the dark.

Then he turned his frown to the puddle of town glitter and blew a pathetic raspberry. “I really did try to honor your wishes in Go City by not prying into your personal life, but I need to know, for peace of mind, why you ran away,” he explained, but she was silent, denying him answers. “More importantly, if you regret it.”

The bruising on her wrists told her no. The ache in her heart and the bruising on her stomach however screamed yes.

She was slow to reply, but before she did, she reached across the distance. He jerked back, but not quick enough to dodge her fingers hooking into his hair. She grimaced as she pictured where she had struck her brother. It took her a moment to realize he had her fixed in a perturbed stare, and she withdrew her curious hand and sheepishly averted her eyes.

It was stupid, but somehow it eased the ache in her chest a little to be reassured that she could still touch somebody without accidentally killing them with a plasma blast. Any normal human would have been toast after what she’d done.

The lump in her throat made it impossible to sound fine. She hung her head and shook it. “I did something really bad that I didn’t mean to,” she muttered under her breath. It felt like a big secret leaving her lips, but it was probably plastered all over the news back home. “It just shook me up is all. But – y’know – he deserved it.”

Her lips zipped shut before anything else could slip out. Her melting slushy did little to cool her down.

Dr. Drakken didn’t need the play by play or every reason why. He didn’t need to know about overeager Hugo jumping the gun and signing her up for the whole ordeal in his excitement to form a superhero team, or about the months she’d spent as GJ’s little lab rat being stuck with needles and trained before being thrown to the wolves at the tender age of fifteen. She didn’t need to lament on how the whole hero scene was a thankless job and a load of bullshit. He didn’t need to hear about her withdrawals, and he certainly didn’t need to see her shaking and holding herself together now.

He only needed to know she most definitely wasn’t having second thoughts.

After a moment, she sensed a smirk had come over Dr. Drakken, and shot a glare up at him. “Something bad, hmm?” he crooned, as though genuinely interested, and then jokingly asked, “What was it? Did you kill someone?” His chuckles faded fast when he picked up on her guilty silence. If the quip was meant to cheer her up, it backfired.

“Dr. Drakken, if you just let me take my secrets to my grave, I’ll do anything you ask,” she practically begged.

The man sipped his coke and sized her up before cocking his head at her, a wry smirk back on his face. “Really? Anything, you say?” he teased, making another attempt to lighten the mood. She could sure use some cheering up, but he didn’t seem to know how to do it. She wasn’t even sure how he could do it. But one thing was for sure – using that tone of voice wasn’t it.

Shego realized quickly what the bargain could entail, but was comforted with the knowledge that she always had the willpower to deny the most ridiculous requests. She hadn’t yet signed any binding contracts, and even if she had, she’d break it. “Almost anything.”

“How do you feel about stealing a radioactive power cell from a military base?” Dr. Drakken wondered, grinning.

It threw her for a loop, and she stared at him in a stupor for a long moment before an incredulous smirk found its way onto her face. Maybe he did know how to cheer her up. It was a far better absurd request than she could have hoped for anyway. “This military base wouldn’t be Area 51, would it?” she wondered with a small laugh.

Dr. Drakken leaned back on a hand, smirking as he raised his bottle of coke to take another swig. He shrugged nonchalantly, as if such an undertaking was no big deal. He was undoubtedly insane if he thought so. “Possibly.”

Shaking her head, the ex-hero couldn’t help laughing quietly to herself. Was this man really that nuts? He had some big dreams, alright. “Sounds fun,” Shego said amicably. She wasn’t sure if she was joking. She’d need more details.

“You’re up to it?” He almost sounded surprised, but maybe he was more delighted by her consideration than anything.

“Possibly,” she threw back at him.

He blinked away the shock. “Oh. Alright. Uhh…” He sat forward again, rubbing his neck, and laughed feebly before his smile fell. “It’s not Area 51, but I’ve lost a couple of men to it,” he clarified apathetically. “They couldn’t fit through ventilation ducts. But I imagine there are certain things a woman with magic hands could do that the average henchman can’t. I could stand a chance with you.”

“You sure you can keep up with me?” she jeered with a wry smile. “Because if you think I’m putting my life on the line alone, you have another thing coming.”

Dr. Drakken threw her a dirty look, but rolled his eyes and scoffed. “I think you and I are going to get along splendid.”

“Good,” said Shego, swinging her legs and taking a stab at her frozen drink. “I was beginning to think you couldn’t handle a teenager.”

“Yes, well, you won’t be one for much longer,” he dismissed, flapping a hand. “At least you’re not jailbait.”

In an impish effort to put him back in his place before he got too high on his horse, she kicked his shin, not enough to hurt, but enough he shot her a glare. “Hey, Dr. D?” she called over between sips of her icy drink. “Thanks for taking a chance on me.”

“Likewise,” he replied, and moved his legs safely out of the way of another swing. “Now about that power cell. I’d like to have it by Thursday.”

A/N:

I just wanna mention that "I would like to not lose my car in the process" bit absolutely alludes to something that happens later. aaahahaha

#screams into oblivion.#The Company You Keep fic

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be17forever · 5 years

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My Honest Review of “An Ode”

Let me preface this by saying, I am absolutely a Carat, I’ve been a Carat since Mansae era, and I will continue to be a Carat. That said, there were a lot of things in this newest album “An Ode” that made me really think. I wanted to review and process my thoughts on the album honestly, as a fan, as a music lover, as a listener.

1. Hit: I don’t really think I need to delve into it because a lot of my initial reactions have been blunted since I’ve been repeating it pretty non-stop for a month now. Key point: I really didn’t appreciate the song much on first listen and not even with the whole performance. I mean, the performance is definitely impressive, but it didn’t really jive with the music or wow me in a way that “Getting Closer” did. However, I blasted it on speakers, realized that’s what the song was really suited for, and really came to appreciate it a lot more.

2. Lie Again: Hands down my favorite song on the album. It obviously cannot be a choice for title song, but the quality is really close to what I expect from a title song. Great choice for instrumentals, great catchy chorus despite it being a mellow slower song, good build up through the verses. Vernon’s part references DWC, and this self-referencing is what I love about Seventeen. It is the best part of being a long-term serious fan of their music, though I know it can be divisive because it alienates new listeners (though DWC was fairly popular, so maybe not?) This song is the follow-up song that DWC deserved instead of “Without You” (possibly my least favorite sub-song from Seventeen, ever, and definitely my least favorite on Teen, Age). The bit after the bridge is a bit of a weak point, but not super jarring to the whole song. Great mixing. I don’t look at line distribution for each song because I don’t think a measure of “how much” part a member got in a 13-member group really means anything, but nothing stood out as a particular problem. Overall, a very well-rounded and well-executed song. There’s really not much to say because I think the song speaks well for itself.

3. Fear: I hate saying negative things about it because it is the title track and I have been so looking forward to it, but there were some points that made it just lackluster. Some errors were glaring, to a point that I don’t think I’ve ever felt about their songs, not even in the early days.

First, some positives. I think “Fear” did really well in terms of synthesizing the R&B base with slightly Arabian/Eastern/Medieval thematic bits with EDM, hip-hop, and their usual rock elements. It sounds like something I might have heard on the radio in mid-2000′s but with contemporary elements that remind me we’re in 2019 already. This entire album is fairly consistent in keeping to the R&B genre, which is honestly a hard move for them because Seventeen has been more rock or punk-rock based for so many of their albums in the past. “Fear” has also managed to keep the HHU from pitching their lines too low. The HHU, including Wonwoo, are not naturally low deep gravelly when they rap. They can pull off that kind of sound in studio, but it’s really difficult to do when they perform live. That’s why you’ll hear them often just doing their lines in a completely different tone than the recorded line. I hope they continue this decision into future songs because it makes it less jarring to hear the rap lines during live performances. Seungkwan’s voice shines like no other in this song. The song really plays to the best qualities of his vocal style. I know lately, there have been accusations of under-utilizing the main vocalists, but no one can say that with this song because it is clear that Seungkwan was very well incorporated into the song. Jeonghan also really fit well into the style of the song. His vocals really stand out, which is a huge achievement for someone who was not utilized much at Seventeen’s debut.

That said, there are just a lot of things that felt sloppy to me about this song. Now, I cannot tell if these are mistakes or deliberate stylistic choices. However, some of these points are not just my personal opinions, they kinda go against the rules in a meaningless way. The mixing is really clumsy with the song. The beginning line from Wonwoo sounds a lot like how Mingyu started “Getting Closer”. But the glaring difference is that there is no musical anticipation into the part, nor is there a momentum out of that part before the first drop into the verses. There are so many quick fixes they could have done to the little instrumental that comes after his part to offset this, but because of the lull, the song immediately loses impact. I’m not sure what kind of effect they were going with doubling Joshua’s part. It sounds unnecessary, but I do like that they started absolutely bare with just the voice for the verse. It creates at least a little bit of tension into the rest of the first verse, which builds up by ping-ponging between more vocally artistic lines and rhythmic rap. Everything gets wrapped up by Seungkwan’s “Someone tell me, what should I do?” And then.

Nothing.

They recover the momentum that was lost through the whole verse, and then there’s just no impact into the chorus. It’s a real shame because I think “The way I love” bit is fairly catchy, so if they had a strong start to the chorus, the whole thing could have been really catchy. Also, the chorus is just a bit too short for “The way I love” to shine. Mentally, I wanted to hear another repeat of the chorus. Now, I’ve made my peace a long time ago with the fact that Seventeen just isn’t really going to chase after trends for their title songs. They’re not going to force themselves into a catchy hook just so the song can be catchy. But “The way I love, the way I love”-- that line is just so naturally perfect as a catchy tune, so it’s a little disconcerting that this wasn’t taken an advantage of.

I really like the idea of taking away the instrumentals and having Jeonghan just stand alone with that whispery, haunting voice to give a fresh-start feeling for the second verse and keep it from being stale. However, I do believe there was a legitimate mixing error for this part. You can barely hear his part during this section if you keep a constant healthy non-eardrum-perforating volume on the song. If it is that hard to hear his part, casual listeners won’t even pay attention to it. And the whole cessation of the instrument and how wistful Jeonghan’s voice is should have made this part the absolute high point of the song. You do not have to lower the volume so low on the vocal track to keep the atmosphere because you literally just cut away the backing instrumental and his tone is enough to give that feeling. I just have a difficult time getting past this as just a stylistic choice. The second verse is also quite boring compared to the first aside from Jeonghan’s part. Coups’s verse tries to give a little change on the rhythm, but it just doesn’t really work for me, personally. Then we move into the chorus, but it’s better this time because of the little “Oh, oh, oh” break and “The way I love” repeating.

I really feel quite neutral about the bridge. It doesn’t really stand out until it launches into “This is love”. And then there’s just a lot of overlapping elements. I’m not sure if they felt pressured into trying to use all of the members, or as many as they can, for this last bit, but there’s just a lot going on in not a particularly cohesive way. The two vocalists belting, for example, is quite impressive but feels like an afterthought.

The reason why this song fell a little short for me were primarily the editing choices that made me keep guessing if a certain effect was there intentionally or if it was a mistake. If it was an error, that is something that should not have gone uncaught on the first full albums in 1.5 years; if it was intentional, it was poorly executed. The lyrics-- I’m going to be completely honest. I’m fairly fluent in Korean, and the lyrics are really confusing. I’m not sure what kind of message they’re trying to send-- don’t love me, I’m poison, love me, my mind is corrupted, I’m afraid... If Woozi one day said that this was a song representing a conversation between two people or like a case of DID and two personas within a person warring, that would be a plausible explanation of what’s going on in the lyrics. And Seventeen lyrics are usually not like this at all. Seventeen songs have fairly elegant and figurative lines, cohesive story that makes sense, etc.. It’s part of why the song sounds good as segments (aka the teaser bits) but doesn’t really work together when it all comes together.

I do still really like the overall genre of the song. They were really true to incorporating all the elements they said they would use. The HHU, I felt, was more well-incorporated than they have been for the last few comebacks. Seungkwan and Jeonghan’s voices pop out like no other. And it’s really, really difficult to make a dance song that is in a minor key and using scales/progressions that are not part of the more typical, Western music and have it sound natural but sophisticated. I imagine it may even grow on me after a while. But there were just some choices that felt a little bit flat and unpolished compared to what I had anticipated from the teasers.

4. Let Me Hear You Say: I felt very meh about this song. It’s a cutesy song, and it serves its purpose. Nothing really stands out good or bad about the song. It reminds me a little bit of “Without You”. Let Seventeen have one cutesy almost-vapid song on their album, ok?

5. 247: Definitely not my style, but it blends well with the R&B theme of the whole album. It has all of the elements of those sticky R&B bedroom anthems reminiscent of male solo artists like Taeyang, Rain, or (for those closer to my age) Brian McNight. But minus the stickiness. I do wish that they incorporated a little bit of team element to it-- this whole song could have been sung by a single male artist and I would not have felt weird about it. A group should be accomplishing something different than what a solo artist brings to the table. This is my least favorite performance unit song from Seventeen, but that is not saying much because all performance unit songs are, in my definition, glorious hits, home runs, true bangers. This one just fell a little short of legendary.

6. Second Life: I hear the “hip-hop” elements... ok, Woozi, ok. I appreciate that Seventeen’s vocal unit feels more adventurous than sticking to ballads. This is also a quite meh song for me. The weird stop in the bridge is a bit jarring... to be honest, I don’t think anyone on the vocal unit could have pulled off the effect they were trying to go for, though. I think the lyric content is really warm and appealing to a slightly older audience.

7. Network Love: I love this song, and not just because I’m a filthy American 외퀴. I love the theme of it. I love the playfulness they have with the lyrics (“I 좋아 = 아이 좋아”). That is also another divisive element about Seventeen’s music that I love but sometimes alienates the public. The whole build up and drop into the chorus is just masterful. The lyrics are witty. If this was a group song, it could have been a decent contender for title song. The theme is very relevant and authentic. Honestly, if Lie Again was a little less perfect, this would be my favorite off the album.

8. Back It Up: We’re starved for a good HHU song, ok? What a great addition to the HHU’s discography AND this album simultaneously. I mean, my favorite is and will always be “Un Haeng Ill Chi” and “Check In” is also just so well-polished, but “Back It Up” is a great change of pace. I like that they just went ham on the lyrics, on the song, on the mixing. It shows the versatility of the song’s creators. The only sad thing is that the lyrics are so confident and ambitious about achieving more as a group, but in real life, this kind of drive and ambition is only expressed in the 3-ish minutes they have on stage and not reflected in the aggression of their activities and artistic direction.

9. Lucky: I wonder if Woozi is secretly on a mission to receive credit for the best use of pan flutes and bossa nova elements in a kpop song. He’s managed it once with “Fast Pace” and now he’s done it again with “Lucky”. It’s a very light song. There are a lot of things in this song that can be difficult to pull off because they’re not conventional, but it really works on the macro level. A stark contrast to how “Fear” fails to make unconventional choices sound intentional and cool. I love that the lyrics tell us to “slow down” and the whole song has that on-your-toes kind of fluttery rhythm. Light, bouncy, solid group b-side.

10. Snap Shoot: This must have been a strong contender as a title song. I’m almost mad that it’s not (even though it is completely contrary to the whole dark Seventeen/growth theme they’re trying to turn over in 2019). The choir starting the song off is perfectly whimsical. It really took advantage of many of the members. For example, Joshua and Woozi sing comparable parts in verses 1 and 2. But they sing it with their own flow and style, it almost feels like a completely different melodic line. And it works well for both of them. The chorus is super catchy. The concept of the song is really true to the times. It can really work as a summer or a winter song. Very universal, very likable. There’s absolutely no rule that Seventeen “must” do a bright, poppy song. I think that frame is something we have to keep resisting against, especially for older fans who’ve seen the peak of the carefree boyish days. But if we look at the songs that they’re really known to the public for, such as Aju Nice, Pretty U, and Mansae, they certainly have that brightness as a known group characteristic, and they’ve nailed getting a cohesive and inclusive group sound down to a science since those early days. So it naturally follows that Snap Shoot sounds almost effortlessly perfect.

11. Happy Ending (Korean ver.): I know people really want Korean versions of the Japanese releases because the Japanese singles/titles are great, and they show off new elements of Seventeen. But I am of the camp that if a song has lyrics in it, the melodic line must accompany the natural rhythm and flow of the lyrics, not the other way around (reinforced by my one-time brief conversation with Sondheim). Have you ever seen the “Kevin may not be smart, but he’s strong” meme? That’s what the song feels like to me. And this will happen for any song you try to translate into another language. It’s so, so, so difficult to keep the fluency of the words while retaining most of the original melody. Not saying it’s impossible, but this particular version did not excel in this regard and the new version only made me want to sing “Kikasete, kikasete” every time because the original was just so catchy.

Final thoughts: This will not be a make-or-break album for me. I still hear a lot of the Seventeen I fell in love with or grew to appreciate. Some of the b-sides from this album, like Lie Again and Network Love, were truly great songs. But this made the less stellar songs stick out even more in contrast. I did like that they’re venturing into the “dark Seventeen” territory more because as much as old fans love it and still miss it, the teenagers are no longer teenagers and Seventeen does not have to box themselves into one image. I really appreciate that they changed up the basis of their sound to the more R&B territory, undoubtably guided by Bumzu, who has quite a history in that area. And they really stuck to it through the album. Though not as cohesive as YMMDay had been, the album does play like the songs, for the most part, belong together. That is kind of a lost art in the kpop world nowadays. CD’s are for pretty packaging, the tracklist shows off the width of the group at best, and no one seems to care for how the songs work together in order. When you listen to “An Ode”, it sounds like an entire album. Seventeen is a group in kpop that is quite counter-cultural in this way. I also really appreciate the effort that went into the music video production. I’m not sure if it was intentional, but it was a lot of things that the fans had been asking for a long, long time. The visual for the music video for “Fear” is definitely striking and appealing. That’s a big part of the music in kpop, so it would be irresponsible not to mention how well the MV works with the music.

That said, there are few disappointments and choices that seemed questionable, especially when it comes to title track “Fear”, which should be their best song from the first full length album they’re dropping in over 1.5 years. As a Carat, I cannot be afraid to speak about things that are not working for me in this album. First off, I don’t have this delusion of grandeur that because I had some suggestions about improvements to this album, Seventeen members will take my specific words to heart and be so hurt and broken over it. If they don’t get the kind of reception they were hoping for, it can be saddening. But they still have literally thousands of Carats-- including myself-- supporting their future endeavors. Second, just because the members worked on the album themselves does not mean there’s no room for constructive criticism and feedback from the fans, industry professionals, and even the general listener. I appreciate all the hard work and sleepless nights they put into the album and simultaneously have things that I wish were thought through more carefully. As a fandom, we can’t label everyone who points out a few flaws as a complete heretic. That’s how we only grow insular and never end up reaching full potential. When there is no room for criticism, no more feedback and no desire for changes from fans, that’s when a group hits stasis. And as my old chemistry teacher (perhaps erroneously) liked to say: absolute equilibrium in a living thing means death.

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philosophronia · 5 years

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Ice Fantasia 2019

My daughter has been tucked into bed and taking a shower has jolted me awake, so I figured I might as well do my Ice Fantasia 2019 write up while the show is still fresh in my mind! I thought long and hard about how I should organize this write-up (long meaning the amount of time it took me to take a bath), and I came to the conclusion that it would be better for me to talk about each skater rather than each program, so that’s what I’ll do. I apologize in advance for the rambling nature of this review -- I’ll skim through it once after I’m done, but I probably won’t end up editing it extensively.

The show was divided into Acts I and II. I have the program to the left of my laptop as I type this, but the orders did change quite a bit from the time they printed these out and the time the show was performed. I’m sure they had their reasons for the changes, though, because overall, I felt that the skaters went with their “easier,” less energy-draining programs in Act I and showed off the power and energy they had in Act II. Good plan, in my opinion; it can’t be easy skating two programs + at least two group numbers!

I believe twenty skaters participated in this show. I say “I believe” because there was a group number with what I remember to be six young Korean skaters, but it might have been eight or nine -- some of them did a solo snippet in the beginning and I’m not sure if those skaters are the same as the ones that did the short group number towards the end of that routine. The young skaters were absolutely darling and just a bundle of talent. There were maybe… three or four girls that came out in the beginning and did a bit of their program. Every single one of them landed their jumps and got a huge round of applause from the audience, which must have been such a special moment for them. Junhwan popped out at the end and did a bit of the group dance with them before disappearing backstage again. That was adorable!

According to the program, it were the junior skaters that were supposed to skate first (right after the opening), but they changed it around so that Seoyeon Ji skated first. She did a program to River by Bishop Briggs and nailed it! She’s a pretty tiny skater, but she skated big and wasn’t afraid to hit the accents. I would’ve been a nervous wreck had I been the one skating after the entire main cast’s group number, but the thirteen year old didn’t make any mistakes and was just a joy to watch.

Ok, now I’m just going to talk about the skaters in no particular order…

Jason Brown

It’s not an exaggeration to say that Jason stole the show. He came out third in Act I and gave such a charming performance to Can’t Stop the Feeling that he had the entire audience clapping and hollering in no time (kudos to everyone there for clapping on the beat). He’s the type of skater that… you know how sometimes, you see a skater that maybe doesn’t have the best technique and maybe doesn’t win the medals but always has your eyes drawn to them? That’s Jason. He’s an incredible performer, and although I knew this through watching his performances through YouTube, it was even more evident when he was skating in front of my eyes. Most of the people around me were people that were invited to the show by LG (aka folks that didn’t know any of the skaters), and the instant they sent him off backstage with a deafening applause, they turned to each other and went “That was so much fun.” Also, the way he does a little hop as he waves to the audience is endearing. You could tell that he was having a blast and appreciated the support he was receiving from the audience. Also, his split jump (I don’t know if that’s what it’s called, but there was this move that he did a ton where he jumped into the air and did a side split) had an incredible height to it. I don’t even know how he got up so high.

Evgenia Medvedeva

Zhenya did two programs: one to Million Roses and another to 7 rings. Neither program had jumps in it, which was a bit surprising, I suppose, but it didn’t take away from her performance at all. The Million Roses program was executed with such beauty that it wasn’t until she picked up her rose and left that I realized that she hadn’t jumped at all. From where I was sitting, I could see her putting in the effort to make her arms elegant but not floppy. It was beautiful! 7 rings was the second one she did, and that program really showed off her sass. The absence of jumps meant that she had more time for dance steps, which I personally enjoyed. I just hope that she didn’t take the jumps out because of an injury! D:

Peng Cheng - Jin Yang

So, I’m not a huge watcher of Pairs figure skating, simply because it makes me so darn nervous, but I really enjoyed their performance. In the first program they did, they skated with a sword, which did make me nervous but was tastefully used. Like the other skaters, their first program was the one that to me seemed like might take up less energy. Their second one was packed, though, and was a delight to watch. I believe it was the third act of Act II (after the junior kids and a group number that didn’t feature Tessa, Scott, and these two. They made every element look effortless. The audience gasped when they skated past them while executing their lifts (as did I). As I said, it seemed like many of them weren’t into figure skating and came because they got an invitation from their company, so they were in awe and shock for sure. Such a beautiful way to be introduced to pairs!

Jin Boyang

First of all, I’m fairly sure that if you look up the word ‘glide’ in the dictionary, a photo of Boyang will be right next to the definition. All of the skaters were fantastic, of course, but when Boyang skated, you couldn’t hear the sound of his blades about 80% of the time. I’m not exaggerating. His act was in the second half of Act I, and all throughout the program, I was thinking, “Wait… was it this quiet when the other skaters skated as well?” He skated with such grace, and his smile lit up the arena. His jumps were executed beautifully as well. I think he popped one, but honestly, I doubt that anyone remembered that mistake, because everything else was done really well.

Rika Kihira

Out of her two performances, I definitely enjoyed the second one (which was a routine to Sia’s The Greatest) more. I’m used to seeing Rika perform more slow and elegant programs (she might have done routines of similar styles in galas and other shows, but I’ve only watched her competing), but this one had a bit of a punch to it and a ton of dancing. I loved it! She had quite a bit of jumps in her programs, all of which she landed with no problem at all. Her costumes, too, were exquisite. I think she was the only one who had a different costume for each number (some of the skaters stayed in the costume they wore for their second solo performance for the finale, while others changed back to the costume they wore for their first solo performance). They were all beautiful, but the one she wore for her first solo act and the one she wore at the finale group number was breathtaking. They were ones she wore in competition, I believe. She was an absolute joy to watch, and I’m so glad she decided to hop over here and perform for the Korean audience!

Vladimir Besedin - Oleksiy Polishchuk

In addition to singles, ice dance, and pairs, Ice Fantasia had two ice acrobatic routines. I wasn’t sure what I expected to see when I read their names on the program, but holy cow. They came out and did some crazy stuff. There were balancing acts (at one point, one man was balancing on top of the other man’s head), spins, and plenty of panic-inducing moments. For example, at one point, the man that was balancing on top suddenly just went limp and dropped to the ice (the other man caught him, of course, but it looked like he didn’t!), and I screeched internally. Their acts were a treat to watch and so very different from anything else I’ve watched. I don’t know if anyone had their camera on while they were performing (I think most folks were too busy gaping at them to film), but I really hope someone did!

Kaetlyn Osmond

Out of all of the ladies, Kaetlyn skated the biggest. She filled up the entire rink and seemed like one of those skaters who performs for the entire audience and not just those that are sitting in the first couple of rows. I bet audience members that were sitting up on the second floor could feel and see her performance as well as people that were sitting in the front row. I feel like I’m just repeating the same thing over and over again, but she just skates that… big. The fact that she’s got those huge, gorgeous eyes didn’t hurt. XD I feel that the height, speed, and ice coverage of the singles skaters’ jumps are better highlighted when captured on camera than when seen in person sometimes, but with Kaetlyn, that was not the case at all. Her high speed and the extraordinary height her jumps reached were visible to the naked eye. Truly a beautiful skater!

Elladj Balde

I can’t speak more highly of Elladj Balde. His two performances were absolutely extraordinary. I didn’t know of him going into this show, but the moment his first program started, I knew he was a skater that had the same star-like quality that Jason Brown has. His musicality is exquisite, and the way he carries his upper body on the ice is breathtaking. His first program was to The Sound of Silence. It got a huge round of applause from the audience. But it was his second program that I’m sure will stick with the audience members for weeks, months, years. It was the Michael Jackson medley, and it was… awesome. Elladj Balde is an amazing dancer and that strength of his shone through with this routine. At the end of the routine, the audience screamed and clapped like they were at a K-Pop concert. I think he got the loudest applause of the entire show, and no one -- literally no one -- there knew who he was. That’s how good he was. I know a lot of you will want to look for videos that people posted of Tessa and Scott (nothing wrong with that -- they were amazing), but I urge you to see if anyone posted one of Elladj Balde as well.

Now, before you start bashing the Korean audience for enjoying a performance to a Michael Jackson medley, please be aware that a lot of what goes on in the US doesn’t reach Korea. Korea’s got their own share of issues and scandals that take up their newspapers and news channels. It’s not because they don’t pay attention to the news or that they tolerate abuse that they were fine with two Michael Jackson routines being in the show. I guarantee that most of them genuinely didn’t know. I bet a lot of them didn’t even know that Tessa and Scott’s second performance was to a MJ song!

Tessa Virtue - Scott Moir

Oh boy, oh boy. Where to start with these two? Most of the people that came to the show were probably there to see Tessa and Scott skate, and I’m sure that every single one of them left satisfied and very glad that they rushed from school, work, home etc. to see them. In the group routines, the two of them just sparkled. I was trying my gosh darn hardest to pay attention to the entire group as a whole, but I always found my eyes being drawn to Tessa at some point. That’s not to say that the other skaters were bad! They were good as well, but there’s just something about Tessa that makes you pay extra attention to her. I’m fairly sure I would’ve been able to pick out Tessa from the sea of skaters even if I’d been sitting up on the third floor. In general, their programs had a lot of dancing and some beautiful lifts. For the audience members that were expecting a competitive-routine-quality routine, it might have been a tad disappointing, but I felt that they came out and gave an entertaining and strong performance. Everyone always talks about Tessa’s dancing (rightfully so -- she’s a fantastic dancer), but Scott stood out quite a bit during this show as well. He is very expressive. He had the Kaetlyn-like quality, where the quality of his performance could be enjoyed by any audience in the arena, regardless of how far back they were sitting.

Their first routine was to Dark Times and the second one was to You Rock My World. Both performances were lovely and such a joy to watch. As I said, there was a lot of dance content in both of their programs, so audience members that weren’t really into figure skating could enjoy it as well. In the program, it was stated that Elladj Balde would do his Michael Jackson routine in Act I and Tessa and Scott would do theirs in Act II, but in the end, they ended up doing theirs one after another (Elladj first, then Tessa and Scott). An odd decision (they switched up the orders quite a bit), but it didn’t take away from the experience at all. Elladj came out and nailed his program, Tessa and Scott came out and nailed theirs, and the audience was more than happy to enjoy both of them.

Junhwan Cha

And last but not least, the star of the show, Junhwan! First of all, the level of support he got from the audience -- figure skating fan or not -- was incredible. He was the front and center for the group numbers and the last solo performer of each act and every time his name was announced, the audience started clapping and cheering loudly for him. Both of his skates were phenomenal. I remember a couple of the older ladies sitting behind me kept going “Is he Korean? Is he really Korean?” because they just could not believe that such a beautiful skater could be from their country! He looked like an anime character, gliding across the ice to his Romeo and Juliet medley. His skates were probably the most jam-packed with content out of all of the performances of the evening. He was also part of all of the group numbers, which must have been incredibly tiring, but he came out and performed every single one of them with a ton of energy. He never once looked floppy or tired. His second solo act was with a singer singing live right behind him. That one was a treat to watch live in person. The singer’s voice and Junhwan’s skating complemented each other so well.

So, uh… I guess that’s about it! I could probably go on and on about the show, but I tried to keep it short and simple. I’m sorry if it sounded like I was rambling 99% of the time! I hope it helped the enthusiasm I had for the show shine through XD Overall, I was just extremely grateful that these skaters took the time to fly out all the way to Korea (especially when many of them have other shows lined up) and perform for us and that I had the financial means to purchase tickets to go watch the show. I don’t know how expensive tickets to skating shows are in general (this is the first one I’ve been to), but all things considered, it wasn’t outrageously expensive, for which I was very, very thankful for :)

Some other highlights from the show included…

Kaetlyn and Junhwan doing a little shimmying at the beginning of the opening of the 2nd act, where they were paired together.

Zhenya shaking Junhwan’s hand so hard because she was bouncing up and down in excitement at the very end of the show when they were all holding hands in a circle.

The audience squealing every time Jason skid up to them and wooed them with his charm.

#here it is!#finished it just in time #i wasn't able to proofread it extensively because i have to go to work soon but...#hopefully it's not too dreadful of a read!#ice fantasia 2019

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bibliophileiz · 6 years

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The Three Fandoms Asks

I keep seeing this around tumblr, and it looks fun.

3 fandoms (I chose three important ones from my childhood)

1. Harry Potter - The Original Fandom. I mean, not the original original obviously, but probably the original for my generation. It was a huge part of my childhood and the story itself formed a lot of my opinions about how to tell good stories. I also have fond memories associated with this series -- Harry Potter was the first reason I ever had for Googling anything. “Harry Potter Book 5 news” and “Harry Potter Book 6 rumors” became frequent searches of mine. (The rumors took me to a lot of chat rooms where I read up on the wildest theories. It was a blast.) And then there were the midnight visits to Barnes and Noble and, in one memorable case, Walmart the nights of the book releases. Harry Potter was my childhood.

2. Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit - Like Harry Potter, these books (and movies) taught me a lot about storytelling. Tolkien’s works have become more complex to me as I’ve gotten older, and I’ve found there are plots and characters I like more now than I did as a kid (as opposed to Harry Potter, which my opinions about have mostly stayed the same). I also love Tolkien’s writing and world building. I’m one of the few people I know who enjoys reading all the poetry, and I read “The Council of Elrond” chapter three or four times before I got tired of it on Fellowship rereads. Lord of the Rings is a fantastic example of a really good book being adapted into really good movies. Both the book and the movies are each their own thing while also complementing each other. Just -- Lord of the Rings, man. I love it.

3. Charmed - Not as good, quality-wise, as the other two I’ll admit, but damn do I love this show. Before Charmed, I kind of watched whatever my family or friends watched -- my brother was a TV hog, and while I liked his cartoons ok, I didn’t like them nearly as much as I did Charmed when I discovered it. I got my dad watching it and it kind of became our thing. The Charmed Ones were kind of role models in a way. I can remember thinking, This is what being in my 20s will be like. Not the magic, but dating and clothes and deciding whether to go corporate or pursue your dream job or go back to school. People accuse the Charmed Ones of being boy crazy, but what I remember most about them is their work ethic. I thought, Prue prioritizes work, and I want to be like Prue. I love this show.

First character I loved:

1. Professor McGonagall is, has been and will always be my favorite character in anything ever. I also remember being small and redheaded and really liking Ginny Weasley before many other people did.

2. Arwen was the first, but that was only because she appears in the movies before Eowyn.

3. Prue. Although I like all four sisters.

The character I never expected to love so much:

1. Sirius Black is obviously introduced as this terrifying villain, so when I started reading Prisoner of Azkaban, I didn’t expect him to become one of my favorites. To be honest, my fan girl love of him has waned since I was a teenager, but I still appreciate him.

2. Sam Gamgee. Another of my favorite characters in all of literature, though I had to mature a bit before I felt that way. But Sam is so small and overlooked, yet he’s so loyal, brave, determined, sassy and just all around good. He’s a gardener, which is a profession Tolkien holds in high esteem. Also in the books he doesn’t have that awkward break-up with Frodo that he does in the movie, plus he’s less whiny. (To be clear, I’m criticizing the movie’s writing, not Sean Astin’s performance. He did great especially considering the material he had to work with, and he feels the same way about the character I do. Also, his book about making the movies, There and Back Again, is the first nonfiction book I ever read for fun.)

3. Cole Turner. I came into the show in Season 4 right as his baby was turning Phoebe evil, so I was like, “Ah, ruler of Hell, not good.” My dad and I had to start the show over and watch Season 3 to realize he’s one of Charmed’s most complex characters.

The character I relate to the most:

1. Probably Ginny, especially as a kid. We’re physically similar, but there’s also the temper and the fact that people always end up being surprised she’s as tough as she is. She and I also had to both grow out of self-esteem issues, though hers were more severe since they came from Chamber of Secrets-related trauma.

2. Pippin. He’s not sure if he’s actually qualified to be on that adventure, but hell if he’s being left behind. Also he’s small, like Ginny and me.

3. Prue. Sort of opposite of the Ginny stuff, she’s got the older sister syndrome of being responsible, in charge, bossy and often feeling like the only person who can get a job done right.(I don’t like having help with dishes or laundry, nor do I like assigning other reporters crime stories at work, as a couple of examples.) I am pretty protective of my younger brother and my mom always quoted It’s a Wonderful Life with the “you were born older” line when talking about me. Also like Prue, I tend to over-focus on work and not enough on my social life.

The character I’d slap:

1. Percy. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a fabulously complex and underrated character, but I would still slap him silly.

2. Denethor. I used language I’d never used before in the theater when he sent Faramir off to fight in Return of the King and I started laughing a few minutes later when Gandalf knocked him out with his staff.

3. Ugh. Leo. (Also Sam.)

Three favorite characters in order of preference:

1. McGonagall, Harry, Ginny. (That last one was insanely difficult as I also considered Snape, Lupin, Regulus and Luna.)

2. Sam, Eowyn then Aragorn (movies) and Bilbo (books).

3. Prue, Piper, Phoebe (Sorry Paige.)

Character I liked at first but don’t anymore:

1. I mean, I’m not going to say I don’t like Hermione, because I definitely do, but the movies wore me out by over-glamming her to the detriment of Ron Ginny other characters.

2. I like all the characters except Denethor, who I never liked. Ditto Grima Wormtongue.

3. Believe it or not, I liked Leo when I was a kid. (*shakes head at how naive 13-year-old Iz was*)

Character I did not like at first but do now:

1. Narcissa and Snape. This is not to say their views or the pro-Death Eater actions are ok, but they were both smart, they surprised me (always a plus) and they helped defeat Voldemort.

2. Didn’t like Boromir or Faramir at first, but now I love them.

3. Paige.

Three OTPs:

1. Harry/Ginny, Ron/Hermione, Lily/James

2. Arwen/Aragorn (in a doomed, tragic way. Seriously, read the Appendices.) Eowyn/Faramir and Linsdey Ellis got me liking Eowyn/Merry

3. Piper/Mark Chau (I will never be over it!), Paige/Henry, Phoebe/pretty much anyone, including but not limited to: Cole, baby Misha Collins (Eric Bragg) and Aviva from Season 1 (#Phoebeisbisexual).*

* I really just think that everyone Phoebe interacted with before Season 3 should have come back as a love interest after she and Cole divorced. Aviva would have been old enough for that by then, and we could have gotten great sub plots of Eric Bragg’s little conspiracy theory brain trying to figure out which secret organization the sisters work for before Phoebe tells him they’re witches. (Then he and Henry could meet for beers after work and talk about how goddamn weird their lives are.) Any of that would have been better than the post-Cole love interests Phoebe got. (One of them was named Leslie?? And he took her job?? Fuck Brad Kern, honestly.)

I’m going to break the rules by not tagging people, but whoever wants to play should go for it.

#harry potter #lord of the rings #charmed #professor minerva fucking mcgonagall #sam gamgee #prue halliwell #Ginny Weasley #anti-Leo Wyatt #also anti-Denethor in case he has any fans

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phantom-le6 · 4 years

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Film Review - The New Mutants

I’d originally been planning to go right into my backlog of TV series after my last film review, but instead I’ve opted to delay that slightly in favour of reviewing two further additions to my film collection. First up is the final film of Fox’s era of Marvel cinematic production, and to date the only cinematic adaptation of a spin-off group from my favourite Marvel heroes in terms of comics lore. This is my take on The New Mutants…

Plot (adapted from Wikipedia):

Danielle "Dani" Moonstar, a young Cheyenne Native American, escapes the destruction of her reservation during an apparent tornado. During the chaos, Dani's father, William, hides her before an unseen entity kills him, leaving her the only survivor. After being knocked unconscious, Dani awakens in a hospital run by Dr. Cecilia Reyes. Reyes comforts Dani, telling her she is a mutant, and advises her to remain in the hospital until she learns what her abilities are and controls them.

Dani is introduced to four other teenagers; Samuel "Sam" Guthrie, Illyana Rasputin, Roberto "Bobby" da Costa and Rahne Sinclair. Reyes has brought each of them to the hospital after they have all suffered tragedy; Sam brought down a whole mine on his father and coworkers, Roberto burned his girlfriend to death, Rahne escaped her religiously strict village after being branded as a witch, and Illyana was haunted by her past of child slavery and abuse, which manifests itself as otherworldly beings called the "Smiling Men". All of them possess mutant abilities; Roberto can manipulate solar energy, Sam can fly at jet speed, Illyana has inter-dimensional teleportation powers (as well as being a sorceress), and Rahne's lycanthropy allows her to turn into a wolf. Reyes herself is a powerful mutant who keeps her patients from leaving the facility by surrounding it with unbreakable force fields.

Collectively, the five of them believe that they are being trained to join the X-Men, hence the strict supervision, as well as Reyes reminding them that they are considered dangerous and should not leave until they have mastered their abilities. Dani immediately befriends Rahne, with the two eventually forming a romantic relationship, while Illyana continues to antagonize Dani. When Dani fights back, she discovers that Illyana's only friend is a hand puppet of a purple dragon who she calls Lockheed. Soon, the group all begin to have horrifying visions of their past tragedies, one of which results in Rahne getting branded in the neck. Illyana deduces that the visions are the result of Dani's powers manifesting; she has the ability to physically manifest illusions based on a person's psyche. Reyes consults her employers, the Essex Corporation, who instruct her to collect Dani's DNA and have her euthanized.

As Reyes takes her away, Dani's panic causes her power to spiral out of control. Illyana and Sam are attacked by manifestations of the Smiling Men while Roberto tries to break through the barrier, which has shrunken down. Dani uses her powers to learn of Reyes's true intentions before Rahne arrives in half-wolf form and mauls Reyes, forcing her to flee. The five regroup and realize that, in order to escape, they have to kill Reyes to deprive the force fields of their power source. They find her and Reyes traps them, revealing that she was training them to be killers for Essex. Before she can kill Dani, the Demon Bear, which is Dani's own fear manifested and the true cause of her reservation's destruction, arrives and kills Reyes.

Illyana summons her powers to jump between "limbo" and recruits a real-life version of Lockheed to take on the Demon Bear. Eventually, Sam and Roberto join the fight, overcoming their insecurities in the process. Rahne tries to reach through to an unconscious Dani until she is forced to fight the Demon Bear alone. Dani is visited by her father's spirit, who encourages her to face her fear. Dani awakens and confronts Demon Bear, calming and thus dissipating it. As day breaks, the group learns that the force fields are down and they leave the facility to find the nearest town.

Review:

As people who have read my reviews and other articles back when Facebook notes were still around, last year in the run-up to this film’s intended release of April 2020, I posted a fun little run-down of how all the X-Men’s various spin-off groups were created in back in the 1980’s. First and foremost among these groups were the New Mutants, who I have read a lot about not only through the X-Men comics of this era, but also through the earliest issues of the New Mutants’ own series in the anthologies of the Marvel Epic collection. As such, I was really excited to finally get to see this film when it came out early this month on Blu-ray.

That being said, I was also a little wary; Fox’s treatment of the X-Men and their various associates has been frequently hit-and-miss, with Deadpool being the only film to date that I’ve given top marks to. In addition, the much-raved about Logan showed us that Fox had little respect for the characters, basing the plot-premise of mutants being eradicated via GM crops on the idea that a then-active Xavier or Magneto would do nothing, when X-Men: The Last Stand had shown they would be far less ignorant or inactive in the face of any anti-mutant bio-chemical shenanigans. Combine that with years of anglocised Xavier and Magneto alongside Americanised versions of non-US characters, and you have to admit, Fox just has a really, really lousy track record for adaptational quality or film-to-film consistency with their main Marvel earners as was.

How, then, does this film directed and co-written by Josh Boone, stack up? Well at first watch pretty well. The film is a revised origin film for the group that draws heavily on the Demon Bear Saga, a three-issue story arc that spanned issues 18-20 (August-October 1984) of the New Mutants comic in its original form. The original was written by Chris Claremont in the midst of his definitive writing run on the X-Men, and was drawn by artist Bill Sienkiewicz. The latter gives this film his blessing in behind-the-scenes materials on the Blu-ray, including an interview with Boone that forms the director’s commentary.

It’s not hard to see why Sienkiewicz is ok with the film, because having read the comics I can see this film as being a very faithful adaptation of the source material while still being its own story. The film is very much a horror film, though initially it has more of a thriller aspect that keeps it distinct from other superhero horror films like the Blade trilogy or Sony’s horror-comedy Venom. It’s also very much a coming-of-age story, which taps into what the New Mutants comics were about. Despite the team having X-Men trainee uniforms at times back in the comics, the team was meant to be just students learning to use their powers, leaving the world-saving and evil mutants-battling to the X-Men, a dynamic that has been reflected in most of Fox’s X-Men films to date.

In terms of characters, casting and performance, I’d say the film lands very well in most areas. As there are so relatively few characters to go at, I’ll tackle them here as bullet points;

Danielle “Dani” Moonstar (played by Blu Hunt). Dani is the focal character for this story, and actress Blu Hunt does very well to bring the character to life. The manifestation of her powers is handled quite differently from the comics, but it works well within the story and gives us a very unique take on the classic idea of a mutant discovering their power for the first time. Normally it’s either a very rapid progression or we just see the character with full awareness of what their power is, whereas here Dani isn’t aware and the film essentially shows her trying to work out what her power is, then how to control it.

Rahne Sinclair (played by Maisie Williams). After Moira MacTaggert was Americanised in the X-Men prequel films, becoming a CIA agent rather than a Scottish scientist, I was afraid that her ward Rahne (pronounced Rain) would follow a similar course. Instead, Maisie Williams pulls off a great modernised version of this young Scottish werewolf-like mutant, including the strict and abusive conservative Christian upbringing and subsequent abuse that is an integral part of her comic-verse incarnation. The film also translates the telepathic bond between Dani and Rahne from the comics, and its subsequent deep friendship, into a same-sex romance that is very much a natural extension of source material.

Samuel “Sam” Guthrie (played by Charlie Heaton). Much like Williams, Heaton is shifting his accent to play the role of Sam Guthrie, who in the comics hails from Kentucky coal country. The performance is brilliant, and while some fans may struggle to understand why Sam has one arm in a cast when his power of ‘blasting’ is supposed to render him invulnerable, the film works in an idea of guilt-based self-abuse which, much like the Dani-Rahne relationship, is an extension of a comic-based element. In the comics, Sam is very hard on himself and holds himself to an almost impossibly high standard in all areas, but often falls short in the area of his mutant powers. For someone like that, the kind of incident Sam is struggling to deal with in the film could have a very negative effect on his mental health.

Illyana Rasputin (played by Anna Taylor-Joy). The kid sister of Colossus, Anna Taylor-Joy sadly doesn’t get to make any hints about her character knowing one of the X-Men by blood. Her backstory gets somewhat revised in order for it to work within a relatively self-contained film; in the comics, Illyana was drawn into the realm of Limbo at about six or seven years old, but due to a time-difference between there and Earth and a slip-up in the X-Men saving her, she ended up coming back to Earth at age 13, possessing powers of sorcery as well as a mutant teleporting power tied into the Limbo dimension. The film retains Illyana’s power set, however, and even borrows the dragon Lockheed who was originally the ‘pet’/friend of Kitty Pryde, Illyana’s best friend and room-mate in the comics. Thankfully, Taylor-Joy also uses a Russian accent in keeping with her character, so we’re not getting any repeats on the Daniel Cudmore Americanised performance here.

Roberto “Bobby” DaCosta (Played by Henry Zaga). Character-wise, Zaga does well as the New Mutant who was code-named Sunspot in the comics, and while the more pyrokinetic version of his powers seen in the Days of Future Past film incarnation of the character show up, so does his true comic power of solar-powered strength. The film also claims Bobby is from Brazil in keeping with the comics, but Zaga’s accent never sounds even remotely Latin American to me, despite him being a Brazilian actor, and even worse Zaga is a white-wash on the character. Readers of the comics will know Roberto is of mixed race, having a white mother and a black father, so Zaga is a very poor casting choice, especially given the diversity-driven nature of Marvel’s mutant character base.

Dr Cecilia Reyes (Played by Alice Braga). Of the two Brazilian cast members, Braga is the only one who sounds like she’s from a Latin American country, and that’s annoying because she shouldn’t. Dr Cecilia Reyes is American; more importantly, she was drawn in the comics as having dark skin to suggest a mixed-race background similar to Roberto’s (based on her initial appearance in Operation: Zero Tolerance, which I’ve also read), and her general attitude and depiction in source material would seem to suggest an upbringing somewhere in America. Also, Reyes’ force-field powers are centred around herself in the source material, presumably to avoid any suggestion of her being a diversity’s sake rip-off of Susan Richards of the Fantastic Four, and she is a frequent ally or member of the X-Men. This makes her position as an eventual antagonist in this film a poor misuse of her character, one akin to the infamous misuse of the Mandarin in the MCU’s Iron Man 3.

Given all of this, I’m inclined to see The New Mutants as yet another Fox-made Marvel film that falls short of greatness because key details were changed that didn’t need to be. Had I been the one to do this film, I’d have hired an actor that could look like Roberto from the comics, and would have hired an accent coach to help him if he couldn’t do a Brazilian accent. Next, I’d have kept Dr Cecilia Reyes out of the film and used Madelyn Pryor, a character from the comics who would have served that part of the story better on the basis of the source material, and would have cast a suitable actress for that role.

Finally, I’d have worked in at least a nod to the sibling relationship between Illyana and Colossus during the film, used newly shot footage for the part where stock footage from Logan was used, and I’d have done a very brief mid-credits or end credits scene where the X-Men (prequel Xavier, Storm and Nightcrawler with Deadpool-style Colossus and Jackman’s Wolverine) would have touched down in the path of the New Mutants in the Blackbird. Zero dialogue; just the touch down, the X-Men coming out and Illyana running to give her big bro a hug, done. Final score for what we did get, though, is 8 out of 10. Could well have been less, but the appearance of a comic-accurate Lockheed in the third act? That is a major plus all by itself.

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lifeisbeautiful-believeinlove · 7 years

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So I’m gonna tell you how it all happened!!!!! @coldplay I remember hearing them first I guess I was about eight or nine and I heard clocks at a party. I didn’t know who they were or the band themselves but I really really loved the piano hook I don’t know it seems really special. In 2012 thanks to the iHeartRadio music Festival I got to know them a little more, and that was how I started loving them in an ever-growing manner. I knew I would do everything on my hands to see them live one day, because I truly wanted to go to their beautiful concerts. I got the idea of playing clocks with them on the piano when I learned the song this January, but I knew it was absolutely crazy and just a fantasy, a fiction dream. But when this guy from Germany Ferdinand play everglow on the piano at concert I thought if he can why can’t I!! And ClockZ was my absolute masterpiece idea. Because I had been playing it constantly for six months. For my birthday June 15 my parents surprised me with tickets to the a head full of dreams world tour in San Diego California. I was hyper happy and I couldn’t believe I would see them finally. So that was when my project started to bloom in my mind. I started sending emails and emails to newspapers, organizations and in the end people, employees of the band who went on tour with them. I Got a no from an employee saying she always got those requests and that couldn’t happen at every show. and that evening was very sad for me because I had been making efforts for example posting a video petition on Instagram detailing my case, telling them how I can’t see and I’ve been playing the piano for 10 years and it was my highest dream with them. I got pretty sad but I kept knocking on doors until I got a yes. On Saturday, September 30th, I was in a farm, it was the least expected place where I would get good news. This woman whose name I had never heard of emailed me saying she was from Warner and she had heard about my request, she wanted to know if it was legit. She wanted to verify if I was real because they got millions of requests. So I gave her my social media my Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Eventually I gave her my phone number, because she asked me if we could jump on a call on Sunday. I was in a farm with poor mobile signal but the lucky call got through!!! :-) And I was scared but yes she turned out to be real!!! She told me that she wanted to invite me and my family to the concert rehearsal where I would get to play clocks with the band, and I was like oh my God I was kind of screaming!!! :-) The week went on with me giving her all the info she needed, our names and ages because I went with my mom and a couple cousins, and the lovely person asked me if I needed a specific piano to play or if I would be fine with any instrument, I couldn't hold it back to say any piano is fine but if I could play with Chris's it would be absolutely epic😂😂😂😆 so I deleted everything in my storage memory to record the show and Sunday, October 8, the desired date came. She literally told me about eight times if I would be able to make it at 2:30 PM and I always said yes but she asked me a lot of times to make sure. We are arrived at 2 PM to the stadium where they receive does with bags of merchandise and VIP passes I cannot believe I'm saying this. We greeted people from management and producers OMG and they took us to the VIP hall where we stayed for a couple hours. Management told us they would be there in about 20 minutes but things were running late so we waited a little longer and then… The door got opened and the management person said are you ready guys? And I burst into joyful screams!!!!! We were taken to the center of the stadium and it was beautifully decorated with flowers and lots of colorful stuff. The bassist guy started playing and Donnie the guitarist followed along and I couldn't believe I was witnessing this much less in person because of rehearsals are so private and no one gets to see it. My fear and nervousness came to a blast when they told me they wanted me on stage already. They had said probably I would play in the end but this was just the beginning and I truly wasn't expecting that. I wished so so badly I could practice again but I had practiced lots of times before. So they gave me these fabulous in ear monitor headphones so that I could hear everything without echo and without knowing it I met the head of security, the comanager, the radio frequencies engineer and they introduce me to the bands production manager, they were so so so gentle and respectful, completely kind and cheerful. When Chris started playing the piano I couldn't hold back my screams I knew I didn't have to because it was a rehearsal but I truly could not!!! The rest of the guys joined in and it was a wonderful private performance of "for you" The shiver B side. So I truly could not believe it was in front of me when Chris got close to a personal level and said hi guys hi Michelle… At the same time he was saying it's Chris I s creamed then I couldn't even hear it because I already knew it was him for sure, his voice can't be confused with anything else!!!! It's so deep, beautiful, original and recognizable. We hugged it was surreal and he introduced me to the other members, Will, Joni and guy, and then he asked me so Michelle you are going to play clocks with us right? And I died in incredulousness. I could not believe he was saying this and then he goes… Come on, follow me. And he started guiding me with his arm to the stage in the most beautiful way possible, it seemed like he knew me for a lifetime, he was so considerate and he told me every time when there was a step ahead!!! Seriously this story seems like taken out of a fantasy movie or a fairytale. So he showed me the stool in the piano, OMG the piano. The most beautiful thing my hands have ever touched. Just buy touch I could know what a fine quality it was. When I started playing in the sound came through the speakers, these huge fantastic loudspeakers, the moment was pure magical!!!!! Purely incredible I can't describe to you guys how cool the piano was, decorated with flowers it was Chris's piano as I have dreamt of before!!! He tapped on my shoulder from time to time signaling when my time would come although I already knew but with his shoulder taps I realized how subtle and lightweight his hands are, they are beautiful I am speechless. He played with me and improvised also solo, they gave me my solo time and I felt how incredible amazing it was to shine with the brightest stars my skies ever seen😊😊😊😍😍😍 and when I finished he said absolutely perfect OK I'm going home you're doing it tonight😭😭😭 when we were done they rehearsed life is beautiful, this song for my country Mexico three times and we heard it exclusively the instrumental three times before anyone else before it was debuted at tonight's concert. They have the delicateness to go and say goodbye to me and my family when the rehearsal was over and they told me it was beautifully played, Chris said it was special😍😍😍 The show was completely unforgettable seriously the best one I have ever watched, ever. They throw confetti and fireworks and fire and I could see it all, I could SEE it all!!! Because I was almost in the nosebleeds at the very back end of the stadium and management upgrade at us to seats 20 m from the stage and my eyes could capture all that amazing information, it wouldn't have been possible had my previous seat location and they made it happen even they didn't know😍😍😍. In the middle of the show I didn't want to get spoilers so that everything would be a surprise, and they were playing the intro for clocks in electric guitar and I didn't know they would play that song, so right before the piano kicked in, to the rhythm of the intro, Chris said so lovingly and cutely"Michelle, Michelle!" And right there at the piano kicked in😍😍😍 I died again and probably I haven't woken up from that yet because it extinguished all the sanity left in me. I don't know what that man was attempting to do but maybe one day I sue him for trying to kill me😂😂😂 it was no doubt the best day of my existence guys and I am so proud to share with you all this amazing story. The sound and the site was something I will never forget, the fireworks were so colorful, the songs, the energy , the vibe there humbleness I have no words they've made my dreams come true in such beautiful reality and I will never be able to thank them enough💖💖💖 these are the greatest Christmas presents ever🎁🎁🎁

#coldplay #a head full of dreams tour #ahfodtour #music #rock

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verwelktesgedicht · 7 years

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Part 2: Purple Stone “Poison Chocolate” Interview Translation

Band: Purple Stone Topic: Poison Chocolate Release (February 2017) Original interview: Barks (January 2017) Translation: VerwelktesGedicht (July 2017) Part: 2 of 2

-- Let’s continue and talk about the coupling songs!

GAK: “Cluster Voltage” is a song I composed in summer last year. That song completes the story about “FORGERY” that we’ve released on our mini album “NEXUS” in 2013. I wanted a continuation song for that one and with that in mind I composed it. That’s why I used the same “drop B” tuning like for FORGERY. I challenged myself, thinking about how far I can go to keep that system but complete the song at the same time.

-- With an aggressive tuning you organized it in a very digital, straight forward, original style.

GAK: I used industrial break beats and was obsessive over strong sounds with pretty high notes. And like it’s popular with loud rock these days I added sing-along shouts. We haven’t really used these elements for Purple Stone’s songs, so I wanted to try it. I think this song will heat the crowd up at concerts, so I’m looking forward to it.

Fuma: Holding the image GAK decided for he told me “I want you to use the word “Voltage” in the title!” when he brought the Demo version. But no matter how much I tried, the word “Voltage” didn’t fit in when I wrote the chorus (笑) So I came up with “○○ Voltage”. The word “Blaster” means “fierce attack, using explosive material, blasting everything away little by little”, “Voltage” means “hot air, power from the inside”. So this “fierce attack thanks to the power from the inside and blasting everything away little by little” is the way Purple Stone is heading toward 2017. So the content of these lyrics is “We want to compose songs and give lives without being scared of anything until everything is reduced to ashes and is completely burned”. That’s what this song expresses.

keiya: During the recording the “♪burabburabburabbura” was really difficult for me (笑) I combined the words like “♪buraburaburabura blaster voltage” and it turned into pop. But singing it “♪burabburabbura” it sounded like European rock! But both have their good points. I worried about it to a lifetime’s extend (笑) I was so exhausted because of this and my head went spinning so much I didn’t know anything at all anymore. Once again I let it sound in my head again and it turned into “♪burabburabburabbura”, so I thought: “Alright, going with this is fine!” but listening to it now, I wonder if it was the right choice.

GAK: I also thought about how to play it at lives with my guitar. Playing this at lives I will definitely get passionate about it. But if there are difficult parts in it I have to cool down and concentrate. I wanted this to be a song where my head can just turn blank and I can focus on my performance. That’s why I deleted all the unneeded difficult parts and kept it simple.

Fuma: Blaster Voltage isn’t a super rock song though. In my head the “Blaster” turned into the image of a “Lightsaber” from Star Wars (笑) It’s a superb image and I feel like there’s a nuance that makes it a bit different to super rock songs.

-- It all ends with a stylish hard tune. “Subarashiki kono sekai e” is a great, melodious up-beat song.

keiya: I composed it around 2014 and GAK was responsible for the arrangement of the song. It’s a song that has always been sleeping since that time. I wanted to include it on this single but I wanted to use GAK’s current way of seeing and arranging things, so he worked over the guitar arrangement once again. But the main thing is like the one from 2014, isn’t it?

GAK: Yes. I just worked over the guitar riffs and solo. I used the image of an “electrical parade”, added phrases and change the harmony. I think we made it flowing well.

Fuma: It’s an extraordinary band sound, hard rock/pop song and is also focused on the melody. Since those are my roots it was fun to play the bass for it. It’s a type of song we haven’t had for Purple Stone until now, so this is a bit different to the usual Purple Stone and I thought it would be fine to use a bass line that’s easy to remember.

keiya: There are times when I listen to a track after recording it and it makes me think: “I can do better, can’t I?”. If that feeling is too strong I do it all over again and correct everything until it sounds good.

-- The song’s passion is perfect. There’s also a part of the song when you sing “Exactly because so many different things happen, life is beautiful.” (song translation here)

keiya: Looking back at the songs we’ve created as Purple Stone I realized that there are barely lyrics that make you think “When I listen to this song, it gives me strength again!”. I wanted “Subarashiki kono sekai e” to be a song people listen to on their way to school in the morning. That’s why I decided to avoid dark lyrics or topics like love. I didn’t want to tell everyone what to do in life or write irresponsible lyrics like “Everything’s fine! Move forward and keep going!” That’s why I wrote lyrics that tell you “These things happen as well” or “That’s how you understand this or that kind of thing”. Also, personally I think that this world is a wonderful place. During the 2nd chorus there are the words “Even in the morning when rain is falling or in a stormy night there are sceneries that you will be able to see only at those times.” For me I want to appreciate this part the most out of the whole song. While being alive I write a lot about things you feel but I want you to remember these lines. If you accept that then I think this song is one that can encourage and cheer you up in a different way than those you already know.

-- It really became a song like that. You recorded another song, “Poison Chocolate Poison ver.” That you included on the “poison type”.

keiya: For the better or worse we are making music and being in a band, showing our true selves. But recently I came to thin that it’s not fun to show our real selves too much. I thought that it would be nice to express our playfulness more into our songs. “Poison chocolate poison ver.”is a Karaoke song I gave my best at （笑）

Fuma: The lyrics also turned out to be pretty exciting （笑）Keiya said there are lyrics he wants to write, so we left it up to him but when at 3am he called us saying “I wrote lyrics. Can you look at it?” and I asked him “What do you mean?” he answered “These might be too risky…”. When I read them they were really “risky” but also so fun that I told him they are good （笑）

keiya: I thought he will definitely be against it but when Fuma’s “OK” came I was so surprised （笑）The talk in the A-Melody was Fuma’s idea.

Fuma: Speaking of it being my idea it was rather that keiya said there are too many words and they don’t fit in, so I suggested that way. （笑） I gave him the advice to just say them instead of sing them and it turned out like this （笑）

GAK: In the “poison chocolate poison ver.” keiya also plays the guitar solo!

keiya: It was especially for that. To let the idea we just talked about live, I wanted to change the guitar solo and let GAK play it. But then he told me “Change it as you like!” and I went all like “Eh? I’m the one who’s playing it now?” （笑）He let it play me the way I want but I didn’t listen to his complains at all. Please treat me well in the future, too （笑）

-- There are so many impulses in this version! （笑） Well, your year of 2017 started with the single “Poison Chocolate”. What kind of year do you want 2017 to become?

keiya: Around the middle of last year there were many things that made us and you be able to see and say “So this is what Purple Stone is like!” We released “panic panic!”, went on tour, accepted the reaction of everyone and turned it into shape with “poison chocolate”. That’s why this year is about our future once again. Once again this year is about victory or failure. Personally, there is one thing I really want to archive. To make that come true I will give good lives every single time, compose many songs and put all my feeling into our band activity.

Fuma: In the end of 2016 we were able to perform at Shinjuku ReNY and in the beginning of this year at Osaka BIGCAT. During high school times I already held a live at BIGCAT and thought that it was SO HUGE. But in the beginning of this year it didn’t feel THAT huge at all. With that energy I want to become a band that is able to perform at Namba Hatch or Zepp soon. To achieve that I want to release CDs with better quality than before. I want to create things that makes me think “If we can’t sell this one, let’s die.” Regarding lives, I want to take the offensive this year.

GAK: After releasing the four songs “poison chocolate” I want to create even better music and will improve the way of production of my CDs at home once again. Now we can produce them in a new way and I think we can show you a good way of doing so. “Poison chocolate” is an important song during this transition period and with that maybe you can see how Purple Stone is heading now. Please look forward to our selves of 2017.

keiya: I really want you to watch the music video of “poison chocolate”! This time as well I thought about the furitsuke and was in charge of dancing. The whole song as furi and the difficulty level is high, so I worried a lot about how well our fans will be able to dance it. But I just want you to have fun in the best way. I’m happy if you do an exact copy of it but it’s also fine if you remember only a bit! I will accept it, no matter which way, and be happy if we can create a fun live all together.

#keiya #fuma #gak #purple stone #poison chocolate #barks ps interview #purple stone translation #I forgot this is in my drafts T___T I'm sorry!!

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cadpadawan · 4 years

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A Black Winter Day 4 Years Ago...pt.1

Ok, now that I have the most pressing issues off my chest, maybe it's time to shed some light on the surreal chain of events, that changed my life quite drastically back in 2016. Those weird times pretty much account for why I needed to get re-educated in the ripe old age of +45.

Oh yes, I'm old as shit – there's no two ways about it.

Maybe this jovial stroll down the memory lane will also hint, why I ended up picking up the blogging pen, after years and years of absence from the blogosphere. I'm not really sure if anyone reads blogs anymore. I'd guess not. Everybody's just too busy posting duckface selfies in Instagram, or vlogging some utter bullshit about their day in YouTube. I think maybe a handful of sad boomers, like me, still occassionally follow the rare eloquently written blog, or even administer a blog of their own. I must confess: I might be a bit pre-occupied with the idea, that the human condition may be better contemplated in written form. Although, the extremes of that condition can be expressed quite evocatively via YouTube, too. Undoubtedly. Digital platforms offer modern solutions to recording, in full detail, how fucked up we really are.

Well, anyways...let's pretend for a moment, that blogging was cool, like it was 2005 again!

Was it really cool even then, I wonder?

In hindsight, it seems that the vast majority of blogs were pushing some corporate agenda, disguised as trendy lifestyle blogs, whose main initiative was to suggest, that in order to reach the ultimate boss-level of cool, you needed to eat certain full-vegan superfoods and support certain street-smart clothes brands, while exclusively listening to a bunch of generic indie disco-rock bands, that some washed-out, has-been, good-for-nothing celebrity had cherry-picked on behalf of some unheard-of indie label CEO.

Well, a monkey dressed in casual designer clothes is still a monkey.

The year 2005 was actually one of the turning points in my life. It was almost as if some cosmic nudge pushed my life into a downward spiral in 2005. It was one of the most emotionally ambiguous times in my life. I became a dad – which scared me shitless, and at the same time, made me the happiest person in the whole wide world, for a moment. Only six months later, I experienced a severe burnout due to sleep deprivation and excessive overtime at work – and at that time, I also experienced my first epileptic seizure. Though, at the time, I didn't have a clue what it was about. First, I thought it had something to do with the burnout. It probably did. I think the burnout triggered the first seizure. It happens. I later found out, that you can have an epileptic seizure due to a number of reasons, even if you are not diagnosed with epilepsy. The kind of seizures I started having on an irregular basis, for years to come, were not convulsive – so it was pretty easy to mistake them for something else completely: stress reaction and whatnot. You see, I worked as an express courier, which qualifies as a high-stress job – hands down. I worked long hours, played in at least two active rock outfits at the same time for years on the side, tried to spend quality time with my new family...

In retrospect, I wonder now: when the hell did I have the time to get any sleep during the years 2005-2016?!?

No wonder, my memory is full of holes, concerning that time. It's all just one big hazy blur. I kind of lost the most part of those 11 years. Yeah, I unlocked all kinds of life achievements – mortgage, a son and a daughter, various music-related things – but I guess I was so busy burning my candle at both ends, that I never stopped for a second to appreciate all the little things in my life – and now I can't remember shit.

Of course, it also had something to do with my epilepsy. Any type of epileptic seizure may potentially affect the memory, either during or after the seizure. If you experience frequent seizures, memory problems are more likely to occur. Eventually, when I finally consulted a doctor and started keeping a seizure journal in the early 2016, I used to have 10-15 seizures a week, sometimes 3-4 times a day. My seizures were of the focal type that affected only part of my brain – the temporal lobe, to be exact. Abnormalities in that region are the most common reason for memory problems in people with epilepsy. One common trigger for a seizure is lack of sleep.

Focal epilepsy is a neurological condition, in which the predominant symptom is recurring seizures that affect one hemisphere of the brain. Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) means that the seizure starts in one of the other of the temporal lobes. My symptoms included: feelings of strong deja vu, and a rising sensation in my stomach – the so-called epigastric aura that resulted in an impromptu vomiting first few times. Most seizures were brief, lasting only few seconds – until in 2015, almost 10 years after the first episodes, I had a seizure that lasted for minutes – my first jamais vu-experience.

In psychology, jamais vu refers to the phenomenon of experiencing a situation that you recognize in some fashion, but nevertheless seems very unfamiliar – the opposite of deja vu, so to speak. It involves a sense of eeriness and the impression of seeing something for the first time, despite rationally knowing it cannot be true. In my case, it meant getting lost on my way home from the local supermarket, as if having been sucked into a sudden dementia simulation. I was driving home from the grocery store, the usual route that I had been driving for the previous eight years so far. At some point, I felt the usual signs of the epigastric aura – that slightly nauseating sensation rising in my stomach. It predicted a seizure. I was pretty accustomed to having those every now and then. Nothing to it. It usually didn't affect my ability to drive a car in the slightest. Heck, I had been driving a van for a living for years with this little nuisance. It didn't worry me one bit. It usually lasted for a few seconds, and then it was gone. An epileptic seizure is basically a disruption of the electrical communication between neurons in the brain – an uncontrolled burst of electricity. That pretty much sums up how it usually felt: a burst of something inside my head, fluctuating like a liquid for a few seconds. It felt pretty fucking weird. So, there I was, coming home from the grocery store, blasting metal in my car stereos. Then, the stomach thingy, something sparkling in my head for a moment...I guess I didn't really pay much attention to the seizure. Maybe there was some kick-ass song playing on the radio. I probably didn't realize, that the seizure had already lasted way longer then ever before. I came to a T-junction. Suddenly, I didn't have the slightest clue where the fuck I was! I was less than one kilometer from home. I turned right. Then my wife burst out wondering, what the actual fuck I was fooling around for. I should've turned left. I grinned back, as if this manouver was some spur-of-the-moment prank. I made a U-turn, and soon I was back at the same T-junction. This time I was supposed to drive straight. Guess what?

I didn't. I turned left this time.

My wife suggested, that i should maybe go and see a doctor...

Nah, I decided to wait six more months. Why not wait until I fucked up my life to a point of no return, before going to see a doctor? It became increasingly obvious, that I was in for a major life changing event. Was I subconsciously sabotaging my life, in order not to feel tempted to go back to the old ways, when the shit finally hit the fan? In April 2016, I was diagnosed with a benign tumour in the brain, which was the reason for my epileptic seizures. In the meantime, between my epic jamais vu-experience and the MRI scan that revealed that alien implant attached to the hippocampus in the right temporal lobe of my brain, I managed to fuck everything up in the most beautiful and thorough way you could imagine: my job, my marriage, everything...as if I was laying down the foundation for the oncoming midlife crisis the best I could. Well, being some sort of an artistic personality type, I can handle chaos much better than the average person. Although, I never deliberately looked for chaos, and never actually wanted to stare into the abyss, it seems that the chaos looked for me, to stare me into the eye.

I can tell you a story...

It all started on a black winter day, January or February 2016.

(To be continued...)

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