#i love funny limbless man

[sparkling-chi-64]

Rayman Appreciation Post (ft. ocs)

[cod-dump]

Step dad Graves is so so funny. Especially if they’re close in age and both secretly love it whilst putting up a fuss. Let Ghost collect father figures and Graves get to impart knowledge . Let Graves hate it at first then get some Ghost lore and be like “…I’m not your stepdad I’m only 6 years older than you…… what do you mean you never had a birthday cake…… what do you mean you were made to laugh at a dying prostitute…… “well guess I’m getting this man a skull cake and we’re playing catch in the yard

The more Graves learned about Ghost the harder it was to pretend he didn’t like him.

They were barely friendly when they worked together going after Hassan and Graves’ betrayal ruined whatever that was. Graves cutting ties with Shepherd and fully working with 141 (to atone for his past and right wrongs all while being able to still work) Ghost had greeted him with much expected hostility.

And Graves responded with indifference. He figured things would stay that way, Ghost would never let go what happened and Graves would never show any care for the man beyond comrades. But then Graves started learning bits and pieces about him, the longer they were around each other the more Ghost started to start talking to him with actual conversations instead of threats. That’s how Graves learned about his fear of snakes. The Ghost, the man who would pick up a fucking spider bare handed, an animal lover to the core, was terrified of snakes.

Graves discovered this during a mission together. They had spent that time in that forest in almost complete silence, waiting for Price to give them the go ahead, when the fearsome Ghost jolted where he laid, flinging something into the bushes nearby before moving away from the spot he had laid in without even moving an inch for two hours.

“Fucking devilish bitch!”

Graves saw the tail end of a snake darting away, and that was when he learned about Ghost’s fear. And that would open up to him learning a lot more about Ghost, more than he ever imagined due to their not so friendly work environment. He, of course, originally was going to taunt Ghost over his rather surprising fear, planning to exploit it until it was no longer effective.

But, of course, he would learn something else related to the snake. Ghost seemingly was deep in his mind after running in with the limbless creature, and he offered up a explanation for his irrational fear (irrational considering all the other creatures he adores).

“Old man liked to force them in my face. Thought how I squirmed was hilarious.”

And just like that, after that piece of information was processed, Ghost didn’t say another word. Graves was left with that piece of history involving Ghost he never expected to learn, let alone from Ghost himself. And after that, Ghost seemed to open up to him more. Graves would like to think he heard himself some leeway with Ghost by not going through with his original intentions on teasing him. It was the only thing that made sense as to why Ghost was starting to warm up to him.

Warming up to him to the point he was willingly offering up more of his lore.

“Don’t like crowds, especially not in dark places.”

He dropped that on another mission, completely unprompted. It was a mutter just for Graves to hear, even though Gaz wasn’t far away. That made something stir within him, something about Ghost just telling him something instead of a man who he is considerably much closer with. And that slight tug of his heart strings became pulling when he learned why he didn’t like crowds. And his old man was behind the reason as well.

The more Graves learned about Ghost, the more he hated his probably long dead father. There was a twisted similarity to Mr. Riley and Graves’ own father. And that just made him become protective of Ghost. He started treating Ghost like he did his Shadows. He was pretty much Shadow materiel with skill and efficiency, but now he was a Shadow to Graves because of what he went through.

Graves had a type he went for when recruiting Shadows. He looked for skill, experience, attitude — But he also looked at their history. He has a soft spot for those with bad home lives, made him feel more connected with them. If he was looking over Ghost’s records with the intention of recruiting him into Shadow Company, man would’ve been a Shadow after he learned about Roba.

“Since when are you two friends?” Soap had questioned, Graves noticing the jealousy in his voice but also the curiosity.

“I can understand his accent better,” Ghost jabbed at Soap, his eyes squinting slightly to show he was smiling under his mask.

Soap made a very insulted gasp, “Oh, is that so?”

Graves felt at place finally, standing next to Ghost as he and Soap bickered. It turned playful rather quickly and Graves felt more at ease next to Soap than he had since they first met. And, dare he even think it, Ghost felt comfortable standing next to him. Finally opening up, finally dropping his metaphorical mask of hostility (Graves doubts he’ll take off his actual mask any time soon).

And, of course Price noticed. He noticed a while back, Graves knows he had. Man knows anything that has to do with his boys, especially Ghost. He hadn’t said a word, never hinted in any way to show he knew. He just acted like it had always been. It was like he wasn’t even surprised. Goes to show he knew Ghost was better than anyone.

“Good to see you two finally getting along,” Price said to Graves one evening, the two had long retired to bed while the boys stayed up playing cards (not UNO, they would be enemies before morning and it would take a few days to get them to drop the pettiness).

Graves hummed, taking a moment to realize what Price was talking about. He didn’t expect him to say anything without Graves mentioning it first.

“We’re tolerating each other.”

Price hummed back, slight smirk on his lips. He knew. He knew that Graves considers Ghost as one of his Shadows. As one of his boys.

[saltyinternetflower]

An Imagine About Gojo's Return

It was a starless night.

Yuuji, Megumi, and I sat around the small shrine we built in the garden of the academy. It had been almost nine months since Shibuya...

No! Nine months and six days and twenty hours. I reminded myself.

"His" smile in the frame was still as bright, only our smiles were gone.

Gojo sensei, you were truly the honored one. I muttered under my breath, not daring to look at Yuuji or Megumi. I could hear Yuuji's labored breathing to my left. A silent sob was wrecking his body. Megumi, on the other hand, sat still as a statue. You'd think he was made of stones!

And for me, I wasn't sure what to feel. After HE was gone, I had stopped myself from feeling anything, to be honest. But there were nightmares, and memories, visions of blue so bright that I felt like drowning in them.

Gojo sensei, isn't it funny that you had no idea? For you, I was just another student. You liked to spoil us, and be one of us, and love us limitless. But for me, you were...

The candle light flickered in a gust of wind. I could feel a chill settling in my bones. I softly patted Yuuji's back, whose muted sniffles were the only sound that broke the steely silence of the night.

Wait, hold on! A pair of footsteps were approaching us. Was it Soko sensei?

"Ah, I'm a little disappointed! I wouldn't want that to be the last photo you ever saw of me. I don't look my usual handsome self there, don't you think?"

A voice!

Silvery. Soft. Amused.

Yuuji was the first one to snap out of it.

GOJO SENSEI! He cried out.

He ran like a lightning bolt, jumping into the man's arms.

Sensei, sensei, sensei. Yuuji let out a frantic laughter that mingled with his tears. His outburst finally propelled Megumi into action, and he stood to his wobbly feet.

I didn't turn. This wasn't real, I told myself. Somehow, in the middle of the night, our minds have succumbed to some sort of collective delusion! It must be some sort of cursed spirit playing with our minds.

So I didn't turn! Not until a pair of solid arms wrapped around my shoulders, and someone spoke softly into my ear.

"So you wouldn't even turn! Y/n did you not miss your sensei even a teeny tiny bit?"

His breath was fanning my cheek. His scent was unmistakable. Slowly, painfully, I turned around and found myself in the arms of the same man who used to be my world.

I kept staring into his sapphire orbs, not breathing, not moving, too afraid to break the spell.

My mouth moved, and I heard myself saying "You... You're real?"

"I'm here now," He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, smiling.

I felt a tremble in my core. Like my centre of gravity had shifted, my world was dangerously tilting towards him! I melted into his arms, limbless. Tears were streaming down my cheeks.

Sa...toru san!

I breathed. My first real breath since I saw him being trapped into the prison realm!

Yuuji and Megumi huddled around us. I wasn't feeling cold anymore. I buried my face in the nape of his neck, and if he felt a soft kiss being pressed there, he didn't say anything.

You're back.

My love.

[captain-astors]

Moments or characters in Tokyo Ghoul you found funny in a dark and or ironic way? Kaiko, surprisingly, is very funny to me in an unhinged, petty old man way, like when he stunts on Take, Takeomi, Yusa, etc and speaks on his resentment towards Kishou and Kuzen. I also like how Ishida makes his smiling audible (?); like when he's doing it, there's little sound effect captions that read "smirk/smile". I feel bad for Takeomi when he got shoulder stabbed, but couldn't help but laugh a little when Kaiko asked him right after "What's the matter 😈? Shoulder acting up 😈😈? Hm 😈😈😈?".

Is it wrong if I say the entirety of it. I absolutely agree with everything you've said here about Kaiko, but throughout my reading I just found pretty much every instance of Kaneki's monologues amusing, probably because it was pretty much my first proper angst-ish manga and I wasn't used to that sort of internal lament, but come on. There's a reason people will buy "I am tragedy" as an actual line at a surface level. HOWEVER the ultimate moment for me? Chapter 144. Opens up strong, titled "The Death Of Kaneki",

Speech bubbles presumably narrated by Furuta declare the matchup like a sport, the actual space around them is drawn a distorted stadium, Juuzou (and Hanbee) vs. Ken Kaneki. The strongest fighters of their respective sides, powerhouses who both have everything to lose if they can't win this fight, caricatures of Kaneki's allies cheer him on with their usual, unquestioning loyalty and religious-like love. He announces he won't hold back against his former friend.

On Suzuya's side?

No one is cheering for him in this warped image. He is not particularly driven or enthusiastic. He's neutral, exhausted, his panel is small. "I have something to protect too, Hai- I mean, Kaneki."

A much larger panel is dedicated to Touka, hands folded like a prayer, begging Kaneki to win.

The readers, the characters, everyone has been anticipating this fight between the two strongest currently alive characters for multiple chapters, if not since Juuzou first stole Kaneki's wallet and he was introduced in the first place.

Return to Kaneki.

Kaneki says, "Touka, everyone, this is the only way for our species to coexist... I will not lose!"

Next page?

MANGA EQUIVELENT OF A SMASH CUT TO KANEKI LYING LIMBLESS ON THE FLOOR. YOU DO NOT GET A COOL FIGHT. ALL YOU GET IS SELF-SLANDER.

Then the Kenference argues for a while until they miss their wife and bite off a child's face to become a worm. Fucking Legendary.

[loveydoveylex]

Aperture and 🅱️arlow

hi!! thank you for sending in an ask! hope you're havin a good start to your week :)

Aperture: Has your perception of your FO changed as time went on? In what way?

hmmmm... this is a good question! I don't think it has? atleast not enough for me to notice it. I guess if we count my childhood days when I barely knew anything about him, I just thought "haha funny goofy limbless man" compared to now where I am crazy in love with him and could write a 50 page essay on my pure infatuation with him, hah.

in the time that I've been selfshipping with him, though, not particularly ^^' I've always just been... head over heels lol

Barlow: What’s something that only your FO could tempt you into doing? What about the other way around?

well, I'm a bit of a coward - absolutely not very daring nor brave, I like the comfort of SAFETY - so I'm sure only he could be the one to drag me along with him on his adventures lmAO, even then I'd probably be clinging onto him the entire time afraid of EVERY LITTLE THING 😭

as for the other way around? that's difficult... he's very flexible and would be willing to go along with pretty much anything I think hehe.

though I have been playing around with the idea of my self insert desperately wanting to keep a rabbid as a pet and rayman would have LOST his MIND if it wasn't for the fact that it's, well, me lol. he's chanting words of affirmation to himself like "okay. just. go along with it. do it for lex. you love lex. c'mon rayman. do it for lex do it for lex do it for lex do it for lex-" and then the rabbid proceeds to take a bite out of his hoodie or something LMAO. KEEP YOUR COOL, RAYMAN. YOU CAN DO IT.

[lonelimbless]

I agree Blonde Magician is fun and whimsical he looks like he loved his job meanwhile Teensie Magician is just too simple and boring he has no whimsy in his heart

Plus that’s not even his real hair, he wears a wig

Yeah. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate or dislike the teensie magician since I once stated before that he was kinda interesting... but mostly in the scrapped plot and some elements of his character. Other than that, I'm just more "meh" to him and one part is with the design. I still choose Rayman 1 Magician's design because c'mon, I just can't say no to the funny, magicial limbless man.

[dafukdidiwatch]

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)

Not a musical no matter what the first 15 minutes tell you.

This was a pretty interesting movie. It is told as a series of vignettes who’s common theme was that they were all set in the old west. Well that and death. There’s 6 in total and each one of them has a different but interesting vibe to them. There were a lot of quiet silent moments in the movie, hardly any background music to it unless it was a beginning or end of a segment. But it definitely allowed for the scene to just breathe and revel in the moment. It also had some beautifully done cinematography showing the landscape and vastness that is the old west. It’s hard to generalize it because like I said before, each story has it’s own vibe to it that is different from one another.

With that, I’m just going to give my basic feelings of each of the stories shown. So yeah, Spoilers.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs: Wow this guy. I deadass thought the whole movie was a musical because the first story was this guy singing constantly. And when I looked it up on youtube all that popped up was the songs. My sister put it right with saying he is a violent Bard in a D&D campaign. I was getting the vibe if Mr. Rogers had a dark underbelly of being psychotic. He is smarmy, oddly charismatic, and the more I watched him the more I hope someone killed him. And they did, which made me very happy. The song numbers were fun, and damn the deaths were brutal. But a very good start.

Near Algodones: I call this story “Pan Man” because holy crap the greatest character ever was in this movie. This nutcase banker who, deadass told the bank robber he shot a man’s legs off and kept him in the bank vault for 3 weeks, comes running out covered in pans screaming “PAN SHOT” every time a bullet gets deflected. Truly the highlight of the story, which is sad that he doesn’t really show up for the rest of the story. Which follows a bank robber going from one horrible situation to the next from trying to rob a bank. Which, if the guy was telling a whimsical story of how he kept a man locked legless in a vault, maybe you shouldn’t rob him to begin with. I also found out where the “First Time?” picture set came from. Good to know.

Meal Ticket: This one is probably my least favorite just because it was so sad. This wandering troupe of an old man and the limbless storyteller traveling around trying to make a buck via entertaining stories. It was very quiet, hardly anyone talked outside the stories being told. It made me feel...pity I think. Mostly because I didn’t know if the old man actually cared for the kid as a person, or just used him as a means to an end to make a living. It doesn’t help that the kid never speaks outside of the act, so I don’t know whether that’s an artistic choice or the kid doesn’t really know what he’s saying. Audience interpretation I guess. Then when we get to the chicken, and yeah all doubts are thrown out the window over how the old man saw the kid. It’s sad and tragic. Not every story has to be a happy one, but not a lot of happy endings so far.

All Gold Canyon: This is probably my second favorite. All it is is just a lone man panning for gold in a beautiful valley. The landscape is gorgeous. You see this old man, coughing from illness or old age you don’t know, just meticulously panning and trying to find that vein of gold. Facinating really. This is definitely the most silent out of all the films because it is him by himself, but it really sucks you in just watching if he will be successful or not. And then when the shadow passes over him...well....even though I said spoilers, I don’t want to give too much away.

The Gal Who Got Rattled: This is pretty much a 20 minute romance novel. Sister and brother travels out west, but sister finds herself in dire straits after her brother dies. She turns to the man heading the wagon train for help and they slowly but surely fall in love. Well...I don’t know if it is love exactly. More like, a gentle comfort. Where they can confide in each other for a pleasant life and simple pleasures. I was watching this with my sister and we were both trying to sus out why we felt “off” throughout. Like, if the wagon boy had killed the brother to steal the money, trying to sus out the criminal. Lol we watch way too many crime shows. The end is a tragedy, we can’t all have nice things. Which if we are keeping count there is really only 1 happy end in this movie.

The Mortal Remains:  I actually really like this story. It’s just 5 people sitting in a carriage just talking about things. Life. I could listen to the Trapper guy for hours he has very interesting stories. And seeing how they just bounce off of the purity woman, the french guy, and the two polite yet terrifying bounty hunters. It also had this more terrifying feeling as the sun sets and that the carriage driver doesn’t stop. This is probably my favorite.

Overall: This was a very enjoyable movie. There was some funny moments, heartfelt moments, sad moments, quiet moments, action moments, basically emotions all over the place. It was a fun watch but since their vignettes you can probably watch them separately in chunks instead of as a whole movie. I would recommend it, it’s a cool take to see on the 1800s West.

[littlefreya]

The Way to Hell - Part 4

*No permission is given for reposting my work, copying it or parts of the source material and claiming it as your own*

Summary: Post Mi6 - August manages to escape with his face intact and just won himself the title of being the most dangerous man on earth. With every agent in the world on the hunt for him, life became a living hell, but that’s okay because hell is where he reigns.

Too bad for the woman who’ll stand in his way.

Previous Chapters: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10| Part 11 |

Pairing: August Walker x OFC (Ingvild)

Word count: 6K

Warnings: Explicit Smut, dark themes, male/female masturbation, bodily fluids, mentions of sexual encounters, dirty words, sexual threats. It’s August, he’s the baddest of bad boys!

A/N: Soooooo this chapter was fun to write, I hope you guys like it :)! Thanks @agniavateira for being my editor and my emotional support! 

Title: Memento Mori

Funny, he’s never seen someone drown in icy water before. With her injury and massive blood loss, the struggle doesn’t last longer than a minute. This is beyond her natural survival instincts, gradually her muscles give up, running stiff as the blood in her veins chills.

August stares with rapt. Not once did the Valkyrie scream for help, or even begged him to save her.

Truth be told, it kinda pisses him off as much as he finds it admirable.

‘Such a strong-willed girl. Would be a shame to rid the world of her so soon.’

“Whatever,” he mutters and carefully steps toward the crack in the ice. His hands hoist the body up before she sinks below the surface. With water in her lungs and her muscles rigid, she’s impossibly heavier.

A red path of blood tarnishes the ice as he drags her body toward the edge of the lake. There is no urgency in his behaviour, relaxed he kneels to stare at the lifeless woman and wonders if in her hubris this is how she believed this day will end.

Her skin is pale blue, lips dark purple. Drained out of wit and life, those delicate Scandinavian features look like something out of a fairytale and he muses whether a kiss will wake her up.

It won’t make any difference to the world if she’s dead or alive, it certainly won’t make any to August Walker.

His digits stroke her frozen cheek, sensing the skin is stretched over the hardened muscles. He tilts her head up and presses at the hollows of her cheeks to force her lips open. For some reason, he thinks of a different dead girl, though they are nothing alike.

Planting his mouth over hers, he breathes oxygen into her lungs. Her chest rises, filling with the air he breathes into her. He repeats the process four times and then begins compressing her heart, watching her corpse lie peacefully on the snow.

Never in his years of service had he needed to perform CPR on another person. It’s not as melodramatic as shown in the bullshit movies he’s seen; no one’s shouting “C’mon girl! Breathe!!!” and hits her chest in despair. The owls and bats that chant between the large trees and the wolves howling at the moon from a distance couldn’t care less if Ingvild, whatever her-last-name-is lives or dies.

On the contrary, they’ll be thrilled to eat her eyes out.

He pauses on his attempt to resuscitate her and watches as no change appears in her face. His hands rest in the air, hovering above her for less than a second, considering if to give her another chance. He leans to capture her mouth again when Ingvild suddenly twitches, gagging as water seeps through her mouth and nose like some decorative fountain.

August observes quietly. Her eyes are shut, her body is only reacting instinctively, coughing out the water in her lungs. He nudges her to the side, draining the water out until she stops coughing and lays unconscious on the ground.

He moves his ear closer, listening to her soft breaths. He wonders how long will she survive in such a condition, suffering from hypothermia and massive blood loss. Letting her drown might have been a favour, he might have just granted her a cruller death.

Blackness surrounds her, chaining her to the ground. An excruciating pain blossoms in her lungs, as if someone placed a massive weight that smothers her while her throat and her nose sear with pain. The rest of her body feels numb, someone might as well leave her limbless.

The image in front of her appears blurry as she attempts to open her eyes and hang on to the tendrils of reality, uncertain when and where she is and what happened at all. Was life just a dream?

Or was it a nightmare?

‘Liam?’

No voice is produced from her lips, she is not even sure they’re moving.

The face that greets her is certainly not Liam. It’s the man who granted her this agonizing death. He looks at her with silent curiosity, not saying a word as her glassy eyes become more and more vibrant.

Her hands suddenly reach to his throat, clutching him with all the energy left in her traumatized body. As battered as she is, he still has to use force to peel her claws off of him. She struggles, grunting and hissing, her nails leave bleeding scratches over his cheek.

“Remember you are only alive for as long as I permit it.” August speaks to her calmly, impressed by her stubborn will to kill him even when she’s hanging by the last thread of her pathetic life.

The struggle takes no longer than a few seconds as her eyes roll back and she falls to the ground, unconscious again.

August collects her in his arms and rises, carrying her through the woods. “Better this way, princess,” he whispers to the sleeping beauty in his arms. The temperature of the water has slowed the bleeding, causing the blood vessels to clot and reduce the pace of her heartbeat. It benefits in keeping her alive, but it’s also slowly killing her.

He returns to the bed and breakfast to be greeted by the receptionist who stares at him, baffled.

“Too much to drink,” he explains, offering her a charming smile as he continues marching toward his room with the unconscious girl in his arms.

~*~

“Fucking mess,” he mutters as he enters the room and shuts the door behind him with his leg. That stab wound may be bleeding slower now, he hasn’t ruptured any viable organs. However, the gash in her flesh is large and still needs to be dressed.

He drags her to the bath and puts her on her feet, letting her limp body lean onto his while he unzips her suit and boots, stripping her to her undergarments. A crescent-like slit gushes blood at the side of her abdomen.

August places her in the empty bathtub before grabbing the first aid kit he bought at the hunters’ shop. Being a wanted man now, he had to be prepared for everything.

It was nearly him tonight that needed that first aid kit.

The scent of alcohol fills the room as he pours it onto her open wound. He waits for a response from her, maybe a twitch from the excruciating pain, yet Ingvild is so far gone she doesn’t react whatsoever. His finger presses to the tendon in her neck, only to make sure he is not taking care of a dead girl.

A faint pulse is there; her heart still beats. Yet her body is as cold as ice, and he knows that if he won’t take care of her soon her systems will begin to shut down one organ after the other. He sews her wound shut quickly, making unfashionable stitches across the wound.

“Sorry love, no more bikini for you.” he mocks the sleeping girl. “Although porn sites must be filled with scar-porn, so you’re good.”

After stitching her up and dressing the wound, he carries her back to the bedroom and lays her on the bed. Her skin is shivering, frozen and pale as death itself. She has hypothermia and needs to have her body temperature stabilized before every one of her major organs will go into failure.

“Not how I pictured us getting into bed naked,” August jokes without humour while beginning to peel off his clothes until he is completely bare. He towers over her trembling form and watches how helpless she appears. His hands run down her spine, reaching to find the hooks of her bra. It takes no effort to unclasp the flimsy soaked fabric and discard it on the floor. Next, he coldly and methodically slips her underwear off.

He takes no pleasure in stripping an unconscious woman who can’t defend herself or struggle, yet he cannot resist observing what’s laid right in front of his eyes.

The sight is indeed pleasing.

‘Hate me later, princess. I am just a man.’

August climbs onto the bed and lies in front of her. He pulls her toward the warmth of his body until her forehead is pressed against his chest and every inch of her skin is covered by his own. With a clenched jaw, he holds her close.

In his arms she trembles, teeth chattering, while her heartbeat is feeble and can be hardly felt against his chest.

He thinks of nothing while holding the cold, half-dead girl against him.

Nothing at all.

Not the memory of another dead girl.

~*~

Ingvild scratches a scab on her knee, watching the other girls as they play without her. They stick their tongue at her and call her a freak. She doesn’t cry, only sniffles gently while her small fingers pry at the itchy skin.

“Ingvild,” Sister Marja walks toward her, making a sour face as she sees the girl. She never liked her either. “Someone is here to pick you up, finally.”

Little Ingvild jumps from the dirty log she is sitting on, brushing her skirt and arranging her braided pigtails before joining Sister Marja. ‘That uptight crone, all she needs is a good fuck.’

The sister hurries toward the orphanage while Ingvild runs after to keep up. Her heels echo on the floor through the arched hallway of the facility.

A man waits for them in the office of the Mother Superior, Yet another crone who looks like she never had a good fuck. But there is a smile on her face, making her loose skin become all creases and wrinkles like a dried rotten potato.

Ingvild looks at the man who stands with his hands behind his back. His hair is black with few threads of silver. She is uncertain if he is smiling or not; the expression on his face is of a person who’s trying to appear pleasant but in a very contained way.

“Ingvild, this is Liam.” Mother Superior speaks in her terrible heavy smoker voice. “He is your new adoptive father.”

~*~

Warm light strokes her face, forcing her eyes to blink open slowly. A basic function that suddenly feels oddly painful. Her eyelids are too heavy as if she never opened her eyes before in her life. The scenery around her is still too vague; she doesn’t recognize the room at all, wondering if she is in another dream.

A word in her own language blurts out of her mouth as she tries to sit up, accompanied by a small groan. Everything feels out of place as if her limbs have been misplaced and her internal organs exploded inside her body. Pain begins to course through her body, starting with the muscle of her right forearm which now feels extremely strained.

“Ah…” she grunts out, tugging at her arm which is in an odd position.. But for some reason, her arm won’t budge. It’s tied to the bedpost above her head by a tight rope.

‘This is hilarious. Like watching a dog wake up from anaesthesia.’

“Hva?” she asks in her mother’s tongue. “What?”

She gives the bind a few good moments of struggling before giving up. It’s when the heavy blanket that covers her slightly descends from her chest. She realizes she’s been completely stripped of her clothes.

Panicked, she hugs the cover to her chest with her free hand. Her eyes were looking around with slight anxiety while she continues to pull her right hand in an attempt to free herself.

The scent of coffee tickles at her nose, alerting her that she is not alone.

August appears in front of her with a red cup of coffee in his hand. He wears that familiar arrogant look with a hint of a smile, so vicious and cold it makes her feel she wasn’t only stripped off her clothes but of her skin and muscles as well.

Would have been better if I was stripped and bound to the devil’s bed.

He takes the wooden chair, dragging it on the floor which makes her cringe at the screeching sound. Fragments of the night before begin to fill the gaps in her memory. She tied him to this chair.

Placing it in front of her, he sits down, legs spread widely with confidence she can only describe to herself as irritating as fuck.

She hugs the cover tightly to her chest, her legs curling toward her torso to shelter herself which suddenly inflicts an excruciating pain in her lower abdomen making her moan involuntarily . Peeking beneath the thick blanket, she finds the large bandage on her torso, stained with a few drops of brownish-red blood.

“Good morning, love, we’ve had quite the night.”

More shards of memory begin to cut through her mind. Like remembering an event that happened so long ago, it almost feels like a dream. Her mind fights to make sense, to grasp at the fuller image. She recalls gasping through the woods at night with weak limbs and a hand full of blood. Then a shot that ripped through the night. Bats were flying everywhere and then her body was cold for some reason.

No, she was freezing.

Like a videotape that’s cut off and glitches in the middle, her memory stops there. Making her stare at the Scandinavian pattern on the blanket as if she will find any answers there.

“Who is Liam?” August asks, taking a long sip from his coffee. There is much amusement in seeing her cowering before him looking so helpless right now. Stripped, unarmed, and bound to his bed after he took her life and gave it back.

He licks his lips at her which only makes the alarmed look on her face become more distinguished.

“You’ve undressed me?” she asks, finding out her voice is aching and hoarse, as if something seared her throat. “And tied me to the bed?”

August’s teeth are exposed to her as his smile widens. She makes a note of two sharp fangs, it makes him look like a vampire. “Perceptive, aren’t we? Wasn’t for any personal interest, you were in hypothermia.”

He gives a small pause, his eyes travelling across her covered body, unable to deny how nice it was to wake up with a naked woman in his arms. “Not that I didn’t enjoy having your tits pressed to me for an entire night.”

Even as lost as she is, she can’t help but roll her eyes at him and groan with hatred.

‘If anyone in Icarus hears of this, I’m done for.’

Was the stinging pain in her chest failure or sepsis? Either way, it stung. This was far from how she imagined this mission going along. Ending up as a captive of psychotic target, tied to his bed as a future sex slave or heaven knows what.

‘How the fuck did I end up here? Like this? Why?’

August watches as she frowns with deep concentration, forcefully trying to evoke some memory of all the lost hours from last night. He wonders if she knows he killed her. He’d very much like to remind her of that, of how she was at his mercy and the only reason she’s alive right now is because he allowed it.

‘And still she tried to kill me right after I gave her back her life. What a woman.’

“Who is Liam? And please don’t make me ask again, given the poor situation you’re at right now, princess.”

More echoes begin to float in her mind. It’s the look of superiority on his face, the piercing gaze that threatens to cut right through her.

“You tried to kill me!”

“No. I have killed you,” he corrects her.

“You were dead for at least 5 or 7 minutes.”

She stares at him completely bemused, her eyes seeking answers on the lines of his chiselled face. There is no remorse, no care, no mercy in it. She doesn’t even bother to look for affection, whatever that looks like. He is as cold as Helheim.

“But you saved me. Why?”

His jaw clenches, the muscles in his face straining as he remembers that idiotic idea he had last night, that mistake that’s now lying naked on his bed. For a man who plans ahead, he hasn’t thought this one through, not even for a second.

“Don’t get your panties in a bunch, I only need you for intel. One wrong move and I’d be glad to put you back to the bottom of that lake.”

“You know who sent me, CIA, Erica Sloane.” She shrugs, staring at him oddly.

He leans forward in his chair looking deeper into her eyes, trying to invoke fear in her. Yet she remains stoic, only her eyes glaring at him like two icicles.

“How did you know I was here? Who else knows?”

“I’m a good tracker,” she answers, doing her best attempt to shrug her shoulders with one hand latched above her head. “And you are not as smart as you think you are, August Walker.”

August offers her a dangerous stare, crossing his arms around the wooden backseat while his feet push from the ground to lean closer to her. He doesn’t like to be challenged, especially not by silly little girls.

“Why is that?”

A small smile spreads on her face. “From all the vehicles you could have taken, you stole my bike.”

A hiss of disbelief leaves his nose but the answer doesn’t please him. He leans back on his chair until it lands forcefully on the ground, making a loud thud through the moderate silence in the room. His hand reaches toward her, grabbing her jaw and cupping it crudely.

“No, how did you know I was in Norway?”

She clenches her jaw, trying to escape his touch but his grip becomes firmer, his fingertips painting red marks on her sickly pale skin. “Answer me.”

“I didn’t-”

“Bullshit.” he challenges her, now closer to her face than she would have ever wanted. His hot breath is a breeze on her skin. Her natural instinct to learn details kicks in, forcing her to pay attention to every freckle s on his nose, his bottom lip, and the lines and small wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.

‘So much anger’, she analyzes. He is not even furious yet it seems he keeps so much bottled up.

‘Does he ever get tired?’

“I didn’t know,” she finally answers, both sincerity and scorn in her voice. Then, a small provoking smirk appears on her lips. “It was destiny that brought you to me.”

He snorts, shaking his head at her with disbelief, recalling their little flirtatious run-in 2 days ago. His eyes observe her while a smug smirk spreads across his face. He allows his gaze to travel further down her neck and her chest, attempting to peer beneath the blanket to get a reminder of what was pressed to his body the night before.

“Telling you the truth, August Walker, would have killed you then in the ladies room,” she provokes, aware of the fact that he’s staring at her chest even though she keeps it covered.

“Oh?” he returns his gaze back to her, a single finger now takes a hold of her chin, tilting her head up violently. “How would you have done that? I’m intrigued.”

Ingvild licks her lips, drawing attention to her mouth. It’s seduction that she offers but with that same cold, now vicious smile.

“Slicing your throat, while you’re were washing your stupid hair below the tap. I’d then shove a tampon up your ass and send a photo to everyone in Icarus and to Sloane so they can have a good laugh.”

‘My phone, shit.’

The mobile device is traceable, if Liam hasn’t heard from her in a few days he could find her. But now August has it, with the rest of the stuff he confiscated from her. She looks around, trying to find where he placed her items.

August interrupts her inspection, his hand wrapping around her sore throat with a menacing gaze. “Don’t give me any ideas, princess. I’m not the one tied up and naked here.”

“I need to go to the girls’ room,”

She ignores his threat, remaining calm despite the hand that can easily snap her neck.

He looks at her dumbfounded, clenching his jaw once more. “What?”

“I need to go…”

“I heard you.” he frowns, letting go of her throat forcefully and then shoving the chair back, making it screech against the wooden floor while pacing the room, irritated.

‘Great, now I’m a fucking babysitter?’

He begins to regret ever saving her pathetic little life. What is there to gain anyway? A guy named Liam? Whoever that is to her. She mumbled that name in her dreams when her body was struggling to fight for survival.

August finds the bathrobe in the shower room and throws it on the bed next to her, before hovering above her chest to cut her bindings with the same knife he used to stab her last night.

She tries to remain as relaxed and brave as she can, wanting him to think she is not intimidated by him and what she believes to be his empty threats. But every time he makes sudden movements. the intimidation shows in her beautiful grey eyes. Her body flinches and squirms helplessly.

If only she knew how aroused it made him, she’d be terrified.

“Try anything and I’ll unstitch you and let you bleed to death.”

Her wrist burns, the narrow rope has chafed her skin so badly there are deep purple marks on her flesh. She rubs it gently, trying to soothe the pain before grabbing the white cotton robe and staring at August with hatred.

He stares back at her while playing with the knife between his large hands. He slides a finger carefully on the edge of the sharp blade, making a harsh statement. No, he is not going to turn around.

Rolling her eyes she hides beneath the cover, pulling the bathrobe beneath and wearing it quickly, the relief of having something other than a blanket covering her feels almost astonishing.

At last, she throws the heavy blanket away and kicks her legs out of bed while wearing his oversized bathrobe. August remains silent, his eyes fixed upon her while the knife is pressed between his teeth.

Trying anything like killing him or escaping is far from realistic as she finds her legs hardly able to hold her own weight. The hardwood floor beneath her feet feels soft and mushy, if someone would have told her she’s stepping onto marshmallows she might have believed them.

She only manages to make two feeble steps before black spots appear in her sight and she falls forward with a pained grunt. She never makes it to the ground. Odd, she hasn’t noticed how big and strong he is when wrestling him on the floor. It seems that August has doubled in size.

“Who was it that didn’t love you, August?” she provokes coldly, grunting as she tries to lift her torso from his elbow. “Was it your mother? Or your dad?”

Silence and indifference is his answer to her query, with only a muscle that twitches in his cheek. He observes quietly as her hands grasp his biceps desperately and pathetically, trying to stabilize herself. It must make her hate him even more right now, to need him as much as she does.

He recalls how much he hated himself when he needed someone.

“Both then…” she answers, slightly panting.

“Did anyone ever loved you at all? Ingvild?” he taunts her back while helping her get to the toilet. He notices how her eyes look around while they move through the room, looking for her things, no doubt. She is smart, he’ll give her that, she is cunning and calculated even in her weakest moment.

But he’ll always be a step ahead.

“More than they loved you, I am sure.”

He lets her into the small room and shuts the door, leaning against it and patiently waits with his arms crossed. The sudden silence and her short absence begin to cloud his thoughts. It’s almost as if he’s dreaming awake, seeing her again, her hair falling from her decaying scalp like leaves falling from a tree.

‘Not more than you.’

The crude vibration of his phone snaps him back into reality. A message from one of the apostles, stating nothing but a location and an hour. He smirks to himself, glad to be soon away from this freezing hell. Now the question left is, what he should do with the little problem he created for himself?

Snap her little neck? Strangle her to death? Make it intimate, she deserves as much. He can already see his body hovering on top of hers, his hands wrapped around her, tight like a lover’s embrace. The robe opens as she struggles, exposing much of her naked flesh.

The thought makes him hum with delight but once again he is interrupted. This time it’s by her face that stares at him, blank of emotion, with eyes like two empty crystals. She leans against the door frame, her face tilted up to meet his gaze. “I need to shower. I smell like you.”

He wonders at all why he should fulfil her request. She’s a prisoner, not a guest, and far from being someone, he’d care for. His eyes run up and down her body and finally at the cold unreadable expression on her face.

“Whatever.”

The bathroom is rather large, surrounded by cream-coloured marble tiles that adorn both the walls and the flooring. There is a large, fancy bathtub in the middle of the room, one that is made to look old and classy with golden taps. An additional shower is placed at the other side of the room, surrounded by a thin wall of glass.

The bath looks so tempting, her eyes fixate upon it, fantasizing about slipping into a warm bubble bath with one of those pink and purple bath bombs.

August notices her fascination and snorts, edging her toward the shower instead. “You should’ve taken my offer back then, princess. Be thankful that I am allowing you the luxury of showering at all.”

For all, he cares she can die of infection, who knows what bacteria these lake water she bled into had.

“I’d take the shower over-sharing anything with you,” she spits back, her hand grasping the golden handle of the glass door. August remains facing, leaning against the marble tile with ease while sucking on his bottom lip with anticipation.

“Aren’t you going to at least turn away?” she asks naively, crooking her eyebrow up, bewildered by the large man who’s standing there with sheer confidence on his face, not bothering to give her an inch of privacy.

“No,” he smirks cockily, licking that small freckle on his lips. “You tried to kill me, I don’t trust you. But don’t worry, won’t be anything I haven’t seen before, princess.” he shrugs and tilts his head. His eyes gesture at the robe as he awaits for her to slip it off her body.

Ingvild chews the inside of her cheek with the fury that courses through her veins. He seeks to humiliate her even more, to show her again how little power she has.

But men are fools, a woman has more power over a man, especially when she is naked. She doesn’t mind what he sees and if he likes it or not anyway. Also, nervousness is not in her spectrum of emotions.

The white cotton robe falls off her body, landing at her feet with a soft thud. There she is standing completely bare before the man who tried to murdered her and who for some sick, twisted, megalomaniac reason nurtured her back to life.

Unlike last night, he has the freedom to linger on what stands in his sight. Milky white skin, stretched taut over an apt figure. Athletic; formed by years of whatever combat training she has endured. There are no scars on her body save for the new one he gave her which is hidden behind gauze. The thought of letting her survive just so she can curse him every time she sees the hideous crescent scar is quite the temptation.

He further inspects her body, imagining cupping her small breasts in his large hands, they will not fill his palms completely, but it will suffice. He was always more into women’s behind and the rounded shape of her tight ass is indeed pleasing.

“As I said, nothing I haven’t seen before,” he speaks out, letting his gaze travel back to meet her face again.

She hisses through her nose, rolling her eyes as she walks inside the translucent room and turns the stream of the water to wash over her body.

The heat of the water immediately makes her groan loudly with pleasure; it echoes through the entire room. Her body is far more battered than she even realized, it feels as almost as if she is being redeemed, baptized, or whatever other religious allegories she could think of.

She leans against the wall for support with both her palms flat against the surface. Her back arches and she lets her head tilt back with her eyes tightly shut. The damp hair sticks to her spine, while she lets the droplets of water slide between her perky breasts and down her torso.

Sweet moans escape between her lips with every second, accompanying the water that soothe her aching muscles.

August can feel the fabric of his trousers tightening as blood stirs through the veins of his cock. She squirms beneath the stream, moving so sensually while making these “fuck me” noises all too clear. It’s meant to tease and provoke him. He is tempted to march in there and fuck the living hell out of her.

Fucking her to death, now that one I haven’t tried before.

“Enjoying the show?” she asks, turning to face him while the water trickles down her back. She can see the hardness in his groin, growing larger and larger with every second she stands there wet and naked.

“I am, actually,” he answers, not bothering to hide his desire.

She turns to face the shower tap, one hand plastered to the wall while the other leisurely runs down her chest. Smooth and slick, she allows it to circle her breast, making sure August can see how her finger brushes the hardening peachy nipple before descending along her flat torso.

His breath becomes rigid, his eyes furiously focusing on how she praises her own body. Her lids are half-hooded, hazy with lust and her mouth is reddening and slight swelling as she bites into her plush lips with delight. He dares, taking a step closer, allowing himself to have a better view of the show.

It is for him after all, is it not?

Tender and slow like honey, she lets her fingers creep between her thighs. In her mind, she fancies larger hands taking control over her body. A man’s hands, hands that are rough and callous, counter to how she is built, yet they caress her gently, working their way up between her inner thighs and spreading her open.

A feverish moan escapes her tightened lips as her fingers rub against her clit. She opens her eyes with her head thrown to the side. Giving August a lustful stare, cruel and full of snide she begins working herself with sensual strokes. She can feel her own wetness, thick and oily against her delicate fingers.

August’s nostrils flare, the bulge in his groin now enormous and aching for release.

Does she think she is torturing him? Does she even know men?

He inches closer toward the shower, close enough until so his hand can touch the glass which is now covered with tiny droplets of water and a thin layer of steam. His hand falls toward the zipper of his trousers, letting it sink before reaching out to pull his erect cock.

There is a smitten look upon her face, and an unpleasant chill runs through her spine as if she is intimidated by the sheer sight of him. Obviously, he is very much aware of how impossibly large he is. She gathers he is used to the look she is giving him, knowing exactly what’s going through her mind.

“Why are you stopping then, princess?” he asks with a cocky smile, his large hand wraps around the base of his hard cock, immediately beginning to stroke while eliciting deep, low groans.

Ingvild finds it surprisingly arousing, unable to help herself but stare at how his fingers engulf the fleshy shaft, feeling herself throb at the sight of the thick bulging veins and the ridges that run across his erection. When she started this little game it was in order to abuse him. But now, there is a certain desperation in her spiteful urge.

Looking at him as if driven to insanity, she lets her fingers massage her mound with increasing force, hard yet slow while her thumb traces the engorged nub. With every intent to let him see what he cannot take, she leans against the wall and parts her legs wide for him, letting him see her pink cunt and how her fingers play and tease while her other hand moves to squeeze her breast.

Her mind escapes into fantasies again, to urge the tingling sensation that burns between her thighs. Betrayed by lust, it’s him that she sees, holding her down as he did the night before, only that instead of trying to kill her he tears off her panties and splits her flesh open with his enormous cock.

The yelp that escapes her mouth is barely human, the image triggering something dark and unfamiliar and despite its wrongness now all she can think of is him.

August, on the other hand, is anything but inclined to indulge this. Pumping his cock urgently, he imagines pounding the little valkyrie against the wall, his grunts so low and loud he is certain the neighbours renting the room nearby can hear.

‘Have you ever fucked an undead girl? Imagine how sweet that wet little cunt must be after coming back to life… milking around you as if you are her saviour, your cock a gift sent from heaven…’

‘Or hell.’

Leaning his forehead against the glass, his breath leaves a veil of steam against the surface while he glances at Ingvild climbing toward her climax.

“Fuck!” She shudders, trying to fight the burning image of him in her mind, but these forbidden fantasies continue to assail her; all the different ways he could take her, exploit and humiliate her. How his body would feel atop of hers while he holds her down and hammer her into the floor.

Her battle wanes, heat spills between her legs as she falls into dark euphoria.

Seeing her arch against the tiles, naked and showered by ecstasy, his control finally snaps. August slams a hand against the glass, spourting white ribbons of cum all over the surface.

‘Oh to see her die and then burst with life…’

They stand in front of one another, both with heaving chests and frowning faces.

Finally, she turns the stream off and opens the glass door while August tucks himself back in. Apparent sweat covers his forehead while his chest is still heaving. She crouches to grab the robe, wearing it again while moving next to him with a teasing look on her face.

Although her legs feel feeble, the adrenaline made the blood kickstart her body again, her heart pumping with excitement as life returned to her system. She pushes past August scornfully, letting him follow her as she walks out of the bathroom.

He grabs her elbow, shooting her a warning glare. “Where do you think you are going?”

She tries to fight him but his grip is fierce and she is too weak.

“You are still a prisoner here,” he warns her and begins to lead her back to the bedroom and toward the bed while grabbing more rope on the way. He notices once again how she desperately seeks her personal belongings, gun, and phone.

“Don’t bother, angel, it’s all in the bottom of the lake.”   

______________________________________________

Disclaimer: I don’t own Mission Impossible or August Walker

[jemej3m]

HAVE U EVER THOUGHT OF A BAND!AU?? i love band au's and ur work!!! (not to mention but i think u would write an excellent drummer!andrew)

are you kidding me??? have i ever thought of a band au? bruh i breathe band au’s

also, i wanted this to be soft, so have some childhood friends starting a band out of their mum’s garage :DD

*

“Can I now?”

Neil ducked his head, trying not to show Andrew his grin. “No, ‘Drew.”

Andrew cocked his head. “How about now?”

Neil turned around and arched a singular eyebrow at the man. “You cannot shove your drum stick through Kevin’s brain, Andrew. Not now: not ever.”

“I hate you,” he muttered. Neil just grinned. 

“You say the sweetest things to me, ‘Drew.” With that, he turned and continued to tune his acoustic. Behind him, Andrew was going bright red. 

What started as a friendly, neighbourhood band had turned into something else entirely: Neil and Andrew were cramped backstage, tuning and warming up. Kevin was probably talking to his mom on the phone, whilst Nicky was most certainly trying to escape their security detail and go flirt with fans in the event centre’s foyer. He could charm a crowd. 

They’d started the band up when they were just kids: Neil remembered Kevin grabbing him by the sleeve and dragging him across the street, where he’d noticed the three Dobson boys setting up instruments in their garage: Nicky on bass, Aaron on keyboard and Andrew on his drumkit. 

Neil, having been only 11 whilst the others were 12 or 13, wasn’t as outspoken or enthusiastic about joining them as Kevin was. 

“Come on, Neil,” Kevin insisted, dragging him by the elbow. “I’ll sing and you play the guitar. Okay?”

“It might be fun, Neil,” his sister, Dan, insisted, giving him a gentle push out the door. “It’s just messing around in a garage band. Nothing serious.”

If little Neil knew where he’d be, nine years later, he probably would’ve spontaneously combusted out of paranoia and fear. 

Adult Neil still got anxious - he always wanted to perform his best - but it’d taken years of gigs and scouts and labels to work them up to where they were now. It was a gradual process, which definitely helped the whole stage-fright thing. 

“What are you thinking about?” Andrew inquired, sitting down behind Neil and hooking his chin over Neil’s shoulder. He smiled, leaning back against his best friend. 

“Just stuff,” he responded. “How we got here. Where we’ll go.”

“Next stop on the tour is D.C.”

“Funny.”

“Yes,” Andrew agreed, deadpan. “That’s what I’m known for.”

Neil just laughed, getting to his feet. “We’d better get ready before Kevin comes back.”

“Your brother is the worst,” Andrew grunted, following suit. 

“At least we’re not related,” Neil grinned, jostling Andrew’s shoulder. “You can’t talk: you’re Aaron’s twin.”

Andrew just pointed a stick at Neil in warning. 

*

The lights were flashing. Audience screaming. Neil opened his eyes out of his reverie and looked to his counterparts: Nicky was rushing up and down the front lines, giving out as many hugs as he could. Kevin was waving and blowing kisses. And Andrew - 

He stood behind his drumkit, shirtless and dripping with sweat. He still bore his armbands, brimming with blades and secrets, and in his hands he loosely held his favourite pair of drumsticks, a pair Betsy had bought him, one’s he’d been careful to not break. 

Neil’s mouth was dry as he walked over to where Andrew stood. A spotlight blazed from above, shrouding Andrew’s head and illuminating his hair like a golden halo. He looked angelic. He was angelic. 

“You were amazing,” Neil said, voice lost under the cacophony of the crowd. His hand was reached out, gently brushing the bare skin of Andrew’s bicep. He didn’t know what he was doing anymore: the post-show euphoria was driving him. 

Andrew didn’t need to hear him. He could read lips. Read intentions. 

They were ushered off the stage soon after, Neil’s ears still ringing, his fingertips still burning. Andrew tugged on a fresh shirt, a towel around his neck. He had the most laborious job out of all of them, save maybe Kevin. Neil looked away from the way his hair curled at the nape of his neck. 

“Good show,” Kevin panted, sweat sticking his hair to his forehead. Neil nodded, the exhaustion of playing for four hours settling in. His shoulders ached, fingertips raw with playing both his guitar and the keyboard (Neil filled Aaron’s vacancy when he’d fucked off to college) whilst his throat ached from countless harmonies and backups he sung for Kevin. 

Genuine praise from Kevin was rare and prized for their band, and was usually reserved to the few moments after a performance finished. Then he’d go back to his regularly scheduled criticisms and evaluations. 

“Wasn’t it?” Nicky grinned. “We are such hot shit sometimes! Anyway,” he slung his guitar off to the side, careless. Neil winced a little. “I’ve got a cutie waiting in my car, apparently.” He winked. “His name’s Erik and he’s built like a wall. I’ll see y’all tomorrow!” 

“Jesus Christ,” Kevin said, not unkindly. They were all used to Nicky’s antics by now. He looked back to Neil. “You gonna stay with Andrew or me?”

Neil narrowed his eyes. Was he going to stay with his brother or his best friend? The choice wasn’t exactly hard to make. 

Kevin put up his hands. “What? I thought you two’d had a lover’s spat or something, before the show.”

“Kevin,” Andrew warned, voice low. 

“You guys weren’t as synthesised as you usually are,” Kevin continued. “Did Neil say something, again? Neil, what did you do?”

“Kevin,” Andrew snapped. 

The man took his final warning with a grain of salt and rolled his eyes, peeling off to cool down and head back to the hotel. He left Neil standing in the middle of the corridor, baffled. What the fuck was he talking about? A lover’s spat?

“Don’t think too hard, junkie,” Andrew muttered, fingers hooked into the collar of Neil’s shirt. “He’s just sprouting his usual bullshit.” But Andrew couldn’t look him in the eyes. 

“Right,” Neil agreed, smiling weakly. “You’re right. Sorry.”

“Shut up,” Andrew tugged him down the corridor with a finger hooked through Neil’s belt loop. 

Neil went willingly. He always went willingly with Andrew. There was no one else in the world that he trusted more.

*

“What do you mean, you’re not a thing?”

Neil paused with his fingertips up to the door, ready to push it open. It seemed as though he had stumbled upon a conversation - perhaps not for Neil’s ears. 

“He’s not interested,” Andrew said, sounding exhausted. “And I’m not about to pressure him into something he doesn’t want.”

Huh. Maybe they were talking about a new guy. Andrew didn’t date that often - or very successfully - and he was usually not willing to talk to Neil about it whenever it did happen. Neil wasn’t quite sure why but respected his boundaries nevertheless. He just didn’t know that Andrew went to Kevin about it. 

Neil wondered who it was, this time. Roland? He’d been the most long-term thing Andrew had ever attempted. No, Andrew said he wasn’t interested in Roland. Unless he was lying. 

Andrew doesn’t lie to me, Neil reminded himself. 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kevin insisted. “He’s been in love with you ever since he first saw you. Don’t give me that look, Andrew. Put away your knives.”

“Do you think so?” Andrew asked, voice low. Gravelly. Tainted by disbelief.

Something in Neil’s chest tightened. He sounded…hopeful. Neil was arbitrarily jealous. Who was this guy? 

Wait, why was Neil jealous?

He pushed against the door, ignoring the way that the two of them shifted so that it didn’t look like they were engaged in conversation. 

“We’re loading up the bus,” he supplied. “Time to get moving.”

And if Neil noticed the way that Andrew walked around him, careful not to brush their knuckles, well. 

He didn’t say anything. 

*

By the end of the third week, Neil couldn’t handle it anymore. He wasn’t sure what he’d done, or why Andrew was so adamant in avoiding him, but he hated it. He hadn’t felt this isolated since his early years when his father would shut him in a wardrobe and his mother would scold him for eliciting his father’s ire, before both of his parents died and Wymack adopted him into his strange little family, brought him into the tiny cul de sac  where Betsy Dobson and Abby Winfield lived with their own collections of abandoned kids. 

“Andrew,” he mumbled as he watched Andrew tuck himself into his own bed. They were sleeping in the same hotel room but they were millions of miles away from each other. Neil felt stiff and confused. 

Resigned, he shut the light off. 

*

“Fix it,” Kevin demanded. 

“Fix what?”

“Just tell him already. It’s getting nauseating.” 

Neil narrowed his eyes. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Kevin threw Neil’s lyric notepad back at him. “‘Living limbless, lost, lonely, ever since you went and left me’? What do you mean, what am I talking about? I thought you two were already together - now he’s saying you were never interested? What the fuck, Neil. You’ve been practically married for years.” 

Neil blinked. “Me and -”

“Andrew, yes, who else?” Kevin continued, irritable as he scrawled down new ideas. “You’re so fucking dense sometimes - ow!” 

Neil stuck out his tongue, satisfied with the large black line his thrown pen had left behind. He fished out another pen from his bag and kept writing, letting Kevin’s banter distract him from how painful his chest felt. 

*

The tour was ending. They were looping back to South Carolina. Andrew hardly looked at him anymore, let alone spoke to him. Kevin looked at Neil with pity. Nicky tried to cheer everyone up with icecream. 

Neil couldn’t understand why they were falling apart. What had he done? What had he said? 

The screams irked him. They sounded less ecstatic and more afraid. Neil was falling apart onstage, overthinking. They’d just played for Charleston, one of their last stops on the tour. 

The curtains came down. Neil couldn’t move. The others were already off the stage. Neil couldn’t breathe. 

“Neil,” Andrew said. He couldn’t look Andrew in the eye. How was he to explain that Andrew’s estrangement had left him in such a miserable state that he could hardly perform without breaking down? 

“Neil, look at me.” 

Neil closed his eyes. “Whatever I did - I’m sorr -” 

“Abram,” Andrew whispered, before pressing a bruising kiss to Neil’s lips. His eyes flew open, though he didn’t move. It didn’t matter: Not a moment later, Andrew ricocheted back, hand over his own mouth. In his other hand, his favourite drumsticks snapped, falling to the floor in uneven halves. 

By the time Neil had opened his mouth, Andrew was gone. 

Neil spent the drive to the pub they’d chosen to ride out their performance high in silence. Andrew was stoic and unmoving, silent despite Nicky’s attempts at conversation. When they arrived, Neil felt like he wanted to throw up. 

It was bustling at the late hour, but dark enough to slip in unnoticed. Neil followed Andrew up to the bar: at one point, someone shoved into Andrew and Neil felt him press Neil against the marble top, warm from shoulder to shin. Neil wanted to lean back into him. He wanted Andrew to look at him, to talk to him. He wanted Andrew back. He wanted Andrew. 

Quickly, he turned around, ignoring the bar tender when he asked if he was sure he wanted a virgin martini. Andrew was right there, pupils blown, cheeks red. Angry. 

He was furious. 

“Andrew,” Neil insisted. “Why -” 

He grabbed the tray of drinks and disappeared before Neil could form a sentence. 

And - well. Neil wasn’t known for subordination. 

He waited patiently for the others to get drunk and disappear into the crowd, like they always did. Sometimes Nicky dragged Neil with him, if the night was right. Andrew usually just sat, patiently waiting for his family to return to him. His whiskey sips were cautious and slow. 

Tonight was different. As soon as they were alone, Andrew stood, knocked back the entire glass and strode towards the exit. Neil let his breath hitch and followed, almost jogging in order to keep up with Andrew’s stride. 

“Andrew, this is insane,” he said as they walked down the street, leaving the bar behind. “I’m losing my mind here. Why won’t you talk to me? Why won’t you even look at me? What did I do?” 

“Exist,” Andrew snarled, hands curled into fists and shoved into the pockets of his denim jacket. 

Neil ran ahead of him, almost tripping over the uneven sidewalk. They’d walked far enough that they seemed to have removed themselves from any remnants of the club, and instead were stood in front of a circular, patheon-esque church and its haphazard graveyard. 

Andrew stopped walking and stared. In the moonlight his skin was pale enough to be translucent. 

“Tell me,” Neil whispered. “Truth for truth. We promised, Andrew. To never lie, to never leave. Why did you kiss me?”

“You promised,” Andrew corrected him. “I swore I would have your back. Does that have to constitute being attached at the hip?” 

Neil crossed his arms, petulant. 

Andrew’s sigh was aggravated. “It was never meant to be a problem.”

“What was?”

“You.”

“Andrew -” 

Fingers curled in the collar of his shirt, then slipped across the warm skin at the nape of his neck, then tangled themselves into Neil’s hair. Andrew pulled their foreheads together, squeezing his eyes closed too tight. Neil wanted to iron out the crease between his brows. 

“‘Drew?”

“Shut up,” the man croaked. “Shut up. Shut up.”

“Andrew,” Neil said, weakly. “I wanted to kiss you.” 

Andrew’s nails dug into Neil’s scalp. “No you didn’t.”

“Yes,” his fingers carefully found their way onto Andrew’s jaw, forcing the man to look up at him. “I did.” 

Andrew just swallowed, red-cheeked. 

Neil pulled Andrew closer, head dropping to Andrew’s shoulder. His heart throbbed like a drumbeat, heavy and insistent and never, ever out of time. “Is that what this is about?”

“No,” Andrew lied. 

“I think I like you, ‘Drew,” Neil whispered into the skin of Andrew’s neck. “I think I really do.” 

“I hate you,” Andrew managed, sliding his hands around Neil’s waist and holding him close under the Charleston moonlight. “I hate you.” 

“I know,” Neil managed, closing his eyes. It made a lot more sense, now. 

Between their erratic breathing and racing pulses, a drumbeat formed. 

[theangrypokemaniac]

Since no one cares about Alola I can therefore say what I want.

Team Rocket's Pokémon are all worthless toss. That's such a surprise from this oafish writing team.

Remember when Jessie and James had two each, to offer variety? Permitting them even that is too much focus nowadays.

We don't what anything interesting going on, thank you. Repetition is what we and they deserve.

Arbok, Weezing, Lickitung and Victreebel are spinning in their graves.

Stufful was missing for three years and she displayed not the slightest pang of concern until its belated invention. Given her temper she ought to have torn the island apart searching for her baby, but no.

Not bothered about Bewear. It shouldn't really be in this list as it didn't belong to them, although catching has no value anymore.

A bit thick are we? Or conforming to the usual parental standards?

Well, she's sufficiently neglectful that she let it out of her sight long enough for it to be crushed under a tree, then was too idle to come to the rescue. In consequence he was obliged to wait days until one of Lusamine's lackeys arrived.

She's 'Mama Bear' though, isn't she?

It's based on a red panda, is partly the colour of a black bear and as strong as a grizzly, but all that is a mere cover for its true nature as a Bear-Face Ham.

The modern pretence is that everyone's a vegetarian (are they balls), and Ursa Major lives on fruit, not, you know, flesh.

Just because it there's no hibernating in the tropics doesn't mean it can get by without a salmon now and again.

The name is stupid, since a red panda is not a bear. A play on words isn't clever if based on what it isn't.

They should've called her 'Pandamonia', or 'Pandour', which is a brutal soldier.

It is at least redeemed by battering the klepto cockroach into the next dimension. Good on 'er.

Mind you, this is Alola, a cesspit of incest, so it's probably some sick arrangement, like Bewear being slipped the length by that previously unmentioned Oakie-Dokie clone.

He's the spit of Jimmy Savile, thus every depravity is on the table.

Where's Stufful's dad? He buggered off too?

What kind of name is 'Stufful'? What's it made from, 'stifle' and 'suffocation'? 'Stuffed'?

Thanks for that. Whenever I see its ovine face I'm reminded of taxidermy.

Were Ursa Minor and Bewear described as mother and son, or were they 'friends'?

A series of games involving breeding and the 'anime' is too squeamish to even imply animals live in families.

I don't care either way for Stufful, but I'd like it better if its mouth wasn't a camel toe.

I understand it's a sea creature, and the contents of the oceans are their own brand of peculiarity, but looks like a limbless, undead spaniel plagued with extra teats. Its 'ears' resemble distended mammeries.

Hey, remember that interesting, original Pokémon James had called Victreebel? Let's do it again! And again! AND AGAIN!

Victreebel is a venus fly trap: an anomaly in nature as a carnivorous plant. It makes sense that the Pokémon version would be a bit more full-on in catching a meal.

New law: Team Rocket are required to collect monsters as ugly as themselves.

Hurting James was its personality quirk, particularly to it, fitting its nature, its 'thing'. It was never meant as a template for most of what he caught in the future.

Something is funny if it happens once, and can be now and again if done with a least a little flair.

Nothing repeated as a constant leaden thud is remotely amusing, but this is an unknown fact to Nintendo bone heads. They think certain events are utterly hilarious in themselves and require no finesse in application.

They have a checklist of moments obligatory to each episode, which explains the plodding lifelessness. Tick 'em off to keep the fans from being ticked off. All we supposedly care about is each gong struck, not how we got there.

At least Victreebel used to vary its behaviour:

Occasionally it even did as told without any chomping preamble.

It didn't do the exact same action every single time it was involved!

Mostly it swallowed James.

How long was it once Victreebel was chucked out on its leafy arse before Cacnea arrived?

Oh look, it's a Grass Pokémon and attacks James!

Sometimes it ate Jessie.

Carnivine got in on the action before Cacnea's run was even up: kick 'em when they're down why don't yer?

Oh look, it's a Grass Pokémon and attacks James!

Now we have Mareanie. Wasn't there a few in between? No, shush, they don't exist anymore.

Every bloody time it came out, it turned round and punctured him.

Every bloody time.

Ah, it's not a Grass Pokémon. That makes it totally new!

Oh yes, it's the complete opposite of Victreebel. It's Poison instead. Not like it at all.

Every bloody time it came out, it'd gnaw his head off.

Every bloody time.

That's endearing.

Oh but it is! It's just showing him love!

As that makes it alright!

If a muscular man squeezed his girlfriend so tightly he cracked her ribs, is that 'sweet' because he 'meant well' but his feelings overwhelmed him? Or is it A.B.H.?

Every bloody time it comes out, it injects James's head with toxin until it swells up into purple pustule of disease.

Every bloody time.

I never took Victreebel's assault as affection. To me they were real attempts to devour James, especially with the accompanying frenzied screech. Interpreting that as a positive emotion is bizarre to me.

At soon as James found it wedged in a Breeding Centre cage and opened the door it grabbed him, which appeared to be Victreebel lashing out in anger for what'd happened in the intervening period.

What Mareanie does is worse than the other three put together. At least they delivered mere bite marks or pinpricks, but it infects James!

Whole episodes of this programme have involved a Pokémon falling foul of Poison Powder and being on the verge of death, with all done to preserve it until Ash hunted down the cure, but now it's a big laugh, apparently.

Not one character ever has the wits about them to carry an Antidote, otherwise the writers wouldn't be able to fall back on the tired old race-against-time scenario, which is no such thing as we know they won't die.

Is it likely that James is always going to end up picking a violent Pokémon, of all the individuals of a race, of all the lifeforms in the universe?

Aren't his allowed to come with their own personality, or is there a set pattern they must follow, and when caught they absorb it, for fear they might be memorable?

Mind you, it's interesting the reactions these abuses provoke:

Victreebel eats James: Aw, it's so kyewt!

Cacnea impales James: Aw, it's so kyewt!

Carnivine chews James: Aw, it's so kyewt!

Mareanie poisons James: Aw, it's so kyewt!

Meowth claws James: Aw, it's so kyewt!

Jessie beats James: Aw, it's so kyewt!

Jessibelle whips James: EEVUL BITCH!!!

Mimikyu should be opposed for breaking it's own world.

To us, Pikachu is the most famous Pokémon, belonging to Ash, the protagonist, and the franchise's mascot.

To them, Pikachu is just another middling Pokémon hundreds of young Trainers catch, and holds no greater value.

It's blatantly a reference to Pikachu's real-life status, acknowledging itself as fiction. No Pokémon would hold the same significance for this design to work but him.

Otherwise why would Mimikyu, when it has the choice of every Pokémon that exists, and, if meant to be a believable world, every Pokémon we don't know exists, choose Pikachu to ape? Why wouldn't it pick a Legendary?

Alola Pikachu is looking off colour.

It's not even this specific Mimikyu, it's the entire species!

What, they work to a hive mind, incapable of individual tastes and opinions?

Do they all hate Pikachu too, even though the entire mouse population of Alola has been rounded up by that loon and trapped in a valley, or were we lumbered with the lone demented obsessive with a severe complex?

Is it well jel that Pikachu's a real one, whereas it can only manage to knock up a bog-standard costume with a face daubed by a chimp paralytic from scrumpy?

Well stop imitating it then! Invent your own design!

Oh come on. The animators can't even do that, hence its creation. You can hardly expect it to display inspiration if born from its absence.

I wonder if it hates Raichu. And Pichu. And Plusle and Minun. And the rest of the Pikachu derivatives, although it is one.

(As an aside, I don't know why Raichu, Marowak and Exeggutor were redrawn for this era, but not Pikachu, Cubone and Exeggcute. Why does the sweaty climate affect only evolutions?) 

Here's an idea: make Shiny Mimikyu have a different get up, not colour.

You can have that free, Game Freak. I'm too lenient with yer.

Presumably, Mimikyu hatches (already dead?) in all its eye-bleeding nastiness, and instinctively reaches for the discarded yellow bedsheet and pack of crayons that just so happens to be nearby, and the scissors to make the peep holes.

Them inbreds know how to litter.

Flippers?

Nah, it's probably hooks.

How is it born aware of a Pikachu's face, and why is it compelled to copy them?

Knowledge of his own ugliness is innate, thus he must cover his nakedness before it lays waste to the forest inhabitants.

Yet if you breed 'em, it emerges wearing it, like the cloth formed from left-over albumen and stained with yolk!

What's it reaching with? Paws?

Mittens?

Oh, and there was a deceased specimen in the series, so it's either a ghost, and nothing but bedsheet, or a zombie, and it's repulsive carcass has upped the ante by putrifying.

Even its name doesn't fit. Apart from the unsightly spelling, what's 'Mimikyu' about? It's not mimicking me.

Mimikyu? It should be Mimikchu!

And you know what? Even Nintendo agree their own inventions aren't good enough, because they made return almost impossible.

They hate these more than they do even the pre-Unova Pokémon, most of whom were condemned to a dark existence within the iron corridors of H.Q. and haven't been seen since.

• Growlie is such a beloved figure in James's life he's been involved all of twice.

• Dustox got pensioned off.

• James was practically bullied into gifting Cacnea to that cloying bitch Gardenia.

• Whilst he still tecnically owns Chimecho, it's as lost to him as any of them.

Remember Seviper, Yanmega, Carnivine and Mime Junior?

Hell, remember Woobat, Yamask, Frillish and Amoonguss?

Or Gourgeist and Inkay?

Of course, since the makers appear to have the Reverse-Midas Touch, Team Rocket still took that useless, wincing lump Wobbuffet to Galar instead of dumping it over the sea. Apparently we're stuck with it forever.

Arbok, Lickitung, Weezing and Victreebel got shafted, but THAT survives?

Yes? That's more the writers do. In current canon these Pokémon never lived at all. Dead memories in the haze.

[somstory]

Chapter 32 of Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

There was the day, during our first trip—our first circle of paradise—when in order to enjoy my phantasms in peace I firmly decided to ignore what I could not help perceiving, the fact that I was to her not a boy friend, not a glamour man, not a pal, not even a person at all, but just two eyes and a foot of engorged brawn—to mention only mentionable matters. There was the day when having withdrawn the functional promise I had made her on the eve (whatever she had set her funny little heart on—a roller rink with some special plastic floor or a movie matinee to which she wanted to go alone), I happened to glimpse from the bathroom, through a chance combination of mirror aslant and door ajar, a look on her face . . . that look I cannot exactly describe . . . an expression of helplessness so perfect that it seemed to grade into one of rather comfortable inanity just because this was the very limit of injustice and frustration—and every limit presupposes something beyond it—hence the neutral illumination. And when you bear in mind that these were the raised eyebrows and parted lips of a child, you may better appreciate what depths of calculated carnality, what reflected despair, restrained me from falling at her dear feet and dissolving in human tears, and sacrificing my jealousy to whatever pleasure Lolita might hope to derive from mixing with dirty and dangerous children in an outside world that was real to her. 

And I have still other smothered memories, now unfolding themselves into limbless monsters of pain. Once, on a sunset-ending street of Beardsley, she turned to little Eva Rosen (I was taking both nymphets to a concert and walking behind them so close as almost to touch them with my person), she turned to Eva, and so very serenely and seriously, in answer to something the other had said about its being better to die than hear Milton Pinski, some local schoolboy she knew, talk about music, my Lolita remarked: 

“You know, what’s so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own”; and it struck me, as my automaton knees went up and down, that I simply did not know a thing about my darling’s mind and that quite possibly, behind the awful juvenile clichés, there was in her a garden and a twilight, and a palace gate—cim and adorable regions which happened to be lucidly and absolutely forbidden to me, in my polluted rags and miserable convulsion; for I often noticed that living as we did, she and I, in a world of total evil, we would become strangely embarrassed whenever I tried to discuss something she and an older friend, she and a parent, she and a real healthy sweetheart, I and Annabel, Lolita and a sublime, purified, analyzed, defied Harold Haze, might have discussed—an abstract idea, a painting, stippled Hopkins or shorn Baudelaire, God or Shakespeare, anything of a genuine kind. Good will! She would mail her vulnerability in trite bashness and boredom, whereas I, using for my desperately detached comments an artificial tone of voice that set my own last teeth on edge, provoked my audience to such outbursts of rudeness as made any further conversation impossible, oh my poor, bruised child. 

I loved you. i was a pentapod monster, but I loved you. I was despicable and brutal, and turpid, and everything, mais je t’aimais, je t’aimais! And there were times when I knew how you felt, and it was hell to know it, my little one. Lolita girl, brave Dolly Schiller. 

I recall certain moments, let us call them icebergs in paradise, when after having had my fill of her—after fabulous, insane exertions that left me limp and azure-barred—I would gather her in my arms with, at last, a mute moan of human tenderness (her skin glistening in the neon light coming from the paved court through the slits in the blind, her soot-black lashes matted, her grave gray eyes more vacant than ever—for all the world a little patient still in the confusion of a drug after a major operation)—and the tenderness would deepen to shame and despair, and I would lull and rock my lone light Lolita in my marble arms, and moan in her warm hair, and caress her at random and mutely ask her blessing, and at the peak of this human agonized selfless tenderness (with my soul actually hanging around her naked body and ready to repent), all at once, ironically, horribly, lust would swell again—and “oh, no” Lolita would say with a sigh to heaven, and the next moment the tenderness and the azure—all would be shattered. 

Mid-twentieth century ideas concerning child-parent relationship have been considerably tainted by the scholastic rigmarole and standardized symbols of the psychoanalytic racket, but I have hope I am addressing myself to unbiased readers. Once when Avis’s father had honked outside to signal papa had come to take his pet home, I felt obliged to invite him to the parlor, and he sat down for a minute, and while we conversed, Avis, a heavy, unattractive, affectionate child, drew up to him and eventually perched plumply on his knee. Now, I do not remember if I have mentioned that Lolita always had an absolutely enchanting smile for strangers, a tender furry slitting of the eyes, a dreamy sweet radiance of all her features which did not mean a thing of course, but was so beautiful, so endearing that one found it hard to reduce such sweetness to but a magic gene automatically lighting up her face in atavistic token of some ancient rite of welcome—hospitable prostitution, the coarse reader may say. Well, there she stood while Mr. Byrd twirled his hat and talked, and—yes, look at how stupid of me, I have left out the main characteristic of the famous Lolita smile, namely: while the tender, nectared, dimpled brightness played, it was never directed at the stranger in the room but hung in its own remote flowered void, so to speak, or wandered with myopic softness over chance objects—and this is what was happening now: while fat Avis sidled up to her papa, Lolita gently beamed at a fruit knife that she fingered on the edge of the table, whereon she leaned, many miles away from me. Suddenly, as Avis clung to her father’s neck and ear while, with a casual arm, the man enveloped his lumpy and large offspring, I saw Lolita’s smile lose all its light and become a frozen little shadow of itself, and the fruit knife slipped off the table and struck her with its silver handle a freak blow on the ankle which made her gasp, and crouch head forward, and then, jumping on one leg, her face awful with the preparatory grimace which children hold till the tears gush, she was gone—to be followed at once and consoled in the kitchen by Avis who had such a wonderful fat pink dad and a small chubby brother, and a brand-new baby sister, and a home, and two grinning dogs, and Lolita had nothing. And I have a neat pendant to that little scene—also in a Beardsley setting. Lolita, who had been reading near the fire, stretched herself, and then inquired, her elbow up, with a grunt: “Where is she buried anyway?” “Who?” “Oh, you know, my murdered mummy.” “And you know where her grave is,” I said controlling myself, whereupon I named the cemetery—just outside Ramsdale, between the railway tracks and Lakeview Hill. “Moreover,” I added, “the tragedy of such an accident is somewhat cheapened by the epithet you saw fit to apply to it. If you really wish to triumph in your mind over the idea of death—” “Ray,” said Lo for hurray, and languidly left the room, and for a long while I stared with smarting eyes into the fire. Then I picked up her book. It was some trash for young people. There was a gloomy girl Marion, and there was her stepmother who turned out to be, against all expectations, a young, gay, understanding redhead who explained to Marion that Marion’s dead mother had really been a heroic woman since she had deliberately dissimulated her great love for Marion because she was dying, and did not want her child to miss her. I did not rush up to her room with cries. I always preferred the mental hygiene of noninterference. Now, squirming and pleading with my own memory, I recall that on this and similar occasions, it was always my habit and method to ignore Lolita’s states of mind while comforting my own base self. When my mother, in a livid wet dress, under the tumbling mist (so I vividly imagined her), had run panting ecstatically up that ridge above Moulinet to be felled there by a thunderbolt, I was but an infant, and in retrospect no yearnings of the accepted kind could I ever graft upon any moment of my youth, no matter how savagely psychotherapists heckled me in my later periods of depression. But I admit that a man of my power of imagination cannot plead personal ignorance of universal emotions. I may also have relied too much on the abnormally chill relations between Charlotte and her daughter. But the awful point of the whole argument is this. It had become gradually clear to my conventional Lolita during our singular and bestial cohabitation that even the most miserable of family lives was better than the parody of incest, which, in the long run, was the best I could offer the waif. 

[fandom-artworks]

2019 Winter anime

2019 winter anime I have watch and my ratings. 

NO 1 : The Promised Neverland - Rating: 10/10 (Must watch)

In a world where demons exist and their favorite meals are an child’s brain, three of the eldest children must find a way to escape from the plantation. This series kept me on the edge of the seat. We must protect these kids!

NO 2 : Mob Psycho 100 II - Rating: 10/10 (Must watch)

Get Ready! Ready to set me off Mob!

Shigeo Kageyama is an great character, his kindness know no bounds and he never shows off his physic powers. His fiends and family are awesome as well. His face of with one of the strongest foes was epic.

NO 3 : The Rising of the Shield Hero (First half) - Rating: 9/10 (Recommended)

One of the best Isekai anime I have seen. Naofumi must not only face off with the Catastrophe monsters but is also framed as a criminal and doesn’t receive the support from the King. Raphtalia awesome and I am really rooting for Naofumi. And of course we all want that freaking bitch dead! Can’t wait for more of this story.

NO 4 : Kaguya-sama: Love is War - Rating: 9/10 (Recommended)

One of the funniest RomCom I have seen. The misunderstandings are through the roof with the characters. Some of the situations made me laugh out loud for real. Will Kaguya will ever get her confession? I am rooting for her.

NO 5: Dororo (First half) - Rating: 9/10 (Recommended)

A limbless man meets a lonely child. Together they travel the land searching for demons to recover the body parts stolen from him. A really interesting story I look forward to the rest of it.

NO 6: My Roommate is a Cat - Rating 9/10 (Recommended)

I really enjoy any story that tells a cat’s story form it’s perspective. This story does that well and also tell the story of novel writer Subaru the owner of Haru the cat.

NO 7: That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime - Rating 8/10 (Somewhat recommended)

Another Isekai anime but this time, he got reincarnated as a slime. But don’t worry the slime can take on the power and from of anything he eats. So it seems like any other Isekai anime.

NO 8: Manaria Friends - Rating 8/10 (Somewhat recommended)

Well, what can I say, I am a big fan of Human girl and Dragon girl relationships. This is a really cute anime and I love Grea and Anne.

NO 9: Endro~! - Rating 7/10 (Slightly recommended / depends on preference)

Never have a demon lord look this cute! This is a mix of Moe and Isekai anime. The story is quite silly and break the usual rules on what a hero and a demon lord is suppose to do. It really depend on your preference. 

NO 10: The Quintessential Quintuplets - Rating 7/10 (Slightly recommended / depends on preference)

Wait am I recommending a harem anime? Errr... yeah, I mean, I am not really... since he only gets one of them... Sign, just watch for laughs if nothing else.

Other animes I have watch

How clumsy you are, Miss Ueno. - Rating 6/10 (Okay but beware of fan service.)

Kind okay Ueno san makes funny inventions and tries too hard to get Tanaka’s attention to make him her boyfriend. But she also don’t have the courage to go through it. The bad part is too much fan service with a bunch of high schoolers.

Wataten! An Angel Flew Down to Me - Rating 5/10 (Average and weird lolicon moments.)

This anime have a socially awkward girl who falls in love with a grade schooler. (because anime) Some weird lolicon moments but not much fan service unless you count the bath scenes.

Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka - Rating 4/10 (Pretty bad.)

Yeah just skip this one unless you like Magical Girl Spanking (TM).

Kemono Friends 2 - Rating 3/10 (Bad. Just watch season one instead.)

They destroyed Tatsuki’s work. What else can I say. Only watch because I liked the characters. RIP Kaban chan. (she's not dead but they pretty much killed off her character)

[fifibabette]

Finesse to Feathers || Grad

One minute, Fiona had been staring into the eyes of the headmistress, and the next, it was as if the floor had been ripped out from underneath her. Funny enough, that was all she could remember -- just the lack of floor, then a tight, dark, falling feeling, and then...nothing. No noise, no sensation, nothing to even suggest there was a spell taking place around her. It was as if the world she knew had been ripped to pieces, and Fiona was in an entirely new dimension all on her own.

“Ugh…” A soft grunt came from the depths of her chest as she peeled one eye open at a time. Her face must have been stuck in the most unappealing grimace, but Fiona chose to ignore that in favor of just looking around. She froze, narrowed her eyes, and pushed her lips into a confused purse.

What had happened to her? What was that spell? And where...where the hell was she? Fiona’s mind began to race, shooting off in a thousand different directions and just baffling her even further. Her breath came in shallow bursts. Fiona tried to push herself up from the ground, but abruptly found she couldn’t because she didn’t actually have arms anymore.

Fiona Babette did not have any arms.

“Merde!” the word flew from her lips. She craned her neck from side to side, trying to determine if she was just seeing things and her arms were still there, but no. There were no arms. There wasn’t much to see at all, really, aside from what looked like a skirt of feathers strewn across a vast marble surface. Her legs weren’t visible amid the plumes, but after careful introspection Fiona realized with a chill that those feathers were her legs. Somehow, using some miraculous core strength Fiona didn’t know she had, the girl shot upright and began to panic. She was completely, entirely limbless. And yet, there was a small part of her that was fine with this.

Call it a strange familiarity that Fiona could not place, or the tiny part of her mind that was begging her to be rational about all of this and figure out what the hell went wrong, the stillness was there and it was confusing her even more. It was like a tiny voice at the back of her head, pleading with her to understand that this was right, this was how it should be. Fiona, however, wasn’t having any of it, and was entirely ready for this exam to be over.

“I ‘ave to get out,” Fiona said to the air around her. There was something different about her voice. Something a lot more...French, and definitely a little hysterical. “I ‘ave to go back. I ‘ave to figure this out and get back to ‘Ogwarts and pretend nothing happened. If I get back I can just forget this and be normal and never think of this again, right? Right?”

The only response was the steadily accelerating sound of her breathing. And then there was a startling moment of clarity. Okay, Fiona thought to herself. She closed her eyes and just breathed for a second. Okay. Think. First, who -- or what -- am I?

The soon-to-be Hogwarts graduate took a look down at herself again. Though she could not withhold the slight cringe she knew she had, her eyes were for the most part open and willing to take in what was going on. As she saw before, she was perched on what looked like a surface of fine marble, the old, expensive kind she had seen old suitors use in their kitchens and fireside bars. It was cold beneath her, so despite her leglessness, she could still feel below her waist. Beyond the marble was a sharp lip leading into darkness, the surface ending behind her before curving off into the distance where an unclear, almost cylindrical form sat waiting, almost seeming to shine in the dimness. It looked as if she was on a platform of some variety, surrounded by shadow on all sides of her.

Fiona nodded nervously to herself, then took a moment to study the feathers that made up her lower half. They were long and black, their tips edging into a cream-like white that reached in thin veins towards the bulk of the mass. They may have been Ostrich feathers if not for their breadth and silhouette. Much like the hips of a woman, the feathers were thick and sharply curving towards what would have been Fiona’s waist, the ends of them coming together almost like a pair of legs pressed in at the knee. It was quite a pleasant shape to look at, if it weren’t for the fact that it belonged on a feather duster as opposed to a human woman like Fiona.

Alarm bells clamored to life in the back of her head. Fiona needed a mirror, and she needed one now. Her mind turned to the thing at the far end of the platform and, wobbling with every surge forward, Fiona started to move towards it. As she approached, the shadows seemed to melt away in lieu of a faint pulsing light, coming from the object itself. Fiona squinted. What stood before her looked like a glass bird cage almost, except the bars were solid glass and it held no bird inside. Instead, there floated a glowing, wilting rose, its discarded petals lying dormant at the end of the stem.

Fiona inched closer. The rose took her breath away, but the way it was just...dying made her ache so badly inside. It was a longing, a familiar pinch of something she didn’t understand. And there, in the reflection she was beginning to see, there was so much pain…

“Ah, such a sad face, mademoiselle…”

She froze, reverie shattering around her. Over her shoulder, another glow had appeared, then divided itself into two more that then presented themselves to be...a candlestick? With a face? And beside it -- him? -- was another face, a female face, cream colored and attached to a long, wooden neck ending in the plumes Fiona had seen before. And in that face were eyes that looked so much like hers, and yet...completely different. They couldn’t be hers, right? Especially since they were attached to a living, breathing, magic feather duster that just couldn’t exist, even in the world of Hogwarts. Man, this was one hell of an exam.

The candlestick man was now right behind her. Before she could move away, she could feel the wax of his lips on her neck, hear the buzzing of his chuckles low in her ears, and feel the heat from his flames against her sides. He pressed the metal of his frame against the back of her feathers. Fiona let out a strangled retort.

Leaping back, the candlestick seemed almost hurt. “Oh non, oh dear, did I do something again? Oh Babette, oh Fifi, I know I ‘ave burned you before, but please. You ‘ave to know it was an accident -- “ He moved towards her again, but Fi backed away faster than she could blink. And then she just stared. “You know my name?” He scrunched up his wax eyebrows, eyes shadowed beneath their mass. “Of course, cherie! We’ve known each other for years. We’ve known each other quite well, if you know what I mean.” Those heavy, waxy brows wiggled suggestively.

Fiona nearly heaved, but even despite her confusion, she knew playing along may be the best option she had. “Oh -- of course. Something must ‘ave gotten into me. Do forgive me, er…” The candle’s expression melted into one of knowing kindness. “Ah, Lumiere understands. In the light of the rose, everything is off. Everything is different.” He wrapped his candlestick arms around the middle of Fi’s handle...waist...thing, and she had to coach herself not to flinch or go into a panic. This Lumiere continued, “With every petal that falls, I cannot help but think about the golden years, non? When we were still human, and the Master was, well...not a beast. We ‘ad fun back then. Every day was grand.” 

The alarm bells were back. She craned around, looking Lumiere dead in the face. He had very pretty eyes, she noticed, and the warmth from his flickering flame was comforting...but she was on a mission. “We were human before? I mean -- of course, we were. With arms and legs and bodies that looked like human bodies. Perfect, normal, human bodies.” Lumiere nodded, then passed her a wry wink. “And what a body yours was.”

Fiona felt her cheeks warm, then shook her head, startled at herself. “I -- merci? I think? You flatter me so, monsieur. But I do think you should tell me more about our...our human selves. I do enjoy listening to you talk.” She was even more startled to feel she somewhat meant it.

“Ah, well it would be my pleasure then,” the other continued. In a fluid motion, he spun her from him, then guided her with a flame at her back to sit at the lip of the platform. As Lumiere gestured into the blackness surrounding them, a glob of wax fell from his arm and tumbled down into the depths. Fiona leaned over to watch it fall, then swallowed hard and scooted back a few feet. “Once upon a time, in a land far away, there lived a ‘andsome prince and his dutiful staff. We -- as you know -- were among those staff, but we spent quite a lot of our time doing...other things.”

Fiona nodded, trying not to look too interested as the candlestick man winked once again. What was happening to her, getting all doe-eyed over this wax abomination? And why was she sitting here listening to him when she should be figuring out why the examiners turned her into a feather duster with no instructions on how to get back? Lumiere was still speaking. “One day, a strange woman came to our castle. She spoke to our Master, but he was not very kind at all to her, and I fear she took this very hard. She cast a curse on the Master and his castle, and everyone in the Master’s service was cursed alongside him. And that lady said to Master, ‘Until a woman can love you for who you are, you shall forever look and be a Beast.’”

“Oh,” Fi said. The story...something about it stirred something deep inside of her. She closed her eyes and leaned closer to Lumiere, her mind churning a thousand thoughts out at once. The candlestick gave a soft sound of understanding and wrapped an arm around her plumes. Fiona relaxed against him, and it just felt...right. “I never understood why you liked to ‘ear the story so often,” he mused. His breath tickled her ear. “Though I suppose it helps to keep it fresh in your mind, just in case a girl shows up to change our world.” Fiona laughed softly. “I think my world has been changed enough already today.” 

“Ah, is that so?” Lumiere’s lips were on the side of her face. Something jangled inside her, but for some reason Fiona did not pull away. “Well, you ‘ave been avoiding me lately. Perhaps a little catching up will make you feel better. I promise to be careful with the fire this time.”

“Mm…” She felt her eyes start to close, her face turn slowly towards him. He leaned closer himself, his heat unavoidable against her sides, and Fiona leaned in deeper even though she knew it wasn’t right…

And then the door crashed open against the far wall, and the pair leaped apart. A thunderous howl pelted Fiona’s ears. She floundered and shoved Lumiere away in the process as a hulking, furred figure approached with loathing in its eyes. All Fiona could look at was its teeth as Lumiere gasped, starting into a ramble as to why they were there and why the figure shouldn’t be upset, all of which Fi did not catch as she scrambled to put distance between herself and the newcomer. Its maw began to part just as she backed into the edge of the platform. One of her feathers caught on the edge and, much like a spring, catapulted her backwards when she moved too quickly to free it.

And then she was falling, that feeling from the start of the exam rising in her gut, a scream on her lips as the world sped up around her. She was falling, she was going to die, and Lumiere would be all alone --

Then it was over. Fiona gasped and opened her eyes wide as cheers roared around her, assaulting her from all sides as she staggered back from the lip of the stage. Lights pulsed onto her face, blinding and hot, and beyond them the faces of several examiners nodded in approval. Her heart ached, but somehow it was a sweet ache, like a forgotten memory that she wanted to get back no matter how much she tried...but it was gone now. It, and all recollection of what had just happened.

“W...what?” Fiona breathed. A hand pressed into the small of her back and steered her from the stage. Confused, she looked up into the face of her guide. “What just happened?”

The man offered a dazzling smile and shrugged. “You passed your final exam.”

[mm-mendell]

Humanity had grown to crave the night. El wasn't exactly surprised— for all of their many faults, humans were almost unnaturally good at adapting. And they had realized very quickly that the sun would no longer aid them.

El knew that Halen would be so disappointed in him. Even after all that had happened, she would have never stooped this low, never fallen into hatred like him.

But Halen wasn't around anymore. And none of the other deities were about to stop him— they approved, mostly. And why shouldn't they? Why shouldn't they fight back, after a genocide of their people?

Because, see, it went a bit like this— humans worshipped deities, gave them loyalty and sometimes helped them with tasks. In return, deities protected humans, promised good fortune and punished their enemies. Until one day, that wasn't enough.

Humans decided that they couldn't handle it anymore, being at the whims of those faceless, formless deities. So they decided to destroy them. But how, exactly, does one kill a god?

By making them mortal, making them vulnerable. And so, with their magic and science and sheer numbers, humans captured the gods. They tortured the gods, compressed them down into shaking limbs and fragile bones— as if a body of flesh and blood could ever hope to truly contain what they were, the magnificence and beauty of their existence.

But they did it, locked those deities away into bodies too small with mouths that could not form their words. And then they killed them.

Every god who did not escape, did not fight back, was killed.

El had nightmares sometimes (and what a novel experience that was— to sleep, to dream), nightmares of brothers and sisters and friends and lovers all fading at once, aching and burning and screaming.

He dreamed of Halen calling for him, not in that weak, mortal voice, but in the language of gods that resonated deeper through the land than anything these humans could hope to create.

And the worst part about it, was that it wasn't a dream. Halen had called and he hadn't been able to hear her, because mortal ears weren't built to interpret the vibrations in the earth and air.

When El had torn his way through those foolish people, the ones who had thought to try and chain him, he had found nothing left. Only a handful of deities remained, the vicious and angry and cruel ones who would not hesitate to slaughter anyone who tried to contain their brilliance.

Halen had already been dead. He had raged and cried and demanded that she come back right now, and it hadn't changed a thing.

But you know the funny thing, the fucking hilarious thing? The humans didn't understand. They thought that by getting rid of the gods, they could control the natural world. That a lack of deities meant that things would go back to "normal".

They were fools. El looked up at the night sky, where the full moon hung, bloated and eerie in the night sky. It had been stuck that way ever since Halen had been killed. The moon no longer changed, and why should it? The humans had killed her, killed everything that she represented.

Being mortal didn't mean that they had suddenly become human. They were still gods, even forced into these limited bodies. They still had their powers, their memories.

And El remembered millions of years, remembered all the ways that humanity needed him if they wanted to survive. But he had no obligation to them— hadn't, even before all of this.

The sun had always had the capacity to be cruel. And it was humanity that finally brought it out.

When the night began to end, pink streaking the edge of the horizon, humans started to emerge. They moved in groups, never anyone left alone— adaptation. El would be impressed if he didn't hate them so much.

They knew that the gods were hunting. One good shot could kill a deity, true, but usually not before that deity destroyed everything else in the general vicinity. It was better not to take chances.

Unluckily for them, these mortal bodies had done the gods some good— they had learned to adapt, too.

El sat in a coffee shop, watching the early morning caffeine addicts wander in. He didn't drink coffee, he didn't drink anything, actually. He didn't need their petty human sustenance.

So instead, he sat with an untouched pastry and concentrated on containing the light that wanted to seep out of this skin. El had to be careful about this. Everyone seemed to carry a gun nowadays, and he didn't feel like getting shot in the head if someone noticed that he wasn't quite what he appeared to be.

He was waiting for someone— a man, one of the mages who'd thought to bring about a new world for humankind. This man had stared right into Halen's eyes as he'd killed her, and he would be staring into El's eyes when he died.

It all happened in a matter of minutes— he followed the man out of the coffee shop, waited until the group he was with had become occupied, and then latched on. El pulled him though the void, the path known only to the deities of this world, and landed in the desert, his favorite place to be.

The man didn't even have time to scream before El was on him, his skin overheating and a blinding light spilling out from underneath his thin mortal skin.

He did let up for a one second though, wondering what the man would say. Would he beg, would he accuse? Would he ask why?

"Mercy," the man choked out, eyes wide and watery as he fought against the flames trying to consume him. "Mercy!"

That was possibly the worst thing that he could've said. El's fury exploded, and he wrapped his burning hands around the man's throat.

"If you wanted the nice gods," he whispered, mouth pulled up into a predatory smile as he reveled in the feeling of flesh burning under his hands, "if you wanted the kind and gentle and merciful gods, then you shouldn't have killed them all!"

The human's screams died out, and El pulled back for a moment, confused. He quickly realized that it was because the human no longer had a neck. He had burned the whole thing away, a life turned so easily to ashes. He forgot, sometimes, how fragile these creatures were. How fragile he was, now.

Still, he loved this. The area around them had practically superheated due to his fury, and he happily absorbed the feeling of warmth and blood and fire.

Then there was a whisper of fabric behind him, and El spun around, teeth already bared in a mocking grin.

B looked back at him, face impassive as usual. El huffed, dropping the smile and stuffing his hands in his pockets.

"What do you want?" he said grouchily. He had always hated dealing with B— though he appreciated the other deity's ruthlessness, the cold pragmatism was a bit off-putting for a being made of pure emotion like him.

"Maybe I just wanted to see you. It's been a while."

El doubted it. The voice was too flat, too uninterested for him to find any kind of sincerity in it.

B tilted their head to the side, looking at El contemplatively. El resisted the urge to shiver. It was so weird, seeing B like this— he hadn't particularly enjoyed B's previous form, but he still preferred that many-eyed, limbless monstrosity over this. It was just too strange, seeing all of B, all of what they were and had controlled, stripped down into this (rather short, actually) package.

"Don't make me repeat myself," he snapped, temper fraying. He didn't have the time or patience for his cousin's games.

"You've been doing well," B said, something almost like amusement in their eyes. "Getting your revenge on the particular humans who wronged you, and slowly suffocating all the rest. The others are going to get jealous, at this point. You do a lot of damage."

"Well, then they better step up their game," El said, expression deceptively friendly. "Because it's only going to get bigger from here. What about you, B? Found the ones who killed your siblings yet?"

There. That got a reaction.

"I have not looked," B said stiffly, standing just that little bit straighter as if preparing to defend their reasoning.

El just snorted. "Like I give a fuck. Don't look so nervous. If you and Amo don't want to track down the bastards that murdered your family, that's your own problem. Just don't come crying to me when things go to shit."

B's eyes narrowed in warning, but it wasn't as intimidating now that they only had one set. "Careful, El."

They didn't specify what he should be careful of, but El didn't care. He was one step closer to his revenge, and one step closer to the day when he would finally be able to remake this world.

After he was finished, he would change everything. He'd make it into a world where Halen could be happy, where nothing would ever hurt her again. And the two of them would be together, wings and smiles and loving hearts, just as it should be.

—notes:

So, I took what seemed to be a generally happy prompt and turned it into this depressing shit. That's usually the opposite of what happens... Well, nevertheless, this will definitely be continued! I've had this concept in my head for a while, and I've got some plans for parts centered around the other surviving deities— the god of justice, the god of the sea, the god of death, and the goddess of plague are the ones I've got the best ideas for. Stay tuned, and thanks for reading!!

[iestynnicely]

How Were You Told the Facts of Life?

Listening at the window during my Metrodeco Brighton show was a superfluity of nuns.  

  One glided up at curtain down and asked if I would sing at a convent charity evening. 

  I said, of course, sister.  

  The nun nodded.  "Bless you.  But just to correct you: not sister - but Mother Superior."

  She wondered about the spoken material in my show, in case we might include some of it on the night?  

  I said I had been asking people how they had been told the facts of life...

Bernard, 72

  My sister read about Dutch caps.  We looked at Old Masters paintings and wondered how having those funny big white hats on their heads would stop women getting pregnant.

Susan, 46 

  At school we were told, "Your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost" before being shown a public information film which made us all scream "Yuk".  Our biology teacher threatened to put on again Root Canal: The Musical. 

Raymond, 51 

  With the individual sperms themselves being so microscopic, I thought you wouldn't feel then being ejaculated and wouldn't know when to break off with the intercourse.  My physics teacher explained the emission process was pump-action and virtually impossible to ignore. 

  Which has very much proved to be the case, I've found. 

Cassie, 19

  My eleven-year-old twin sisters' head of year asked if they could be told at home about periods - definitely - and the facts of life, if possible.  Mum talked to them separately.  Milly had hysterics at the whole idea of periods and when mum tried to tell her the facts of life, stuck her fingers in her ears and sang One Direction.  Carolina said periods sounded a bit drastic.  She listened in silence to the facts of life, then said that she hadn't quite got it, so maybe when mummy and daddy next had a go at that she could watch?

Marion, 62

  My mother said the sexual act was something I should use.  I should flaunt the potential of a man getting it from me.  I should manipulate.  I should cajole.  I should go so far and no further.  I could be voluptuous.  Flagrant; bestial.  

  I said, "Yes, thank you, but what about the act itself?" 

  She said, "What do I think I am, a bloody biology teacher?"

Mikey, 29

  At fourteen, my dad warned me off booze and drugs and told me where the condoms were.  He later asked me to stop traumatising my autistic younger brother by inflating the condoms into limbless Godzillas. 

Trudy, 71

  I was told not to worry when I started periods because even the Queen and Princess Margaret had the same.  When we had whooping cough, we were taken down the livestock market for the benefit of the cows' sweat.  If ever a bull mounted a cow, we were told to look away and remember that we had to keep ourselves pure.  

  When local girls got pregnant, it was all "she doesn't know how it happened".  It made me terrified that even if I stood next to my boyfriend to kiss him goodnight by some mysterious happening I could have a baby.  I never sat next to my male cousins at tea, either - always at least place one away or diagonally opposite.  And I moved seats when a man sat next to me on the tram.  This was when trams were just plain trams.  Not like today going from East Croydon to Elmers End by enhanced tram.

Gareth, 42

  My uncle pointed to a bull and said, "Bull has cow, cow has calf." 

Larissa, 82 

  Oh, you've been talking to me lovely friend in the John Lewis Food Hall, haven't you? Has he put you onto me?  Oh.  That's...well, I did think he was my friend.  It's always been a bit up and down with him.  The other ladies in the Mansions said I was wrong to talk to him so much.  Kalia said I didn't even know his name.  I did - it was on his badge.  Eric. But I'd noticed he did seem to just be staring at me the most recent times I've been shopping.  I got so worried and asked him if the ladies - Kalia and the rest of them - were right and I shouldn't have been talking to him all those times?  About my health scares.  That particular time I was speaking to him I'd just had a particularly serious scare.  My breast implants.  My fourth husband paid for my breast implants; and he's kept the receipt.  Oh, I was anxious.  The next time I saw Eric was after I'd been for my consultation regarding my breast implants.  I decided not to bother him.  He was where he usually is, opposite the tea.  I just kept my eyes on the display. And he - oh, I was so happy - he said hello and asked how I was.  I gushed.  I couldn't help it.  Gushed about how relieved I was that he was talking to me, as I'd been so afraid that he had never wanted to, really.  He explained that at his age, nineteen, he just felt that he had so little experience in such matters as mine and could offer no advice.  I said that he should never have worried himself, the scare about my breast implants was over.  I wouldn't need to have them taken out after all - I just needed to have my nipples shifted.

  What?  So, you weren't speaking to my lovely friend Eric?  What was the question again?  Ah...well, I was a debutante and lived in the town rather than the country, so knew nothing.  If I'd known what my second husband in particular had in store for me, I'd have taken the veil.  

Thomas, 76

  We used to go to Leicestershire every summer for six weeks and there were chickens.

Sonia, 46

  My mother drew a picture of an erect penis and then of something that in no way resembled a vagina and said, "That, goes in there.  But only when the people concerned truly love each other."  I later found out that she had been asked to give me this talk by Miss Cavendish, my house mistress.  I also found out that my mother had told Miss Cavendish how when I watched cartoons I masturbated.

  "Except," Miss Cavendish said, "your mother being such the scholar didn't say that you masturbated, but talked of your fetishistic auto-erotic tendencies!"

Sian, 62

  My mother caught me masturbating when I was nine and a bit.  She dragged me in front of a mirror, made me open my mouth and pointed at my uvula.  

  "See that thing dangling there at the back of your throat?" she said. "Every time you touch yourself like you were just doing down there, it grows a bit.  And a bit more.  Until eventually it chokes you."

Sarah, 53 

  When I was about nine, I started asking mummy.  When I was fifteen, she said, "You know when we let Saltash off her lead in Stanley Park that time and that boy dog came ever so close to her and did that funny dance with her?  Well, mummies and daddies do that.  It's natural and nothing to be ashamed of and might be lovely."

Peter, 72

  My mum refused to tell me and told me to ask my nan.  I asked nan. She said, "No, sorry, Peter.  I never even told your mother or your uncles any of that.  If push came to shove we might maybe have taken them to the aquarium."

Fiona, 68

  I was told that as soon as the ring went on my finger in the church a baby would begin to grow in my belly.

Francis, 73  

  When I was fifteen my father said he had something to tell me, took me into the bathroom, went bright red and locked the door.  I thought, oh god, he's going to tell me that he's gone bankrupt or that mummy's died.  Such a relief when he started squirming his way through telling me the facts of life!  I already knew them - we had a gypsy family in the village and I was at school with one of the sons - but I wanted my father to be uncomfortable.  I only remember certain details of what he told me, such as him calling the penis your person and describing the inside of the vagina as like the nasal passages when one is suffering from a very bad cold.  Oh, and he used the full spermatozoa and said it was like live, bleached tapioca, could I imagine?  No, frankly, I couldn't. He ended his talk by saying that if I caught anything it would break my mother's heart. "And homosexuality is just silly."

  I didn't get to tell the Mother Superior any of the above.  I mentioned the subject of my spoken material, and she interrupted:  "How lovely that you will sing for us.  But about you going around and asking what you have, can I just say this:  God does not want us to overreach ourselves."

[recentnews18-blog]

New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/troubled-hotel-manager-21-hanged-herself-after-stupid-argument-with-housemate-about-a-face-mask/

'Troubled' hotel manager, 21, hanged herself after 'stupid' argument with housemate about a face mask

A ��TROUBLED” woman hanged herself after an argument with her housemate about a facemask, an inquest was told.

Mercedes Harrison was found hanged at Nothe Fort gardens in Weymouth, Dorset, by a dog walker early in the morning on March 27.

Bournemouth News

Mercedes Harrison, 21, was found hanging from a tree at Nothe Fort gardens in Weymouth, Dorset, by a dog walker early in the morning on March 27

The 21-year-old had argued with her housemate Bree Taylor Shaw the night before about a face mask Miss Shaw had taken from Mercedes’ room, an inquest in Bournemouth on Monday heard.

Mercedes told her during the argument that she felt excluded from their friendship group.

Later Miss Shaw heard her leave the house “sniffling” at 2am and later in the day found suicide notes in her room.

The inquest heard Mercedes’ mother Lynn and father Michael had divorced when she was five and she lived with her mother but was looked after by babysitters a lot because her mother had to work.

Bournemouth News

Mercedes said she felt excluded from her housemate’s friendship group during the row

When her mum was killed in a car accident on the M25 on her way to work Mercedes went to live with her father, who had remarried a Filipino woman and the family then moved to the Philippines.

Her grandfather Brian Avis said he did not hear from her for some time and when the family did track her down they found she was very thin and had run away aged 13 after her father divorced and returned to England.

Her father hadn’t arranged a visa and as an illegal immigrant she ended up in a holding centre where there were rats and cockroaches.

With help from the government her grandparents Mercedes managed to get her back to the UK and went to school in Portland, Dorset, but struggled to fit in.

If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this article, please call the Samaritans on 116123. 

She ended up living with foster parents and even moved to Scotland for a while with a boyfriend but then ended up back in Weymouth, where she got a position as a hotel receptionist.

Mr Avis said in a statement: “She didn’t fit in well, it was very different to what she was used to and she was bullied.

“She got in trouble for smashing someone’s window and then went to live with foster parents.

“She got a job at the Bourneville Hotel and they trained her to manage the hotel. So many people loved her and she seemed to be doing well.

“It was a total shock when she hanged herself.”

Miss Shaw said she had known Mercedes for about 10 years but the pair had been living together for about six months and had started falling out about “stupid things”.

She said Mercedes had lent her money when they first moved in and she was paying it back at £100 a month but still owed her about £400.

Miss Shaw said she had taken a face mask from Mercedes’ room, which caused another argument the night before the 21-year-old’s body was found.

She said: “We got on really well in the beginning but we had started to argue about stupid things.

“I took a L’Oreal face mask from her room, at the time I thought it was funny. I kept it from her and it caused another argument.

“She said she felt excluded from our friendship group.

“Then she went to her bedroom, she was upset, and I went to meet my boyfriend.

“I got back at about 1.30am and I could hear her in the kitchen about 2am. She left the flat sniffling.”

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She was found by a dog walker at about 7am. Police investigated and found no suspicious circumstances or third party involvement.

Dorset Coroner Rachael Griffin ruled her death was a suicide.

She said: “The fact she took herself to a relatively secluded area indicates she did not want to be found.

“She also produced notes which both police and her friends interpreted as notes of intention.

“I am therefore satisfied she died by suicide.”

Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368. You can WhatsApp us on 07810 791 502.

Source: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7011874/troubled-woman-21-hanged-herself-after-stupid-argument-with-housemate-about-facemask/