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otptings · 3 years

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Moonlight

♤Idol; Johnny Suh ♤Genre; Mafia!Johnny, Angst

♤Word Count; 2.6k+ ♤Warnings; assault, injury, panic attacks, implied sexual assault/rape ♤Synopsis; Doesn’t the moonlight look beautiful tonight?

Part 1 , Part 3

Upon waking you realize you were alone.

Glancing around you quickly realized that you weren’t home, or in a hospital. You were in a regular house, a regular room at that. Moving your arms around you realized that the ache had significantly subsided since the first time you woke. Slowly you sat up, lifting your arms up and seeing the scraps all along your arms, now blooming in purple and yellow. Healing bruises.

Footsteps could be heard walking along the hall, but none of them stopped at your door, just walked past and disappeared the further they got away.

Looking down you realized that you weren’t in your work clothes, you were in a grey shirt, way too big to be your own. Where were you? Why weren’t you at home?

What happened?

Tears started to well in your eyes, as you started to remember bits and pieces of the night. The moon light shining brightly over everything, the reflection in your phone mirror, being pressed against the brick wall.

Silver knife glinting in the star light, stained with blood after he cut you.

You thought that you had died.

Ignoring the pain you pulled your knees toward your chest, holding them tightly as your memories started to piece themselves back together. You were attacked. You were chosen to be attacked. Someone specifically had chased after you, and learned your schedule to find you.

Had they gotten anyone else? Had they gotten the rest of your family? Where was your family?

It seemed the harsher your breaths came, the footsteps started to realize something was wrong. Panic started to flood your body, causing you to whimper as the memories of the attack raced through your mind. You covered your ears as his voice seemed to flood your head, the words and curses he screamed at you.

The door opened but you were too far gone to realize it, so deep into your own head that you hadn’t realized someone had sat down beside you. Grabbing your arm, causing you to flinch away from them as the fat teardrops rolled down your cheeks.

“Baby.” You lifted your head up, being met with the concerned eyes of Johnny. Relief started to inch in beside the panic at the sight of your boyfriend sitting before you.

Thank god you sent your location to him.

“Love, relax for me. You’re going to be sick if you keep panicking.” Johnny pulled you towards him, and you willingly went along it, climbing onto his lap as he wrapped his arms around you.

“Love, can you follow my breaths?” You slowly nodded your head before placing your head on his chest, listening to his calming heartbeat thudding beside your ear. Your shaking started to reside, as your sobs quieted, Johnny rubbing your back soothingly and whispering sweet nothings to you. As your sobs turned to weak whimpers Johnny tilted your head up, cupping both of your cheeks while he wiped away your tears.

“You gotta do a check up? Are you up for it? It’s only Doyoung, but if you aren’t feeling good he can do it later.” If you pushed it back, who knows what other facts about your injuries you could be missing.

“I’m okay. I promise.” Johnny sighed, placing a kiss on your forehead before turning his head and gesturing for someone to come further into the room. Looking up you realized that Doyoung was standing in the doorway, witnessing the moment between you and Johnny if his awkward facial expression was anything to go by.

However, upon seeing another one of your Neos safe and out of harm's way tears pricked at your eyes again.

“Doyoung.” You reached your arms out to him, and for once he willingly gave you a hug, placing a kiss on your cheek. Doyoung would rather lose an arm and leg than do skinship, but I guess this occasion calls for an exception.

“Grateful you're okay short stack.” Doyoung murmured into your hair, before doing his brief check up.

“Most of her cuts were superficial, besides the one on her stomach. Keep cleaning them, and changing the dressing twice every day. She’ll also have a wicked headache because of her concussion, and her bruises might be a little tender. But she’s healthy, and everything will heal properly within 2-3 weeks.”

Doyoung turned to you, a smile on his face for the first time since he entered the room. “You’ll be fine short stack, but you need to be careful because you’re still injured pretty badly.”

“I’ll tell the boys to give you a few hours, they missed you a lot short stack. Especially the Dreamies. Take it easy, short stack and we’re all really glad you’re back.” Doyoung nodded his head before turning on his heels, and closing the door quietly behind him to mark his exit.

Turning towards Johnny you placed your hands on your lap, ignoring the slight pulsating in the back of your head. “Where am I? I know this isn’t your apartment.”

“This is a spare room at base. I couldn’t take you back to my house. We had to find out if the guy was affiliated or not.” Johnny loosely gestured to the room, and didn’t specify exactly who but you knew.

He wanted to know if the guy who attacked you was gang affiliated.

“I know he was gang affiliated.” Johnny turned to you, slightly surprised to hear. “He mentioned you a few times, not by name. He also had a tattoo on his bicep that I saw when his shirt sleeve flew up.” Johnny sighed before grabbing both of your hands, placing a kiss on your knuckles that would’ve been seen as sweet if you were anywhere else.

“Smart girl,” You knew that wasn’t the end of his sentence, you could tell that he was holding himself back.

“Johnny, what aren’t you telling me? I can take it.”

“I have to send you away. You’ll be going back to Chicago with the Dreamies.” You shook your head viciously, pulling your hands away from Johnny and clasping them together across your chest.

He was going to send you away? Would you be safe in Chicago? Why were you being sent away?

“You can’t send me away. Why would you do that?” For the umpteenth time in the 30 minutes since you’ve been awake tears are prickling at your eyes.

“I am more useful to the team here than I am in Chicago. Who would you turn to when the rest of the boys can’t figure out the codes? Hell, I even helped Doyoung stitch you guys up after missions. There is no reason for you to send me away.” Johnny reached out for you but you kept your hand away as it’d burn you to make contact with him. “This isn’t the first time I’ve been attacked. It won’t be the last time either. I can help you so much better when I’m actually here with you.”

“This isn’t who we usually deal with. It’s Seventeen.” You froze after hearing the name.

Seventeen was a ruthless gang. They always hung around your middle and high school growing up, most of them being older than you and always having the excuse of the youngest members to stay around. Every last one of them were dicks, bullying everyone who they deemed to be less than them.

Except for Chan. Chan was actually sweet to you, being in the same grade as you due to his own awful attendance. Despite all of his callous members he seemed to actually have a soul, and always cared about the people around him. He was only a few years older than you, but made sure to always protect you from the rest of the members. He was like your older brother, and you were thankful for him being there.

That is until you turned 17, and he allowed the boys to take you.

He tried to convince you to join him, offering to have you be his right hand. After you refused he stopped protecting you, giving the boys active permission to do whatever they wanted with you. You were kept there to be Seventeen’s play thing, for them to ‘toy’ with until another group raided the warehouse they were hiding you in.

That’s how you met the Neos. They saved your life. No one knows how long Chan would’ve kept you hidden there if Seventeen wouldn’t have pissed off the Neos.

They’re back.

It’s been years since then. After the Neos raided them Seventeen went off of the grid, supposedly leaving the city to relocate.

You never healed from it. How could you heal from your bestfriend kidnapping you, allowing you to be played with and injured at the hands of his other group mates. You spent years constantly looking over your shoulder, waking up from the nightmares that steadily plagued you night after night. Johnny stood by your side through it all, keeping a Neo by your side at all times so that you weren’t truly alone. All that progress was gone.

Was Dino after you exclusively? Had he never recovered from you escaping? Was he going to go after the rest of the Neos?

Would he attack the rest of your family?

“Breath princess. Breath.” Your thoughts continued to swirl around in your mind, panic intermingling with the questions you had.

If Dino was willing to have someone attack you in public, what would happen if you weren’t protected again? You got lucky this first attack, but what happened if luck wasn’t on your side next time? What if he kidnapped you again?

He’d kill you.

“Baby, look at me. Follow my breathing.” Johnny pulled you back onto his lap, holding you tightly against his chest. You tried to listen to his sweet words of reassurance, but the overwhelming sense of dread just continued to hover. If they were back what would happen to the rest of the Neos? To Johnny?

They must think of you as a liability, forcing them to risk their lives uselessly. They saved you twice, would they be willinging to save me again? You’re a loose end to Seventeen, and they won’t stop until you’re dead.

“Who?” You struggled to get your words out, but you needed to know. Needed to know who had attacked you, and led the rest of the boys to Seventeen.

“Mingyu, he’s dead. The Neos dealt with him already.” Now they were working with one less person. That’s why Johnny was willing to lose the Dreamies just to protect you.

The fact that Seventeen sent Mingyu, one of their most feared assassins after you, definitely meant that they wanted you dead.

“You’re not sending all of the Dreamies. Right? You can’t lose all seven of them.” Johnny shook his head.

“Donghyuck and Mark will stay here. With 127. I’m not that reckless, I know what I’m doing.” You sighed out of relief hearing Johnny had planned his attack through. He wasn’t being cocky, actually being logical about the situation.

You could relax a little, but you knew now that you and the Dreamies really had to leave the city. You had to be safe, and Johnny wouldn’t fight you on this matter.

“When do I have to leave?”

“Next Friday. Until then you’re going to stay here. Your clothes are already here, along with your new phone. We had to make sure you’re not being tracked.“ You sighed, before nodding your head solemnly looking down at your hands. There was no use fighting Johnny on a matter like this, he would do anything to keep you safe.

“Can I see the Dreamies? Please?” Muttering a quiet yeah, Johnny left the room. You rubbed your eyes while everything seemed to be catching up to you. You didn’t even know how long you were out, and you were now getting sent away. To protect you. To keep you safe.

Despite the anxious feeling that seemed to be growing again you couldn’t help the smile that tugged at your lips when you heard the stampede of footsteps coming down the hall. As the door burst open the first person you saw was Jisung, a blush spreading over his cheeks as his dark purple hair flew every which way.

“SHORT STACK!” You may have seen Jisung first, but Chenle was always going to let his presence known with the loud screech that he let out. All of the boys started to pile into the room, fixing themselves on the edges of your bed, except for Mark and Jeno. They stood beside your bed, not wanting to accidentally hurt you or injure you. Jaemin was on the opposite end of the spectrum, placing his head on your lap and wrapping his arms around your waist. A laugh bubbled out of you before you could help it, content to be back with your Dreamies.

“Chenle why are you so loud?” Jisung flinched, holding his ears as Chenle excitedly tried to tell you something that happened while you were out.

“Haechan I swear to god if you push me off the bed I will drown you in the sink.” Renjun muttered angrily while holding on tightly to Haechan’s arm in a last ditch effort to not fall off.

“Jaemin, why are you the only one cuddling her?” Jeno asked, laughing under his breath at Jaemin who just pouted and snuggled further against you.

“I missed you. I’m not letting her go.” Mark smacked Renjun and Haechan to stop them from fighting, causing Renjun to give a dirty look as Haechan stuck his tongue out at him.

“Stop it.” The room went silent at Mark, got serious for once, shocking everyone including you.

“She just woke up guys, give her a little bit of a rest.” The rest of the Dreamies muttered apologies, before sitting on their respective corners on the bed.

“It’s okay Mark. I’m fine.” Mark looked at you hesitantly as you held your arms out to him, nervous to hurt you. “Please? I want a hug?” Mark reluctantly walked over to you, wrapping his arms around you gently as if you were fragile and were going to break at any moment. Pulling away Mark gave me a onceover before visibly tensing up again.

“Has he, like, already told you dude?” Now it's Jeno's turn to smack the back of Mark’s head while Haechan whispers quietly about Canada. You swallowed the lump in your throat and nodded, the mood now sobered up as you mentioned his plans.

“We’re going to his old family home at least? That’d be fun to explore.” Renjun chimed in, trying to bring it back into a positive light.

“Yea it’s like a week long vacation. We get to leave the boring ass city at least.” Jisung agreed, eyes bright at the thought of leaving the city for the first time.

“As fun as that sounds, remember we have to stay in the house. No sight seeing, this is still a mission.” Jeno spoke up, Jisung looked down ashamed to have thought so eagerly about this trip that was only there to keep you safe. Chenle rubbed his back soothingly while Jaemin pulled you back into your chest, gingerly rubbing up and down your arms to not hit your bruises. Mark and Renjun shared a look over their heads, a silent agreement that you knew nothing about.

“It’ll be okay. We’ll still have each other, Mark and Haechan will be protecting all of us here.” You leaned further into Jaemin’s chest, praying that he was right.

Everything will be okay, as long as we have eachother.

#nct angst #nct 24th member #nct 127 #wayv #WayV imagines #nct dream #nct imagines #nct mafia au #nct mafia fic #nct mafia #kpop angst #Kpop mafia #Kpop mafia au

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kissinginkitchens · 3 years

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You Bring Me Home—Chapter Three: Chasing Waterfalls

a/n: Welcome back!! Another huge thank you for the sweet words and love you have shown to part 2! I'm so glad to hear from those of you who are enjoying the story so far :') Things are starting to get interesting, so I hope you'll stay tuned! As always, my inbox is open, so feel free to come chat with me after you have finished reading! Much love, Mel <3

Pairing: Hawai'i!Harry x Original Character

Warnings: swearing, drug/alcohol mention

Word Count: 5.3k

catch up on parts one and two

Alani watches the stream of salt descend gracefully into the salt-shaker like a mini waterfall, her mind still replaying the events of the past couple of weeks. It has been fourteen days, 336 hours, and 20,160 minutes since the last time she saw Harry, not that she was counting. The image of him getting smaller in her rearview mirror as she drove away from the recording studio is still fresh in her mind. Two weeks and all she has to show for it is three sentences in her notebook, most of which is material she had already known prior to the interview. Alani supposes that this fact should trouble her more than it does, with her future at Rolling Stone depending on much more than the smoothie preferences of Harry Styles; but all she can dwell on at the moment is the serene image of them standing side by side, pinkies nearly touching, making a wish on the most vibrant rainbow she had ever seen. What does concern her, however, are the events that immediately followed their arrival back at Napua.

“Maybe next time we should do this in a neutral location,” Harry had offered, stepping out of the Range Rover. “Less distractions,”

Alani’s brows shot up at the words, not quite believing that she had heard him right. “Next time?”

“You can’t possibly have gotten everything you needed from that,” he scoffed, leaning against the passenger door. Alani had fully prepared to butter him up in order to extend their time beyond the initial one interview agreement, but she hadn’t expected it to be this easy, especially after his dismissal of her attempted humor and begrudging lunch invitation.

“Well, no, but I thought-”

“Okay, so we’ll do this again,” he shrugged, “No biggie,”

Alani felt a wave of relief, and a twinge of excitement, rush over her at the prospect of securing another interview with Harry. Offering him a grateful smile, she nodded and agreed.

“Yeah, okay. Thank you, again, for agreeing to this,”

Harry’s furrowed brow didn’t budge, nor did his set jaw and pouted lips. He simply offered a small bow of his head and a ringed finger through his dark locks.

“Sure. Wouldn’t wanna be the reason you fail,”

“Thanks,” she replied through a forced laugh.

Alani had almost forgotten about the cover she devised to get Harry to agree to the exclusive. A part of her wondered how willing he would have been to participate had he known her true intentions of submitting the final piece to Rolling Stone, but the better part of her judgement knew there was too much at stake to fold her cards now. Besides, Harry had to have known that any work linked to his name would get some sort of public attention, regardless of the original intentions. At least, that was what Alani planned to say if things went south.

“So you can just... text me, I guess,” she proposed cautiously. “When you’re free?”

“Will do,” Harry nodded. “But I think that requires us to exchange phone numbers first,”

“Right,”

Alani pulled her phone from the back pocket of her shorts and opened the contacts app before holding it out to Harry. Carefully, he punched his digits and handed it back, smirking when he was greeted by the image of irresistible watery eyes and floppy ears beneath the time.

“Cute dog,” he remarked while Alani finished typing her own number into his phone.

A soft smile spread across her lips as the image of her furry companion drifted into her mind.

“Oh, thanks. His name’s Freddie,”

“D’you name all your belongings after 70s rock stars?” Harry teased, flashing a dimpled grin.

“As a matter of fact,” Alani played along. “I’m about to go take a sip from Mick Jagger in my car,”

Immediately, Alani regretted her choice of words, though the bright ringing of Harry’s laughter soothed some of the embarrassment.

She winced, nose scrunched. “I guess there’s no taking that one back, huh?”

“Not a chance,”

Clutching her bag closer and sliding her sunglasses back onto the bridge of her nose, Alani took a step back and sighed.

“And with that, I bid you adieu.”

“Au revoir.”

Two weeks and still radio silence from Harry. Alani had begun to wonder whether she had input her phone number correctly in the first place, or if her penchant for embarrassing herself had ruined all chances of Harry making good on his promises.

“I’m sorry, sir, but if you want salted fries you’re gonna have to wait for your turn at the salt mound, just like everyone else,” the voice of Alani’s sister breaks through her thoughts. Somewhere between reliving her last interaction with Harry and anticipating their impending reunion, Alani’s hand had drifted slightly off course of the salt shaker, resulting in a rather impressive mountain of salt forming on the countertop.

“Why didn’t you stop me?” Alani retorts, annoyed at the mess she’ll have to clean up.

“Seemed like you were in the zone, or possibly sleepwalking—and you know what they say about disturbing sleepwalkers,” Pua says simply, unaffected by her sister’s irritation. “Plus, I thought it would be funny, and I was right,”

Alani sweeps the salt into a garbage can below, her mind already drifting back to her afternoon with Harry, when her sister speaks up again.

“He hasn’t called yet?”

This catches Alani’s attention, but she only shakes her head dejectedly in response.

“I thought your date went well,” Pua muses, thinking back to the way her sister had practically floated through the house upon her return.

“It wasn’t a date,” Alani corrects firmly, perhaps trying to convince herself, as well.

Pua scoffs, lifting herself to sit on the countertop. “So you made me cover a four hour shift for nothing?”

“It’s strictly professional and he’s busy,” Alani sighs. “That’s just how these things go,”

“Did he let you listen to his new music?” the younger sister asks, eyes widening.

Alani rolls her eyes and resumes twisting the caps back onto the filled salt shakers. “No,”

“Did you ask him why he left One Direction?”

“No,”

“Is he single?”

“I don’t know,” Alani huffs, turning to face her smug little sister. “Why don’t you ask him?”

“Ask him what?” a familiar accented voice cuts in behind her.

Alani whips around to face Harry, a familiar dent between his brows and dark sunglasses shielding her from the intensity of his stare.

“Ask my dad if I can go to the..movies—tonight,” Pua chimes in. “With my friends. I have those,”

Harry smirks, lifting his sunglasses up to address her. “S’that so?”

“Yup,” she confirms, popping the “p” and crossing her arms. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

“Curiosity runs in the family, I see,” he remarks with amusement. “Shoot,”

“Is your phone working?”

“Why don’t you go call dad and ask him about the movies? I’ll cover the register,” Alani interrupts, shooting a glare over her shoulder as her sister saunters into the kitchen with a satisfied grin on her round face.

“Ignore her, she’s fifteen,”

“The most honest age in my experience,” Harry observes with a twinge of guilt settling in the pit of his stomach.

Alani pushes any thoughts about Harry, beyond the fact that he’s standing in front of her, to the side and puts on her best customer service voice. “What can I get started for you today?”

“A green smoothie, please,” he says, searching for her eyes that are occupied with the register buttons. “And the rest of your afternoon, if you’re free,”

Alani pauses and allows her gaze to meet his. She senses a hint of apology behind his emerald eyes, a welcome change to the storminess that often clouds them.

“I don’t know,” she starts slowly, despite the fact that every bone in her body is screaming at her to go. “I gotta finish up here,”

“What time are you off?”

Alani mulls his question over, silently deciding whether to tell the truth or not. Ultimately, retribution for her bruised ego is the only reason she can come up with for lying. She knows that it isn’t logical to be upset with him due to the fact that their relationship is strictly professional. Harry owes her nothing; in fact, him agreeing to meet with her the first time was, as she pointed out on several occasions, entirely a favor on his end. Despite this fact, Alani couldn’t help the disappointment she had felt the very next day when he hadn’t even texted his name to make sure that he had the right number. And she can’t help how she feels now, two weeks later, looking into his big, dumb eyes that are begging for her forgiveness. She missed him. Against her better judgment, and for reasons she can’t explain, Alani misses Harry, so she chooses honesty.

“Four,”

“Great,” he perks up, victoriously. “Then I’ll have the green smoothie, and keep ‘em coming,”

“You’re gonna stay here that long?” Alani asks, eyes darting to the 1:11 displayed on her watch.

Harry holds up a teal paperback with cassette tapes stacked on the cover. “Got some reading material to keep me company,”

“Love is a Mix Tape,” she reads the yellow cursive looped at the bottom of the cover aloud with a nod.

“Ever read it?” he questions, flipping through the pages.

“Can’t say that I have,”

“Well then you can borrow it sometime.” Harry says finally, turning on his heel in the direction of a table near the window.

Alani half expects him to leave and come back closer to their allotted time, but he simply sits near the window with the book in front of him and the straw of his drink resting against his pouted bottom lip. Customers come and go, tables are cleared, and the sunlight spills into different corners of the room, but Harry remains perfectly unchanged as if he were a fixture of the room itself. His presence is both comforting and unnerving to Alani, who glides around the room taking orders and serving food. Meanwhile, Harry does his very best to focus on the words in front of him, but the letters jumble together like alphabet soup amidst his wandering thoughts. Out of the corner of his eye, he follows Alani as she gracefully moves from one table to the next, flashing a warm smile at each guest who enters. He notices the tapping of her pen to whatever Beach Boys song plays over the stereo and the way she bites the inside of her cheek when making change at the register. The more details he stores in his mind, the deeper the sinking feeling burrows into his stomach. It had taken every ounce of willpower and over twenty unsent text messages to stay away, but Harry needed to put space between them for both of their sakes. He didn’t dare flatter himself with the thought of her having feelings for him, but he didn’t mind her company and that hadn’t done him much good these days. Harry knew that eventually he would have to bite the bullet and keep his word, and he decided that a temporary writer’s block was as good a time as any to do so.

“What ever happened to that girl?” Jeff had asked the evening prior, responding to an email from the recording label.

Harry feigned ignorance and continued to doodle something in his notebook, though he knew exactly who his manager was referring to. “What girl?”

“Dark hair, pretty, made you blush like a 12 year old,”

“I did not,'' Harry defended, scribbling a little more harshly. “‘S nothing. Was just helpin’ her out,”

Jeff snorted with an accusational brow raised.

“How romantic,”

“Jesus, not like that!”

“All I’m saying,” Jeff conceded. “Is that you seem a little uptight these days, and the music shows,”

Harry pondered this for a minute, his pen stilling to look over the lyrics, or lack thereof, on the page.

“You should be having a little fun, that’s literally what we came here for,” Jeff continued. “Get out of this fuckin’ studio and be a normal 22 year-old. You deserve it.”

So Harry had decided to go out, telling himself that he was merely listening to a friend’s advice for the sake of his music and sanity. But a part of him also desperately wanted to see Alani, even if he didn’t really know why.

As the clock strikes four, Alani sucks in a deep breath and turns to her sister slicing bananas in the kitchen.

“I’m going out,”

“Figured,” Pua responds, unphased. “I’ll cover for you,”

“I owe you.”

“Get me tickets to his next concert and we’ll call it even.”

Alani rolls her eyes, amused, and presses a chaste kiss to her sister’s temple before grabbing her bag off the hook and heading out. When she emerges in the dining area, Harry is already waiting at the counter with his broad shoulders turned away from her. She taps him gently and feels dizzy when he turns to her with a faint dimpled smile.

“Ready to roll?” he asks.

“Ready.”

When the two are comfortably situated in the Range Rover, Harry scans the parking lot and pulls away onto Mamalahoa Highway.

“Where’s Stevie?” he questions, his lower lip pinched between his index finger and thumb in concentration.

“Oh I walk to the restaurant,” Alani explains. “Don’t live too far,”

“Explains why you ditched your sister,”

“I did not ditch her!” Alani defends with a light laugh.

“Kinda did,”

She shakes her head in mock offense as the corners of Harry’s lips turn up. “My dad will pick her up after work, she’ll be fine,”

“Not to accuse you of nepotism,” he hesitates. “But I thought maybe your dad worked at the café. Family business?”

“He owns it, yeah, but he also works as the head chef at Honu. It’s a resort,” Alani continues. “But I’ll have you know that my waitressing skills are highly qualified, regardless of the nepotism,”

“And your mum?”

“She’s a doctor—pediatric surgeon,”

“That’s amazing,” Harry comments, glancing down at the GPS.

“Yeah, she is,” Alani agrees, her own eyes darting to the screen before attempting to analyze her surroundings. “Hey, where are we going?”

The rings on Harry’s right hand tap gently on the steering wheel as he responds carefully, withholding any hints.

“To the best interview spot I could think of. Go there sometimes to work on the album,”

“So there is an album,” Alani wiggles her brows.

“Off the record,” he clarifies. “But.. potentially,”

She scoffs at his insistence to maintain secrecy.

“Really?”

“We’re almost there.” Harry consoles, referring primarily to their destination, but perhaps speaking personally, as well. Alani doesn’t miss the double meaning and chooses to nod silently in acceptance.

The next few minutes of their drive are filled by humming along to whatever song drifts through the stereo, most notably Paul McCartney and George Harrison, which inspires a lively back and forth about the ranking of ex-Beatles members.

“It goes Paul, George, Ringo, and John,” Alani states matter-of-factly. “There’s no other answer,”

Harry shoots her an incredulous look before responding. “Are you seriously putting Ringo Starr before John Lennon?”

“John Lennon was an abusive asshole,” Alani defends. “Plus he wrote, like, one good song-”

“More than one song—”

“I said a good song. ‘Good’ being the keyword,”

Harry can’t hold back his endearment at her reasoning, so he shakes his head with a wide grin plastered on his face and decides to take one last swing at the hornet’s nest.“He’s still a legend,”

“Isn’t it weird,” Alani muses with a far-away look in her eyes. “That someday, someone’s gonna have this conversation about you?”

Harry doesn’t respond right away, weighing her words and how they settle in his bones. It doesn’t offend him in the slightest, he’s heard far worse, but there is still something strange about comparing himself to musicians he considers to be his icons. Despite all the hard work and sacrifices he’s made over the past five years, he still sees himself as the lucky little kid from Holmes Chapel underneath it all.

“I’m sorry,” Alani speaks up when Harry doesn’t respond. “I didn’t mean—”

“Oh, no it’s okay,” He reassures her. “I was just thinking... ‘bout what you said. I guess I don’t really think about it like that,”

“Oh,” is all she says, still waiting for him to elaborate. After a beat, Harry begins again in his characteristically slow way of speaking that Alani finds charming.

“It’s just that,” he begins, tugging on his lower lip. “Obviously I can’t ignore, you know, the impact that all of it had. But to me it was just… I don’t know. In my head it’s not really on the same level,”

Alani nods, though she can’t say it’s with complete understanding. In this moment, she truly feels the weight of their completely different worlds and how she may never be able to fully sympathize with that part of Harry’s life. She certainly hadn’t been under any impression that she would, but she still feels a bit embarrassed for the closeness she had begun to feel to him in their moments spent together. A sinking feeling settles into Alani’s stomach at the thought that maybe she was making a mistake, despite the constant self-reminders that everything they were doing was completely professional. Don’t get too close, she writes on a mental post-it note, sticking it to the forefront of her mind.

“We’re here,” Harry pipes up.

Too wrapped up in her own thoughts, Alani hadn’t noticed when they pulled into the parking lot at ‘Akaka Falls and it took her a moment to adjust.

“This is the place?” she questions hesitantly.

“Yeah,”

“This is where you come to write?”

“I didn’t realize I was supposed to stay chained to the studio,” Harry teases with his hands raised in mock surrender.

“No,” Alani breathes out a light laugh, rolling her eyes. “I just mean… I don’t know what I expected.”

“That was the point.” he explains with a devious smile that makes her let out a proper laugh.

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

“Did you know,” Alani starts, the tips of her fingers reaching out to stroke the petal of an especially vibrant red flower. “That Georgia O'Keeffe had a show in New York City during the 40s with twenty paintings of different flowers that she observed right in this very park?”

“I didn’t,” Harry admits. “Who needs a tour guide when we’ve got you?”

“I have a copy of the waterfall one she did in my room,” Alani continues. “But I’d love to see the real thing some day,”

Harry scans the landscape, eyes settling over the winding stairs that lead them further to the falls and the rest area where he frequently hides away. “Is it still on display?”

“Last I checked, yes,” she nods. “At the New York Botanical Garden,”

“How are you not even a bit winded?” he chuckles, hands on his hips as he pauses and takes a moment to breathe.

Alani stops in her tracks and turns back to face Harry with a teasing glint already present in her deep brown eyes.

“I thought you came here all the time to write,” she says with a raised brow.

“And I thought it was against the journalist code to berate your subjects,” he shoots back. “But here we are,”

“Touché,” Alani concedes. “But I’m not a journalist yet so I guess the rules don’t apply to me,”

Harry thanks his lucky stars that she turns on her heel back down the steps before she can witness the fond grin tugging at the corners of his lips. He savors the image of the greenery that complements her olive skin and how the gentle breeze dances through her curls before following behind.

Alani takes a deep breath once they reach the lookout and soaks in the familiar view. No matter how many times she visits the national park, the first sight of the 442 feet of cascading water always leaves her eyes a little misty.

“What brings you here?” she asks, turning to Harry whose sunglasses are perched at the crown of his head to leave the view unobstructed.

His jaw clenches and his Adam’s apple bobs, but he doesn’t respond right away. Instead, he turns his head to Alani and searches her face with a crease between his brows.

“That,” he responds, pointing to the glossy sheen over her eyes. “That feeling. Felt it the first time I came here, still do,”

He turns back to face the roaring water before them and Alani takes this moment to study the sharp angles of his profile. She takes note of the sunlight peering through his sea glass irises and waits patiently for him to continue.

“Makes you feel lucky to be alive,” Harry says finally. “And a little small, but in a good way. Like everything bad that ever happened to you doesn’t matter because none of it’s real, is it? But this… this is real,”

Alani feels like the air has been sucked from her chest and her eyes burn a hole straight through Harry’s temple. He doesn’t budge, despite the overwhelming urge to face her again, because he knows that if he does, he’ll lose his nerve.

“Damn,” is all Alani croaks out when she finally catches her breath.

Harry’s stony expression falters as he cracks a small, relenting smile. “D’reckon that’s what TLC were on about when they wrote that song?”

“I think you’re on the right track, yeah,” Alani agrees with a light laugh. “Though I think they were talking a little bit more about drugs, but I like your thing too,”

“Thanks,” Harry smirks. “Now you see why I come here to write,”

“Yeah, I’ll give you that one,” she concedes.

“Speaking of writing,” he starts, walking away from the lookout and over to a rest area with a few tables and benches. “I think we were here to help you write,”

Alani follows and takes a seat on the bench across from him, the setting sun beating against her back and outlining her in golden light that Harry feels couldn’t be more poetic.

She retrieves a notebook, her phone, and a pen from her bag and sprawls them out across the table top. Harry notices that each item is colored a varying shade of pink, but he decides to keep that detail filed at the back of his mind instead of investigating further.

“Same deal as last time, voice notes for quotational accuracy,” Alani reminds him. She looks over her list of questions to pick a starting point, but suddenly none of them seem relevant, so she takes a moment to collect her thoughts and says the first thing that comes to mind.

“Earlier when I said this wasn’t what I was expecting,” she begins. “You said ‘that was the point’. Why?”

Harry turns this question over in his mind, caught off guard by the seemingly trivial detail. “I dunno. I guess.. Maybe I just like the surprise,”

“To be surprised, or to surprise others?”

“Both,”

“Why do you like to surprise others?”

He ponders this for a second and takes a deep breath. “I think it’s because it doesn’t happen that often,”

“What do you mean?” Alani prys.

“Well,” Harry begins carefully, sifting through his brain for the right words. “Ever since the whole band thing blew up, I’ve had this strange feeling that everyone knows everything about me, like there’s nothing left to discover,”

Alani watches as he twirls the ring around his wedding finger, a silver rose that has always caught her eye.

“Maybe that sounds self absorbed,” he simpers.

“It’s not,” Alani reassures him.

Harry meets her eyes appreciatively before resuming. “I still remember the first time someone recognized me,”

“What was that like?”

“Bizarre,” he chuckles to himself. “She was very nice, but the entire time I couldn’t stop thinking about how strange it all was. It’s like, you know when someone you met once or twice comes up to you and you don’t remember their name at all? S’bit awkward ‘cos you feel like you should know something about them, too— level the playing field. ‘Cept no matter how hard you wrack your brain, the information’s never gonna come, even though they know everything about you,”

“But they don’t,” Alani cuts in. “Not really,”

“Yeah,” Harry agrees, his eyes narrowed. “But sometimes they feel like they do, which might be worse,”

Alani taps her pen against her bottom lip and nods, a gentle hum leaving her throat as she registers his words.

“Didn’t think about it like that,”

“S’not so much about the fans,” Harry continues. “Because I feel like there’s lots of things I wanna share with them through the music. It’s… everyone else, I guess,”

“I don’t think it’s abnormal to want your privacy,” Alani comments. “To want to share things on your own terms. It’s human,”

“But isn’t that what it means to be loved?” he asks, chin resting in his palm. “To be known?”

Alani picks up on a glimmer of challenge behind Harry’s eyes, as if he is the one conducting the interview and trying to extract information from her.

“There’s a difference between knowing something about someone,” she argues. “And knowing someone,”

“It’s like Prince,” Harry says suddenly, an excited fire behind his emerald eyes. “Who knows anything about Prince besides the fact that he’s a fuckin’ great musician? I sure as hell don’t, but all you wanna do is know more, and that’s what makes him so magical. It’s mysterious… I like that,”

Alani snorts and looks up from her notes scrawled on the page. “Did you just describe Prince like your manic-pixie dream girl?”

“No,” Harry defends with an amused laugh. “Well, not intentionally anyway,”

“I’m sorry,” she apologizes with a wave of her hand. “No, I know what you mean. It’s like keeping the rock-star persona separate from your real life, makes it all more alluring,”

Harry nods, running a hand through his hair and shaking it out before securing his sunglasses back at the top of his head. “Yeah,”

“But earlier you also said you wanted to share some things with the fans,” Alani begins again, going back to her chicken scratch notes. “What kinds of things were you referring to?”

“Real life stuff,” he offers. “Mostly the not-so-great things. ‘Cos I mean no one wants to hear me sing about going to bars and how great everything is. The champagne popping,”

Harry trails off as his fingers smooth over the cross pendant hanging around his neck.

“I mean, I don’t wanna hear my favorite musicians talk about that, at least. I wanna know ‘how did you feel when you were alone in that hotel room, because you chose to be alone?’”

The wind begins to pick up more noticeably and the pages of Alani’s notebook flutter wildly, threatening to escape. Too wrapped up in their conversation, the pair hadn’t noticed the dwindling tourists or the cumulonimbus clouds hovering above. Harry squints up at the darkening sky and it peers back at him with equal contempt . He springs to his feet, quickly gathering some of Alani’s things for her.

“We gotta go,”

They quickly scurry and the sound of thunder rumbling in the distance quickens their pace up the steps. The adrenaline coursing through Alani’s veins masks the burning in her quads and calves, but Harry’s steady panting gives away his exertion. They’re almost halfway up the long trail of steps when another thunderclap pierces through the sky above them and sends a jolt through their bodies. One speckle of rain hits the pavement in front of Alani’s quick feet, and then another, and another, until the sky opens up and they are caught in the downpour. Alani shrieks and the sound makes Harry belly laugh, a hand instinctively reaching out to the middle of her back to brace her.

“Careful,” He calls out above the deafening rain. “Watch your step!”

Somehow over the sound of the rain and her own heavy breathing, Alani still manages to come up with a witty remark.

“Imagine the headlines!” she shouts over her shoulder. “‘Popstar Lures Innocent Civilian to Her Untimely Demise’,”

Alani doesn’t say anything about his palm still pressed securely against the small of her back, but the warmth of it spreads through her fingers and toes. They continue up the steps, each breathing a sigh of relief when the top is in sight. Harry reaches out for her hand when they make it to the landing, and she accepts it gladly, before they bolt to the parking lot where the lone Range Rover is parked. Once inside, a fit of laughter erupts from the both of them.

“What a cliché,” Harry comments. “Getting caught in the rain,”

Alani sighs. “Too bad we don’t have piña coladas,”

“We could maybe do something about that,” he shrugs.

Alani reaches for her phone and queues up the next song, which brings a cheshire grin to Harry’s face when he hears the familiar drums.

“Wasn’t what I meant, but okay,” he rolls his eyes, turning up the car’s heater before heading back out onto the highway.

“This song’s kinda fucked up when you think about it,” Alani muses, swaying in her seat. “But the chorus is fun,”

“S’all that matters when you’re sloshed,”

“Sorry about your seats, they’re gonna be soaked,” Alani apologizes as her wet socks squelch around in her shoes.

“Don’t worry about it,” he waves the concern away. “Occupational hazard.”

The drive to Alani’s house from ‘Akaka Falls is only 25 minutes and the two of them spend most of the time lost in their own thoughts, letting the car heater soothe their chilly bones. Alani watches the rain droplets race down the window pane and turns over some of Harry’s words in her mind. His comment about the waterfalls sticks out like a shell emerging from the sand. She begins to think that it perfectly captures this time in his life as he searches for something real amidst the chaos of fame. It’s an angle she’s keen to run with once she has the time to sort through her notes and write, but her thoughts also drift towards the waterfalls in her own life that she’s been chasing. Naturally, she thinks about Rolling Stone and what she hopes New York City will bring her. Adventure, she thinks at first, digging deeper when that doesn’t quite suffice. Success, getting warmer. Purpose, bingo. Alani sinks into her seat with a contented sigh.

“Piña coladas,” Harry hums once they’ve pulled up to Alani’s driveway. “Next time, we’re definitely getting piña coladas,”

Alani isn’t as surprised by his suggestion of meeting up for a third time, though it still sends her heartbeat through the roof. She tries not to think too hard about the implications.

“On you,” she teases.

“Of course,”

“Thanks again,” Alani says, turning to face him. “We covered a lot of material today,”

Harry flashes a shy smile in response. “Sorry ‘bout...your clothes. I should’ve checked the weather,”

“Occupational hazard,” she shrugs, mirroring his words from earlier. “So I guess I’ll just see you around then?”

“Yeah,” he swallows, suddenly aware of her proximity. “I mean are we still doing this—the interviews?”

Alani stops smoothing out her damp waves, feeling as if she had overstepped. “If that’s okay. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed—”

“No, it’s okay,” Harry reassures her. “I’m available—I mean for your writing I’m—”

He stumbles over his words and Alani eases the slightest bit knowing that he’s nervous, too.

“Just let me know, whenever.” he says finally, regaining his composure.

“Will do.” she nods slowly.

Alani’s eyes dart to Harry’s lips briefly, lingering just long enough that Harry notices, but too quick for him to justify closing the gap. Before he knows it, he’s missed his chance and she’s slipping out of the car, closing the door with a sense of finality that makes his stomach drop.

Alani makes her way up to the house, gravel crunching under her feet and head pounding.

Don’t get too close, she reminds herself. Don’t go chasing waterfalls.

Next Chapter

#harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fanfic #harry styles writing #solo harry #harry styles fluff #harry styles x oc #one direction #harry styles fic #harry fic #ybmh #it's getting real smirk emoji

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ravenadottir · 4 years

Note

so i’ve been thinking a lot about s3 (i’m going through rough times lol) and i’ve especially been thinking about how i would change with the islanders or just throw them away completely. so that’s my question to you. which islanders would you tweak a little (or a lot let’s be honest) and which islanders would you just completely get rid of and create new one?

“so i’ve been thinking a lot about s3 (i’m going through rough times lol)”

but like, same! also, it must really be rough for you to think about season 3, and for that, i salute you, brave soldier!

now, i could create new ones, but i would give other islanders, from other seasons, a second chance. well, in their case a first chance, at all! let’s be honest!

☠ bill! you know i would throw him in the bin right away! nothing is salvageable there. not the looks, not the personality, and definitely not his shitty conversations and mayo talk! the only cute moments he has happens with every other islander, so that’s not exclusive to him. i have no reason to like the guy.

rohan > bill

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☠ lily. i absolutely can’t say anything about her, but like, toss her too! no flavor whatsoever. that trope of the “flirty enemy” is garbage, and she doesn’t have enough personality to do it. ione would’ve been much better, and truly make me feels something, but lily??? nah, my guy. toss it!

priya > lily

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☠ rafi... meh. not enough time in the villa, “flirty enemy” is really dull, and definitely not enough of anything to make me like him. there’s only one line i thought it was cool, and it’s when he tells us about his younger brother. that’s it. his entire personality is his facial expressions and i-

short king tim > rafi

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☠ ciaran. sorry, but... toss it! absolutely toss it! i don’t wanna date a child! “but vena, he missed his hometown, that’s why he gives the tour!” my guy, he was there for less than 24 h!!! they took the “friendly, sweet guy, that has a dog” and took it to a 1000 in 24 hours! sorry, it doesn’t cut for me, not even as a secondary character! the reason why i say this is because there’s plenty of people i didn’t romance in season 2, and were still essential to the villa. ciaran is definitely not one of those characters. he could’ve disappeared and i wouldn’t have noticed. toss it, and toss it good, so he stays there!

rohan’s twin: roman. juggler/law student > ciaran

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“stay the way you are” challenge:

❣ aj i would probably leave her the way she is. she’s not my cup of tea, romantically, but she is a good character, dumbness and puppiness included! she would stay the same.

❣ seb. i wouldn’t change anything. to me, he’s perfect the way he is, and i’m still butthurt he’s not an li.

❣ iona, to me, is great! i just wanted her to be more present, but aside from that, i like her! i like that she’s a bit prickly and if she was a li, even better!

❣ genevieve as well! i like her personality, and i think she’s really sweet. there’s nothing i would change, except for making her (if not your bff) closer to mc, regardless. ‘cause i do think mc and viv were meant to be friends, even if you don’t choose her.

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tweaking a little bit:

✎ nicky. keep him the way he is, but like, less sister talk!! i can’t when he talks about her, once is enough. they really gave him the “big brother” persona and that’s honestly a waste of potential, because he’s such a sweet guy. oh, yeah, and MAKE HIM AN LI, for fuck’s sake!

✎ miki... probably give her some more screen time, and maybe more of a stronger persona, presence wise. she’s not a bad character, but i often forget she exists, so maybe more of her own, not just participating on the group conversations. she really disappears into the background, and i’m certain an influencer wouldn’t be like that at all.

✎ camilo. more personality, and keep it consistent to the end of the season! and also make him think twice before calling me ‘mamacita’, because that’s kinda gross... i’m no one’s little momma! also, also, the family talk could’ve been way more interesting! it starts out so sweet, when he tells us about how loud and united they are, then he never says a thing about it, ever again! unless is about game night, proving the season is lame as fuck. and appearance wise, i would erase his pointy shoulders! it drives me insane! also smooth out his harsh-lines abs. it doesn’t look good. he’s a very handsome guy, but they did him dirty with that body outline.

✎ elladine. they did her so dirty!! she has zero personality on the bff route, and outside of it, we only get a glimpse from her past romances/life. i need more from her! waaaay more! she could’ve been the girl we all craved not only because of her looks!! a shy, thick girl that discovers she’s not straight??? come on, fusebox! spare some crumbs!

✎ harry i think is a good character. in general, he seems to be in tune with the personality they gave him. i just wanted him to look older. the size of his torso doesn’t fit in with an adult’s size, and he’s so adorably dorky sometimes! he would’ve been a great addition in the li’s cast if he didn’t look like an infant.

✎ yasmin started out great! i was intrigued by her personality and looks, and i was looking forward to get to know her better... then... that was it! everything she had to offer was everything she gave on the first date! like... what a waste of pixels!! she’s so dull, and so... unidimensional i think. no! she deserved more personality, waaay more lines and screen time! they did her dirty too!

✎ tai. CAN WE GET ANYTHING REMOTELY DRAMATIC IN HIM? no? ok, thanks so much! i know ten days is not enough to make someone have an arc, but that’s on fusebox, not on me. they did this whole season the way they did because they were saving up in character designs and customization. and for that, we lost the opportunity of having a longer season, and with it, arcs to be developed. tai is gorgeous, and his personality is great, but like... what you see is what you get, and there’s nothing deeper going on. he’s a bi guy that is gigantic and makes pottery. THAT’S IT. no heartbreak from the past, nothing he mentions about why he teaches rugby, and doesn’t play it. no family talk or anything. he’s just there, ready to go, and we didn’t contribute with anything in his personality. that aches me so much!!

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

the season ruined amazing characters that deserved to be developed. i hate this garbage season, and i reckon it’s not the characters’ fault! we missed the opportunity of being an influence on their lives. so many boys and girls grow up from his insecurities in season 2, and it’s because of us! US!! for fuck’s sake, nothing happened in that villa. absolutely nothing!

56 notes · View notes

barnesbabee · 3 years

Text

[Don't Starve/DST tips for beginner players]

1. CHARACTER CHOOSING

The character you play plays a big role in the game, as they're not just for aesthetic, each character has ups and downs and as a beginner you should choose the most neutral characters before you get a handle of the game. In singleplayer Don't Starve you can only unlock new characters with XP, but in DST you have all of them available to you, so choose wisely. Here's a small guide on each character:

Wilson: he's the starting character, so naturally he's the most neutral one. He doesn't really have pros or cons, he just grows a pretty cool beard.

Willow: the firestarter. She's my main so I have a lot to say. Willow is a good character, although her sanity is low she's very useful. In regular Don't Starve she spawns with a lighter, but in Don't Starve together she spawns with a lighter and Bernie, her bear. Willow's sanity goes up if she picks flowers, like normal players, but she also gets more sanity when she's around fire or when she burns things, so when her sanity is low you might want to leave base or not walk around forests because she can start a fire. The sanity gain with fire improves during the day. She's also really useful because in DST when she's insane she can put Bernie on the floor and he'll become a huge bear and fight monsters for her. This is all amazing but as I said she loves fire, so she hates cold, and winter is especially hard for her. She can freeze quicker and it's really annoying and it's hard to do anything that involves not being around warm fire, so if you're a new player I don't really recommend playing Willow at first because winter is already hard as it is. This being said, during summer she's also more resistant to heat strokes than other characters, and she also doesn't take fire damage unlike other characters.

Wolfgang: Wolfgang has great stats and he's really strong, but you have to be constantly feeding him or else he'll get weak. Also he's 'afraid of monsters', which means his sanity drains quicker than other characters when he's around hostile mobs.

Wendy: Wendy is someone I recommend to new players, because although her stats aren't the best, and although she doesn't hit very hard, she comes with Abigail. Abigail is her dead sister that you can spawn from the flower Wendy carries, and Abigail is useful because she can fight for you. Most mobs in Don't Starve use close range and with Abigail you can use long range which is very useful. Just make sure you don't get hit because Wendy's HP isn't the best.

WX78: it's a bit of a shit character if you ask me. Definitely don't play this one. When he gets hit by lighting he gets charged up and can be a light source + walk faster, but he only eats gears (which are hard to get on their own) and he gets rusty if it rains, I honestly don't like him.

Wickerbottom: I don't have much experience on her, she's really smart and she comes with an extra crafting tab that allows her to craft books which she can use to spawn stuff. It's useful but I don't have much insight on her.

Woodie: I play him a lot in DST, and he's really great overall. He comes with an axe (Lucy) that is infinite (it doesn't wear out like other axes) and he can chop trees down really quickly. However during full moon he can turn into a Goose (runs fast), into a Moose (attacks with force) or into a Beaver (can chop trees faster and without an axe), but when he comes back to being Woodie he will be hungry (hunger will be at 0) so you have to make sure you have food around.

Wes: garbage.

Maxwell: He can create shadows to fight for him, chop for him, etc... But for every shadow he permanently looses HP (which means that, for example, if his HP sits at 150 max, when he makes a shadow the max will be 120HP). It's useful but you have to be careful not to take any damage, and as a new player that might be hard.

Wigfrid: She's a great fighter, and she's able to craft a helmet (best protection in the game I believe, at least from the regular ones) and a spear which are exclusive to her. However she only eats meat and it can be a little hard for new players as carrots and berries are the easiest food to get.

Webber: he's recently had a rework so he has a couple new things. Webber is a spider, and he can now make them passive, wake them up, and put them to sleep, which is great to farm/harvest stuff. Webber isn't attacked by spiders like other players, but since pigmen are afraid of spiders they will hit Webber as well. Not a terrible character to start with either!

Warly: Warly comes with his own special crockpot and he is a great cook, which means that your hunger heals better when you eat something he made. The downside is that he can't eat anything he didn't make in his crockpot, which can make it a little hard.

Wormwood: I recently bought Hamlet (which is how you get this playable character or DST) and man, my thoughts are divided. He's a good character as he can plant seeds without needing to make crops, however he's extremely flammable (he can't stand too close to a fire), he looses sanity every time he chops a tree or picks a flower ('cause he's a plant and he doesn't like hurting his friends). Something really annoying about him is that he doesn't heal by eating food like other characters, he only heals with the spider glands or with manure (shit). So he's not an ideal character to start with. He does grow a cool flower on his head during spring though.

Winona: She's a really badass character and I really like her. She's a builder, so she can build things other characters can't (like catapults) so she's really effective when it comes to defending the base and helping out against mobs like hounds. However she does lose sanity any time she crafts anything, so it can be a little hard to deal with her.

Wortox: I don't know much about him, but he can teleport and he can also heal players with his magic. If you ask me he's a little overpowered for the game.

Wurt: I don't know much about him and I've never had anyone play him, all I know is that he doesn't get attacked by merman since he's one of them.

Walter: he's a little scout boy that comes with a slingshot and a dog. The dog can grow big and Walter can ride him which is good for fleeing, but after riding for a while the dog will throw him off.

Sorry for not having much on the last 3 but they're fairly recent compared to others and I haven't seen much of them or played them.

Most times during DST people choose characters that help others, so you can help each other and get the most out of the game.

2. SANITY

Sanity plays a big part in this game. You lose sanity by being in the dark, or by fighting mobs. Some characters have special ways of losing sanity, for example, Wormwood loses sanity by picking flowers or chopping trees. How do you fix your sanity? For all characters (except Wormwood) you can get sanity by picking flowers. With 12 flowers you can make a garland in the hat tab and it will slowly restore your sanity. You can also pick green mushrooms and cook them for more sanity. Just like some characters lose sanity in a 'special' way, some characters gain sanity in a special way as well, such as Woodie when he chops trees and Willow when she's near fire or when she sets anything on fire.

If you let your sanity go down you will start seeing shadows, those shadows become real if it goes down enough, and said shadows will start attacking you, which isn't great because they're a lot, so watch out for that.

3. SURVIVING WINTER

Winter is hands down my least favourite season because Im a Willow main :)

What happens during winter? It starts to snow, so players can freeze, deerclops might appear, crops stop growing. The biggest issue with the winter is that food is hard to find. Crops and berries don't grow anymore so what do you do? First of all you will need to find a clockwork before winter. What are clockworks? They're metal mobs that drop gears when you kill them. You need gears to make a fridge, so you can store a lot of food for winter. If you store food in a normal chest it will rot quickly, but in a fridge they last a long time. You should also build a crockpot which is fairly easy, and in a crockpot you can make better food, you can also take nearly rotten food and make it good by cooking it, and you can use 1 stick or 1 monster meat to make good food, as you can't normally eat monster meat 'cause it drains sanity and HP.

What can you do for the cold? You need to find beefalo, and with the shears (which you can craft in the tools) you shave the beefalo, so you can make a winter hat. That hat will help with the cold. You can also make earmuffs, by catching 2 live bunnies and sticks, but the hat isn't hard to make and it's better. MAKE SURE YOU CARRY ENOUGH TO MAKE A FIRE AT ALL TIMES. In case of emergency if you get cold and start dying you need to have something to warm you up. You should also make a thermal stone. It doesn't take a lot and it keeps you warm. (You use the thermal stone by setting it down near the fire and letting it geete warm)

You should also make bird and rabbit traps to get meat during the winter.

Beware of the deerclops, if it appears try to lure it away from your base because it can destroy everything you built. If you want to fight it, make sure you fight it away from your base, but if you don't you can also lure him somewhere else and then run away. The Deerclops will de-spawn after winter is over.

Try not to make your base near the sea 'cause penguins will spawn and they're very fucking annoying + they can destroy your shit.

4. SURVIVING SUMMER

Summer is also very fucking annoying but much less than winter.

What do you need?

Some crops survive, but some of them die, so getting food isn't as annoying to get, but it's still scarce, so you should also try to get as much food as you can during spring time.

You should get ice during winter from the glaciers, and also more gears. Some crops/trees/grass might start to burn during summer, and with gears and ice you can make an ice-fligomatic. The ice flingomatic will throw ice to things when they start burning and will extinguish the fire, so when you come back to your base it's not all in flames.

During the summer you can't stand near fire or you'll die of heatsroke. Remember Nitre? That yellow shit you leave behind after mining rocks because you need inventory space? Yeah you'll need those to build an endothermic fire. It lights up your nights and keeps you cold, however you can't cook in it.

The thermal stone from winter also works during the summer.

Keeping a bunch of ice from winter in your fridge also works. If you eat the ice it will make you colder.

RANDOM TIPS

1. Don't hit pigmen/beefalo when there's many around you. They will gather up and kill you.

2. DO NOT try to kill penguins. They might be easy to kill but not so much when they all gather around and kill you.

3. Always keep armor+spear on you in case hounds start to come and you're not at base.

4. Don't steal tall birds' eggs (blue with white dots). The tall bird is very strong and aggressive and it will follow you for the egg and try to kill you.

5. Don't eat the mushrooms unless 100% necessary. Mushrooms always have a side effect, like they might give you sanity but take HP.

6. You can use mushrooms and monster meat (which you shouldn't eat by themselves) and cook something in a crockpot, thus turning something inedible into something edible.

7. When it rains, more during the Spring than anything else, it might start raining frogs, it's not a bug, that happens. Try to get away from base so they don't swarm there, as they're very annoying.

8. ALWAYS build a lightning rod, during a storm the lightning can hit something and set it on fire, and you don't want your stuff being burned. The lightning rod collects the lightning and protects your base.

----

This is all I can remember, I am more than happy to answer any questions anyone might have! @atinystray here it is!!

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docholligay · 4 years

Text

The Long Black Road

I FINISHED SOMETHING EVERYONE CONGRATULATE ME. This was @yamadara87 prompt, “MA after Haruka dies” takes place in the MaS AU.

The shop was quiet for a Wednesday afternoon. It could have been owing to the cold as much as anything, and the fact that with so many holidays having recently been laid to rest, women were not nearly so fussy about having the latest style. It was always a slow period of the year, one where Takuya and MA generally set about to improving parts of the shop, thinking about the coming year, and running the books.

But Takuya was alone in the small but exclusive shop today, and had been for the last few weeks. He’d just finished with a client determined to keep her hair black despite her age, washing up in the back corner, when he heard the door open, the high bells chiming across the pristine shop. He knew damn well he didn’t have an appointment lined up, and their shop was the sort of place that only did a walk-in if your cash and your pedigree matched up.

He’d even sent their receptionist home for the day.

“Welcome!” He beamed brightly as he walked out the back, setting aside the actual thoughts in his head for something much more encouraging.

“It’s just me.” M.A. stopped at the front desk and looked over her appointment book, whipping through the pages until she came to the clean emptiness of the current week. “When Masami comes in tomorrow, let her know I’m taking appointments. Make sure she calls Ms. Sato, I’m sure she’s having a heart attack right about now.”

“I--” Takuya leaned against the wall near the back of the shop, “Wasn’t expecting to see you. For awhile.”

MA looked up at him and grinned, tossing the curly hair back from her face. On anyone else it might have looked careless, but it was in these moments that Takuya was reminded that MA was a Kaioh by bloodline and inclination, and had her mother’s way of making something look intentional and stylish.

“Get used to having the place to yourself, huh?”

“No,” he shook his head, straightening up off the wall, “I missed having you. But, M.A….”

“Pop died this morning, to answer your question,” she punctuated the thought by dropping the pen into the cup, “so I’m back.”

Takuya nearly sighed, but then thought better of it. Since they’d met in school, he’d always been taken with MA’s blend of brashness and breeding, the way she could play at either without skipping a beat, her intense refusal to allow anything to push her off the balance beam of her own life. She was stubborn and strong and all the things Takuya wanted for himself, and had cultivated a bit of, in his adult life.

But things are never simple, Takuya had learned as life went on, and strength can be an anchor, and an anchor can do many things at once, while never changing shape. MA was not weak, because she never let herself be weak. She never gave herself permission to be weak.

He doubted he could give her that permission either, but at the very least, he could try.

“You don’t have to be here.”

MA scoffed and shook her head. “What else is there to do?”

She looked at him when he said it, a mild look of amusement on her face. She wanted him to have an answer. MA would have loved for Takuya to know what a human being was supposed to do, after a mother dies. He would have loved to have an answer, as well, and, tugging at his sleeve, realize he should have known the question would come long before it did.

MA didn’t give him a chance to come up with anything before she parried each blow.

“Funeral home got her body,” she closed the schedule book, “Pop planned most of her own funeral,” she took mail from the desk and shoved an envelope in the correct slot, “wrote the eulogy,” another envelope, in the garbage this time,” So, what is there to do? Other than sit around and cry about something we’ve known is coming for months. Kimi has that down, I don’t think the family needs me for that.”

Takuya came over and sat at the desk, looking up at her.

“What about your kids?”

She stopped for a moment, mail still in hand, and looked past the desk and out the front window. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out, and eventually she closed it, shaking her head, returning to her mail.

“MA--”

“What, Takuya?” She tossed down the rest of the mail. “What do you want from the entire conversation? You want me to cry? Would that make you feel like I was doing all of this correctly?” she crossed her arms. “There is nothing on earth left that I can do for her. My Papa is dead, and there’s no bringing her back, and all the ridiculous throwing myself into open sobbing is going to change that. It would just be to make everyone else feel better. It won’t make me feel better, because she would still be dead, and I would be annoyed and crying.”

“What I want, Marine, is for you not to do this--thing, that you do,--”

“I don’t know why you bother even trying to say my name. You pronounce it like a donkey.” She sat down at the desk and opened the computer file.

“--where you pretend everything is fine, and that nothing can possibly rattle you, and then all of a sudden, you’re gone. You just suddenly decide to deal with things, and God fucking forbid you let anyone help you.”

She just looked at him, an unimpressed stare on her face.

“Remember when you and your boyfriend broke up? And it was nothing, until I looked up, and you were in some cheap-ass onsen, drunk, for five days. That was a month later!”

M.A.’s face turned from unimpressed to thoughtful, though still there was no betrayal of sadness.

“You’re, and I don’t say this to piss you off, a little bit like your mom sometimes.”

M.A. let out a loud groan and threw herself back in the chair. “God, I am, aren’t I?” She sighed. “It’s some Greek tragedy of mine.”

Takuya shrugged. “I like your mom. But, she definitely is, emotionally avoidant.”

M.A. rested her hands on her chin and stared down at the appointment book. She and Taskuya sat there for a moment, saying nothing, at all, until M.A.’s voice came softly from the desk.

“I was such a bitch to Pop when I was a teenager.”

All of life is a play, and there ware times in our lives when we must recognize the act and stage on which we stand. There is a time for the quick back and forth of Wilde, and a time for the ponderousness of Chekov, and above all, a time for a Shakespearan soliloquy.

And so Takuya did not respond.

“She was such a good mom,” M.A. folded her hands into her lap, looking more like Michiru than ever before, though he would not have dared say it, “She packed my lunch every day, with these little notes about how she loved me, or was proud of me. Sometimes just a little drawing. I started throwing them away, when I was 13. All my Pop had ever wanted,” she took a deep breath, “ was to be a mom, and I just kept throwing it back in her face.”

“She tried to take me to the movies, shopping, and just--” she gave a difficult huff, “I wanted nothing to do with her. She just wanted me too badly. Isn’t that horrible? My Pop loved me so much that I resented her for it. I thought she was pathetic.

“I really am like my Mom, sometimes, Takuya. You don’t know the half of it. I’ve heard stories of my Mom, when she was a teenager, even up into her 20s, how she was vain and petty, and self-centered. Mom always turns a little pink when anyone mentions it. And then I did the same thing, but to Pop. To someone who only wanted to love me for everything I was. Didn’t matter when I screamed at Mom, didn’t matter when I snuck out. Didn’t even matter when I stole her medication and sold it. And I hated her for it.” she gave a chuckle, “I’m such a bitch.”

M.A looked up at the ceiling, hands still folded, unable to even glance over at Takuya.

“I was so cruel, those next few years. I told her she was embarrassing. I told her to leave me alone. Once, when I was 15, I told her she wasn’t even my mom. I wasn’t related to her at all. She started to cry, right there in front of me. You know what I did, Takuya?” she looked over at him, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Fucking nothing. I stood there, and watched my Pop cry, when she had thrown her entire life into raising me. What kind of fucking...monster…”

Sometimes, a soliloquy becomes a spiral, and so Takuya stepped in.

“I knew your Pop for, well, as long as I’ve known you. You two were really close, M.A. So you were a bitch for three years as a kid. I knew Haruka, and I saw her with you, and I never would have known any of that. She forgave you. And you changed. So.”

M.A laughed and wiped away her tears. “Well, at a certain point, my aunt Mina had enough of my shit and threatened to beat my ass if I couldn’t treat Pop with some kind of borderline kindness.” she cleared her throat. “She told me everything that ever happened to Pop. I never knew all of it. She never told me, and, you know, her mom died when I was really little. And--and, Pop had a pretty big surgery around that time, and I remember cutting class and taking Kimi--”

“Kimi cut class!? Kimiko. Your sister.”

M.A. nodded. “The first and last time. Pop hadn’t wanted us to see her until she was a little better. But since when was I listening to Pop? Kimi was so worried.We got there and Pop was so...I felt bad for her.”

Takuya smiled and leaned over the desk. “And the Snow Queen melted, and became a real girl.”

“Eat a dick, Takuya.”

“With pleasure.”

She shook her head. “I never apologized to her. I never told her how much I regretted being a complete asshole.”

He touched her shoulder, and she looked up at him. “Did you stop being an asshole?”

“Yeah.”

“I think the best apology is changed behavior.” He sat on the desk. “Your Pop loved you. And she knew you loved her. After all that, what else is there?”

M.A. thought for a moment, looking off into the empty shop that smelled perpetually of the fine shampoos and conditioners they used on the clients, over to where her scissors lay covered in their case where she had left them weeks ago. There was nothing to be done, she was right in that respect. And when there is nothing to be done, at times, we can only be left with the reality of how we feel.

“I miss her.”

It was so plain that it surprised the both of them. Artless and plain, without any kind of bravado, laid out there on the counter. Takuya walked across the shop into his station, opened a drawer and pulled out a bottle of HIbiki.

“She was a hell of a person,” He put two plastic glasses in front of them, pouring, “I’m better for having known her.”

“I’ll drink to that.”

M.A. did not stop feeling guilty that day, or for a long time, for life does not work that way, and rarely affords us an instant release from that which binds us. But on that day, in a closed shop in a fancy district, she drank good whiskey from a poor cup, and cried, and took the first step toward the sun.

#AU of Mystery and Shadow #Doc that's technically a monologue and not a soliloquy #I know!#But the lyric of the narrative demands #pillory me if you must but I couldn't make monologue work

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kamijoxversailles · 4 years

Note

I'm greedy so do all the mun thingies ♡ - karmas typist

ooc - pffft.... Greedy mun!!!! XD

¯\_(ツ)_/¯: do you have any tumblr friends? if so, who are they?

I do! I consider several people my friends here, including, but ABSOLUTELY NOT EXCLUSIVELY @moonaeraa and @haidoneko. There are several others. I feel like I become friends with most of the people I rp with.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°): relationship status?

Single and completely uninterested in mingling.

ಠ_ಠ: what is your biggest pet peeve?

When people drop casual misogyny and expect me to think it’s funny. They may not realize they’re misogynistic, but that doesn’t make it funny.

(ಥ_ಥ): finish this: i hate it when…

I hate it when adults talk about their flaws or what they don’t like about their bodies, while children can hear it. Also, when they talk about how bad their children behave - WHILE THE CHILD HEARS IT! Yes, I’m looking at you, brother dear and sister-in-law!

ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ: what is your favorite animal?

PENGUINS!

(☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞ ☜(ﾟヮﾟ☜): who is someone you can tell everything to?

My little sister, and my real-life friend Ingunn.

(づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ: are you a hugger?

If I know the person, yes. If they’re a stranger, then no.

(╯°□°)╯︵ ʞooqǝɔɐɟ: besides tumblr, do you have any other social media?

I have an instagram, nordlysfantasi. I am sorry to say it is very unorganized. I post what I FEEL like. I don’t have a system.

﴾͡๏̯͡๏﴿?: how old are you?

I’ll be 29 years old on May 28th!

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻: what are your thoughts on school?

An important and good thing. Education is good. I DO believe the system is flawed, and I think it is VERY wrong the way society is focusing on higher education as being the end-all be-all. Not everyone needs a doctorate, you know? We need waiters and hairdressers and garbage workers and grocery store people just as much (or, as this pandemic shows - MORE than!) professors and CEOs.

| (• ◡•)| (❍ᴥ❍ʋ): favorite tv show?

Supernatural! Also, I will admit, Botched. I am currently slightly obsessed with Botched...

(ง'̀-‘́)ง: are you okay?

Right now? Yes. This answer would obviously change from day to day.

(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ✧: sexual orientation?

Lesbian. I’m sex repulsed, though. I will gladly WRITE smut, but... I don’t want to touch or be touched in any sexual way.

┬┴┬┴┤(･_├┬┴┬┴: are you a people person or a loner?

I’m a people person with some very specific people, or with a wide range of people for a very limited time. I’m GOOD with people. I WORK with people. But except for my very closest friends, I prefer to spend my free time alone. Company I don’t choose myself tires me out VERY quickly.

ლ(ಠ益ಠლ): do you have any siblings?

Hell yes! Three older brothers, one older sister, and one younger sister!

ಠ╭╮ಠ: have you ever self harmed?

Yes. Not in the ways most commonly shown in movies. But yes.

(づ￣ ³￣)づ: have you ever been in love?

Only with fictional characters~

(☞ﾟ∀ﾟ)☞: would you rather be hugged by a bunny or kissed by a doe?

Hugged by a bunny! I don’t like to be kissed or licked by ANYTHING.

(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻: how do you let your anger out?

Crying. I cry a LOT.

ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ: are you active?

At work, yes. I work in a daycare. In my free time? Hmm. Uuuuh. Nope.

ヾ(⌐■_■)ノ♪: what are your favorite band(s)/artist(s)?

Kamijo, Versailles, Malice Mizer, Dead End, Buck-Tick, Galneryus, Emilie Autumn, Tori Amos, Priscilla Hernandez, Indica, Dreamcatcher.

（╯°□°）╯︵(\ .o.)\: who is your least favorite person?

My dad, my second oldest brother, and his wife (my sister-in-law)

♥‿♥: tell us about your crush!

I suppose Kamijo is a sort-of crush. I’m lesbian, and not interested in him sexually, but DAMN, he’s handsome, and his voice makes me melt!

◔̯◔: what time is it?

Right now, it’s 10:31pm.

◕‿◕: what is your guilty pleasure?

Online, I have no guilty pleasures. I am proud to be me, and like what I like. In real life... Almost everthing I like is a guilty pleasure. I don’t show my art taste to my family, I don’t play my music for them, I seldom tell them what the books I read are about, I would NEVER tell them I watch Botched - a show about plastic surgery. I’d NEVER admit to them that I listen to kpop. My family are.....kinda snobbish. I come from a family that’s full of professional musicians, some of them metal and rock, most of them classical. I’m a classically trained pianist and singer myself. I’ve grown up having pop music and pop stars made fun of in my home. I’m confident in many things, but when it comes to telling my family that “yeah, I DO like pop music, actually!” that’s just....that’s not gonna happen. Coming out as a lesbian was easier. They’re cultural elitists.

◔ ⌣ ◔: are you a virgin?

Virginity is a silly concept born of patriarchal values placed on a woman’s chastity. Most common definitions of virginity mainly mean - have I had a dick inside my vagina? The answer is no, so by that definition, I am a virgin. But I have had sexual experiences, so by less rigid definitions of virginity, no, I’m not a virgin. So. Why don’t we just get rid of that whole concept, eh?

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darkskinnedblackbeauty · 5 years

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Not exactly an hour after we got it and he was essentially going here and there aimlessly with this toy. The movement table is fascinating to him thus far he appreciates the toys. I do wish it had lights and progressively melodic choices yet generally this is a major success for containing a creeping and occupied infant. A+.

This is the ideal option in contrast to a conventional walker, I'd even go similar to stating that it's BETTER than a customary walker. My half year old child moves around it effortlessly and has truly gotten the strolling movement down, however with no of the security worries that a customary walker brings (we have a part level home with stairs that would be risky for a conventional walker).

It is somewhat massive, yet no more so than an independent jumper.

Above all, our child totally adores it! There's a great deal of assorted variety in the exercises on the table, so when he loses enthusiasm for one segment, he moves directly along to another... also, every one has built up his engine aptitudes.

I would exceptionally reccomend to anybody thinking about this toy.

Let me start with my child adores it... it keeps him engaged for a considerable length of time. Extraordinarily when he plays with his sibling and sister! . It was anything but difficult to collect. Presently my interests are the point at which he circumvents the entire walker it moves with him and it monstrosities me out reasoning that it will break apart or even most noticeably awful it turns sideway. I bought this item back on August, first it was great; my child it's just 8 months (untimely) and he figured out how to move the toy around(both part the table and the part it moves). I wish there's anything I can do to get it fix. I truly did my examination on this walker until I resembled alright it appears as though something he would love and like you found in the video he cherishes it yet I can't simply face the challenge of him getting injured :(. Other than that I would give this walker 5 stars yet I just been with it 1.5 months and it previously giving me cerebral pains. Presently I need to discover another walker.

So worth the pause! In reality, it said it would take a month or more to find a good pace, just took a little while! Yippee! My child cherishes it, we've just had it for half a month, and he's currently 7 months. He is a plump child, he was 21 lbs at his half year check up. He doesn't spill this by any stretch of the imagination. He adores all the diverse toys and strolling around and around. It's incredible on account of our restricted hardwood space. He has another walker that he adores as well, yet he gets exhausted of the toys effectively and he runs into dividers way too rapidly, and I need to move him a great deal. I like that once he's in it, I can continue on ahead and simply watch out for him without moving him around when he stalls out. I disdain that it is difficult to store anyplace or to move effectively, yet that is minor for me.

youtube

My child is a half year old and adores this toy! It keeps him occupied and engaged for a moment.

This is the best infant thing I have ever purchased. This was bought for my nephew as an option in contrast to a walker in a home with a ton of stairs. He completely cherishes it. It is solid and whether he is hurrying around it or his more seasoned sibling is pushing him around, it doesn't tip or lean. The child adores strolling around playing with the toys and is reliably engaged. Exceptionally, profoundly

My first idea when I seen this online was "hello a positioned walker!" Now that my youngster is very nearly 7 months we set up it a month ago, and she cannot turn around cuz the split appeared in picture gets captured, need to lift the seat to go over it. It either was inadequate, or simply unadulterated garbage. Also, when we recovered the case in June or July it appeared as though it had been utilized, whenever we got an opportunity to open it at our new house it given some utilization on it. I lament purchasing this, and wish I had quite recently gotten her a walker rather, which now not exclusively am I in gap with this garbage laying around, I'm having to really purchase a walker for her. Set aside your time and cash and dont purchase this..

Also side in the event that you dont need your kid to turn/stroll around the toys are fun, however you'll need to find a good pace minutes to turn them around to another toy.

This is useful for little spaces, yet I would simply make them something other than what's expected than this. It's truly not worth the cash or bother.

This is a lifeline for when they're simply standing up. Once in a while I simply need to take a gander at the television and unwind. I can't leave my child in her walker b/c she can move places and snatch stuff. Regardless of whether I set stuff aside, close off regions, she can in any case discover inconvenience!!! LoL... Express gratitude toward Amazon, this is essentially a stationary walker. She has gadgets on it to keep her occupied, and she can in any case stroll around. Presently she's up and strolling (while at the same time taking hold of things), and we've taken the seat and wheels off. It's only a table now, however she despite everything plays with it. It's an extraordinary purchase. She's about 20lbs now, and can thump it over. I will need to burden it with something, yet I mean hey now, kids get enormous.

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dfroza · 4 years

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A single path...

this is the hope we hold in the treasure of grace.

Paul writes of leaving the past (tense) behind in his Letter of Philippians

[Chapter 3]

It is time that I wrap up these thoughts to you, my brothers and sisters. Rejoice in the Lord! (I don’t mind writing these things over and over to you, as I know it keeps you safe.)

Watch out for the dogs—wicked workers who run in packs looking for someone to maul with their false circumcision.

We are the true circumcision—those who worship God in Spirit and make our boast in Jesus the Anointed, the Liberating King—so we do not rely on what we have accomplished in the flesh.

If any try to throw around their pedigrees to you, remember my résumé—which is more impressive than theirs. I was circumcised on the eighth day—as the law prescribes—born of the nation of Israel, descended from the tribe of Benjamin. I am a Hebrew born of Hebrews; I have observed the law according to the strict piety of the Pharisees, separate from those embracing a less rigorous kind of Judaism. Zealous? Yes. I ruthlessly pursued and persecuted the church. And when it comes to the righteousness required by the law, my record is spotless.

But whatever I used to count as my greatest accomplishments, I’ve written them off as a loss because of the Anointed One. And more so, I now realize that all I gained and thought was important was nothing but yesterday’s garbage compared to knowing the Anointed Jesus my Lord. For Him I have thrown everything aside—it’s nothing but a pile of waste—so that I may gain Him. When it counts, I want to be found belonging to Him, not clinging to my own righteousness based on law, but actively relying on the faithfulness of the Anointed One. This is true righteousness, supplied by God, acquired by faith. I want to know Him inside and out. I want to experience the power of His resurrection and join in His suffering, shaped by His death, so that I may arrive safely at the resurrection from the dead.

I’m not there yet, nor have I become perfect; but I am charging on to gain anything and everything the Anointed One, Jesus, has in store for me—and nothing will stand in my way because He has grabbed me and won’t let me go. Brothers and sisters, as I said, I know I have not arrived; but there’s one thing I am doing: I’m leaving my old life behind, putting everything on the line for this mission. I am sprinting toward the only goal that counts: to cross the line, to win the prize, and to hear God’s call to resurrection life found exclusively in Jesus the Anointed. All of us who are mature ought to think the same way about these matters. If you have a different attitude, then God will reveal this to you as well. For now, let’s hold on to what we have been shown and keep in step with these teachings.

Imitate me, brothers and sisters, and look around to those already following the example we have set. I have warned you before (and now say again through my tears) that we have many enemies—people who reject the cross of the Anointed. They are ruled by their bellies, their glory comes by shame, and their minds are fixed on the things of this world. They are doomed. But we are citizens of heaven, exiles on earth waiting eagerly for a Liberator, our Lord Jesus the Anointed, to come and transform these humble, earthly bodies into the form of His glorious body by the same power that brings all things under His control.

The Letter of Philippians, Chapter 3 (The Voice)

Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments is the 4th chapter of 2nd Kings where several miracles are documented that occurred through Elisha:

One day the wife of a man from the guild of prophets called out to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead. You well know what a good man he was, devoted to God. And now the man to whom he was in debt is on his way to collect by taking my two children as slaves.”

Elisha said, “I wonder how I can be of help. Tell me, what do you have in your house?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Well, I do have a little oil.”

“Here’s what you do,” said Elisha. “Go up and down the street and borrow jugs and bowls from all your neighbors. And not just a few—all you can get. Then come home and lock the door behind you, you and your sons. Pour oil into each container; when each is full, set it aside.”

She did what he said. She locked the door behind her and her sons; as they brought the containers to her, she filled them. When all the jugs and bowls were full, she said to one of her sons, “Another jug, please.”

He said, “That’s it. There are no more jugs.”

Then the oil stopped.

She went and told the story to the man of God. He said, “Go sell the oil and make good on your debts. Live, both you and your sons, on what’s left.”

One day Elisha passed through Shunem. A leading lady of the town talked him into stopping for a meal. And then it became his custom: Whenever he passed through, he stopped by for a meal.

“I’m certain,” said the woman to her husband, “that this man who stops by with us all the time is a holy man of God. Why don’t we add on a small room upstairs and furnish it with a bed and desk, chair and lamp, so that when he comes by he can stay with us?”

And so it happened that the next time Elisha came by he went to the room and lay down for a nap.

Then he said to his servant Gehazi, “Tell the Shunammite woman I want to see her.” He called her and she came to him.

Through Gehazi Elisha said, “You’ve gone far beyond the call of duty in taking care of us; what can we do for you? Do you have a request we can bring to the king or to the commander of the army?”

She replied, “Nothing. I’m secure and satisfied in my family.”

Elisha conferred with Gehazi: “There’s got to be something we can do for her. But what?”

Gehazi said, “Well, she has no son, and her husband is an old man.”

“Call her in,” said Elisha. He called her and she stood at the open door.

Elisha said to her, “This time next year you’re going to be nursing an infant son.”

“O my master, O Holy Man,” she said, “don’t play games with me, teasing me with such fantasies!”

The woman conceived. A year later, just as Elisha had said, she had a son.

The child grew up. One day he went to his father, who was working with the harvest hands, complaining, “My head, my head!”

His father ordered a servant, “Carry him to his mother.”

The servant took him in his arms and carried him to his mother. He lay on her lap until noon and died.

She took him up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, shut him in alone, and left.

She then called her husband, “Get me a servant and a donkey so I can go to the Holy Man; I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“But why today? This isn’t a holy day—it’s neither New Moon nor Sabbath.”

She said, “Don’t ask questions; I need to go right now. Trust me.”

She went ahead and saddled the donkey, ordering her servant, “Take the lead—and go as fast as you can; I’ll tell you if you’re going too fast.” And so off she went. She came to the Holy Man at Mount Carmel.

The Holy Man, spotting her while she was still a long way off, said to his servant Gehazi, “Look out there; why, it’s the Shunammite woman! Quickly now. Ask her, ‘Is something wrong? Are you all right? Your husband? Your child?’”

She said, “Everything’s fine.”

But when she reached the Holy Man at the mountain, she threw herself at his feet and held tightly to him.

Gehazi came up to pull her away, but the Holy Man said, “Leave her alone—can’t you see that she’s in distress? But God hasn’t let me in on why; I’m completely in the dark.”

Then she spoke up: “Did I ask for a son, master? Didn’t I tell you, ‘Don’t tease me with false hopes’?”

He ordered Gehazi, “Don’t lose a minute—grab my staff and run as fast as you can. If you meet anyone, don’t even take time to greet him, and if anyone greets you, don’t even answer. Lay my staff across the boy’s face.”

The boy’s mother said, “As sure as God lives and you live, you’re not leaving me behind.” And so Gehazi let her take the lead, and followed behind.

But Gehazi arrived first and laid the staff across the boy’s face. But there was no sound—no sign of life. Gehazi went back to meet Elisha and said, “The boy hasn’t stirred.”

Elisha entered the house and found the boy stretched out on the bed dead. He went into the room and locked the door—just the two of them in the room—and prayed to God. He then got into bed with the boy and covered him with his body, mouth on mouth, eyes on eyes, hands on hands. As he was stretched out over him like that, the boy’s body became warm. Elisha got up and paced back and forth in the room. Then he went back and stretched himself upon the boy again. The boy started sneezing—seven times he sneezed!—and opened his eyes.

He called Gehazi and said, “Get the Shunammite woman in here!” He called her and she came in.

Elisha said, “Embrace your son!”

She fell at Elisha’s feet, face to the ground in reverent awe. Then she embraced her son and went out with him.

Elisha went back down to Gilgal. There was a famine there. While he was consulting with the guild of prophets, he told his servant, “Put a large pot on the fire and cook up some stew for the prophets.”

One of the men went out into the field to get some herbs; he came across a wild vine and picked gourds from it, filling his gunnysack. He brought them back, sliced them up, and put them in the stew, even though no one knew what kind of plant it was. The stew was then served up for the men to eat. They started to eat, and then exclaimed, “Death in the pot, O man of God! Death in the pot!” Nobody could eat it.

Elisha ordered, “Get me some meal.” Then he sprinkled it into the stew pot.

“Now serve it up to the men,” he said. They ate it, and it was just fine—nothing wrong with that stew!

One day a man arrived from Baal Shalishah. He brought the man of God twenty loaves of fresh-baked bread from the early harvest, along with a few apples from the orchard.

Elisha said, “Pass it around to the people to eat.”

His servant said, “For a hundred men? There’s not nearly enough!”

Elisha said, “Just go ahead and do it. God says there’s plenty.”

And sure enough, there was. He passed around what he had—they not only ate, but had leftovers.

The Book of 2nd Kings, Chapter 4 (The Message)

my personal reading of the Scriptures for Wednesday, december 9 of 2020 with a paired chapter from each Testament of the Bible, along with Today’s Psalms and Proverbs

A post by John Parsons that reflects on inner illumination:

"Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, such is the one who loves me. And the one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him" (John 14:21). Note that the Greek word translated "manifest" means to "shine inside" (i.e., ἐμφανίζω, from ἐν, "in" and φαίνω, "shine"), indicating that the revelation would be inward light of the Presence of Messiah himself (Χριστὸς ἐν ὑμῖν, ἡ ἐλπὶς τῆς δόξης, Col. 1:27). As we receive God’s love, as we embrace it as our own, the love of Yeshua our Messiah will become inwardly visible to you. This comes from a place of surrender and acceptance. As Paul Tillich said, "Sometimes in a moment of weakness light breaks into darkness, and it is as though a voice says, 'You are accepted; you are accepted... Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted.’ If that happens to you, then you experience grace, and everything will be transformed." Ultimately Chanukah is about salvation and transformation - beauty for ashes (פְּאֵר תַּחַת אֵפֶר) - and the inner light of God’s love for you. [Hebrew for Christians]

https://hebrew4christians.com/

12.8.20 • Facebook

Today’s message from the Institute for Creation Research

December 9, 2020

Loving the Word

“O how love I thy law! It is my meditation all the day.” (Psalm 119:97)

This emotional stanza in Psalm 119 bursts with passion for the Word of God. “How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Psalm 119:103).

Previously, David’s 19th Psalm opened with praise for the “speech” and “knowledge” available in “the heavens” (Psalm 19:1-6) and gave his most open praise for the “perfect” laws (Psalm 19:7) of God that are “more to be desired...than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb” (Psalm 19:10).

The focus of this particular stanza (Psalm 119:97-104) is on the practical effect that knowledge of the Word of God has had on the psalmist’s ability to give a powerful witness.

“Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies: for they are ever with me” (v. 98).

“I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation” (v. 99).

“I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts” (v. 100).

The excitement that comes with the “love” and the “sweet” taste of God’s Word in a believer’s life produces an assurance that results in a readiness to “give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15). Indeed, since it is clear that “the weapons of our warfare are not carnal” (2 Corinthians 10:4), we should be all the more committed (as is the psalmist) to refrain “from every evil way” (Psalm 119:101), being sure that we do not depart from the “judgments” (v. 102), and that our understanding of the precepts ensures that we “hate every false way” (v. 104). HMM III

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prettylittleliarsxxxx · 7 years

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Pretty Little Liars may have ended earlier this summer, but that doesn't mean that fans' adventures in Rosewood need to come to a complete stop anytime soon. After all, there's a PLLspinoff television series in the works, featuring Sasha Pieterse and Janel Parrish, and author Sara Shepard is reportedly hard at work on penning new stories about our favorite Liars — including three e-books completely focused on Alison DiLaurentis.

And that's not the only PLL-related tale that Sara has been working on. She has also created a short story titled It's Not Easy Being "A" — which is exactly what it sounds like: a look inside the mind of the OG villain in the black hoodie, Mona Vanderwaal. The story will be available inside the paperback release of her novel The Amateurs, which is on sale as of today (Tuesday, October 3), along with the second book in The Amateurs series, Follow Me. And if you can't wait to read all about what Mona has to say, you're in luck, because Teen Vogue has an exclusive excerpt right here.

In the short story, Mona takes the reader on a journey down her path to becoming "A," going back as far as the day that Ali disappeared. She explains that once Ali was gone and out of Rosewood, she tried to befriend the other Liars, but was only able to secure Hanna's companionship. Still, she couldn't let go of the way Ali had bullied her all throughout middle school, and she slowly decided to get revenge. "I started to think about Ali's whole posse," Mona explains in the story, adding: "They didn't have a clue what it felt like to be teased the way they'd teased me — and they probably never would. I wanted to give them a little education."

From there, Mona describes the very moment she decided to become "A" — and it's a chilling scene involving Ali's old room, lost memories, and a secret diary. The story itself is the perfect dose of nostalgia for fans who are missing the series, especially the early seasons leading up to Mona's huge reveal. Ahead, check out the excerpt of the short story, and be sure to read the entire thing once you get your hands on a copy of Sara Shepard's The Amateurs.

Excerpt from It's Not Easy Being "A", by Sara Shepard:

I wish I could say I’m humble. The sort of girl who fades into the shadows after pulling off something amazing and says, Oh, you know. We all worked hard. But forget that, people. You don’t get far in life by sharing the spotlight. I’ve been kicked around too much already—life owes me. Nope, I want all the credit. I want to go down in freaking history. And you know what? I think it might just happen.

It’s Friday night, and I’m at the Rosewood Country Club, where the welcome-back masquerade party I’m throwing for my longtime bestie, Hanna Marin, is about to start. It’s a typical Mona Vanderwaal party. You know, where a huge party tent is transformed into a casino swanky enough that supermodels and high rollers would beg to play here. There are faux-marble walls and velvet banquettes. I called in professional card dealers from Atlantic City. A fleet of hot waiters roams about with canapés. I even rigged a Cleopatra-style platform for Hanna to ride in on for her big entrance. Basically, Vanity Fair and Us Weekly should be photographing this thing instead of the lame-ass Main Line society blog . . . and I’m the mastermind behind all of it.

I hear a crackle on my headset. “Okay, Hanna’s in position.” It’s a sophomore loser whose name I can’t remember; I chose her from a list of minions who begged to help out with the party. Little do these girls know they’ll be helping out with a few other details tonight, too. Namely, spying.

“Great,” I say into the microphone. “DJ, let’s get some entrance music for my girl.”

The opening notes of classic hip-hop swell from the DJ booth. The tasseled platform, held aloft by a team of muscled models, parades into the tent. Hanna, her banged-up face concealed with a satin mask, sits atop the thing, waving like a queen. Welcome back, Hanna! reads a banner over the entrance. Before I hung it up, I had everyone at school add personalized messages, cheesy things like We were so worried about you! and So happy you’re okay! Girls Hanna never even spoke to signed that thing like they were her soul sisters—but, hey, when a girl is mowed down by a car in a dark parking lot, everyone’s going to rally around her. Naturally, I added my own message, a long note about how I was so thankful that all that had happened to my bestie in the hit-and-run was a mild case of amnesia. It felt a little disingenuous writing it—because, well, yours truly was the one who was driving the car that fateful night. I had to do it, though. She’d figured out I was A. She knew too much.

Not that Hanna remembers that.

“Woot!” Hanna cries under the mask. Everyone from Rosewood Day cheers. I plaster a fake smile on my face until my cheeks hurt. Enjoy it for now, bitch, I think as the guys bobble Hanna’s platform even higher. Because it’s all going to be over soon. And this time, I’m going to leave you with a lot more than just bruises. Let the party begin!

I'm really not one for sob stories. I don’t want you to pity me. Yes, I, Mona Vanderwaal, used to be a girl I don’t like thinking about anymore, a girl with qualities I’m so far removed from I’m not going to bore you by talking about them. And I just happened to live on the same street as Alison DiLaurentis, one of the cruelest girls I’ve ever met, a girl who took great pleasure in making my life miserable. But whatevs, right?

Others might wallow in this sad past. They might make anti- bullying proclamations on their Facebook pages or start a charity, and they’d definitely slouch through high school as a weird, nichey nerd. But I never wanted to be that girl. When Ali and her little crew—Spencer Hastings, Hanna Marin, Emily Fields, and Aria Montgomery—teased, taunted, laughed, and humiliated me, I might have run away with my tail between my legs, but I was pissed.

I didn’t have anything to do with Ali’s disappearance the very last day of seventh grade. Still, the day the news broke, I shut myself inside my bedroom and stared at myself in the mirror. There was a wide, freaked-out smile on my face. I laughed silently for what felt like hours. The universe had finally listened to me. It was a miracle.

My parents were glued to the TV that whole weekend, horrified that the most magnetic, beautiful girl in all of Rosewood had disappeared from our street. They joined the search parties. They went to charity events in Ali’s honor. But can you guess what I was doing? Crossing my fingers and toes. Throwing coins into fountains. Coming up with every superstitious way to wish for that bitch to be gone for good.

Once eighth grade began, a light switch came on, and all of a sudden, my social life improved. With Ali still missing, I realized I could scoop up one of her adrift friends and start a new clique. That’s right: My first instinct was to befriend those bitches, not to ruin them. What can I say? I idolized them. I wanted to be them. Fun fact: My first choice was Spencer Hastings. We were in the same honors classes together—not that she ever noticed me—and our houses were across from each other. I spent every day staring at the large, stately gates that surrounded the Hastings property. Spencer, in all her preppy, purebred Rosewood-ness, felt right.

But Spencer ignored me same as ever. Guess we don’t always get what we want.

Hanna, the group’s weakest and most insecure, ended up a great second choice, though. Together, she and I got hot. Straightened our hair. Discovered self-tanning. Basically, we became swans. Kids I’d known since kindergarten thought I was a new girl, I looked so different, and with Hanna at my side, I had instant entrée into popularity. You’d think I’d be satisfied with that.

Oh, people. All that glitters . . . well, sometimes it turns green the moment you put it on your finger.

The thing is, even after Hanna and I started sharing sushi bento boxes for lunch and shopping out of each other’s closets, there were still these moments when I’d look over at her and think, I can’t believe you. Let’s face it: Hanna might not have been the one dishing out the insults, but she’d stood there like a tree stump and let Ali tease me again and again and again. She never stuck up for me. She never looked conflicted about what Ali was doing. And you know what? After we became close, Hanna never apologized about it. I kept waiting for this big mushy moment between us...but it never came.

So after years of friendship, I started to get bitter. I started to think about Ali’s whole posse, actually, and what they were up to now that Ali was gone. They didn’t really seem damaged by any of it. They didn’t have a clue what it felt like to be teased the way they’d teased me—and they probably never would.

I wanted to give them a little education.

Cue the DiLaurentis family finally moving out of their house. Cue them dumping all sorts of shit on their curb for the garbagemen. Cue nosy me noticing their garbage, which included framed boy-band posters from Ali’s room, which her family had kept like a shrine for four long years. It might sound sort of perverse, but I really wanted those posters. I wanted something from the girl who made my life hell hanging in my bedroom. As a reminder, maybe. As a weird sort of vision board.

What I found beneath those boy-band posters, of course, was far more valuable: a diary full of dirt on Ali’s best friends. It turned me into a whole new person: A.

Yep. I want credit for that, too.

#pll #pretty little liars #mona vanderwaal #sara shepard #it's not easy being a

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waveridden · 7 years

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FIC: Venus (2/5)

“What’s the final countdown?” Tryst snorts. “Geez, kid, it’s like it’s your first national tour or something.” (A Campaign rock band AU. Tryst/Leenik/Aava, with background Zero/Blue.)

Read on Ao3 || Chapter 1

MONDAY

Las Vegas, NV

From: tubaik 911 emergency

From: tubaik ren wake the fuck up

From: tubaik it’s past noon wake UP

From: tubaik REN

From: tubaik ZERO CANCELED, REN

From: sneak So don’t freak out but our headliner for tonight just canceled on us

From: sneak

And we’re up shit creek without a paddle

From: sneak Good morning, we’re fucked

From: zeroni Don’t kill me.

“Zee.” Rendezvous tries to stifle a yawn and probably, definitely fails. “The fuck’s going on?”

“You don’t need to pretend you’ve been awake all day,” Zero says. He sounds on edge, not as calm or cool as she’s used to, and if she’d been awake for longer than three minutes she might be worried about that. “I get it, bartender hours, you probably went to bed at five in the morning.”

“Six, actually,” she admits, and rolls over in bed. “You mind explaining why I woke up to the boys freaking out about you canceling?”

“That would be because I canceled.”

“You canceled your big DJ gig headlining in a Vegas bar?”

“I’ve headlined in a dozen Vegas bars before. I’ve headlined in your Vegas bar before, and not just on a Monday night, either.”

“But not tonight?”

“Not tonight.”

Rendezvous raises her eyebrows. Zero doesn’t cancel gigs lightly, especially not when those gigs are for friends. “Everything okay, big guy?”

Zero makes a frustrated noise. “Personal emergency.”

“Should I be worried?”

“Not about me.”

Rendezvous hums. That narrows down the options. “What did Blue do?”

Zero sighs heavily. If Rendezvous listens - and she does, now that she can guess what to listen for - there are hospital noises in the background, quiet beeps and hushed voices. “He tripped down the stairs and dislocated his hip.”

“From tripping down the stairs?”

“I don’t know how he does these things,” Zero says, palpably frustrated. “He dislocated his shoulder while he was conducting an orchestra a few months ago, so this isn’t even out of the ordinary.”

“He gonna be okay?”

“Only if I don’t throttle him. But he’s gonna be more insufferable than normal if I leave while he’s injured.”

“I’m sorry, Zee,” Rendezvous says, and she’s surprised by how much she means it. Zero’s boyfriend isn’t her favorite person - she’s pretty sure he’s not anyone’s favorite person, other than Zero’s - but he’s still a decent guy. He knows a thing or two about music, at least, and that makes him okay in her book. “Don’t worry about missing the gig or anything.”

“I promise you, that was one of the last things I was worrying about.”

“And now it’s off the list altogether.”

“At least you guys were doing that whole mystery guest thing,” Zero offers, although his heart’s certainly not in it. “You know, trying to hype that up. Maybe you can nab a different mystery guest. No one will know.”

Rendezvous snorts. “Yeah, because there’s gonna be someone dumb enough to agree to headline for us on seven hours notice, right?”

“You’re in Las Vegas, you’re gonna tell me there aren’t enough musicians to get a headliner?”

“Maybe,” she allows. “I’ll let you go now, no need to make small talk. Make sure you remember to eat and all that shit, okay?”

“I have a friend who dragged me out to lunch earlier. Hospital cafeteria lunch, but still lunch.”

“Good. Take care.”

“Yeah, you too.”

Rendezvous hangs up and stares at her phone, and she finally lets the dread hit her. She can’t begrudge Zero wanting to stay at home with his dumbass injured boyfriend, but they’ve been hyping up his surprise appearance for weeks. They were supposed to announce him formally in a couple of hours, get people scrambling to come see the DJ Zero live and in person. It was going to be huge. And now they have nothing.

Sneak and Tubaik’s texts are still there, waiting for an answer, and she guesses she should fucking figure something out. She’s the manager of this bar, goddammit, she can’t let things end like this.

“Goddamn it,” she says aloud to her empty apartment. “Where am I going to find a big name musician?”

She could call someone, maybe. Heatseekers has had their share of big names perform there, and maybe one of them would do it if she paid out her ass for how last-minute it is, but that would defeat the point of making money. She could try and find some contractual way to make Zero do it, but that’s not good business, and she’s not enough of an asshole for that. She could find some up-and-coming starry-eyed kid to take advantage of and promote like they’re already famous. She could walk back the social media campaign and eat crow. She can bitch about this whole thing tomorrow at lunch with Tryst, and maybe with his hot drummer friend if there’s time.

Holy shit. Tryst and his band.

Rendezvous dials his number before she can second-guess it. This is her best shot, probably, if only because Tryst is a sucker for family. She’s banking on that.

He picks up almost immediately. “Are you dying?”

“I call you when I’m not dying too.”

“Uh, okay, you don’t get to lie to me right now.”

She has to give it to him: that was definitely a lie. She doesn’t call him nearly as often as she should. “Fine. Trystan.”

“Rendezvous.”

“How many favor points do you owe me?”

Tryst swears quietly. “Uh, like, six? Is this going by the old favor point system?”

“What’s the new one?”

“The one we switched to at the memorial.”

Rendezvous rolls her eyes. “You don’t need to be bitchy about me skipping Dad’s memorial.”

“You know, I don’t need to be, but I think I’m going to anyways.”

“So you owe me six points.”

“I do.”

“Do you wanna get rid of all of those, right now?”

Tryst goes quiet. Mostly, the Valentine favor point system is used for things like buying each other lunch, or that time Rendezvous picked Fling up when the cops crashed a party she was at. One or two points per favor, maybe three in big cases. Six points is unprecedented. At last, Tryst says, “Do I need a lawyer for this conversation?”

“My big music act at the bar canceled tonight. I need someone to fill in.”

“God, I actually might need a lawyer,” he mutters. “You would need to pay us.”

“I’ll pay you what I was going to pay Zero.”

“I need to talk to the rest of the band.”

“All six favor points, Tryst.” Rendezvous puts her phone closer to her mouth. “All six . Have we ever had a six-point favor before?”

“I don’t think any of us have ever owed someone six favor points before,” Tryst says, which is completely correct. He’s just really bad about paying Rendezvous back for her favors.

“There’s a first time for everything.”

“We’d be making history, huh?”

“I think this is a good six-point favor. You can clean the slate, right now.”

“This system is completely outdated,” he mutters, which is as good as a yes.

Rendezvous grins. “I’ll even pay for lunch tomorrow.”

“Doesn’t that mean I’ll owe you another favor point?”

“No, that’s just a kind gesture from your big sister.”

Tryst snorts. “Yeah, okay, sure. I gotta go, Vous-Vous, I’m driving for the next four hours. I’ll get Bacta to text you with whatever we decide.”

“Don’t crash,” Rendezvous says.

“Jesus, I wasn’t worried about it till now,” Tryst mutters, and hangs up.

Rendezvous stares up at the ceiling for a little while longer. There’s a shot here. Tryst is a sucker, he’ll make this happen. He has to make this happen.

From: hot drummer Legally we can’t do a full-on concert. Contract stipulations about tours.

To: hot drummer i sense a “but”

From: hot drummer But if Tryst and Lyn did an acoustic set of covers…

To: hot drummer we’re not a super acoustic place, drummer boy

From: hot drummer It’s the best we can do.

From: hot drummer There’ll be a lot of fans who couldn’t get tickets who would jump at the chance for an exclusive concert experience.

To: hot drummer you have a high opinion of your own importance

From: hot drummer You’re the one who asked us to play at your bar.

To: hot drummer good point

To: hot drummer can you be ready to play by 8?

From: hot drummer Absolutely.

From: hot drummer Tryst wants to know if you have two pianos or if we need to bring any.

To: hot drummer we currently have no pianos

From: hot drummer He asked me to tell you to fuck off with that garbage.

To: hot drummer that sounds like a him problem

To: hot drummer thanks for saving my ass on this

To: hot drummer feel free to do whatever promotional shit you want

From: hot drummer Oh, we were going to do that whether or not you said we could, don’t worry.

HEATSEEKERS BAR @LVheatseekers

You’ve asked, we’re answering. Our mystery guest: @themynockband. Tonight. 8:00.

HEATSEEKERS BAR @LVheatseekers Replying to @LVheatseekers @themynockband

Tryst Valentine and @lluroon will be playing an exclusive acoustic set. $10 cover to get in, standing room only. See you there.

The Mynock @themynockband

Las Vegas! Before we see you tomorrow, you can see us tonight - check out @LVheatseekers for more info.

The Mynock @themynockband Replying to @themynockband @LVheatseekers

(One of us may have a sister there. Maybe. -B)

From: tubaik how

From: tubaik the //fuck//

From: tubaik did you get the mynock to play at heatseekers

From: tubaik with literally seven hours notice

From: tubaik they sold out at mandalay and they’re going to be playing at our bar

To: tubaik how dare you question me

From: tubaik I know that’s an intimidation tactic and it shouldn’t work but that’s actually pretty scary

To: tubaik fucking right it is

In what absolutely has to be an embarrassment tactic, Tryst wrangles Rendezvous into a hug the second he sees her. The kind of hug that nearly sends them both toppling to the floor. At least one of his legs is wrapped around her.

“I’m going to kill you,” Rendezvous says into his shoulder.

“That’s not a way to repay a six-point favor,” Tryst says cheerfully.

“What is a six-point favor?” demands hot drummer Bacta, who is thankfully just as hot as she remembered.

“Valentine secret,” Tryst and Rendezvous say at the same time. She glares at him. He seems completely unbothered and lets her go, at goddamn last. “I’m assuming we’re playing in that conveniently curtained-off section over there.”

“Nothing gets past you, Trystan,” Rendezvous says dryly. “We have our sound system set up as good as we could get it, but none of us are experts-”

“Obviously,” sniffs the one-handed guitarist. “I’m going to go fix that.”

“Please do,” Rendezvous says, and he marches off. “Is he okay?”

“Leenik misses his son,” Tryst says, so deadpan that Rendezvous can’t even tell if he’s kidding.

She frowns. “I thought you took the kid on tour with you.”

“No, that’s my son,” Bacta sighs. God, hot drummer and hot dad, how the fuck did Tryst meet this guy? “He won’t be here tonight, so you don’t have to worry about a kid in your bar.”

Tryst leans in conspiratorially and lowers his voice to a stage whisper. “Our opening act is babysitting him, but Bacta doesn’t know that they’re going to a strip club museum.”

“The kids are not going to a strip club museum,” the new lead singer says exasperatedly. “Honestly, how they have not gotten tired of that joke is beyond me.”

“They’re tired of every joke I make,” Tryst says cheerfully. “Now, Vous-Vous, I know what you’re thinking, and don’t worry, Lyn and I both brought keyboards and guitars.”

“Don’t call me Vous-Vous,” Rendezvous says automatically. “And how long are you planning to play for?”

“Dunno, you didn’t tell us, so we planned three hours.” Tryst grins. “Plus a meet-and-greet afterwards, so, you know--”

“Forty-five minutes,” Lyn says.

Rendezvous lifts an eyebrow at her. “You sound like you’re used to dealing with this asshole.”

“I live with him.” Lyn shoots Tryst a pained look; he grins back at her. “He is… one of a kind.”

“She loves me.” Tryst adjusts the guitar he has slung over his shoulder. “Do we get free drinks?”

“You get free drinks,” Rendezvous sighs. Sneak and Tubaik had insisted. Apparently this band is a big goddamn deal, or something. “But only after your set.”

“Then we’d better get set up so we can start drinking,” Tryst says cheerfully. “C’mon, Lyn.”

Lyn glances at Rendezvous tentatively. “It was nice meeting you.”

“Yeah, you seem okay,” Rendezvous agrees. “Drummer boy, you playing tonight?”

“Drums don’t exactly fit in with acoustic vibes, so no. I’m just here for heavy lifting.”

“And free drinking,” Lyn murmurs.

Bacta laughs, so genuinely bright that Rendezvous is nearly taken aback. “The free drinking isn’t half bad either.”

“Come find me once you’re set up, I’ll mix you up something good,” Rendezvous promises. Bacta’s eyes flick to her, looking bemused, and she shrugs. “Hey, you’re all covering my ass here, the least I can do is give you the good stuff.”

“And also pay us,” Tryst says, and starts towards their makeshift stage. Lyn follows him.

Bacta looks at Rendezvous one more time, opens his mouth, closes it, and says abruptly, “I have a kid now.”

“Yeah, the other singer’s kid,” Rendezvous says, because even if she doesn’t keep up with Tryst’s life, she would’ve had to be under a rock to miss that whole shitstorm. “What about him?”

“I’m going home to check on him tonight,” Bacta says stiffly. He sounds embarrassed, which is positively adorable.

Rendezvous smirks despite herself. “So only quickies in the stockroom, no going home together?”

He looks even more pained. God, hot drummer is fun to mess with. “None of those, either.”

She shrugs. “Suit yourself.”

“You Valentines,” he starts, and then shakes his head and goes towards the stage. Rendezvous watches his ass as he walks away, because life’s too short to deny herself simple pleasures.

“Hey, Ren,” Sneak says, when it’s 7:45 and the bar is almost too packed for anyone to move. “How did you do this?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, did you just fucking call The Mynock and ask them to come here?”

“That’s exactly what I did. My brother’s the band’s bassist.” She cranes her neck. “He’s up there somewhere. Not that you can see him.”

“Your brother is the bassist for an internationally famous rock band.”

“Bass and keyboards. And my sister plays keyboard in another.”

Sneak sighs. “Sometimes, I think I have you figured out, and then you go and say things like ‘I have a brother,’ and I realize I don’t know you, and then those things are ‘he’s the bassist for a famous band,’ and I realize that you’re not even a real fucking person.”

“But I’m still your boss,” Rendezvous says, a little pleased despite herself. “And you’ve gotta serve these nice folks some drinks.”

“You’ve gotta serve them drinks, too.”

Rendezvous shrugs. “I can live with that.”

A couple of songs into the set, Bacta plops down at a bar stool and says, with a touch of desperation, “Whiskey?”

Rendezvous pours him a glass of middle-shelf whiskey and leans onto the bar. “You look a little stressed.”

“There are a lot of people here.”

“You guys sell out stadiums regularly.”

“I’m not normally in the crowd for the stadiums.” He takes a long drink of whiskey and visibly relaxes. “How’ve you been, Ren?”

She shrugs. “Same business as ever, you know. Not a lot of news.”

“We haven’t talked in nearly four years.”

“How am I supposed to remember everything from the last four years?”

Bacta nods, looking altogether too thoughtful. “Any big changes?”

“Nothing as big as you.” She raises her eyebrows. “Got a kid, huh?”

“Got a kid,” Bacta echoes, and sips at his whiskey. “Good kid, too.”

“Are there really any good kids?”

“There’s one, and I’ve got him.”

Rendezvous smirks. “Think you’re a little biased there, bud.”

Bacta rolls his eyes. “Whatever. That kid’s going to turn out great, no thanks to his Uncle Tryst.”

“I’m amazed that you’re letting him help raise a kid at all.”

“He’s not so bad sometimes.” He pauses, considering that, and immediately downs the rest of his whiskey. “Other times-”

“-he’s Tryst,” Rendezvous finishes, and Bacta smiles at her wryly. She thinks, a little absently, that if she were the kind of person for settling down, or for keeping a long-distance friendship, he’d be one of the first on her list. Damn shame she’s not. “I know the single dad thing must be hard, but if you’re relying on him…”

“Him and Leenik, whose other son is a pit bull.” Bacta sighs.

Rendezvous reaches for the whiskey to refill his glass. “Wasn’t there a godmother or something? I thought Tryst said he was dating-”

Bacta glares at the glass so hard Rendezvous is tempted to move away. “Aava’s not in the picture.”

“What about your new lead singer?”

“What about her?”

She sets the bottle on the counter and glances up at the stage as the crowd starts cheering. She waits for it to subside as they start another song and then shrugs. “I dunno, she seems like maybe the most stable one here, after you.”

“She is.” Bacta drinks his whiskey and makes a face. “She’s worried about replacing Grizelle in Tamlin’s life, which I think makes her the best choice for it. It’s all sort of twisted, but she’s just as happy being an uncle.”

“Don’t you mean aunt?”

“Aava’s the only one he calls an aunt.”

“Aava who’s not in the picture?”

“I guess it’s his way of separating the bad relatives from the good ones.” Bacta rolls his eyes. “We’re working on it.”

“At least the kid has a system,” Rendezvous points out.

Bacta smiles, with all the fondness in the world. Rendezvous has never done fondness, or anything even in the realm of parental emotion. And Bacta wasn’t fond, when she first met him. He was too busy figuring out how to love people to deal with something as delicate as fondness. She’d been more than happy to help him ignore his problems back then, but he’s not that person now. Maybe that’s for the best.

“He’s smart,” Bacta says, a little wistfully. “Maybe smarter than the rest of us.”

“Isn’t that every parent’s goal? To have their kids be better than them?”

“I’m not quite sure I’m a parent.”

Rendezvous rolls his eyes. “You don’t get to call him your kid and then say you’re not his parent.”

Bacta blinks at her. “I don’t think I’m drunk enough to talk about that.”

Rendezvous tops him off. Bacta tilts his glass towards her. “To not talking about anything too deep.”

“To things working out where you don’t expect them,” she answers, tipping the bottle towards him. He drinks, and she doesn’t, and Lyn’s voice soars above them both, through the murmur of the crowd.

TUESDAY

MKBX Las Vegas - Interview with The Mynock

Lavali: What’s up, everybody, this is Blur 91.3 Las Vegas, I’m your host Lavali Lithros and today I’m here with the members of The Mynock! If you listen to this station, you’ve heard them, because we play their music all the time. Guys, welcome to the studio, how about you introduce yourself for the folks at home?

Bacta: Well, I’m Bacta, and I play the drums.

Tryst: I’m Tryst, and I’m the beauty to Lyn’s brains.

Lyntel: You mean you play bass.

Tryst: And it’s beautiful.

Lyn: I’m Lyntel Luroon, and I play the keyboards with Tryst, and I sing.

Leenik: Radio is a dying medium, you know. Uh, Leenik Geelo, I play guitar.

Lavali: So you guys are in Las Vegas as part of your national tour, but you had a surprise show last night! What was the deal there?

Tryst: Oh, that’s easy, my sister is the manager at the bar we played. It was a favor to her.

Leenik: I’m pretty sure that’s nepotism.

Tryst: It’s absolutely nepotism.

Lavali: This is a different sister than the one in the Kaiburr Crystals, I’m assuming.

Tryst: Yeah, they’re very different. Vous - that’s Rendezvous, the one who works at the bar - is way more badass than Christmas.

Lyn: Don’t you have a third sister?

Tryst: Oh, don’t worry about her.

Lavali: Now, Christmas - that’s Christmas Valentine of the Kaiburr Crystals, she’s the one who introduced you two, right?

Lyn: That’s right, yes. I used to play keyboard with the Crystals, and after their first international tour I left the band. Christmas was my replacement, and Tryst and I met at a Crystals event.

Tryst: And now Lyn lives with me.

Lyn: [sighs] And now… I have made some mistakes that mean that I live with Tryst.

Tryst: Hey, now. I’m an amazing roommate.

Lyn: You’re better than living alone.

Tryst: Thank you.

Bacta: Lyn is the only one of us who has ever lived permanently with Tryst, and she says it’s not that bad, but-

Tryst: Because it’s not!

Leenik: Lyn, if he’s making you say these things, blink twice.

Tryst: That doesn’t work, I can see her blink.

Lavali: Listeners at home, Lyn is not blinking.

Leenik: Well, that’s just because Tryst can see her blink.

Tryst: Leenik, what is it that makes you think I would be bad to live with? You can move in with-

Lyn: No-

Tryst: -us, you and Tony-

Lyn: We don’t have room for a dog-

Leenik: How dare you-

Tryst: It’ll be perfectly nice! I’m a good roommate!

Leenik: Tony is not just a dog!

Lyn: But he is, at his core, a dog!

Leenik: That’s not the point!

Bacta: We need to change the subject, guys, this is not a fight for the radio.

Leenik: Actually, I want this as public as possible.

Tryst: Yeah, me too, I want the record to show that I’m great to live with.

Bacta: [sighs] Lyn, if you want to remove yourself-

Tryst: Are you trying to get Lyn to move out?

Bacta: I’m trying to save her from this argument, Tryst, I’m sure you’re an excellent roommate.

Tryst: Thank you!

Lyn: Anyways! Bacta has the best roommate out of all of us.

Leenik: What about Tony?

Tryst: What about me?

Lyn: I’m talking about Tamlin.

Tryst: ...okay, maybe.

Lavali: [laughing] The famous Tamlin! What’s he like in person?

Bacta: He’s the smartest kid I’ve ever met.

Tryst: Have you met a lot of kids?

Bacta: I don’t need to, I already know that ours is the best.

Lavali: Not to get too serious here-

Tryst: Oh, god, please get serious, someone here has to.

Lavali: Do you guys all consider yourselves Tamlin’s parents?

[several seconds of silence]

Tryst: You know, I might take it back. Too serious.

Lyn: I certainly don’t. I’m the only one who didn’t know Grizelle personally - I was a fan of The Mynock back in the day-

Tryst: Aw, you were?

Lyn: Well, yes? It was sort of hard not to be.

Tryst: Did you come see us tour?

Lyn: I didn’t come see you tour.

Tryst: Damn it. That would’ve been too good of a story.

Lyn: But back to what I was saying, I didn’t know Grizelle, and I didn’t know any of you until long after the accident. I’m certainly not Tamlin’s parent.

Leenik: I mean, I already have a son. And that's Tony. Although I guess Tamlin counts too.

Tryst: I am amazed that Bacta lets me even have uncle status.

Bacta: The thing is - you know, obviously, it was hard on all of us when Grizelle died, it was a horrible accident-

Leenik: [coughing loudly]

Bacta: Harder on some of us than others.

Leenik: Hey, Lyn, you know what I just realized?

Lyn: What?

Leenik: You never knew me when I had both hands.

Lyn: That’s… I guess that’s true, isn’t it?

Leenik: You never got to meet my left hand.

Lavali: Just in case there are any listeners right now who don’t remember the accident-

Tryst: Oh, god, are there people out there who were too young to remember that?

Lyn: It’s been, what, three years?

Leenik: Almost four, but, you know, who’s counting?

Bacta: You know, a lot of people have been asking about this, just because Grizelle was with us on our last tour.

Lavali: That would be Grizelle Jorun, the lead singer on your first album.

Bacta: Yeah, she was our original lead singer. She was a founding member, and then she and Leenik were in a car accident just after our first tour wrapped up. And we lost Grizelle.

Leenik: And I lost my hand.

Tryst: And then you learned to play guitar right-handed, which is maybe the coolest thing ever. We’re like the Beatles now.

Lyn: What- are you a Beatles fan?

Tryst: Uh, aren’t you?

Leenik: Did one of the Beatles lose a hand?

Bacta: Herding cats. It’s like herding cats.

Leenik: Bacta, did one of the Beatles lose a hand?

Bacta: I think we both know the answer to that is no.

Leenik: Okay, some of us aren’t Beatles fans, maybe some of us weren’t sure.

Tryst: Do you- Leenik, do we need to have a Beatles night?

Leenik: What is that? I’m afraid of bugs, you know that.

Tryst: You’re absolutely not afraid of bugs, and you know what I’m talking about, don’t even play with me. We’re live on the radio.

Leenik: I’m sure all ten of the listeners having a radio listening party appreciate that you acknowledge them. No offense.

Lyn: Leenik-

Leenik: We don’t even listen to the radio, and we’re on a perpetual road trip.

Tryst: Well, yeah, you don’t listen to the radio on road trips, you listen to albums. Like something by the Beatles.

Bacta: Do we need to buy Beatles albums for the next leg of the trip?

Leenik: Am I allowed to buy an Enya album?

Tryst: Leenik, no making up bands.

Lyn: I already have Enya albums on the bus.

Leenik: [gasps] You do?

Lyn: Of course I do.

Leenik: Lyn, we need to play them. We need to play them all the way to San Diego.

Tryst: Veto.

Bacta: Ooh, bad use of a veto.

Leenik: Yeah, because now we can play them all the way except for the last ten minutes.

Tryst: Oh, f***, you can, can’t you?

Leenik: You just used your weekly veto, so that’s a yes.

Lavali: [laughing] Do you guys have veto rules?

Tryst: Of course we have rules, we’re not animals.

Bacta: We get one a week, no rollover because that would be too much power-

Leenik: And because Tryst tried that once.

Tryst: And it worked! Because we didn’t have the rule yet.

Bacta: Tryst is the reason we have… a lot of rules.

Lyn: It’s very hard learning all of your rules, you know that?

Leenik: What?

Bacta: Are you having trouble with our rules?

Lyn: Not anymore, no, but at the time-

Tryst: What part of “one a week” do you not understand?

Lyn: You have some kind of value judgment system for the vetoes that takes a while to learn. Sometimes you all just arbitrarily say that a use of a veto is bad, it’s very frustrating.

Leenik: It’s not arbitrary, we only say it for the bad ones.

Lyn: But what makes a veto bad?

Tryst: When you use it badly. God, Lyn, keep up.

Lyn: You see? You see what I have to deal with? I live with him-

Tryst: And it’s a delight!

Lyn: Only when you are not insulting me for not understanding your completely ridiculous rules!

Leenik: Hypothetically, can I veto Lyn complaining about our veto rules?

Lyn: That would be a waste of a veto, because this is the only time this has come up in the last month so it’s not worth it, and now you have me doing it too! Look at me!

Bacta: We’re all proud of you, Lyn.

Tryst: Yeah, you made a good counterpoint, even if you sort of undercut it there at the end.

Lyn: Well, excuse me for not using your formalized veto procedures correctly.

Tryst: You are excused. Thank you for asking for pardon.

Lyn: Is that another procedure?

Bacta: Have we not explained pardons?

Leenik: Hey, guys, remember how we’re on the radio?

Lavali: I remember.

Leenik: Folks at home, I know the dozen of you in your listening party must be very excited-

Tryst: Wasn’t it ten earlier?

Leenik: A couple of people showed up late. Anyways, I know you guys might be tempted to write down our veto rules. Don’t do that. These rules are verbal only.

Lyn: That’s the only rule we have written down, is that we’re not allowed to write rules down.

Lavali: Isn’t that a little contradictory?

Bacta: No, Lyn wrote it, so it made sense.

Lyn: I believe the list of written rules is “all rules beyond this one will be verbal only.”

Tryst: Lyn likes to act like she isn’t the best thing to happen to our rules system.

Leenik: Guys, I think I changed my mind, radio is kind of awesome.

Bacta: That’s good! I’m glad you’re having fun.

Leenik: Are we allowed to hit any of the buttons?

Lavali: You can hit one in about ten seconds, if you let me do an outro.

Leenik: Oh, of course, please.

Lavali: We’re going to take a quick commercial break, and when we come back I’ll chat with The Mynock about their process for putting together this tour and their second album.

Tryst: See, you say that, but the odds of that happening are-

Lavali: So make sure you tune in! Till then, we’re gonna play you out with some Sugar Death Ray. Leenik, that one-

[“Fly” by Sugar Death Ray starts playing]

Leenik: Nailed it.

Lavali: Don’t go anywhere, we’ll be right back.

Leenik: No, but I’m actually curious about your listenership-

[the interview audio cuts out]

“You’re late,” Tryst says, because he’s an asshole.

“I went to bed at six,” Rendezvous says, and drops into a chair. “The fact that I hauled my ass out of bed at noon for you-”

“Reflects poorly on your ability to say no,” Tryst says dryly, but quails when she looks at him. “Listen, I ordered what you texted me, food should be here any minute.”

“Good.”

“Should I be worried that you’re trying to make this lunch go as fast as possible?”

“It’s not you, it’s the fact that I’m tired as hell.”

Tryst shrugs and leans back, tilting his chair onto the back two legs. The restaurant isn’t exceptionally busy, and it’s Vegas, so nobody looks twice at the rock star waiting for his lunch. “Maybe you should work better hours.”

“I set my own hours.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean they’re good. ”

Rendezvous rolls her eyes. “How many cities have you been in this week, asshole?”

“I’m teaching my nephew the meaning of Americana,” Tryst says, affronted.

And it’s maybe a low blow, but Rendezvous says anyways, “Yeah, then how was Phoenix?”

He cringes a little, like she expected. Fucking baby. “We’re steering clear of Phoenix and also the entire state of Utah until he’s a little older.”

“The whole state?”

“Grizelle’s family is… a little intense.”

“It’s been four years.”

“She left for a reason.” Tryst slams all four legs of his chair down, looking uncomfortable. “I dunno, it’s - Tamlin’s still too young to understand why he has four uncles, an aunt that hates one uncle while dating another, a pit bull for a cousin, and no grandparents to speak of.”

“You haven’t introduced him to me,” Rendezvous says, as though she actually gives a fuck. She knows the kid is her nephew-by-proxy, or something, but she has no interest in meeting him. Just in watching her brother squirm.

“He needs permanence in his life.” Tryst fixes her with a surprisingly genuine glare. “And people who will be there.”

“Is this about the memorial?”

“This is about me wanting Tamlin to have a good family.”

Rendezvous nods slowly. “So it’s about the memorial.”

“I know I wasn’t at the funeral either,” Tryst says, which definitely cut the legs out from underneath Rendezvous’s main counterargument. “But I wasn’t there because one of my best friends had died, and so nobody told me that my dad did too. You just didn’t feel like going.”

“Dad wasn’t great, as a person.”

“You’re not great, and I’d still go to your funeral.”

She snorts. “That’s real sweet, Trystan. You’re setting a great example.”

“ Rendezvous, ” he says, just this side of desperate. Like this actually matters. “Can we just- actually talk about this? Serious conversation, until the food gets here?”

“When did you order?”

“About ten minutes ago. I’m just asking for five minutes.”

Rendezvous takes a deep breath. “Alright. Listen, neither of us went to our dad’s funeral, and that’s fine.”

“Objectively, it’s kind of not.”

“Subjectively, we don’t owe a dead guy any of our time, not when he wasn’t dad of the year or anything. And especially not a memorial get-together two years later.”

Tryst rolls his eyes. “You’re missing the point of that whole thing.”

“What, the point where it was a family get-together more than it was a legit memorial? Where it wasn’t about him, it was about us?”

He blinks. “Yeah, that point.”

“I got the point, Tryst,” she says patiently. “I just don’t care. I don’t owe him, or anyone in the family, any of my time that I don’t want to give.”

“But they’re our family.”

“Weren’t you the one who was just saying you’re not introducing your nephew to his blood relatives?”

He grits his teeth. “That’s different. Grizelle cut ties with them. She didn’t want Tamlin to go anywhere near them.”

“They’re still his family, technically.”

“It’s for his own well-being.”

“And this is for mine.” Rendezvous shrugs. “Listen, I like our family as people, sure, but you’re the only one who’s made any effort to talk to me since I moved away from Phoenix. I don’t need to prioritize people who don’t prioritize me.”

“Maybe they feel the same about you,” Tryst says, but he looks sad in a way that has to mean he gets it. “Vous, listen, you’re my sister. You’re always gonna be my sister, whether you like it or not. And I want you to meet my band. They’re my new family.”

“You know I banged your drummer, right?”

“Again?”

“No, the last time you were touring. But keep going.”

Tryst rolls his eyes. “What I’m saying is, I want you to be a part of this life. My life. But it doesn’t seem like you want to.”

There are a thousand answers to that, and Rendezvous knows most of them sound cold. Not from a distance. Not if it means putting myself second. Not like this, Tryst, you’re an adult now, you should get that. No.

“Not now,” she says, because it’s gentler, and at the end of the day he’s always going to be her kid brother.

Tryst exhales. For the briefest of moments, he looks sad, but he settles back into something more neutral. “You want concert tickets?”

“What?”

“We have a couple of reserved seats at our concert tonight. You can come, or bring a friend, or something. Hang out backstage afterwards.” Tryst gives her a pleading look. “I’m not asking you to move in with us, I’m just asking you to visit.”

Rendezvous opens her mouth, but before she can figure out what to say, she catches sight of a waiter, heading their way. “Food’s here.”

“This was completely unproductive,” Tryst says. “I just want to make sure you know that.”

“I’m not sure what you thought it would be,” Rendezvous says as the waiter arrives. Judging by the look on Tryst’s face, he’s not either.

She runs errands, after. She gets groceries, and goes to the post office, and sifts through the frankly terrifying social media response that comes from having a hit touring band play an impromptu show in her bar. And she goes home, and falls asleep, and wakes up too late to go to the concert. Which is fine, because Tryst never called her about the tickets like he promised he would after lunch.

“Damn Valentines,” she says. If she were a lonelier person, maybe she’d be sad that it doesn’t echo in her bedroom.

Leenik Geelo @themynockleenik

guerilla filming: Tryst’s post-show cooldown (think he’s on a Beatles kick) pic.twitter.com/5ummer17

Leenik Geelo @themynockleenik Replying to @themynockleenik

part 2: now an impromptu jam session w/ all of @themynockband and @wildcardkids pic.twitter.com/18arp3jf

Leenik Geelo @themynockleenik Replying to @themynockleenik @themynockband @wildcardkids

good night, bright light city. three shows left.

This playlist is the acoustic set that Tryst and Lyn play at Heatseekers.

Chapter 3

#campaign podcast #campaign #campaign fic #waveridden.fic

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aleatoryalarmalligator · 7 years

Text

Being 10 in 1999.

So, on a lark I started typing out my life story. I am about 10 at this point of the tale. If you are curious about anything previous to this part of my life, here is

So Rachelle was gone. This left a very big void in my life. For the first time since I was four years old, I was generally alone all the time. My school friends were just that, they never wanted to see me after school. They thought my house was haunted, and Samantha’s father and my father didn’t like each other. She was also forced to do hard labor and rarely got to leave her house to begin with. And she lived six miles away. And she really didn’t like me anymore so much as she tolerated me so there really wasn’t even enough to go on for me to even ask her to come over once in awhile. Catherine wasn’t actually a friend to me at all, and I more or less just tolerated her and ignored her most of the time since she seemed more interested in making animal noises than she did saying things. I had always resented her for taking Samantha away in second grade, and she was incredibly dishonest. I caught her lying once a day, and she stole from everyone who stayed at her house. And when there was an opportunity to do something mean to someone she would. I just didn’t like her. I have no resentments for her now of course. She had a rougher home life than I did and there was no way for me to understand that and have the much needed empathy to move past that. But it didn’t make her pleasant to me and I certainly never accepted her as a friend.

And Sarah-Mae I didn’t know very well. She seemed like royalty, we didn’t seem close at all. We rarely shared the same conversation. Her and Samantha were becoming more and more inseparable. They had a crush on the same boy named Kevin – and for some reason they both enjoyed obsessing over him, stealing his pencils and chewed gum as memorabilia. They liked the same Spice Girls and Ricky Martin albums. They really liked Lion King II. I didn’t listen to those things, though I do admit that I was quite a fan of Aqua’s ‘Barbie Girl’. They left little room in the group for me. I will just go out on a limb here and say that Samantha was trying to actively get rid of me. They were getting more and more exclusive. Sarah-Mae was even offered to eat lunch with the popular girls once or twice, and Samantha was hoping to tag along. Nobody wanted to be unpopular if they could help it. Except me.

Being alone again, having nothing in the real world to keep me entertained, I withdrew very deep back into my mind. I was so entrenched in my own imagination that I sort of stopped paying attention to anything. I started drawing again. I had kind of stopped for the years that I had been running around breaking and entering and tipping over garbage cans. Rachelle didn’t like drawing. I tried several times to get her into art, but it wasn’t active enough for her, and she would look at my art and mostly feel jealous, which created a dichotomy that I didn’t feel right about, so I avoided drawing around her. Her older sister was a really good painter from what I remember as well. It is never fun to try something new and not only not be naturally good at it – needing more practice than other people, but also being surrounded by people who have perfected the craft. That’s sort of how I feel about music and singing in particular. I have always wanted to be good at music. I love music, a lot more than your average person. But I don’t try making my own anymore. I probably should, but when you surround yourself with musicians, and you just aren’t a natural, it’s hard to find that initial false sense of confidence needed to project you forward. And I imagine that is how Rachelle felt about art.

In my fantasy world, I began collecting pictures in seventeen magazines, mixed with alien pictures that were popular at the time. These scraps of paper were precious to me, and with the, I used them as inspiration to invent these stickish girls that were half alien. I called them Alien Girls – probably not the most inventive, but fairly straight forward. It was kind of my own franchise to an extent. I drew hundreds of them, each having a name that reflected their personal taste in fashion and personality. They were like Betty Spaghetti, Bratz, and actual Greys mixed together. They had big heads, and alien eyes that were kind of cute, but very spaced apart on the sides of their face, tiny noses, little mouths, and long skinny bodies, usually dressed in some ‘cool’ nineties reinvention of sixties fashion that was kind of popular in 1999. There is no way on looking back that their bodies functioned. I never drew them in action, or even posing. I just drew them standing looking straight forward. For the three years that I kept on drawing these girls, It was beyond me what their profiles must have looked like. I never even gave them cheekbones. I created them as a way to make up clothes that either didn’t exist or that I could never wear. They were sort of invented to address my obsession with UFO’s. And they were sort of invented to address the unrealistic beauty standards that were beginning to seep into my impressionable mind. I drew them on all of the assignment papers I got in school. They told me to stop, and I would not. I would get sent to the office, given detentions. I just saw this as more time to draw. It got to where when someone would hand me my homework, I would not even do the homework at all. I would just immediately look for the blank spots on the page and begin drawing compulsively. I became known all through town for these Alien Girls. I think people who weren’t even in school knew about me.

I also started watching a lot of Shirley Temple movies. At one point or another, I have seen every Shirley Temple movie she did as a child, but my favorites for sure were either Bright Eyes or Heidi. I think I got into this because Allison got so much attention for her curls, that were a lot like Shirley Temples. I, on the other hand had thick unmanageable fuzzy hair. I didn’t so much feel resentful. I just wished that my hair would get curly. Strangely enough, it did start to curl. For this reason, as well as others, I have felt that we can sort of project onto ourselves the faces and looks of people we admire. Particularly when we are young. Not to say that you can look like anything you want, but if you stare admiringly at a certain kind of face, your face will start to morph more into that kind of face to the extent that your face can do that. Anyway, I digress.

Thirdly, aside from Alien Girls and Shirley Temple, I kept myself busy with food. Having the misfortune of being born to be genetically predisposed to gain weight for anything I eat ever was unfortunate for me, on top of misfortune of being born into a life where the accumulation of hardship left me to using food as a coping mechanism to begin with. I was unfortunate in this way, and it will always have a stamp on me psychologically. I have PCOS, and this is usually the age when PCOS begins to affect girls. It caused me to gain weight to an extent for no reason at all. I was eating very little for all the time my mom and dad had moved out of the house, and I rode my bicycle about five hours a day. There is no reason an eight year old should be getting fatter as active and starved as I was. But it was happening, slowly at first, and then all at once. Rachelle left, and all the neglect from my family, and anxiety at school and loneliness hit me at once. PCOS affects your appetite as well. You will be full, but your brain just keeps that to itself, like an asshole. So being a child, especially one like me who’s head was in the clouds when it came to matters that were practical, I just felt like eating all the time and so I did. It was one of the few comforts I had really. I didn’t get enormous exactly, but my friends were all tiny so I personally felt huge, and compared to them I kind of was. I seem to always have tiny friends. They were still 85 lbs. I was 130. I was another half of them. And we were all getting to the age where we had to start seeing things like identity, size and shape as mattering a whole lot.

One day, for reasons that I have no memory of, I was watching some boys in my class playing football, and I ran out there and attempted to punch one of them in the face. I think someone might have told me that the boy was attacking them, and I felt the need to defend them. However, this kid, James was his name, really could not have done any of the things he had been accused of because he was playing football all recess, and he wasn’t really the type to bother girls – so I suspect I chose to take a completely fabricated statement to heart and use it as an excuse to do something exciting. So I guess I got super defensive of 'my group’ (the one that would not even hang out with me after school0, and I ran out into the field, while a game was going on. I attempted to attack this James kid (I must have looked completely foolish), with everyone watching me. He put his elbow up in defense, and I ran right into it and it gave me a fat lip. Everyone was confused. I was confused. I think I decided in my mind that James punched me, but that’s not what happened. He was just trying to fend off some random person who decided to attack him during a football game.

This did not help my case at being outcast even further from the social order of my school system and peers. It had started when Roxanne got pregnant, and then I had lost my stellar grades when I stopped doing homework when I had no adults in the house. Then I started getting chubby and filling out a little bit before the other girls in my class. Then I started drawing all the time. And my friends all became boy crazy and wanted to be popular, and I didn’t. And it seemed that I related to my environment differently than everyone else. And there was something else. Since I have been about six years old, I started getting extremely depressed. I stopped being that depressed for a few years, but when I was alone by myself or felt misunderstood – which was often, I would get this stabbing sense of meaninglessness, a sense of self worthlessness, and I wanted to kill myself. I started writing secret suicide letters when I was seven years old. I would hide them under my bed because if my family found out I would get punished. Between the ages of seven and fourteen, I had hundreds of suicide letters that I never did anything with. I would have to periodically throw them out, but they would always fill up again under my bed. This was really difficult for me in a way I cannot explain. When I am down now, I know that it is a mood that will pass. I know that having a sense that I am hated is a bit of a mirage my brain makes up. I had no idea then. Everything that happened to me seriously wrecked me.

When I separate my mind and body now – as I think most people can do if they close there eyes and clear their thoughts, I can feel this underlying humanness that is ugly and terrifying. There have been a few times that I have been drunk or once on hallucinogens where I felt like I could almost see the inner workings of reality, like it was a blanket I could rip off the wall. What becomes more clear than anything, is that I am not who I think I am, and the world is definitely not as I think it is. This underlying reason behind everything that happens is not built from godly goodness, or from great evil. It’s this cosmic chaos that I can barely comprehend, and it brings out all that is needy and desperate in me. And underneath that, I try to understand what motivates this inner animal that is the core of who I am, and what I can place and understand of what lies under my motives, feelings, sense of everything around me is something vast and dark and not fully meant for the human mind to understand. I am not at peace with it. This is the human condition, and I don’t know that anyone really is. It’s wisdom, but it’s also death. And from a very early age, while my friends all played on the monkey bars, It just started creeping up on me early. It made me self aware – and different. It left a mark on me. From this point onward in my life, I suffered with this great crack in the facade of the world that made me feel unloved and empty. That was my way of comprehending the world. As an adult, I consider this subtle aching pain a friend of mine. I fight it to a degree, and try to live on my own terms, but I also know that it’s not going anywhere and eventually I will grow weak and die and what comes next is either nothing or a great big mystery I cannot even begin to understand. And I realize that most of the greatest works of art, the things that really reach into me and make the magic in my head work, all of that inspiration comes from that bleak dark underlying sea of cosmic chaos, and to a degree, the world we live in is not real the way we believe it is. It’s better to embrace it than to pretend it isn’t there. And sometimes I even think it’s helpful.

Something in me at this point was derailing, or emerging out of me. I started talking to myself at the bus stop waiting for the bus to take us to school. I just sat down on a rock about twenty feet away from everyone else and began having a conversation. With myself. This caused the other kids to talk about me, or make fun of me. I didn’t notice too much. People just didn’t seem that real to me anymore. The activities in school didn’t seem very enjoyable. I think teachers tried to tell my parents. I don’t remember how I talked exactly, or even what the back and forth of the dialogue even was, though I do remember having some genuine conversations with myself that stuck with me all day, and none of it was for attention. I felt a lot better after I had had a good heart to heart to myself.

I also began having nose bleeds that the school counselor felt were stress induced. I usually would start having a nose bleed at least four times a week. I remember once in fourth grade I was sitting at my desk, and I had my head on the table in my arms as I was blocking out the school environment to daydream. The teacher called my name strictly to get me to pay attention to the class, and when she did, a massive pool of blood was on the desk. It was pouring down my face and onto my shirt. Everyone was shocked. I hadn’t even known I was bleeding. I hadn’t picked my nose or anything. I was just something that happened a lot.

My parents broke up for good this time. People might disagree, but I really don’t feel like this was the cause of my nosebleeds or my self worth. That stuff was just something I had always had in me personally, and had merely decided to show it’s face to the world around the same time as my parent’s divorce. I think that my parent’s relationship has certainly left it’s mark on me to an extent, but I don’t think my problems stem from this element of my parents. Individually, I have had problems with them, but together they really were more annoying to me than anything. I did not thrive in their undying love they did/or did not have with each other. I remember feeling somewhat relieved that they had finally thrown in the towel. My mother I guess was secretly still on again off again with Huleo on the side, and her friend Germaine (who I will discuss later) had advised that she hook up with my father to see if she could get more money from him. She even faked a burglary to get away with keeping some of the valuables.

My sisters had gotten my mother into meth. It was strange, but Maria and Roxanne had decided that their own drug addictions could be fed more easily if they could get my mother personally invested. My mother has always been very spongelike. She takes in whatever the people around her are doing. Her core identity is childish confusion. Due to my mother’s own bad upbringing with a cruel father, she never really grew up. A part of her is still an eight year old girl. So it was very easy for my older sisters to fool her into taking drugs with them.

Roxanne’s grandmother on her father’s side died around this time. She had been very old. It was a day I remember oddly well. I remember the way the clouds looked, and the way everyone was dressed. It was the first funeral I ever attended. I had not known her well. I was dressed up and I sat through the sermon. Everyone was crying. It made me teary eyed. But mostly I was fixated on the fact that Roxanne’s grandma Abel was laying out for everyone to see. I just stared at that dead body the whole time.

I was eating a lot, but there were also short periods of time where I would phase out and forget to eat for a few days. There was one time where I distinctly remember forgetting to eat for three days without realizing it. I found a bag of those little saltines you put in your tomato soup and I ate the whole bag. Then I threw up the whole bag because my stomach was shocked by the food. This happened the first week at the new weekend home in Clarkston WA. I had chosen to stay primarily with my father for obvious reasons. My mother had moved in with her friend Germaine, and I was to stay with her on the weekends.

Germaine lived in a very large unfinished home with five bedrooms. The set up of the house is very hard to explain. It’s like a very rich couple moved in and then started remodeling but then stopped. There were two separate upstairs that were supposed to be connected but were not. One side of the upstairs you could only get to with a ladder. Germaine never had food in her fridge. She generally began drinking as soon as she woke up in the morning. She didn’t pay for garbage services. Instead she would take the bags of trash and throw them into an unfinished cement swimming pool in the back yard. It was such a disturbing sight. There were old computers, washing machines, countless bags of moldy food waste. I am pretty sure it was illegal. She was very loud, and she had a scratchy voice that sounded like the wicked witch of the west. She was really into Stevie Nicks, Dr. Hook and Steve Miller. Everything tacky about the seventies Germaine loved. She watched the movie Beaches every weekend with Bette Midler. I have seen that movie over 100 times, I am sure of it because of her. The house always smelled like mothballs, and there was always a skunk underneath the house somewhere that often smelled the place up.

Her son Brice would show up for the weekends. He was very hyperactive. I wouldn’t say he was a bad kid exactly, but he was a bit of an asshole if my memory serves me well. He tried to come onto me the first weekend, which disturbed me. He asked me for sex, and we were eventually in a situation where I kicked him hard between the legs. It was a game, and I wasn’t really aware that it really hurt boys that much. But he didn’t like me very much after that. He did however always invite me to help him create the ultimate go-cart. He was obsessed with making go-carts. And Brice had a brilliant mind for a fifth grader. He actually did make an electronic go-cart using scraps from the pool. He would climb into that jungle of filth and come out with scraps from random appliances. This bored me to no end so I stopped participating sooner or later. He also had this monkeyish looking friend named Justin who would not stop asking me out. I was very rude to him, but he didn’t get it at all.

Germaine would sometimes fight with Brice. Often he was being a little brat, but there was a time I remember where she took his head into the cupboards and began slamming his head with the door as hard as she could. Their fights were disturbing and abusive.

I had some very rough nights there. At first, everyone was too drunk and high to give me a place to sleep. There were not enough blankets for everyone. I ended up sleeping on cold concrete. I had cried, but my mom would do nothing about it. Allison found a pile of clothes to sleep in. She was still somewhat of a toddler and I don’t think this bothered her as much. David always slept in the bed with my mother. There was a shortage of food initially. My mother showed no interest in feeding us. She always got food for David, however. They would go to McDonald’s, and Allison and I would just have to figure it out. Maria came to live with my mother and Germaine as well. And she would take the food and blankets. She was pregnant with Earl’s baby, but she had broken it off with Earl. Earl initially was supposed to move in as well, but they had fought and broken up. For the time that he had been there, he kept this disgusting cup of old chew that he spit. It filled up to the top full of tarlike goo. One day, Allison came up to me as a toddler, and she had black all around her little mouth. She kept saying she wanted more yummies. I could not figure out for a moment what it was she had gotten into. And then I found out. She had drank all of Earl’s tobacco spit in the cup. It was probably the grossest thing I have ever witnessed. It makes me want to gag now. She had no idea since she was just a baby.

Eventually they gave me the loft, which was one of parts of the upstairs only accessible with a ladder. I don’t remember why I was so fortunate. It was a nice place for me to get away from everyone. It was a very strange room perched 20 ft above the rest of the house. It was in this dank little room where I began appreciating music. There was a dumb little alarm clock radio in there. At first I didn’t know how to use it, so I was stuck listening to country. But then I learned how to listen to different stations. I quickly became obsessed with the radio. I would sit up there for hours, drawing and filling up notepads. The music I was listening to wasn’t that great to me now, but at the time it was the best. I remember being up there listening to that Aerosmith song that was done for the movie Armageddon. There was also a grand piano where I would play You Are My Sunshine over and over. Usually Maria would make me stop since it was interfering with her soaps. So then I would always move over and play on the Windows 92’. Which I was extremely impressed with.

Maria would eat all the food at first and there was never anything to eat. Germaine had one of those big wooden television sets. We only got one channel. It was the channel that all the soap operas played on, and Friends. Maria would watch television all day and eat all the food. My mother was always either working or at a bar called Smitty’s Barrel. She came home to see my little brother, who was beginning to be kind of a spoiled tyrant in his own right. Maria would often yell at me. She became very abusive to me in general and difficult to live with. She blamed me for everything she felt my father had ever wronged her for. One time she locked me out of the house when it was 105 degrees for nine hours without food or water. I had no shoes, and the town of Clarkston is completely overrun by devils-weed since the area was very arid and dry. To find shade, I had to walk across a field of this stuff, and my feet were bloody by the time I got to the shed to hide. Every weekend I would dread Maria’s pregnant wrath.

Roxanne, her baby Sagen, and her new boyfriend Jody had moved in as well. It was a very full house. Jody and my sister Maria eventually got jobs at the local KFC. After that, they always brought bad KFC food home. My mom had found a new boyfriend. Huleo left her shortly after she broke it off with my father, and then she dated a guy named Shane for awhile. But he could not stand sharing my mother with my little brother either. My mom got involved with this guy named James. People called him Jimbo. He was about 4'5. He had hair down to his knees. He was a drummer in a do nothing concept band that aspired to be the ultimate eighties christian heavy metal band. James was generally unemployed. He always smelled like sweat and hot sauce. And he was always completely stoned. My mother got involved in his band. She started having these corny visions that the band was going to bring about biblical apocalypse. And all these dumb corny eighties guys took her seriously. In her mind, the four horsemen were coming. And when they did, their band – which never had a name would be playing as demonic storms rose against them on a mountainside, and God’s hand would come down and shelter them from the devil’s malice. She felt that the band’s existence, that her own personal existence, had been prophesied in the bible somehow. My mother wrote these semi horrible lyrics. They weren’t actually horrible. They were just what they should be. But the whole thing was so awful. It became this big thing that everyone in the house had to take seriously. It would not have been as bad had they actually practiced, which they didn’t. And the whole thing was a way for them to pretend to be devil worshipers but pretend that they were doin’ it for Christ.

Eventually the singer, Chris moved into the place too and started dating Maria. He was this big caveman. He smelled horrible. He changed his underwear once every two months and he was proud of this. And when he wasn’t sleeping or eating, or trying to sing like Dio, he would take this stuffed animal Barney the Dinosaur that belonged to my little brother and pretend to fight with it on the living room floor. It was disturbing. I would walk into the living room, and there would be this full grown man in his late twenties on the floor screaming at this stuffed animal, wrestling it wildly like it was fighting back or something. His pants would be falling off he was so entangled with this dumb fake fight, and his hairy butt would alarm me.

My mom got about 40,000 of my father’s savings from the divorce. From that, she wasted most all of it. She bought a lot of tasteless items that she never used. I think most of it went to drugs. She bought the band a bunch of speakers. James trashed them and carved upside-down crosses all over them. She bought herself this white Camaro that she ended up having for quite awhile. We eventually named it The White Bitch later on when Allison, David and I were older. Most all of it went to complete waste though.

My mom and Germaine had these horrible parties with thirty or so people. This really bothered me. It was hard to sleep over all the screaming and noise. I know parties can be fun for people, but I had to deal with so many of these parties as a child that I kind of grew resentful of loud parties in general, even to this day. I try very hard not to be critical based on my own personal experience, but the people were completely tasteless. I would wake up in the morning, and everyone was passed out all over the floor. There were piles of vomit everywhere. Later on, overtime, I learned to pickpocket loose change from these drunkards spread about. But at first it was extremely disappointing and shocking to me.

I think these parties did hurt my relationship with my mother what little was left to salvage. I was not nearly as callous then as I am now. Eventually, as the parties became more and more extreme, I would get really upset, because I wanted some stability. I never saw my mom at all, and nobody liked me at school or at home. These seven or so adults were all sitting around the table getting hammered, and I came in and begged my mother to stop drinking. She laughed at me and told me I was not her daughter. Her friends started calling me fat and ugly. I started crying. I tried to get away from them but they followed me, my mother being one of them. I was sobbing uncontrollably at this point. Between sobs I told them all that I didn’t want to be alive anymore and that I was going to kill myself, and they all laughed very hard, my mother being one of these mindless idiots. They told me I should do it. That it would make the world a better place. This traumatized me. I think I cried for eight hours straight very hard till I eventually passed out. After that, I just felt numb. I felt like my thoughts were stuffed with cotton, and there was a certain ringing in my ears everywhere I went. I wasn’t really the same after that experience. I don’t think I was able to process the situation correctly being nine or ten at the time. I truly believe that synapses happened in my brain that night that altered me forever.

On the bright side, Maria got a puppy. James used to watch Conan the Barbarian all the time in his stuffy little room and there is a character in the movie named Crom. He thought it would be really edgy and cool to name the puppy Crom. Crom became my puppy eventually since Maria didn’t want him anymore. And like most things I like, Crom became a fixation. Eventually, I got the dumb idea to take the puppy up the ladder with me so he could be up in the loft with me. I managed to push him up the ladder. But he was not happy up there, in fact, I think it made him become panicked and disoriented. I think it confused poor little Crom. He ended up jumping off of this place where there were no railings. He fell and broke a bunch of bones in his body. I watched the whole thing happen in shock. Maria came in and was screaming at me that I was a murderer. The whole scene was too awful. I thought I had killed another pet dog, for the second time. He ended up going to the vet, and getting fixed up.

When things became too much in the house. Sometimes I would go outside, and I would begin digging up massive ant homes under the dirt. I would sometimes spend endless hours out there studying ants. I decided that I didn’t want to be an artist, a ballerina, a comedian, a playwright or a cartoonist. I just wanted to tear societies apart. As I studied these ants, I really got the feeling that society itself was like ant colonies. And it fascinated me. I had no control over my real life or the people in it at all. I connected with nobody. But I had these ants. They were mine. I could learn to control them and manipulate their simple little lives. Or i could bring food for them and help them rebuild. I was their version of God, or the Devil, whatever i felt like being. I liked inspecting what motivated the ants. I created all sorts of social experiences to see how the ants would respond. I transported some ants from one place to another, to see if they would make their own hives. In this weird way, I think in my mind I felt like I was doing this with people. It gave me perspective.

These were bad, gross, ugly, embarrassing, empty meaningless, cold hard times for me. And sadly ,they were just the beginning.

If you would like to read the first three parts to my life here are these links -

Part 1

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/160186590059/about-me-life-story-part-1

Part 2

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/160333575899/life-story-part-2

Part 3

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/160399693214/about-me-the-third-part-i-did-it-after-all

So without further ado..

#text #life story

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