#me going along with my day pointing at random things like a lunatic and shouting “deadcoded”

[thesunoficaruss]

dare I say...dean coded?

[faithylilac]

The party party part 4

Cj and Carter were sitting by a tree, a bit away from the rest of their group. Carter was quietly saying “Nyah” over and over, rocking themselves back and forth. Poor CJ didn’t know what to do to calm them down. “Carter, sorry if this seems rude. What would you do if we stumble upon some very evil dude with a stupid mustache and a cat?” The goddess asked her nymph friend. Carter stopped sobbing and look at her with a straight face, “cry.”

But unbeknownst to them, the large group was coming up from behind them. “Hey Carter, look at this looser!” Dax appeared with a knocked out monk in A baby carrier on his back. Carter starts screaming and climbs up the tree. “Crap, did the paper bag fall of?” The god ask, trying to look behind him. “I got it.” Cj stomps at the ground and a giant tulip appears. She snips off the bulb and shoves it down on the cat boy monk’s head. “Ok Carter, scary Nyah Nyah boy is gone now!” Cj shouted from the base of the tree. Carter then jumped down from the tree and looked completely fine and not as if he was crying for twenty minutes.

Carter seemed to have calmed down completely, even though all they did was shove a flower on a passed out cat boy. Faithy, Echo, and the two new guest finally caught up with everyone and Faithy was hyped. “Cj, Carter! You gotta meet Jo and Ash! They’re gonna show us how to get to the nearest village.” Faithy announced, but ummmmm she forgot something.

“Yeah, I’m Jo, that’s Ash.” The taller one intruded herself and stuck her hand out for Carter to shake it. Carter screamed in her face and ran back up the tree. “CARTER! YOU WILL COME DOWN AND APOLOGIZE!” Faithy screamed at him, just causing him to screech uncontrollably. Faithy turned to Ash and Jo and smiled sweetly. “I’m sorry for his behavior, and I’m sorry for mine.” Without a moment to question what she said, she pulls out her mace and starts hacking at the tree.

Ash and Jo looked over to the other party members, out of fear? Eh, mainly confusion. But judging by their expressions, this was a normal Tuesday. They look back the priestess and she’s gotten through most of tree and kicks it down. Carter was in fact screaming the whole time, but it got louder as the tree fell with him in it. It made a loud clash and the two conscious cat people reconsider their life choices.

“Faithy, you could have just asked me to come down.” Carter said as he got up unscathed. “Sorry, my bad dude.” Faithy replied as she dust herself off.

“Now apologize to our new friends.” Carter apparently forgot they were there and start screaming yet again. But he was screaming so much his throat ran dry and started choking on his own saliva and passed out. Yes that’s how that works— I DON’T CARE WHAT GOOGLE SAYS.

“Dax, do we have another baby carrier?” Echo asked. “Yeah, but I’m already carrying Mr Ed Sheeran jr.” Dax shook about and the monk’s limbs just flopped around. “Dang, I would carry Carter, but my shoes don’t have the support for it.”

“I mean, can’t you just leave him on that conveniently placed pole right there?” Cj spoke up while pointing at a weird pole sticking out of the ground. They all nodded, and Dax went to stick the monk on the pole.

“Anyway, sorry about Carter. They’re highly afraid of cats for some reason. We haven’t unlocked that part of his backstory yet.” Faithy explained to their new friends. They just nod, not sure what to do. They’re just afraid because they’re gonna be stuck with these lunatics for a while.

After a few hours, they all arrive at a town. With hope in her eyes, Faithy looks for an inn, hoping to skip a tavern this time around, as that normally gets the group into trouble. Behold! The first thing she lays her eyes on is a sign that says, “completely empty inn that’s super cheep that can house your family of 7!” Hopefully no crazy bald man screams about family while they’re there.

“Ok. So, I need a room for my precious family of seven. How can I acquire such a luxury?” The priestess asked the innkeeper. Of course it was the inn keeper, it would be really awkward if that was a random guest...... Dax was doing that on the other side of the room. He was very surprised when Faithy was able to acquire a room and he wasn’t.

They all pile into the room which had 7 beds, which is weird cause you’d think the parents would share one— but good for this inn for making accommodations for single parents. “Ok. What do we do now? Carter is passed out and you’ve banned us from going to the pub.” Cj asked, it was pretty much on everyone’s minds. Faithy eyes went wide, she forgot to actually explain crucial details.

“OKAY! Echo, please wake up Carter and we’ll get this party started.” Echo got up and went over to bed Dax threw him down on and leaned over him. Echo looked rather princely today, maybe it was going to wake it’s love with true love’s kiss? No, cause kissing unconscious people without their consent is weird and creepy and not romantic so don’t do it. “Carter wake up, there are seals.” The nymph immediately shot up and nearly smacked echo in the head with his own.

“Ok, I was lied to. Echo I can’t believe you... actually I can, I just don’t like this current situation.” Carter replied. Echo quickly scooped him up in it’s arms and carried the nymph over to the others. “Dang, Carter coming in style. But alas, no one wishes to carry me!” Dax said dramatically. The blue boy and the goth wizard just roll their eyes and sit down.

“OKAY! So I’ve been lacking in the leader department as of late so.... after this meeting, someone else is getting the leader stick.” Faithy announced. Of course that kinda confused half the people there, man imagine almost doubling your group in a day. “Anyway. I’ll let Jo and Ash explained who they are, then Cj, and I guess it would be polite if the people that have been together for more than a day explain ourselves.” She explained. Everyone seemed chill with that arrangement.

Jo stood up, with her cloak still on. “Hi, so my name is Jo— some people call me Jojo, kinda bizarre if you just add on to my name to make a nickname... anyway...” she then pulled out a map. “Ash is traveling musician and I’m his protection. Anyway, he is going to preform for the sacred protector of Bees up north.” Jo explained while outlining their rout on the map.

“Apparently she’s getting married or something.” Ash cut in and Jo nodded. “Anyway, your leader realized you will be heading north for a while and decided traveling in a big group would be beneficial for everyone.” The bard explained.

“Perfect! Anyway, Cj, your turn. A lot happened since we met, I don’t think we remember much of what you told us.” Faithy said, trying to move things along.

A big weight fell off Cj’s chest. She knew she said things about herself that she’s shouldn’t have, it was a relief on her part. “Well, I have a good relationship with plant life. They will help me out when I call on them or when I don’t... the plants tend to sense when I’m in distress.” She explained as she conjured a vine to come closer that was peaking from the window.

“But I also ran a flower shop that I inherited from— my grandmother... yes her... well she was like a grandmother to me.” Cj quickly shut down, feeling as if she had said too much.

“Anyway, I know everyone is dying to know about me! Hi I’m Echo, I’m super hot I know. I kinda just tuned into lizards. I tried the bug thing, I hated it and went back to lizards cause they’re super cool and swaggy.” Echo said dramatically. “And don’t feel like you have to stay with one kind of magic! What do you need themes for? That’s super mega lame— it’s pretty sussy baka moment.”

Ahhhhh Echo, never failed to speak it’s mind. It’s an inspiration to us all, making people wanting to be their true selves— NO IM NOT PROJECTING... Echo is just an honest person that will tell you when it is adventuring out with others instead of being like “oh yeah, I got to go to sleep”

“I’m Carter, I’m blue, I like seals.” Carter got straight to the point I guess. “Also if someone looks rich, they won’t be much longer. Hehe knifes.”

Faithy just blinks at him slowly. She sighs, just grateful he isn’t screaming at the cat people.

“Hey mortals, I’m Dax, I’m also God. Right now I can sense the nararator wants to make a stupid joke, but they know I would kill them if they did.” Dax piped in. Wait a diddly darn minute, why would I want to make the joke “Dax the—“

“I would tell the tale of how I stumbled across my current favorite mortals, but it’s just not as fun when there aren’t any drunk people around.” Dax took a lean back in the chair that just randomly appeared and started dozing off.

“Hi, I’m Faithy.” The priestess simply ignored her friend and went on. “I was left at the temple as a baby, very generic I know. Anyway, someone left what I thought was a delicious lasagna in my office, so I decided to chow down. What I didn’t know was that was the sacred offering of one the most important nights of the year.... anyway I’m on the run from a whole religion....” she sighed and pulled her knees up to her chest.

At one point I wasn’t sure I was gonna get this far with this story, But here I am! Who do you think the new leader should be? Idk, I haven’t thought that far ahead.

Masterlist

[ashley-incharge]

It’s a.... | Ashroo

Ashley and Roo find out the sex of the baby. [Dated: May 21st]

@littlemister-roo

ASHLEY:

Ashley could hardly believe what they'd told her. "It's a boy!" The nurse said as she did her ultrasound, pointing on the screen to show what she was seeing and Ashley had...admittedly...been shocked. A boy? Ashley didn't know what to do with a boy! Boys weren't as cute or easy and fun to dress.

After some theatrics and yelling long enough to insist they double check for sure, Ashley learned she had to accept her fate there. She was having a boy. They were having a boy. What a disappointment. Ashley wandered out of the doctor's office, not really paying much attention to Roo as she did it, a hand over her stomach as she grumbled to herself.

"A boy? Seriously? What good's a boy! You were supposed to be a girl. I know what to do with girls."

ROO: 

Roo had surprised, to say the least. A boy? Really? For a split second he'd felt a surge of excitement and pride. It was going to be a boy! He was going to be a father to a son!

But then Ashley had started with the dramatic stuff and the magic of the moment vanished. They got through the rest of the appointment with little fanfare, and as Ashley stalked from the clinic, muttering at her stomach, he followed, bemused.

"It's not so bad, princess," he commented dryly. "Think of it as an opportunity to expand your horizons. You get a mini-me all to yourself and an excuse to become an expert in little boy fashion trends." He smirked. "Sounds like a double win to me."

ASHLEY:

The disappointment was tremendous for Ashley, if only because she had imagined up until this point that of course it would be a girl. Why wouldn't it be a girl? But then the nurse said what she said and now here they were.

Ashley practically stomped away from the office in the direction of the park. She was grumpy and Roo was definitely not helping things in the slightest.

"Not so bad? Really? I don't think a mini Romeo is at all what I would have wanted. I don't want my child to be an idiot!" Oh god, her child might be doomed to be as ridiculous as his father. "Why me?!" She wailed, and admittedly she was feeling it a little more intensely than she might have otherwise, but it was just...it just...the baby was a boy! ROO:

Roo's eyebrows flicked up at her dramatic outburst. He knew it wouldn't help anything but he couldn't resist rolling his eyes because, of course she couldn't not insult him every chance she got.

"You are being awfully dramatic, don't you think?" he asked, crossing his arms. "The kid is a boy, the sooner you accept it, the better for all of us." Usually he had no problem ignoring the jabs at his intelligence. That had always been part of whatever the spark between them was. But having the same jab directed at their kid really rubbed him the wrong way.

"Our kid is not going to be an idiot." He grinned, a bit smug. "He'll be creative and funny and oh so charming." And hopefully a lot nicer than his mother, Roo added silently. ASHLEY:

Oh why was he being so horrible? Ashley was experiencing a major crisis!

Tears flooded her vision, and while it would ordinarily embarrass her at how easy it was for her to cry these days...well. She was pregnant so she had an excuse, and they were out in public, so if nothing else should someone notice she could talk about how horrible Roo was being.

"You mean the better for you! You and your plans to corrupt our baby and make him a...a...geek!" She sobbed, rubbing her eyes furiously and shaking her head. "Ohhhh this is tragic. I had a billion girls names in mind!" ROO:

For a brief moment, Roo felt bad for Ashley. He didn't like to see her cry. It felt off—like they were in some weird alternate universe where Ashley Armbruster would cry over anything.

But then she started with the insults—again—and he snorted. It was on the tip of his tongue to shoot out a snarky retort, but he stopped himself and just sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. And she called him ridiculous?

"I don't think encouraging a kid to enjoy their interests, whatever they may be, really qualifies as 'corruption'," he said reasonably. "But seriously, calm down, Ashley. You're throwing a fit over something you have no control over and what good is it doing you?"

ASHLEY:

"Calm down? Calm down!?" She shrieked. The baby was a boy! How could the baby be a boy? It just didn't make sense. And she didn't care how ridiculous she sounded, she deserved to be upset for a while!

"Seriously what good's a boy? Boys are stupid. And loud and they're not as trustworthy as girls." Ashley sniffled, wiping at her eyes as she tried to take a few deep breaths. "I didn't want it to be a boy."

ROO:

Roo felt a surprising surge of anger at her outburst. It was almost—protective. At first he'd been almost amused that she would throw a temper tantrum over the gender of their baby. Something that was without a doubt outside their control.

But then it started getting personal. Not the fact that he was a boy and she was in essence implying that he was stupid and untrustworthy, no. She was talking about his son!

"Do you even hear yourself, Ashley?" he snapped, glaring. "You are talking about our baby, not me. Not some random kid on the street. Our son." He wanted to feel a little bad for her, seeing as she was crying, but anger and irritation overshadowed it. "If you hate boys that much, maybe you should rethink this whole full time parenting thing, because it won't do any of us any favors if you plan to go around telling our kid how stupid loud and untrustworthy he is."

ASHLEY:

Ashley's face flushed, and her upset turned to anger right along with him. How dare he suggest that she not be a parent to their child? She had the right to be shocked and upset! It didn't mean she wouldn't look out for their kid! In her opinion it was more her kid than his anyway. Her body disrupted? Her kid. Roo could suck it.

"Do you hear yourself? Can I not have a second to be upset? Huh? I'm carrying this kid inside me so really he's like...70 percent my child and 30 percent yours." Ashley glowered at him. "Besides, I have a right to process through it. I would never treat my child like that. I have a brother too. You don't hear me being a bitch to him."

ROO:

There was a time when he would have backed down from Ashley and tried to placate her—but not anymore. There was a lot more than popularity on the line now and somehow Roo no longer cared what she thought of him.

He glared in frustration, his fists clenched at his sides. "Do I hear myself?! I'm not the one over here throwing a tantrum. Sure you can be upset—take all the time that you need to process, but Jesus Christ, Ashley! What does having a brother have to do with how you will treat our kid? Because from where I'm standing, it sure sounds like you won't love our son as much as you would if he was a daughter and if you ask me, that's pretty fucked up."

ASHLEY:

Her anger went from a simmer to a boil. How dare he tell Ashley that SHE was fucked up? How dare he? He didn't know anything! Not to mention he had no clue about everything that Ashley had ever done for her little brother.

"Fuck you. Fuck you Romeo DeRosa. You clearly don't know a damn thing. I practically raised my brother and miraculously he hasn't turned out to be the worst human being on the planet. Unlike you. How dare you suggest I won't love my son!"

ROO:

"Then ACT LIKE IT!" he shouted back, not terribly concerned that they were walking down Main Street and half the town could probably hear their argument now. "You can cry about it all you want, storm and rage, whatever! But for the love of god, stop acting like our kid is cursed just because he's a boy!" He paused just long enough to huff a breath, grinding his teeth in anger. This was so like her. Never wrong about anything, even when she was clearly acting like a lunatic.

"You're only mad at me because I touched a nerve, didn't I? Well, just because you don't like what I said doesn't make it any less true. I'm not the bad guy here, Princess, try to remember that for half a second."

ASHLEY:

How dare Romeo DeRosa yell at her? He wasn't fit to polish her boots! She hated that he thought he was better than her for being upset for a moment. She hated that he thought he'd be a better parent than her. How dare he sit high and mighty when he was the one who'd put her in this mess!

So Ashley started thinking. There was no way he'd let him make her look like the bad person forever. Oh no. She was going to bring the shame down on him. She burst into tears, loud wailing tears that the whole town could probably hear. She wanted to be an actress once. This was definitely within her ballpark. And then all she had to do was wait for it and then...

"Wow what the bloody hell is going on over here?" Wilbur called out, making his way over to the two of them with eyebrows furrowed. Ashley sniffled, wiping at her eyes and pointing at Roo. "He...he...he won't stop yelling at me!"

ROO:

Roo snorted, rolling his eyes at her dramatics. Like seriously? She was going to play the victim here. Like, sure. He got that she was miserable and was generally content to deal with her moods. She had a right be grumpy and emotional here. But today she had just pushed it too far and refused to see reason.

"Right, Princess," he scoffed, crossing his arms. "You left out a few key details. Like the part that you threw a hissy fit about our baby being a boy and when I pointed out—quite reasonably, I might add—that it wasn't the end of the world, you started going off about how awful and stupid our son was going to be!"

He turned to the guy, recognizing him as Wilbur Robinson from school. He was one of those guys who liked to hang around the Ashleys for popularity points. Whatever. "Well? What do you think?" he asked pointedly. "Guy to guy—don't you think its pretty ridiculous to lose your shit because you find out your expecting a son even though you've already decided you hate boys?"

ASHLEY:

The fury only built up in her, fury that he would dare to share those details with anyone. Let alone Wilbur Robinson. Her cheeks flushed, but she made sure to keep her face that of one that was sad and hurt and not absolutely fuming. She had to keep Wilbur on her side after all.

Wilbur put a hand on Ashley A's shoulder, a sympathetic grimace on his face before he glanced over at Roo with a raised eyebrow. "Don't you think it's pretty ridiculous to lose your shit on a pregnant girl? I mean yeah it's kinda bad but her emotions have to be wild." Not that Wilbur knew much about pregnancy. Only that it didn't take with his mum.

Ashley sniffled, wiping at her eyes sadly. "I was just...I understand girls better. Is that so wrong? I just...I..." she started to sob again, leaning against Wilbur to play up the theatrics. Wilbur to his credit didn't draw away or side with Roo and that amde him one of her favorite people in that moment.

ROO:

"You clearly don't know Ashley very well, at all," Roo couldn't help but point out. "If you did, you would know her emotions are always wild." What? It was true. She'd been no less mean and manipulative before all of this.

"But sure, whatever." It was pretty clear to him that Ashley was—well not faking it exactly. He believed she was an emotional wreck, just—she was totally milking it to gain a sympathy vote from her audience. "Are we done here? Or did you want to scream about how stupid and idiotic and untrustworthy boys are some more?"

ASHLEY:

"You're still insulting her? She's carrying your kid. Talk about a shitty thing to do," Wilbur remarked, patting Ashley's back gently as she continued to sob at his side. Honestly it was a little gross to have a wall of water basically on his shirt but whatever. At least Ashley A. seemed to trust him.

Ashley sniffed, lifting her head and glaring at Roo. "G-Get out of here. I'll...I'll tell you when the next appointment comes up." Or maybe she wouldn't. He really infuriated her.

ROO:

Ugh. What was wrong with people? Letting her wrap them around her little finger like that, it was so annoying. Roo, of course, chose to ignore the fact that had been him just a few months before. That was so not the point!

He rolled his eyes. "Right Wilbur, because you totally know anything about this or what its like to try and have a reasonable conversation with her. But sure, take her side. Whatever." He shifted to address Ashley. "Fine. See you around, princess." Turning on his heel, he stalked off, glad to be getting away from the dramatics. Somehow he had a feeling that parenting itself wouldn't be nearly as dificult as dealing with his son's mother.

[lokibug]

Carnival Loner

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Credit to gif owners (not me)

Summary: Steve has the day to himself and decided to spend it at a carnival alone. You go to the same carnival except as a third wheel. Steve offers to take the empty seat next to you on a roller coaster.

Warnings: None but flUFF

A/N: This will be my first published writing for Steve, my other Fav, so bare with me Reader and I hope you enjoy :) I also seen another idea of this on another fan fiction from another fandom awhile back. Not sure which one but it was the same concept. I’m also taking requests!

Today was the perfect day for an outing. The weather was wonderful, your surroundings stood out magnificently, and the aura was all around magical. The only problem was that you were completely third wheeling from the moment you stepped foot into the carnival grounds. Your two best friends were completely all over each other. They clung to each other as if one would fade into the abyss if they had to let go. It was a horrid sight and quite frankly you were sick of it.

Another individual had been attending this event as well. Steve had also been there but only with himself as company. Lately he felt as if all joy had been drained from him, he didn’t quite feel himself. He assumed a day out was also what he needed but seeing other people together seemed to only be a drag on the hero.

“Let’s go on that one!” Your friend shrieked as she pointed to a rather interesting looking roller coaster. You lifted your head up high to see the current rider’s reactions to the ride. They all seemed to be having fun, but you also took notice the way the passengers were seated two by two. You were a single and not a duo so this just sent your anxiety into an even further hole.

“That’s looks awesome! Come on y/n!” Your friends smiled widely before dragging you along behind them. Not only did you have to stand in this ridiculously long line but you knew you’d have to eventually sit alone on a ride you knew you wouldn’t be comfortable on.

Meanwhile Steve had just purchased a bag full of pink cotton candy. His fingers pulled at the strands before letting it melt on his tongue. It reminded him of old times. Just as you were being drug along he noticed your face. Well he noticed all of you. Being held in what seemed like a trance he knew he had to go speak to you, even if it meant standing in a literal line. He hurried so he would get a spot next to you in line but before he could a few families had made their way into the gate and stood behind you. Steve could’ve easily made his way up to you but he hadn’t wanted to upset the other passengers so he decided to wait.

“You’re a single rider?” The ticket boy asked while making sure your seat belt was correctly fastened.

“Yes.” You simply replied as your so called friends didn’t even turn around once to try to speak to you.

He nodded before standing back to the small intercom, “Any single riders? I repeat any single riders?” He called out and quickly Steve perked up and nodded.

“Uh-yeah! Here. I’ll ride with her.” He said excusing himself as he passed families through the gate. You felt your face get warm at the thought of a stranger being so close to you and when you seen who the stranger was you mentally cursed yourself even more.

Steve smiled at you before gently getting into the seat next to you and fastened his seat belt.

“Hi.” He said smiling at you. He out stretched his hand a bit for you to shake, “I’m Steve...Rogers.” He said as he got a better look at your beautiful features.

“Hi,” you smirk, “I’m Y/N. Y/L/N.” You chuckle a bit from nervousness and a little from the fact that the handsome stranger introduced himself so properly. It was quite a nice change from random guys calling you baby and asking you for your Twitter username.

The ride slowly edged forward and he smiled widely as did you when you realized how hyped he looked for it. In reality he was only happy that you coincidentally happened to need a partner. He wore a hat and glasses that laid perfectly upon his nose. For some reason he had looked familiar but you couldn’t put your finger on it.

During the ride he hadn’t screamed once, he merely laughed at the butterfly feeling within his stomach. You on the other hand shrieked here and there and giggled a bit at your own embarrassment.

When the ride was over your friend had already decided your next destination. “Well that was fun.” Steve spoke still walking steady next to you. A part of you was glad that he was, another part was a bit confused as to why.

“It was,” you smile and stop you steps. Questionably your friends glance back and wait for you but you simply say, “hey um, I’ll meet up with you guys after. I have to...use the bathroom.” You lied of course but they were far too invested in each other to even question you further.

“Friends of yours.” Steve asks and you turn towards him noticing the pink cotton candy bag in his palm.

“Yeah. Where are yours?” You ask glancing around a bit. He took a small bite of the dessert and glanced around too and shook his head.

“Only me.” He gave you a small smirk. You gave him a look that said ‘no way.’ How could such an attractive man be here alone. Attractive meaning both physically and common friendliness wise.

“What? You never seen a grown man eat pink cotton candy at a carnival by himself?” He asked chuckling while gazing down into your eyes.

You shake your head and laugh a bit, “Id be lying if I said I have.”

Steve laughed a bit and looked at his feet before replying, “I was kind of hoping a certain Y/H/C (your hair color “brunette”, “blonde”, “red head” etc) would allow me to be in her company here tonight.” The smile on your face stretched even wider and you rubbed your arm.

“I think she could spare some time.”

You two spend the time remaining laughing and talking. You two spoke about almost everything from why you were there to your favorite songs to your small phobias. It wasn’t until almost the end of the night that you questioned his career choice. Of course Steve was surprised that you hadn’t recognized him right off the back but he didn’t expect you to.

“I’m still questioning on why I feel like I’ve met you before...or at least seen you before.” You say trying your best not to sound like a lunatic while you passed the food stands.

“You’ve probably seen me on the news once...or twice.” That’s when it hit you as you glanced up at him for a bit. He was Captain America. You hadn’t wanted to make a big deal seeing that he was trying to stay a bit away from his usual image.

“Oh my gosh I know who you are!” You playfully shouted, “You’re the weather man from channel four-I always did love that suit.” You press your lips into a thin line and shake your head jokingly. Steve knew you were only joking with him as he rubbed his jaw with his hand before chuckling a bit.

“Of course doll, every Monday and Wednesday night.” He played along.

Between that moment and close to the park’s closing time, Steve had won you both a stuffed animal and a rubber band bracelet. Before realizing what you were playing for, you won Steve a goldfish in a bag. He gently took the bag and smirked, “This is alive.” He laughed a bit.

“I didn’t know!” You shouted before lifting your hands in defense.

“How did you not-“ He shook his head and looked at the night sky, “-I’m gonna name her Brooke.” Your face must’ve lit up like a child when he accepted your gift despite it being an actual live thing.

Once more you two got lost in conversation before realizing that there were hardly any people around anymore. “Where is everyone?” You asked Steve.

“The park’s close to closing ma’am.” A nearby employee spoke. You looked at Steve with widened eyes and you both burst into a small fit of laughter. You couldn’t believe that your conversation took such a long turn.

Your friends were waiting for you by the exit and that’s when felt a bit sad that you’d have to leave without him. He must’ve taken notice to this because he said, “Well...I hope I’ll see you again? Brooke with miss her mama.” He said before making pouty fish lips and you laughed softly once more.

“Are you sure it’s Brooke that’ll miss me?”

“Okay I’m speaking through Brooke as me,” he smiled softly at you, “maybe I can take you out on a real date.”

You felt yourself blush and nod, “I would like that.”

“Great.” He beamed.

“I’ll put my number in your phone.” You said before Steve pulled out a flip phone and you looked a bit shocked but still typed in your number.

“Y/N!” You friends called out. You turned to them and signaled them to hold on before turning towards Steve.

“I had a lot of fun,” you find the courage to move on your toes a bit and press a kiss to his cheek before saying, “good night weather man.”

Steve stood there watching you leave, goldfish in hand, smiling like a dork. He was finally starting to feel himself again and you left feeling a little more confident in your love life.

[encephalonfatigue]

radical eschatology and 1Q84

i wrote this as a goodreads review, but i couldn’t fit the whole text there so this is the review in its entirety.

“‘lunatic’ means to have your sanity temporarily seized by the luna, which is ‘moon’ in Latin. In nineteenth-century England, if you were a certified lunatic and you committed a crime, the severity of the crime would be reduced a notch. The idea was that the crime was not so much the responsibility of the person himself as that he was led astray by the moonlight. Believe it or not, laws like that actually existed… I learned it in an English literature course at Japan Women’s University, in a lecture on Dickens. We had an odd professor. He’d never talk about the story itself but go off on all sorts of tangents.”

I think a lot of my writing on this site consists of meandering tangents, only obliquely related to the book at hand — though less useful and interesting than this literature professor’s in 1Q84. Either way I will stick to what I’m comfortable with here. I will start with why I read this obscenely large book. My high school friend who was recently married, hosted a birthday party at a new place he moved into in Etobicoke. I arrived half-an-hour late from the time it was supposed to start (according to Facebook), and was the first one there — which is some indication of the sort of company I keep. As I awkwardly sat around after a brief house tour, he poured me a drink, and we chatted about life and my terrible job. He suddenly exclaimed, “Oh, I almost forgot. There’s something I want to lend to you.” He skips up the stairs and comes back down with a large phone book. On its front cover: a face hiding behind the characters “1Q84” — maybe embarrassed by its bloated constitution. This will help you on your daily commutes from hell, he encouraged me.

I’ve heard that your first Murakami book has a good chance of becoming your favourite Murakami book. That was probably the case for me with “Kafka on the Shore”. I think that book put me onto Kafka, before I would later encounter him in the work of Walter Benjamin, Judith Butler, and his late communist ‘wife’, Dora Diamant. But subsequent Murakami books were not as satisfying for me. After reading Norwegian Wood, I decided to try and take a break from Murakami. I had grown a little weary of the Oedipal themes, and Murakami’s recurring Manic Pixie Dream Girl tropes. Around this time, my fourth-year college roommate discovered Murakami for himself, and his first encounter was through 1Q84. He loved it, but what a book to start with, I had thought at the time. I was impressed that he ploughed right through such an enormous millstone of a novel. (I was very intimidated by its size when my friend handed it to me, but got through it in surprising time. Having now read 1Q84, I realize it was actually a very fun book to read, and often quite difficult to put down, so it now makes sense.) Anyways, I was discussing these things with my roommate and another law student who was camping with us at Sandbanks Provincial Park — she also shared similar thoughts as mine on Murakami. Conversation wandered on to Junot Diaz, who she was much more approving of — this of course was before the #MeToo revelations about Diaz. How quickly tides can turn. (Especially when there are two moons in the sky.)

So something about the structure of 1Q84. I am told the first two books are structured after the two books of Bach’s “Well-Tempered Clavier” — each chapter alternating between Aomame (major keys) and Tengo (minor keys). In each book of Clavier, Bach cycles through all twelve tones, a prelude and fugue for each tone’s major and minor keys. So each of Murakami’s chapters in Book 1 and 2 corresponds to a Prelude and Fugue in Bach’s collection of pieces — 48 chapters in all.

I admittedly have a thing for Bach. I have a copy of Gould’s “Well-Tempered Clavier” on compact disc at home. It came in a package of random shit the novelist Tao Lin gathered together from his bedroom and sold online for like $30 on eBay. That is the sort of stupid stuff I wasted my money on as an undergraduate student. Among the zines, postcard sized art prints, manuscript pages from his edits of Taipei, and a copy of “Shoplifting from American Apparel” was a disc of Gould’s “Well-Tempered Clavier”. In one of the preludes and fugues, the disc is scratched, and makes these heavenly wobbling sounds as it skips, and I have grown quite fond of these parts. I also particularly love hearing the infrequent muffled hums of Gould behind his gas mask.

Book 3 of 1Q84 is structured after Bach’s Goldberg Variations. In the past couple years, I’ve listened to this composition likely more than any other, simply because it’s one of the few albums I happened to have downloaded on my phone. It’s Igor Levit’s studio recording of the Goldberg Variations along with his recording of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations and Rzewski’s “The People United Will Never Be Defeated”. I thought it was a clever trio to package in an album. I also recommend Lisa Moore’s performance of other Rzewski compositions put out by Cantaloupe.

I am particularly fond of Rzewski’s “People United” because it recalls for me my first May Day march, where I chanted the Chilean song (from which Rzewski’s title is derived and his piece alludes to) with other people on the street marching on the way to Queen’s Park, while students shouted ‘ftp’ at officers lined on the sidewalk. I was supposed to march with a small contingent from Student Christian Movement, but couldn’t find them at Allan Gardens, so I marched near some York OPIRG students, and in front of a communist who was debating random people the entire march, haha. I had never seen so many anarchists and communists in one place at a time. They sure do like their black and red flags, haha.

This brings me to the next comment I wanted to make. I was curious about Murakami’s politics and I had a difficult time finding a decent write-up that focuses on this, because Murakami can come across as fairly apolitical, which I think is what his ‘bourgeois individualism’ (I use that term in jest) requires of him. Anyways, I stumbled across a series of blog posts made by a Trotskyist grad student that discuss how Japanese student movement comes up in almost every single novel by Murakami, and he discusses how the student movement was a significant segment of the political left in Japan during that time.

“Some brief highlights of the student movement’s history in Japan will suffice. After the end of the war, university students oriented to the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) took advantage of the new liberal atmosphere to rally for university autonomy, for the appointment of progressive faculty and administrators, and for a student voice in administration… In 1948, students from all over Japan inaugurated the All-Japan Federation of Student Self-Government Organizations (known by its acronym, Zengakuren) with a leadership largely from the Japanese Young Communist League… However the honeymoon between the students and the JCP was short-lived… The JCP had seen the American occupation as an opportunity to complete the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Japan, which had been the Moscow-ordained task of Communist Parties the world over during the Popular Front (1936-39) and then again after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, when Communists were allied with all “liberal,” “democratic,” and “peace-loving” forces, meaning those of the ruling class.

…Student radicalism reached even greater heights as the movement entered the 1960s… In militant actions organized by Zengakuren, thousands of students broke into the Diet building twice in 1960, forcing the cancellation of a state visit by US President Eisenhower and the resignation of Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi with his cabinet. During this period Zengakuren’s leadership was largely drawn from the “Mainstream Faction,” which had originated the federation’s opposition to the JCP, however during the late 50s the leadership was briefly taken over by students from the Revolutionary Communist League (RCL), a group formed from JCP exiles after the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary, which was influenced by Trotsky’s writings and would affiliate to the Fourth International. By 1964, there were three different organizations taking the name Zengakuren: the JCP supporters, the Revolutionary Marxists (a Tokyo-based split from the RCL) and a unity faction.”

There’s a lot more the Trotskyist grad student blogger (the official title I have designated to this person) goes into, but he essentially concludes that:

“I believe at this point that I have made a solid case for why Murakami, whose early books on the surface are completely apolitical, take their starting point as the destruction of the Japanese student movement, though at no point is the movement itself exactly foregrounded.”

An an earlier conclusion in his first post:

“Based on conjecture from his novels, we can assume he was around the anti-Stalinist left concentrated in the Zenkyoto groups, though he has insisted that he was never a member of any particular faction. “I enjoyed the campus riots as an individual,” he writes. “I’d throw rocks and fight with the cops, but I thought there was something ‘impure’ about erecting barricades and other organized activity, so I didn’t participate… The very thought of holding hands in a demonstration gave me the creeps.”

…Since this is all I have till I learn Japanese, I will have to take his word that he always had a rather superior, hipster attitude toward politics, which is believable enough considering his status as a graduate of one of Japan’s most elite private institutions. And yet, there is something I see in his early novels that undeniably regrets the collapse of the student movement, no matter how much he resented the factions for “impure” organizational work.”

I think Murakami’s disdain for this sort of leftist hypocrisy comes through in a particularly memorable dialogue in Norwegian Wood (which the Trotskyist grad student blogger never mentioned for some reason):

"Have you ever read Das Kapital?"

"Yeah. Not the whole thing, of course, but parts, like most people."

"You know, when I went to university I joined a folk-music club. I just wanted to sing songs. But the members were a load of frauds. I get goose-bumps just thinking about them. The first thing they tell you when you enter the club is you have to read Marx. "Read page so-and-so to such-and-such for next time.' Somebody gave a lecture on how folk songs have to be deeply involved with society and the radical movement. So, what the hell, I went home and tried as hard as I could to read it, but I didn't understand a thing. It was worse than the subjunctive. I gave up after three pages. So I went to the next week's meeting like a good little scout and said I had read it, but I couldn't understand it. From that point on they treated me like an idiot. I had no critical awareness of the class struggle, they said, I was a social cripple. I mean, this was serious. And all because I said I couldn't understand a piece of writing..."

“...And their so-called discussions were terrible, too. Everybody would use big words and pretend they knew what was going on. But I would ask questions whenever I didn't understand something. "What is this imperialist exploitation stuff you're talking about? Is it connected somehow to the East India Company?' "Does smashing the educational-industrial complex mean we're not supposed to work for a company after we graduate?' And stuff like that. But nobody was willing to explain anything to me. Far from it - they got really angry. Can you believe it?"

“...OK, so I'm not so smart. I'm working class. But it's the working class that keeps the world running, and it's the working classes that get exploited. What kind of revolution is it that just throws out big words that working-class people can't understand? What kind of crap social revolution is that? I mean, I'd like to make the world a better place, too. If somebody's really being exploited, we've got to put a stop to it. That's what I believe, and that's why I ask questions.”

"So that's when it hit me. These guys are fakes. All they've got on their minds is impressing the new girls with the big words they're so proud of, while sticking their hands up their skirts. And when they graduate, they cut their hair short and march off to work for Mitsubishi or IBM or Fuji Bank. They marry pretty wives who've never read Marx and have kids they give fancy new names to that are enough to make you puke. Smash what educational-industrial complex? Don't make me laugh!”

This passage actually reminds me of a Japanese exchange student I met as an undergraduate who was really into Murakami and used to perform folk music in her spare time. Even though she was an atheist or agnostic of some sort and really into gender studies, she used to attend an international students bible study that I used to go to at a friends’ house. She’s now doing a PhD at MIT in neuroscience, but that passage in Norwegian Wood always reminds me of her. Anyways, you can see how Murakami’s purity politics requires of him a rejection of fully embracing any comprehensive political or religious system. The individual is always of most importance to him, and I think that comes through in 1Q84 too.

Part of what gets to Murakami I suppose is the pretence involve with a lot of armchair leftists. It recalls for me a passage I read in a book about country music of all things called “The Nashville Sound” by Joli Jensen:

“Students rarely ventured into the Rose Bowl. When they did it was usually to be rowdy and to make fun of the rednecks. One night, as I was waiting tables, four fellow graduate students came in. They did not see me, and I watched in rising fury as they sneered and whispered and laughed among themselves at the people around them. These were my peers, who defined themselves as Marxists and had disdained me as a politically unsophisticated liberal humanist. They patronized me in class and were now in "my" world making fun of "my" friends. Shaking with rage, I went over to the table to take their drink order. Of course, they were stunned to find me working there, complete with sequined Rose Bowl vest, and they left immediately. I had caught them at an unseemly game. But I have come to wonder about the basis for my rage and about what it tells me about how we understand ourselves in relation to our perceptions of others.

At the time I felt superior to them, friends of the working class, indeed! and virtuous in my admiration of, and affection for, Rose Bowl patrons. Later, I began to wonder, was I really any better, turning the Rose Bowl into a mythical venue of "salt of the earth" authenticity? Is it really better to idealize and sentimentalize difference than to ridicule and disdain it? This is a poignant dilemma for the country music scholar and is becoming a topic of discussion among sociologists, anthropologists, museum curators, and social critics.”

Anyways, to move past this thoughtful navel-gazing, I want to get into a dimension of 1Q84 that I found extremely interesting. Probably my favourite part is Chapter 10 of Book 1 (A Real Revolution with Real Bloodshed), where Tengo talks to Fuka-Eri’s current guardian, a former anthropology professor and friend of Fuka-Eri’s father. Fuka-Eri’s father (Tamotsu Fukada) was an academic and Maoist revolutionary, enthusiastic about the Cultural Revolution, who gathered a number of students to start a commune in the mountains of Takao. There is a fascinating section on the splintering of the commune into a moderate faction and a more radical one:

“Under Fukada’s leadership, the operation of Sakigake farm remained on track, but eventually the commune split into two distinct factions. Such a split was inevitable as long as they kept Fukada’s flexible unit system. On one side was a militant faction, a revolutionary group based on the Red Guard unit that Fukada had originally organized. For them, the farming commune was strictly preparatory for the revolution. Farming was just a cover for them until the time came for them to take up arms. That was their unshakable stance.”

This paragraph reminds me of the case of the Tarnac Nine. It is within the realm of possibility Murakami had heard about this case, because their arrest was in 2008, shortly before 1Q84’s first books were published. There’s a commune in Tarnac that was involved in the operation of a nearby general store (Magasin General, Tarnac). Giorgio Agamben wrote a brief post on this affair describing it this way:

“On the morning of November 11, 150 police officers, most of which belonged to the anti-terrorist brigades, surrounded a village of 350 inhabitants on the Millevaches plateau, before raiding a farm in order to arrest nine young people (who ran the local grocery store and tried to revive the cultural life of the village). Four days later, these nine people were sent before an anti-terrorist judge and “accused of criminal association with terrorist intentions.””

The social theorist Alberto Toscano described the event in similar terms:

“On 11 November 2008, twenty French youths are arrested simultaneously in Paris, Rouen, and in the small village of Tarnac (located in the district of Corrèze, in France’s relatively impoverished Massif Central region). The Tarnac operation involves helicopters, one hundred and fifty balaclava-clad anti-terrorist policemen and studiously prearranged media coverage. The youths are accused of having participated in a number of sabotage attacks against the high-speed TGV train routes, involving the obstruction of the train’s power cables with horseshoe-shaped iron bars, causing material damage and a series of delays affecting some 160 trains. Eleven of the suspects are promptly freed. Those who remain in custody are soon termed the ‘Tarnac Nine’, after the village where a number of them had purchased a small farmhouse, reorganised the local grocery store as a cooperative, and taken up a number of civic activities from the running of a film club to the delivery of food to the elderly. In their parents’ words, ‘they planted carrots without bosses or leaders. They think that life, intelligence and decisions are more joyous when they are collective’.”

The Professor’s farming of Akebono (the radical offshoot of Sakigake) are framed in similar terms to the way anti-terrorist police in France portrayed the activities of the Tarnac co-op farm, as a front for revolutionary activity. Of course, if you read the Invisible Committee’s “Coming Insurrection”, allusions to such notions are elaborated on:

“Every commune seeks to be its own base. It seeks to dissolve the question of needs. It seeks to break all economic dependency and all political subjugation; it degenerates into a milieu the moment it loses contact with the truths on which it is founded. There are all kinds of communes that wait neither for the numbers nor the means to get organized, and even less for the “right moment” — which never arrives.”

But this excerpt follows a notion of the commune that is not so easily type-casted into the rural commune of Tarnac:

“Communes come into being when people find each other, get on with each other, and decide on a common path. The commune is perhaps what gets decided at the very moment when we would normally part ways. It’s the joy of an encounter that survives its expected end. It’s what makes us say “we,” and makes that an event. What’s strange isn’t that people who are attuned to each other form communes, but that they remain separated. Why shouldn’t communes proliferate everywhere? In every factory, every street, every village, every school. At long last, the reign of the base committees! Communes that accept being what they are, where they are. And if possible, a multiplicity of communes that will displace the institutions of society: family, school, union, sports club, etc. Communes that aren’t afraid, beyond their specifically political activities, to organize themselves for the material and moral survival of each of their members and of all those around them who remain adrift. Communes that would not define themselves — as collectives tend to do — by what’s inside and what’s outside them, but by the density of the ties at their core. Not by their membership, but by the spirit that animates them.”

There is a strong eschatological element in the writings of the Invisible Committee, that some radical political theologians have picked up on (e.g. see Ward Blanton’s lecture on the Invisible Committee ). Because of Julien Coupat’s arrest as one of the Tarnac Nine, the Invisible Committee has become associated with the journal Tiqqun. In “Theory of Bloom” Tiqqun is defined:

“The French rendering of the Hebrew word Tikkun, meaning to “perfect”, “repair”, “heal”, or “transform”. In rabbanical school, students study mystical texts that view tikkun as the process of restoring a complex divine unity. A tikkun kor’im (readers’ tikkun) is a study guide used when preparing to chant the Torah, or to read from the Torah in a Jewish synagogue. People who chant from the Torah must differs from that written (the Kethib) in the scroll.”

The Wikipedia article for Tiqqun says the word is derived from the “Hebrew term Tikkun olam, a concept issuing from Judaism, often used in the kabbalistic and messianic traditions.”

Murakami certainly alludes to this intersection of eschatology, theology, and politics, firstly in his narrative mechanism which has this Maoist commune turn into a secretive religious cult. He ties the religious and political in this way, but in a manner that I myself find unconvincing. Many of these co-operative farms are anti-hierarchical and I find it difficult to see, even for a commune of the authoritarian left to turn into something resembling Sakigake in the novel. Regardless, I think the intersection of radical religion and politics in 1Q84 to be a fascinating subject to explore, even if I found Murakami’s particular approach unsatisfying. There is of course an eschatological dimension that Murakami gestures towards in various chapters, often in amusing an humorous ways. One of my favourites is in the following chapter (Chapter 11):

As a woman, Aomame had no concrete idea how much it hurt to suffer a hard kick in the balls… “It hurts so much you think the end of the world is coming right now. I don’t know how else to put it. It’s different from ordinary pain,” said a man, after careful consideration, when Aomame asked him to explain it to her.

Aomame gave some thought to his analogy. The end of the world?

“Conversely, then,” she said, “would you say that when the end of the world is coming right now, it feels like a hard kick in the balls?”

Aomame was called in and instructed to rein in the ball-kicking practice. “Realistically speaking, though,” she protested, “it’s impossible for women to protect themselves against men without resorting to a kick in the testicles. Most men are bigger and stronger than women. A swift testicle attack is a woman’s only chance. Mao Zedong said it best. You find your opponent’s weak point and make the first move with a concentrated attack. It’s the only chance a guerrilla force has of defeating a regular army.”

The manager did not take well to her passionate defense. “…I don’t care what Mao Zedong said—or Genghis Khan, for that matter: a spectacle like that is going to make most men feel anxious and annoyed and upset.”

If there’s any guy crazy enough to attack me, I’m going to show him the end of the world—close up. I’m going to let him see the kingdom come with his own eyes.”

The Witnesses’ rendition of the Lord’s prayer is recurring theme that surfaces throughout the novel, and even if it is presented in a cynical manner by Murakami, I think it still evokes a particular mode of contemplation that I found interesting. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are the obvious allusion Murakami is making and their pacifism is even explicitly mentioned by Ushikawa: “They are well known to be pacifists, following the principle of nonresistance.”

Pacifism, of course, more associated with the radical Christians of the anabaptist tradition, although I have yet to encounter the connection between Jehovah’s Witnesses and Anabaptism, other than certain millenarian impulses they might share. Anyways, I think this an interesting node that Murakami marks, posing the question of violence and justice: revolutionary violence (of Akebono), assassination (Aomame’s side gig), and sexual violence (experienced by the women that the dowager tries to protect). What causes aversion to political and religious radicals, fundamentalists, etc?

Murakami’s answer is coercion and the denigration of the individual. This is epitomized in a dialogue Aomame has with the dowager, where the dowager asks:

“Are you a feminist, or a lesbian?” Aomame blushed slightly and shook her head. “I don’t think so. My thoughts on such matters are strictly my own. I’m not a doctrinaire feminist, and I’m not a lesbian.”

“That’s good,” the dowager said. As if relieved, she elegantly lifted a forkful of broccoli to her mouth, elegantly chewed it, and took one small sip of wine.

This is very similar to the sort of ideology that Jordan Petersen subscribes to. It is a ‘higher than thou’ purity politics that looks down on any sort of collective organization that betrays any sort of hypocrisy. Yet most religious traditions recognize that any sort of collective organizing is bound to live in contradiction with its ideals. Within the Christian tradition, thoughtful adherents recognize the Church as a ‘fallen’ institution composed of ‘sinners’. I think it is important to recognize and confess the short fallings of previous attempts to realize ideals while not abandoning the ideals because people that came before us have severely fucked it up. Another world is possible, and I think if we fall back into our silos of individualism we will not realize this other world. Murakami provides an almost Kierkegaardian framing of what is essentially ritual rape in the novel — and I found that disturbing, though in the realm of magical realism, I’m not qualified to make any meaningful commentary. What I will confess is that my own life betrays a certain sort of ‘bourgeois individualism’ but I have not yet reached a form of cynicism that celebrates it, and I hope I won’t anytime soon.

Anyhow, beyond these critiques, I enjoyed this novel a lot, and I think it brought up interesting questions to contemplate. I found the Proust jokes hilarious, some of the funniest moments in the book. Curiously, I have never finished reading Orwell’s 1984. I was supposed to have finished reading it for a Grade 12 literature class, but I recall that period of the semester as a tremendously busy one for me. I do intend to finish it one day soon, and Orwell’s democratic socialism is a fascinating lens through which to also examine many of the themes that Murakami explores, including those of agency and freedom. There are these strange lines in the book that I don’t quite know what to make of: 

“He leaned against the wall, in the shadows of the telephone pole and a sign advertising the Japanese Communist Party, and kept a sharp watch over the front door of Mugiatama.“

There are funnier allusions to this like:

“Have you heard about the final tests given to candidates to become interrogators for Stalin’s secret police?” “No, I haven’t.”

“A candidate would be put in a square room. The only thing in the room is an ordinary small wooden chair. And the interrogator’s boss gives him an order. He says, ‘Get this chair to confess and write up a report on it. Until you do this, you can’t leave this room.’ ”

“Sounds pretty surreal.”

“No, it isn’t. It’s not surreal at all. It’s a real story. Stalin actually did create that kind of paranoia, and some ten million people died on his watch—most of them his fellow countrymen. And we actually live in that kind of world. Don’t ever forget that.”

...“So what kind of confession did the interrogator candidates extract from the chairs?”

“That is a question definitely worth considering,” Tamaru said. “Sort of like a Zen koan.”

“Stalinist Zen,” Aomame said.

I have my own views on Murakami’s crypto-Calvinist sections, which is not unrelated to Murakami’s interwoven narrative technique, and in excerpts such as the one I opened with about the etymology of ‘lunatic’. Also, I actually quite enjoyed the way Murakami alluded to Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor passage from the Brothers Karamazov — where Satan frames miracles as a sort of spectacle when trying to tempt Christ in the wilderness. I’ve always thought that there’s certainly some Debordian comment that can be made with respect to that. In fact, the notion of spectacle, and this process of reducing agency such that we become mere spectators, is itself thematic in Murakami’s fiction, especially here. Again, it is this crypto-Calvinist notion of fate, that one’s future is already predetermined and no matter what one might try, it is inevitable. (This must be related to Murakami’s quoting of Carl Jung: “Called or not called, God is there”.) And so one becomes almost a spectator to one’s own life unfolding under the predetermined path of capital. Yet curiously, Tengo and Aomame do escape from Leader’s prophetic claim that was to befall Aomame, out from 1Q84, back up the stairwell back to the path of 1984. If only escaping from “late declining capitalism” (Murakami’s term) was that simple.

Though I had many reservations, 1Q84 was breezy read and I think that’s a testament to how fun Murakami’s writing can be, and this was one of those books where this was very much the case.

[tveckling]

126. Road trips to nowhere

AO3 For @mercutihoe

The roar of a car horn that shot through the calm silence nearly made Romeo jump out of his skin, and it definitely made him rip apart the paper he’d been writing on. Clutching at his chest and staring down at his ruined thesis—he had almost come up with a title! A few more tries and he’d get it!—he jerked when the horn sounded again. And again. And a very, very long one. What sort of asshole lunatic had decided to park their loud car on his street? “Hey, Sleeping Beauty, you’re already as pretty as you’ll get so come on already! We don’t have all day!”

Oh, that explained it. Romeo grinned wildly as he hopped from his chair and skipped over to throw his window open. Mercutio was hanging halfway out the driver window of his old and battered, and generally pretty shitty, van, his face lightning up when he saw Romeo. Just to be an ass he pushed the car horn three times in rapid succession, making Romeo snort. “I’m awake, I’m awake,” he shouted over the loud noise. As expected it made the noise stop. “I can see someone who might be in need of some beauty sleep, however.” Mercutio shook his head sadly with a hand dramatically placed on his chest. “How cruel, how cruel you are when disturbed. I would suggest you go straight for the heart instead of the jugular, but with that hairstyle I doubt you’ll be able to see the difference.” Romeo pouted and flicked away some stray hair from his eye. “It’s not that long,” he muttered to himself. “And it’s not like your hair is any shorter!” “But I make it look good.” Mercutio preened and tossed with his head, making Romeo laugh. “You’re saying I don’t?” he asked once he had gotten his laughter under control, leaning out on the windowsill with a wide smile. For some reason that made Mercutio hesitate, and as Romeo waited curiously he muttered something under his breath then shouted, “Get your things and get in, loser, we’re going shopping!” “Are we?” Romeo couldn’t imagine why he would need to ‘get his things’ if they were just going shopping? And besides, Mercutio’s van had been blacklisted from every mall and larger store nearby so he would have grabbed Paris’ car or something, wouldn’t he? “Nah, but it’s blasphemy to not quote Mean Girls when able to,” Mercutio said seriously. Romeo nodded in agreement, though he didn’t quite share Mercutio fascination. “Get things for a few days at least. It’s time for a road trip, baby!” “Awesome! Be right down,” Romeo shouted and closed his window. The remains of his thesis still lay on his desk, but he only spared a quick, guilty look before he put it out of his mind. He’d have time for it when he came back. It took less than a couple minutes to get outside, since he always kept a bag filled with clothes and necessities ready in his room, but he had a feeling Mercutio had just been about to lean on the horn again. After jumping in on the passenger side Romeo threw the bag behind him, and Mercutio started the engine. As always Romeo immediately turned the radio volume down, since Mercutio had the idea that everyone in the neighborhood wanted to hear every word of whatever he was listening to, and Mercutio pouted at him for doing so. It wasn’t a look that had ever worked on him, of course. “So, just you and me, then?” Romeo asked. “Ugh, yeah. Ben is a boring nerd as always, completely ignoring what’s most important in life—me! And you and the rest of his friends, of course—and he’s been focusing completely on his studies. So, no, this is a Benvolio free trip,” Mercutio said with a haughty sniff. “Nice. It’s been a while since we got together like this, just the two of us.” Romeo played with the radio for a while, finally settling on a station that didn’t have too bad music. “Yeah.” Mercutio fell silent after that, which was odd in itself, but when Romeo looked over he shrugged with a carefree smile and turned back to his driving. Romeo smiled back and leaned against the window, looking at the houses passing by. The trip continued like that for a few hours, the two of them sometimes chatting a little but mostly keeping a comfortable silence between them, until they had left the city far behind them. Romeo stretched and looked over at Mercutio, reaching out to poke at his cheek. The dusk was well settling in, so it wouldn’t be a bad idea to find someplace to settle for the night. “So where we going, anyway?” “No clue,” Mercutio answered and swatted at Romeo’s finger. “Just driving.” “Ah, one of those trips. Okay. Well, where are we now? Maybe we’re heading towards someplace interesting.” “Yeah, about that… I have no idea. I was lost, like, ten minutes after we left your street.” Mercutio didn’t even look at him. Romeo stayed silent and let his look speak for him. “Oh, shut up,” Mercutio glanced over and waved his hand in Romeo’s face. “If you’re so good at this shit, then why don’t you know where we are? You’ve been in the car just as long as I’ve been.” “I’m not the one driving; I don’t have to know where we are.” Romeo grabbed Mercutio’s hand and they had a short tug-of-war before Romeo released it. “Fine, you got me in the car for a trip you have no plan for, and then immediately got us lost. Am I supposed to fear for my life? Are you going to drive out into the woods and kill me and make sure no one can ever find me again?” “Yes, that’s precisely what I’m going to do. You found me out! And so much quicker than I expected. Well done, padawan, well done indeed.” Mercutio snorted. “We’ll just drive until we find some place to stop, and then we’ll see where we are.” Romeo pouted—he hated being called a padawan. He’d be just as much of a jedi knight as Mercutio would be, not some inferior apprentice. “Sure. And not that I don’t like these random unplanned trips of yours, and I think Ben can be a stick in the mud about planning sometimes, but I like to at least know where I am.” “We’re getting there, don’t worry.” That was the last they spoke for the next hour, until, finally, they saw a sign for a bed and breakfast. It turned out to be a smaller house owned by a nice, older man who happily opened for them despite the late hour and chatted while he led them to their room, where they found they’d have to share a single bed. He had six rooms, he told them apologetically, but two were being renovated and the rest were already in use, so that room was the only one he could offer. For their troubles they would only have to pay for one person. Romeo didn’t bother looking at Mercutio for his opinion, because it was Mercutio’s fault they were there after all, before he smiled, thanked the man, and said that they would take the room. He kept smiling until the door had closed behind the man, then he sighed long and hard and fell down face first into the bed. It didn’t feel too bad, he noted absently. “Okay, we know where we are, we have a room for the night, we know what destination we’re going and everything.  Are you still mad?” Mercutio nudged Romeo’s foot with his own. “I’m not mad,” said Romeo unintelligible, what with his face burrowed into the bed sheets. After another nudge he raised his head and repeated the words, then turned to lie on his back instead so he could speak without problems. “I’m not, really. I was, but I got over it. You’re the one who’s been acting weird, not me.” “What, we’re shifting blame now?” Mercutio asked, but his snort was amused rather than annoyed. Not that Romeo would have cared much if he had been annoyed; he knew Mercutio far too well for that. “You were weird even before we started driving. Did you think I wouldn’t notice?” Romeo shifted to look at Mercutio who was standing next to the bed, looking down on him with an unreadable face. Normally Romeo would have taken the challenge and done his best to figure out what feelings hid behind that face, but now he was more interested in continuing his line of thought. “And then the whole drive you’ve been quiet and thoughtful, only talking when I started a conversation. It was nice, don’t get me wrong, but that is so not the regular you. Something’s on your mind, isn’t it? Tell me. That’s what you took me along for, wasn’t it?” Mercutio stood silently and stared for a while, while Romeo patiently looked back at him, until he groaned and sat down on the edge of the bed. He tried glaring at Romeo, but they could both tell it was half-hearted at best. “Sometimes you’re far more perceptive than anyone has a right to be, you know that?” “And I know you won’t talk about feelings or be serious unless someone forces you kicking and screaming into a situation where you must be.” Romeo smiled, calm and at peace, far more than Mercutio. “So tell me. You know you can tell me anything.” Mercutio made a face at the clichéd sentence, then sighed heavily and rubbed his face. “Do I have to? Can’t we just- it was nice, why don’t we just not talk about it and continue the trip without any serious conversations? That’s a nice idea, isn’t it?” “It is. But it won’t happen. I’m dragging you kicking and screaming, so talk.” “I wouldn’t say I’m either kicking or screaming right now,” Mercutio muttered. “I think you would notice if I were.” When he fell silent Romeo let him; he could take as long as he wanted to, as long as he didn’t try to escape or change subject. “It’s stupid, that’s what it is. You know. You’ve been the type to fall for people, left and right, but I’m not- like that. I don’t do feelings. You flirt with someone, you have sex, you say thanks, and that’s it, you go your separate ways. Why go to trouble with anything more than that, you know?” Romeo hummed agreeably, encouraging Mercutio to go on. “And I don’t even know if I’m even- it’s not like it has to be. It could be puberty, you know.” Mercutio rolled his eyes at Romeo’s snort. “Yeah, I know we’re far past puberty, thanks for pointing it out. I’m just saying. Maybe some things take longer to show up than others? I don’t know. Or it could just be that I’m confused, thinking it’s something when it’s really something completely different.” Romeo smiled and rolled his eyes. It was time to interrupt or Mercutio would keep on going in circles without ever saying something. “I’m going to describe something. Just listen, and then after you can say if you recognize any of it, okay?” While he waited for Mercutio’s nod Romeo sat up so they were face to face. “When you wake up, alone in your bed, you get the feeling that there is something missing. You can’t put your finger on it, but it stays with you the rest of the day—until you see that one person, that one special person that you’ve been finding yourself thinking about plenty of times that day. And the person smiles at you, and even if you wanted to you don’t think you would be able to not smile back. You talk, and you find yourself thinking that you could listen to this person talk forever, about anything at all. And when they laugh you feel your heart grow lighter just by listening to them, and if you could you would record the sound so you could fall asleep listening to it. "Hours can feel like minutes around this person, but at the same time you feel wrapped in a sense that you’re in a moment that will last forever. Anything seems to be worth the time or effort if it means you can spend time with them. You could spend hours in the library, just sitting shoulder to shoulder, or drive around aimlessly for days, only in each other’s company. And when you touch—” Romeo’s smiled widened as he noticed he had Mercutio’s complete attention. He reached out to curl one hand around Mercutio’s, and noticed the hitch in Mercutio’s breathing. “—when you touch each other it sends a small, tingling sensation through your entire body. It feels right, in a way few other things can feel. Your mind is suddenly filled with thoughts of moving closer, of feeling more. You didn’t even notice when that missing sensation you woke up with disappeared.” Mercutio’s tongue quickly wet his lips as Romeo shifted a little closer, and his eyes kept looking anywhere but at Romeo’s face. “What’s-” he started hoarsely. Romeo chuckled and cupped Mercutio’s face. “Sometimes you’re far less perceptive than anyone has a right to be, you know that?” he said. When Mercutio finally looked at him, with a mixture of outrage and guarded hope, Romeo closed the distance between them and kissed him softly. When he leaned back again Mercutio sat still, looking at him through heavy-lidded eyes. “You knew?” “I started suspecting a while ago. I wasn’t entirely sure until today.” Romeo lied down again and stretched, not missing the way Mercutio’s eyes followed his movements. “And you’re not-” “I am very okay with it. More than okay.” Romeo beckoned for Mercutio to come closer, then pulled him down and crashed their mouths together in a significantly less gentle kiss. When they finally parted, both breathing hard, he grinned up at Mercutio. “You really are more unaware than I thought. I’ve been flirting with you for weeks, trying to see if you really were interested or not, and you’ve flirted back but in such a way I never knew if if was a joke or not. It was maddening!” Mercutio sniggered, resting his head against Romeo’s collarbone. “I had no idea,” he confessed. When he raised his head there was a look in his eye that made Romeo’s stomach tingle. ”I am very, very interested. If you’d like I’d be happy to show you.“

[heartfeltheart]

Alchemy: Tiny Steps

Chapters: 11/45 Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist/Harry Potter Rating: T Relationships: Edward/Winry, Lan Fan/Ling, and May/Alphonse. Primary Characters: Edward Elric, Severus Snape Additional Tags: Crossover, Teacher!Edward, BrOtp Edward/Severus. Sassy beyond measure. Pro!Snape Series: Part 2 of 9. Summary: Part two of the Alchemy Series.  Politics. Either you love it, hate it or you live it. For Alchemy Teacher Edward Elric, he lives it, hates it and loves it when he gets the upper hand. Here is to another year of hell… D/C: I do not own Harry Potter or Fullmetal Alchemist. Discord: La Red(Mesh Mash of… stuff.): https://discord.gg/KYjmVAb Alchemy Series: https://discord.gg/DejEYNJ

Thank you, @amynchan​! You are forever my inspiration and for helping with the Alchemy Series. 

The world of politics is vast, filled with poise, cunning, and heart. The tables of these politicians are where the future of our entire realm is decided, which laws must be enforced and what old ways we must choose to forsake in these changing times. The job of a politician is a delicate one, and must be handled with finesse, care, and class.

Unfortunately, as evidence suggests, that was not the case.

Edward Elric, a foreign muggle who controls a power that requires no wand or incantation, and a vast number of armed militants sat in on an otherwise peaceful meeting between the two candidates for Minister of Magic, invited by respected candidate Amelia Bones. Each talk of diplomacy with Elric's mysterious nation of 'Ameristes' unveiled the state of affairs in our new 'ally'. Of course, with a country that seems to be headed by a military, it is no wonder that the best they could afford to send had a temperament of his own. Anonymous sources have unveiled skepticism in the aurors present at the meeting, the loud abrasive disagreements held in public, as well as Elric blatantly placing blame for war and dissent squarely upon the shoulders of our Ministry.

These same sources cite Elric attempting to start a fist brawl at the diplomatic table as well as cursing freely in the face of our most honored politicians. According to a credible source, Elric was also overheard shouting "...they are going to get [war]!"

With the attitude of this ambassador, many a respectable wizard will question to themselves: is Ameristes truly an ally? Or are they only pushing us towards war? With hope, the newly elected leadership will guide our society into safer waters than into the hands of these muggles.

This is Rita Skeeter, signing off!

-.-

"We are being spied upon…" Alphonse stated tersely under his breath as he crumpled up the Daily Prophet that he was reading. That snippet of his brother shouting about war, was said in private. Edward never once shouted anything close to those words than the time in that room. With that, this reporter, Rita Skeeter, clearly shows she is completely taking everything out of context and biased. Not once did she mention how Fudge wanting to completely use Amestris for their own benefit, putting in restrictions and many other things that makes one wonder if this is a give or take, or just take, take and more take. The woman has done her job of slandering his brother, country and now it appears going after Madam Bones. Madam Bones did not invite them, it is a meeting that is held between Amestris, Magical Great Britain and Xing. A required meeting to seek out a treaty between three countries. It appears Xing is not on their shit list, and it will be soon if they continue to this form of treatment towards Amestris. Edward can take care of himself, but Amestris is a whole other issue all together.

Thinking about Edward, Alphonse looked over at the stair case wondering when Edward, Lucius and Severus will finish their meeting. It worries him at the possible results of it, and their work of attempting to alley themselves with the Malfoy's will be for not.

-.-

"I am not worried about myself, I am used to be seen as a pariah and seeing myself in the newspaper in such manner." Edward scanned the article that was written about him. "What I am not okay with is that Skeeter woman is mentioning Madam Bones."

"And your country? Are you not angered at she said?"

"Amestris is a Military focused country and it met with recent controversy all around. They should be grateful that I was sent. If they had sent Major General Armstrong, she would have killed everyone and actually declared war on them. That woman is fearsome, cold and extremely harsh, the Ice Queen and Northern Wall of Briggs. She was up for also becoming an ambassador but… she rather fight off Drachma from the North Wall than deal in politics."

"Is this the same woman that your commanding officer is terrified of and candidate for leading your country?"

"Everyone is terrified of her and yes. She is a candidate. If Madam Bones becomes Minister, Mustang will be a likely candidate. Fudge then we are going to have a woman that takes shit from no one." Edward deadpanned. "I am pissed. Just not for the reason you believe it to be. We do not want war, but if things continue with how it is… war is going to happen. Keep in mind… if they bring the war to us in Amestris, there magic is void."

Severus and Lucius couldn't help but agree in that last part Edward had reminded them of. Going to war against Amestris is the last thing anyone want's at this or any point. Magical Great Britain is still recovering from all the previous wars that occurred and Amestris, from what they were told, is already on their way of full recovery from one that occurred two years ago.

"Lord Malfoy, you may not like the fact I am a… muggle… but you have to admit what is being said about me and my country is only being stated as such for someone else's own gain. That lunatic Fudge is grasping straws and doing whatever underhanded move to get people to sway their vote. I implore you to help us… or we will have to do something completely underhandedly…"

-.-

"I want to go to Britain~~~~ Let's gooo!" Ling moaned out childishly to Lan Fan, said bodyguard is looking over the notes Alphonse and the Princess had sent over for them to look over. By the looks of it, Edward and Amestris is being slandered. Normally this isn't out of the norm, but considering how tactless this reporter is at her job. No vendetta towards Xing, that would quickly soon change. It appears that Alphonse will have to ensure where Xing stands at this point. Making enemies of Amestris is the last thing they needed after both signed the Magical Alliance, also dubbed The Preservation Concord. The name still needs some work down to it, but it was the only thing everyone could have agreed to at the time. "My Lord-"

"How many times do I have to tell you to call me Ling in private Lan Fan…" Ling wrapped his arms around Lan Fan, resting his chin on her right shoulder.

"How many times do I have to tell you how unprofessional that is at any setting, My Lord…" Lan Fan stated evenly, proud of herself of keeping her composure intact. Well slightly, her cheeks are now a bright pink and she is resisting the urge to shiver. She shoved the document into Ling's face and quickly jumped away to a respectable distance. "Read."

Ling took the papers and skimmed through them to see what was written on them. His left eyebrow rising ever so lightly at every piece of information that he read. He sat up and sat on the edge of his bed as he continued to read to read the documents. "They're playing a dangerous game. I'm surprised Edward hadn't called off the meeting by now… they are being spied on? Not out of the norm, but Mei or Alphonse should have… Hm… Lan Fan, contact Amestris."

-.-

"Ugh… Kill me now…." Edward moaned out under his breath as ignored a random named politician talk about some random shit. He point is further emphasized by Alphonse and Madam Bones both look like they are about to keel over. Without much of a care, Edward laid his head on the table and snored away.

"Mr. Elric? Question?"

"Which one?" Alphonse asked for what liked the hundredth time that day alone.

"Edward Elric."

Alphonse reached over and nudged Edward's shoulder to wake him up. "Brother, the toad wants to talk to you again…"

"Someone has a question for you…"

"If it's the pink bitch, tell her to fuck off. I have been writing letters to that bastard Mustang and old man Grumman all last night and morning." Edward deadpanned, not even bothering to lift his head or speak Amesterian. "I am not in the mood to talk politics right now with that toad. I will talk to her if she finally starts to talk and act civilly towards me. Until then, no."

Silence.

"Excuse me?"

"You are excused."

"How is General Roy Mustang, Edward?" Bones asked in an attempt to change the topic of the conversation.

Edward lifted his head just enough to look at the women in her eyes. "Last I head he is heading over to Xerxes along with Lan Fan men are guiding the last of the refuges back to Ishval. With this, the General will be well into his promise to restore Ishval to its former glory."

"What is to become of Xerxes?"

"Uh…" Edward mind went blank. To be truthful, it was pushed around between Grumman, Roy and Ling that the land of Xerxes will be given to the descendants of the people of Xerxes. Of course, only those three, along with a selected few, know of the Elric's past. Grumman was told in order to clear up everything with him. Mustang… Edward will forever deny this till the end of time, sees the man trustworthy and well… a sort of father figure that will hopefully help him deal with his daddy issues. Ling? Greed told him everything. The end result, the three males are debating wither or not to leave the lands as is or 'give' them to the Elric's. Still huge debate on all sides. "For now, I believe it will become a sort of trader outpost? I do not know exactly. And no…" Edward raised his head over towards the direction where Fudge and his group sat around at the table, "None of you are going to get your grubby hands on that place… None of you will be able to do magic there so nah!"

"You're giving them more fuel for the fire, Brother…"

"If they already see me as a menacing animal, might as well play it up. That reporter is in the corner of the room and that pen of hers is writing a hundred miles a minute about complete bullshit. It's obvious which side she's on…bitch…"

"Headache?"

"Ugh… It's still as bad and it's now annoying instead of being a pain."

-.-

Dolores Umbridge have had enough with these muggles. They have been making them all look like fools and stringing everyone with lies. How they managed to get that horrid half-blood Bones to side with them is beyond her. How could Dumbledore allow such an atrocious being to be part of the Magical World. Everyone should have blasted that Elric's mind to the point he doesn't even remember his own name. The more the talked and acted only proved her point.

Now… as for the other Elric Brother and Xing Princess, they are both needed parts to get them into Xing. If they can convince Alphonse Elric to see things their way, then it would be smooth sailing. If they managed to get him alone, convincing him won't even be needed. All it takes is one good spell and set things into motion.

"Young Edward… you stated in a report that your country is also going through change of leadership?"

That fool raised his head to stare at her disinterestedly. "Yeah, the runner ups are General Roy Mustang or Major General Olivier Armstrong."

"Armstrong?" Skeeter asked out, her interest peeking. "Any relation to the huge brute you brought along last year?"

"Yeah… She's his older sister… his terrifying and highly combative sister. All of you should be happy that I am Amestris ambassador. She was an option for the job and she hates politics. Prefers to stab someone if they piss her off… Saw it once too." Edward grumbled out the last part with a shiver of fear.

-.-

"They want me to do what?"

"They want you to go to Great Britain."

"Why do I have a feeling I should maim Mustang for this... Prepare the men, we are heading to Central and fix this mess."

"Of course, General."

To be continued…

How do we deal with politics? Bring in someone that can intimidate everyone with a single stare and a sword that could slice through anything or everything…or everyone.