#or even knew HOW to to this extent. or had a vinyl body for her but id need to get one and god thats just... such a mess. id have to

[volfoss]

sorry for scary bjd posting at like 7 am but. i was checking my email for saved head searches and i need to show u guys the horrifying discovery i found.

so taking the horrors apart. we have paint that was NOT sealed properly and so is thus chipping away. it looks like they buried her in the backyard or smth w the amount of dirt?? they sanded the nose down INSANELY. sculpted eyelids on with like???? seemingly just eye putty??? i am including a photo of like. what the head looks like new and blank. the eyes themselves are also so fascinating to me bc like... normally you get a more "anime style" eye with somewhat visible whites for these heads so im so endlessly fascinated with what looks to either be eyes FAR too big for her or like... teddy bear type eyes (like. just pure black).

but wait. it gets worse.

inexplicably theres... a lower cut in the head (the one that is further from the face is where its supposed to be on an unmodded head) and you can see the true horrors of the nose here? these dolls are usually having pretty sharp like... typical early 00's anime noses (where theyre really small and pointed) so i cannot imagine how much sanding would happen to have THIS???? you can also see more of the insane dirt here and the (im pretty sure it IS eyeputty thats making up the whites of the eyes here) just genuinely terrifying skin situation.

this is the point in which i found out it. was somehow. three different methods of keeping the eye in??? globs of hot glue at the top. maybe?? clay????????? or just really old eyeputty behind it? it really looks like apoxie sculpt (which dries as hard as concrete so). and then the regular sticky tack at the bottom??? i cant imagine how bad this would be. you can also see the natural vinyl color on the ring that is around the head cap. speaking OF the headcap, the listing says its FROM A DIFFERENT COMPANY????? so the head is from volks and the headcap is from obitsu?? so thats WHY the mysterious lower cut is there... because they had to make it smaller to get the obitsu headcaps (which are smaller usually). on top of that, you can kind of see that the paint has seeped INTO the vinyl (esp noticable on the headcap) so like. it would not be fun to get out id imagine.

anyways. thats my scary discovery this morning.

[schismusic]

Caterina Barbieri, six years later

After taking my last exam on June 4th I was waiting for the train home to leave. As the carriage I was in decided all of a sudden to piss a good liter of accumulated rainwater out of the ceiling and the walls behind me, I grabbed my earphones to listen to some music — and all of a sudden I was reminded of Information Needed to Create an Entire Body and INTCAEB by Caterina Barbieri. I first found out about Caterina Barbieri about a year and a half after she released Patterns of Consciousness, or right around the time she was releasing her retrospective compilation Born Again in the Voltage. At the time Caterina was a guest at a local electronic music festival, and it was incredibly unexpected for me to find myself more attracted by the two most mundane names in the lineup: hers, just a first name and a last name, exhuding elegant confidence; the other, Ross from Friends, a practical joke that sounded more fitting for some kind of fifth-wave emo band than it did the blissfully nostalgic tech-house act it actually stands for. And while I did love Family Portrait, I actually never listened to it in full in one single sitting. Patterns of Consciousness, on the other hand, immediately became my jam.

As I delved deeper and deeper into Barbieri's ever-looping, never-ending melody-making, I would actually find myself scouring for any and all available information on her work. Not much was available at the time, and I only accidentally stumbled upon her website that also included what I would later find out to be PoC's vinyl liner notes. Basically every melody Barbieri works with is a slow and constant accumulation/substitution of notes played by one monophonic synthesizer, dialed into a sequencer and slapped back and forth through a number of stereo delay lines to simulate counterpoint and even polyphony. The system by which the notes gather together and sort of gravitate into their respective position is, by the artist's own definition, "algorithmic", almost stochastic: eliminating possibilities until a powerful form coalesces and emerges out of nothing. Impossible to find a better soundtrack for my early university days, the 7am walks to Algebra class. And of course Information Needed to Create an Entire Body was exactly the sound I heard when learning how to count the subsets of k elements from a pool of n objects, or learning how to calculate the n-th number in the Bell succession. Little did I know that this record I'd naively stumbled upon would last longer in my memory than any of the classes I was attending at the time (this is regrettable, to an extent, but it also stands as a testament to just how much of an earworm Barbieri's work is).

I saw Caterina Barbieri play live three times, one of which together with Carlo Maria as Punctum (the sole vinyl pressing of Remote Sensing is to this day, speaking not just as a record collector but also as an estimator of that particular album, one of my "white whales": a gaping hole that might very well never be filled). It almost could have been four. I ran into Caterina Barbieri outside the train station of my city, about to catch the train to go back home; starstruck, I approached her, shook her hand. I knew she was going to play that night, and kind of in passing mentioned I would have loved to attend, but hadn't had any luck with the tickets. She was kind enough to offer to put me on a guestlist, which kind of took me aback: I wasn't even aware that that could have been a possibility, and I was so grateful she would offer that. I really did not know how to react to that. Unfortunately, the place she was going to play is pretty hard to get into, so nothing came of it, but even just the gesture was enough to actually make me stop and think. 2018 and 2019 weren't at all good years for me, but looking back it's these small, lacerating moments of kindness that stand out to me: signals that not everything was lost, that I could still become a better person and get better.

When Ecstatic Computation came out in May 2019, I had been religiously waiting for it to drop and the very moment I finally listened to it I knew we had an AOTY contender. It was literally everything I was hoping a sequel to Patterns to Consciousness to be, as someone who wasn't that into Born Again in the Voltage: heavily based on a comparable compositional method, yet somehow more human, more emotional, more ecstatic like the record itself says. I spent hours on end listening to the closing track, Bow of Perception, over and over again; the opener, Fantas, struck every chord it needed to; it was quite interesting and refreshing to hear Barbieri belt out ethereal vocals on Arrows of Time; However, the one that's stayed with me the most throughout all this is track 2: an otherwise unassuming, one-and-a-half-minute vignette striking like lightning with a sore violent melody in some sort of odd time signature (never really counted it out). Spine of Desire injects an inexplicable sense of danger into the entire record, and it never quite leaves, never afraid of its own nakedness, drenched in reverb it provokes the listener out of the analog warmth and into some edgier territories not too far removed from the more Oversteps-esque tracks on Remote Sensing.

Now I'll be completely honest with you all: I wasn't a fan of Spirit Exit when it came out, and I haven't exactly revisited it lately, but I did go to see Caterina Barbieri perform live at the RoBOt festival in October 2022 (on that same night, Ben Frost's show was plagued by performance-crashing issues to the main clock of all of his machines, and he still owned the night, shaking everything in his path right down to the bone). I had some fun, actually. I've met her and seen her so many times I'm convinced she must be terrified of me being some kind of stalker, which I clearly am not — I just like her live shows a lot, and if I had to be a bit of an asshole, they're usually on the cheap side, which makes it easier for me to go see them. At any rate, I went and grabbed a vinyl copy of the then-new album, which is still sitting unplayed on my shelf: not the nicest thing, but oh well. Now on the other hand, I knew what I was waiting for.

Last summer, Barbieri released a record called Myuthafoo, which she refers to as "Ecstatic Computation's sister album". The reason I was so hyped to hear it is that track 2, "Math of You", premiered (played along Pinnacles of You) in Virgil Abloh's Imaginary TV initiative. I was so fucking hyped to hear some new Barbieri tracks at the time — late 2020, I think — and when that track hit I was immediately sold. Spent a whole day reloading the page over and over again just so I could relisten to that new song: ice-fucking-cold. Like Ecstatic Computation, but from a parallel universe that's still in the middle of an ice age (Resident Advisor's review of the full album that featured it very cleverly says it's more or less like Ecstatic Computation, but replacing the human pulse with something more mechanical and computerized — I am paraphrasing, of course, to keep more in line with the tone of this piece and my writing in general). I was hooked. The opening synth swirl became its own track, Memory Leak, and it's as hard-hitting an opener as anything in Barbieri's catalog. Its strength? It is unbearably short. It should last much longer, and yet it doesn't. Cry about it.

Then what: all of a sudden, on June 4th, 2024, I am standing near the exit door of the train home after my last exam, and I'm listening to these two tracks that in my head have been practically synonymous with fucking discrete mathematics and combinatorics, in what feels like another life yet at the same time all too close for comfort. And I still derive enjoyment from it, and it's still the exact same enjoyment, which to me is the craziest part. Sometimes we find small elements of our past selves, refracted into tangential information, fragmented and forlorn and yet crystallized exactly as they appeared at the time. This entire post is essentially a counterpoint to the OPN one: it's probably not only surprise that I'm looking for. It's also something deeper than that and at the same time much simpler.

In the summer of 2019 I had just gotten my driver's license. I got two friends of mine onto my mother's car and we drove to Fano to see Caterina Barbieri play live in a former church which had lost its ceiling during some 1943 bombings. I was hoping she would play Bow of Perception, but I knew — looking at her other live shows available on YouTube — she wasn't playing that track, and would usually start off with Fantas, move almost to the end of the record, then do an old one (usually Scratches on the Readable Surface). Whatever, anyway, I was still hoping, driving on a highway for the first time in my entire life, trying to remember all of the different bells and whistles you need to consider when you're just starting out behind the wheel. As I was sitting on the grass, now freely growing on what once was the inner floor of the church, I remember watching the opening act (an admittedly very talented guy by the moniker "Aspect Ratio", you can find him here (link Bandcamp)) remove his equipment from the stage and Caterina Barbieri taking position behind her machines. The tension was palpable, for some reason. And then that first staccato line hit me. All of a sudden I knew it was going to turn out okay, as hard as it had been. Six years later, that same old feeling of catharsis runs me over again.

[1-800-amortentia]

Random James Potter headcanon

He loves the smell of his mums perfume so much, for christmas one year all he asked for was a bottle of her perfume to take to hogwarts just so he can smell it when he misses her.

He hates thunder/the dark and tends to crawl into Sirius’ bed during thunder storms.

If he’s home, he’ll crawl in bed with his parents and curl into a little ball by his mum, so she can rub his back to fall back asleep

His love language is definitely touch, weither it be high fives, hugs, cheek kisses, he’s a very affectionate person especially to his friends, significant others, and parents

He hates watching other people cry, so so much. He’ll start crying if you cry.

James really like clothes because he grew up watching his mum be the best dressed woman he knew. He adored watching her dress up, and has carried on that trait by wearing high end sweaters and trousers. He’s very proud of his closet. He also finds it very attractive when someone can dress bold and be confident in it.

Along with pride, he loves the color of his hair because it the same color as his mums

All around, he’s a huge mamas boy.

James will never admit to anyone the extent of his skincare routine. He double cleanses, and uses serums, and moisturizing creams and face oils and spf.

And DONT even get me started on his strategic HAIR CARE routine.

It takes him forever to get ready.

He’s a really light sleeper, and tends to get very restless and hot when he sleeps. He ignores it tho, and sleeps with a pile of blankets because he loves how soft they are.

James likes to read comic books and collects them. He has hundreds of them.

He’s extremely sentimental, and has a hat box full of random knickknacks.

He remembers every detail about every item though. If you asked where he got the acorn from, he’d tell you exactly why it had meaning.

Along with collecting things, he has a big vinyl collection. Like huge.

Hundreds of records line the shelves in his room at home.

He loves written letters. Specially, love letters. He thinks they’re romantic.

He also loves post cards from around the world.

He’s a big fan of the Beatles and Elvis Presley.

He’s secretly loves romance movies, specially Audrey Hepburn (even though he pretends I force him, he still happily watches Roman holiday, and breakfast at Tiffany’s with me)

He’s loves skirts and dresses on girls, his favorite are high waisted bell bottom jeans, though.

He’s has absolutely no preference on body type , skin color, height, hair color, or blood status. At all. If you’re confident and appealing to him, it truly does not matter what you look like. His one weakness though, is glasses.

James loves parties because he likes planning his outfits for them, and being around lots of people at once.

He’s such an Aries.

James is deeply afraid of being alone/dying alone.

He has nightmares about being alone.

James hates getting drunk around anyone else beside the marauders

If they’re not there, he doesn’t drink

He was nervous high when he smoked for the first time, then he got the munchies.

This boy is hungry all the time. All. The. Time.

He loves talking with anyone who will listen.

He’s also fascinated by tarot, and astrology (cutest thing ever)

He gets pissed at anyone who messes with his friends, and will happily put them back in their place with a little public humiliation.

He’s very popular but constantly gets scared no one likes him

He has a huge soft spot for his friends.

No one else sees it except the people very close to him.

He’s a pretty good baker. Cooking though......not so much.

He burnt water in a pot once.

He’s doesn’t like how he looks in his glasses, and tries to not use them, but ultimately fails and has to use them anyway.

“I look like bloody buddy holly”

[x0401x]

Jeweler Richard Fanbook Short Story #26

Feel free to message me about possible corrections, and please consider supporting the creators by purchasing digital copies of the official releases: Novel || Manga || Fanbook. In case anyone is feeling generous: Ko-fi | PayPal. ( ╹◡╹)っ’･*

← Previous || Index

Opera-phile

I had a hobby that I couldn’t tell anyone about. People like me were no rare breed.

Amongst the hobbies I had heard about from my friends until now, the one that made me think “this might be a bit hard to tell someone” the most was that keeping ice cream lids when they finished eating it. They said they would write down the date on each lid and store them in one of those clear files sold at 100-yen shops. They could only eat ice cream on special days when they were little, and they still couldn’t get over the habit of that time. The face of the person who had told me about this seemed simply satisfied in some way. Regardless, this may not have been something so difficult to say because it was revealed at a drinking party.

Now. Bringing the topic back to me.

If you were living alone in a foreign land called Sri Lanka, you could do whatever you wanted. I could get up at any time, eat whatever I felt like, study the things I enjoyed and go wherever I wanted with my Three-Wheeler. I didn’t have much, but the prices were cheap. My culinary repertoire was also noticeably increasing. Even if I danced alone in my room, no one would be watching. No, my dear dog ​​Jirou would stare at me with a bit of a strange look, but there were times when he’d eventually jump up and down and start dancing with me. Even if I listened to music at a loud volume, the same went for my neighbors.

Therefore, I was now thinking that maybe my stopper had come off a little.

I had bought the CD in Colombo, the real capital of Sri Lanka. As one would expect of the biggest shop in the country, they sold a lot of things that were unlikely to be available in Kandy.

The jacket featured a black-haired woman with a spellbound face, both of her arms outstretched. It was an opera CD with twelve songs.

I went back and forth in my room, shouting, “ah~, ah~”. What an opera was? No, I did know. It was traditional singing style – something like a musical, in which singers such as tenor, paritone, soprano and alto would perform along with a play. But something about them that diverged a bit from musicals was that the words used were old, the melodies weren’t excitable, and they were mainly either Italian or French, I believed.

I had no choice but admit it at this point. I liked opera.

Nakata Seigi had the words “I’m in love with opera” floating about in his head. I was driven by an urge to scream “gyaaah” and make said words disappear, but on the CD jacket, Maria Callas was making a spellbound face as usual, and that made me happy. I had purchased this CD after much hesitation over buying this or buying that. There was no way I wouldn’t be happy about it. Still...

Somewhere in my head, I recognized this as something embarrassing.

My dear boss was always telling me to think rationally at such times. He told me that whenever I thought my mind was moving in absurd ways, it always happened that there was some sort of timid development in me, which I either hadn’t noticed or, even if I did notice it, I’d ignore it – but once I understood it, it would stop being absurd.

Why would opera be embarrassing in the first place?

How I had come to like opera? The trigger was the radio. When I was staying at a hotel for a while back in Tokyo, I tended to feel down because I had nothing to do other than study, so I’d sometimes listen to the radio broadcast at the hotel while devoting myself to physics and English.

The singing voice I heard at that time was – how should I put it? – tremendously wonderful.

I couldn’t think that it was the voice of someone from the same world as myself. Someone was singing in a place just a few ways away, and as I listened to it, my body felt like my body was airily floating up – it was that kind of voice. I didn’t have any preferences for either male or female, and if anything, I liked both. The title of the song being streamed was written in the hotel’s guidebook, so I went to a video streaming site and searched for the same song by other singers and the songs that came before and after said piece. Faust. Madama Butterfly. Otello. Rigoletto. The Magic Flute. Don Giovanni. Whenever an opera song was used on a TV show, i became able to at least tell which prelude it was from.

And this passion hadn’t cooled down even now that some time had passed since then.

I walked around the room again, shouting, “Uuuh, uuuh”. Jirou energetically followed me from behind. It was almost as if he meant to say, “It’s fun to go a stroll even inside a room, huh, owner?”. Sorry but it’s not like I’m taking you on a walk, I thought, yet Jirou couldn’t care less, letting out a sweet voice as I held him up and rocked him, and then running off to the yard as if he had gotten excited. Just as I felt relieved, thinking about what a cute fella he was, I found myself imagining something. I could see myself at the drinking party, talking about how I liked opera. The reaction I pictured was an explosion of laughter.

“‘Opera’, you say. What’s up with that? It’s that thing where fat people raise their voices like crazy, right? You like that? Why? No way, Nakata, didn’t you just want to have a rich people hobby just ‘cause you’ve well-off these days? Like, those that feel like you’re superior. That’s exactly what opera is. Okay, I get it, but that ain’t very interesting, so how about we change the topic?”

It gave me chills.

I wasn’t creeped out by how people might talk about my hobbies. However, it was painful to have the whole genre of opera, which had saved me back when I was put in a spot like a light reaching out from the sky, be judged by people who didn’t even know the difference between Callas and Pavarotti and not be able to defend them. I had to protect what was important to me. Or else, it would get damaged. I wasn’t referring to the long-standing form of art that had been cultivated for hundreds of years. I meant my own heart. That was painful to me.

Yeah, I was somewhat aware that this wasn’t an “embarrassment”. But I was scared.

I was low-key terrified of having people pointing their fingers at me from behind with words such as “eccentric”, “weirdo” or “pretentious” for having a preference that was different from other people’s – and something that I seriously liked, no less.

With a deep breath, I took the CD’s vinyl cover. Unlike Japanese CDs, there was none of those convenient little ears that made the cover come off when you pulled it. I slowly cut it with a pair of scissors, set it on a nostalgic stereo radio and played it while referring to the table of track numbers on the backside.

Just from the intro, I already knew who was singing and what song it was.

Maria Callas’s “Casta Diva”. It was a song from an opera called “Norma”, and the meaning of it was “chaste goddess”.

What it made me reminisce to was a seriously horrible time, when I had to prepare for my death to a certain extent. Whenever this song played in the hotel’s radio program, which repeated itself over and over, this song would connect me with paradise, telling me that I didn’t need to worry about trivial matters, so I was able to leave it all aside and relax. It was that kind of song. Without a doubt, my biggest and best saver was that beautiful jeweler, but from the sidelines, opera had definitely helped me keep my sanity.

That was amazing.

I was grateful from the bottom of my heart that this form of art, which couldn’t be classified as mainstream at all in Japan and probably overseas as well, had maintained its thread of life across the centuries. It had saved me. Would the CD sales be of any help to it? Thankfully, I had some money to spend and was probably able to buy a set of all-track CDs per month. Would that be a form of repayment of any kind? It would be great if so, I thought wholeheartedly.

“Casta Diva” wasn’t too long a piece. With a voice that sounded like it was vanishing, the song ended. For whatever reason, it made me feel like crying, no matter how many times I had listened to it. It was too beautiful. It was an impossible speculation, but if Richard turned into a song, I felt that his form would change into something very close to this one.

Once I finished listening to the track, the “aaah”s and “uuuh”s had disappeared from my head. I liked opera. Opera turned into my strength. So I wanted to cherish it.

Even if someone ridiculed me for it, the problem was with the person, not with me or with opera. And my precious, beautiful shopkeeper had stated that “no discriminating other people based on their preferences” was one of the main principles of Etranger. What was I going to do by discriminating myself?

I was going to keep buying opera CDs from now on too, I swore proudly to my heart, yet secretly decided not to write about it in my blog or talk to Richard about it. Not because it was embarrassing. But rather because I had the gut feeling that I couldn’t predict what would happen in the end if I told him.

On that day, I was busy with preparations for cooking. First Saul-san, and then Richard would come to Kandy to hear the reports about the progress of my studies. It was also like a test. But I hadn’t studied half-assedly enough to chicken out at that. Above all, thanks to the negotiations in Ratnapura, I was conscious that my eyes were well-trained, if I could say so myself.

If it didn’t go well even with this, that was fine. I was happy to find new challenges. Lots of things became easier once I started feeling that studying was fun.

And since they were coming over, they wouldn’t get angry if I prepared a bit of a feast. More than anything, being able to cook a few people’s share in this house had me overjoyed. After all, I was basically living alone, so just how many times had I found delicious-looking and cheap food but had to tearfully give up because I wasn’t sure if I could eat it all by myself?

Being surrounded by things that made you happy was extremely good for the heart.

Deciding to go for an additional blow, I set the CD in the radio. A long aria began at the end of the first opus of all songs. It was a French opera called “La Fille du Régiment”, and being fond of this one had greatly helped me when I was studying French.

The man who started to sing that he was going to marry the army was a world-renowned tenor.

In the beginning, the man sang that he was going to do meritorious deeds in the army, cheered on by his companions. Since I had been listening to the words ever since back when I could only hear them as katakana spelling, my mouth moved without any reference. Of course, my voice didn’t sound like that of a tenor, but it had the same gist as somehow trying to sing in the range of a singer from some music show. Just that was fun enough.

A fish pie was baking in the oven. There were three types of curry in the smaller pots. My Nakata-style sliced veggies pickled in soy sauce, which were a mixture of chopped coconut sambal and dried fruits, were lined up on a cutting board, and the fresh fruits that I planned to make into mixed juice were all completely ready. The only thing I had left to do was preparing watalappan for dessert. It had to chill in the fridge for a while, so it was necessary to make it in advance. However, since it was my third time making it, I had the procedure memorized. No worries.

The tenor raised his voice amidst joy. The man who sang, “Ah, I’m going, I’m going to marry the army” didn’t like the army in particular, he was just in love with the abandoned girl that all the men from the regiment he was enlisted in were raising together.

The key switched to waltz. The true value of the tenor would ensue from that point onward.

The oven beeped, indicating that the pie had finished baking. With light steps, put on my gloves, took out the whole iron plate with the pie on it and gently slid it into a white porcelain plate.

A series of splendid high Cs. This referred to when the tenor raised their voice a great deal. If the composer was wonderful in reproducing the feelings of happiness into the music so keenly, then so was the singer who sang them so faithfully, I believed. The feeling of excitement turned into the melody just the way it was.

I arranged the dishes on the table and peeled the fruits. The high Cs continued one after another. I opened a can of coconut milk and mixed the contents with nut paste. The song was approaching the end. “What a fate, what a fate,” he sang, sounding merry. The highest note was near.

The song was coming to a close while celebrating happiness with the highest note. The feelings of the singer weren’t recorded in the CD, but I could hear them as comfortably as could be.

It wasn’t nearly high enough, but I sang along at a fairly loud volume.

At the same time as the song finished with a flashy grace note, I lightly kicked the open lid of the oven. It closed up neatly. With this, everything was all set. I was going to put away the CD set before the guests arrived.

Or so I had planned.

After the peak of my excitement, I noticed that someone was standing outside the window. He hadn’t come in from the front door. Hence the chime didn’t ring.

“Bravo, bravissimo.” A beautiful man wearing a white shirt and sunglasses, said glasses charmingly pushed up above his forehead, was smiling while applauding at my stiffened self.

The test was terrible that day. I didn’t think there was any issue with the contents of my answers. However, since I was stuttering so much, Saul, my mentor who was so picky about manner of speech as well as the contents of it, pointed out that I should “act more dignified”. I knew that better than anyone. There was too much noise interference in my head with things such as, “Why did I put opera on in such high spirits? What did he think of me now? As I thought, does he think that this hobby doesn’t suit me? No, that’s definitely impossible when it comes to my teacher, so I have to take control of my self-consciousness”.

And so, this is a story that happened more than half a year after that. Something that took place in Sri Lanka in May.

“Eh?”

“Happy birthday, Seigi. Here is a little present.”

“A bank deposit transfer certificate?”

“Good job reading it. That is from the USA.”

“USA...”

“There was a seat that you would probably like, so I purchased a year’s worth of it.”

“A year”? This wasn’t potato chips or cup noodles. What kind of seat was that? Was there a truck coming to deliver it? While thinking about such things, I continued reading the A4 paper, and when I got to half of it, I roared loudly. I let out a voice that sounded like a crushed frog, I believed.

The seat that Richard had given me was indeed a seat. But at a music theatre in America, which was likely the world’s most famous. It was a one-year membership card.

This was proof that “a seat will be reserved for you”. A seat just for me, for any performance, that I could use whenever I went there.

I felt lightheaded. Just how much had this “seat” cost him? What was he trying to do by giving something like this to someone who sat in swivel chairs sold at mass retailers? I did have such rational retorts in my head, but above that, I was so, so happy that I started jumping up and down. I could go to a theatre that I only knew about from CDs. Anytime, as long as I had the plane tickets. No matter who was singing.

“Can I really have this?!”

“Do you think I’m some sort of boorish lad who’d take back the treasure after making the other person happy?”

“No way! Uoooh, I’m too excited; that’s bad!”

“You are reacting like a dog again...”

“I’m gonna run in the yard for a bit!”

As I, with a messy katakana pronunciation, sang to myself the chorus part of the aria that had just finished while rolling around in the yard, Jirou ran over and mounted on me without restraint. “Owner, we’re going to play here, right? We’re going to play here, right? Come, let’s play,” he seemed to say, energetically wagging his tail. I was so happy that I hugged him and rolled about, but then I could see Richard laughing. The yard was on a slightly lower level than the house, so the house was wholly visible, so I didn’t think I was mistaken. He really was making a happy-looking face. This might have been my first time seeing that man laugh with such a child-like expression.

At that moment, something suddenly came to mind.

When Richard told me for the first time that he “likes pudding”, did he also think for a bit that it was embarrassing or wonder about what I was going to say? This man had thorough knowledge about the so-called “society”. There was no way that he hadn’t considered the possibility.

But he had told me about it.

Did I not say anything weird to him back then? “A man, liking pudding?” or “Why would a foreigner like a Japanese dessert?” It gave me the creeps. Back then, I didn’t have as much care as now regarding how to handle such circumstances. I just had words jumping out of my mouth like knives. This still applies even now, but I wanted to think it had gotten better, even if just a little.

Had I not said anything to him? Had I not hurt him? I didn’t have any way to confirm that now. If I apologized without knowing what I had said, it wouldn’t be a sincere apology.

But right now, Richard was looking at my happy self and smiling.

So I decided to stop thinking about these things. And from now on too, I would keep making heaps upon heaps of the things he liked.

I had to protect what was important to me by myself. But if I happened to notice something that mattered to someone who was dear to me, I wanted to cherish it too. I had no other choice.

After stroking Jirou, I went back to where Richard was and bowed to him again. He reciprocated the bow with a “you are welcome” and seemed about to start laughing again.

“That’s right, I was gonna make pudding. Wait just a bit more.”

“Is there anything I can help with?”

“You already got me a seat at the MET; I can’t go along with that flattery even as a joke. I’d be happy if you played with Jirou, though.”

“Then, I will take you up on those words.”

Rubbing my chest in relief, I went back to my room, patting my whole body to remove the dirt and dog hairs, and after washing my hands with soap, I returned to the kitchen.

By the looks of it, I was going to be able to listen to an opera in person one of these days – at least within a year’s time. Once I watched it live, all the curtains would close, right? For real? Was such a thing possible? Apparently yes. Hard to believe but it was true.

That man who was like an incarnation of the worldwide definition of “beauty”, and above that, who was a genius at pleasing me, was fooling around with my hybrid brown dog in the yard, illuminated by tropical sunshine. It seemed that the preparations for our feast would still take a while.

“What a wonderful day,” I hummed tentatively in French. A gorgeous tenor voice wouldn’t come out of my throat, but the things I liked would firmly support my heart nevertheless. Almost like a backbone for it. And there was someone supporting this backbone. Honestly, what a wonderful day. For now, I’d be making pudding. And share at least a little bit of this feeling.

[daredevile]

You Promised [1/2]

Summary: The newest addition to the Avengers causes Bucky to question his entire past to find their connection.

Warnings: Angst with a dash of fluff

A/N: This is my entry for @the-canary‘s lyrical mini challenge. Prompt: I apologized for the fifth time. I think you’re sick of hearing it now. I get the feeling this is gonna be the last time. I had a lot of fun writing this, hope you enjoy!

The early hours were something Bucky cherished dearly. Watching golden streaks appear in the sky calmed his distressed mind to a great extent. Hence, he was not particularly happy when a conversation between a certain blond and a certain bird-man interrupted him from his blissful state. Normally, he would have eavesdropped on them, however, he would never dare taint the mornings with their words. Despite not paying attention to their conversation, Bucky perked up at two words: new recruit. It’s not every day strange enhanced individuals join the Avengers. 

Annoyed at the two men for ruining his peaceful morning, Bucky turned around to face them. Baby blues made eye contact with yours. Although his reaction was subtle, Steve didn’t miss the tiny movement of Bucky’s eyebrows. Bucky squared his shoulders and shot a warm smile—one that would have floored you. In the past. 

“I’m Bucky,” He extended his hand, carefully observing your mannerisms. Bucky wasn’t one to be awfully welcome, but something about you sparked a tinge of familiarity. Steve eyed the interaction warily, silently groaning at the soldier’s casual attitude. 

You didn’t move an inch. Ignoring every single fibre in your body to slap the soft expression off his face, you clenched your fists. A flash of hurt washed across his features, confused at your unwavering form. He locked eyes with Steve, hoping to receive some sort of explanation. 

“Did I do something wrong?” Bucky stepped back, eager to run away from the situation, “I...I’m sorry, if I did something wrong, sorry,” He felt his chest constrict and heart race under your gaze. Why was he feeling all of this?

Guilt.

Guilt was coursing through his veins, yet he didn’t know it. But you did. For you had felt the same, years and years ago. Even though watching him face the consequences was mildly satisfying, a part of you couldn’t see him suffer—not after all the horrors he had been through. 

“You promised,” Two words left your lips, infecting his mind as he watched you bolt out the room.

The 1940s, according to Bucky, was also known as the decade of destruction. Faint cries of weeping wives could be heard as their husbands departed their homes to fight for their nation. Bucky was no different. The day he had received the letter, he knew his days were numbered. Sparing no time, he called you and Steve for one last reunion before he left for England.

“I want to spend this night with the people I love,” Bucky stated, sandwiching you in between Steve and himself. His arms wrapped around the both of you; a moment he vowed to treasure forever.

“Bucky!” A feminine voice called out, the brunette spun so fast his hat nearly flew off. A bright smile settled on his face as he watched the slight bounce of her dark curls. He circled his arms around her with a chuckle, capturing her pink lips with his own. 

“It’s actually Sergeant James Barnes, sweetheart,” Bucky grinned, his hat tipping forward, “I’m gonna miss you, Dot,” He sighed, eyes sparkling while he pulled her impossibly close to his broad frame. 

That was how the night went. The overbearing sweetness radiating off him as he didn’t take his eyes off his girl. Dot had pulled him through the crowd at the expo. Bucky feigned annoyance, but the truth is, he would have followed her anywhere. 

He raced back to Steve and you, letting you both know he’ll be occupied for the rest of the night. Bucky ruffled Steve’s hair, chuckling at his friend’s resistance. “Don’t do anything stupid until I get back,” He said, winking at you.

“How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you,” Steve replied, yielding to Bucky’s hug. You watched the two exchange their farewells, it was a big moment since they were practically attached to each other from childhood.

Bucky turned to you, seeing the tears forming in your eyes, his own baby blues started glistening. He had always had a soft spot for you, especially your caring self tending to his bruises after he had saved Steve from many fights. You were always there for him. Through times where he was completely wasted to the times where he had even tried charming you. That’s why saying goodbye to you was even harder.

“You better come back, I’m gonna kill you if you don’t,” You whispered into his shoulder, your tears staining his uniform, “Promise me you’ll come back,” Bucky nuzzled his head further into your shoulder, tightening his grip around your waist. 

“Darlin’ I would never leave you,” Bucky lifted his head to wipe your tears, his heart plummeting at your expression, “I promise,” Before Bucky could continue, two warm hands pulled him away. He mouths a “sorry” but you don’t catch it.

Bucky spent the rest of the night gazing at new technology, mindlessly following Dot’s footsteps and subduing the pain in his chest by drowning himself in alcohol.

Bucky didn’t understand why you had such an impact on him—he didn’t even know you. Nonetheless, he was determined to find out, despite receiving nothing less than a disappointed look from Steve. He made his way to your room, a sense of anxiety spread throughout his body as he lifted his hand to knock. He listened for your footsteps, but he was met with pure silence except for his own heart hammering against his chest. 

Deciding to go with his instinct, Bucky entered the dark room. To his unfortunate surprise, you were not there. Just as he spun on his heel, his focus shifted to a black leather-bound book lying under the bed. He knew it would be wrong to go through it, but curiosity got the best of him. He flicked through the worn out pages, eyes flitting over your words. Not liking the feeling of guilt simmering in his mind, he returned the book to its original place, but not before noticing a photograph stashed in the back. 

That photograph triggered his mind, letting him relieve his 16th birthday. He remembered how much he used to cherish it, for you had given him the best present he could have ever asked for: a kiss on his cheek, and of course a limited edition vinyl of his favourite artist. Bucky smiled, reminiscing any remaining memories of his past. The photograph had captured the exact moment you had pressed your lips against his cheek, both your faces exuding happiness. The simple adoration displayed on your face made his heart clench.

A quiet cough resonated through the spacious room, pulling him out of the black hole of his thoughts. His eyes met yours in guilt, as you noticed the book in his hand. 

“I’m sorry,” Bucky spoke softly, unsure of your reaction. Truth be told, he didn’t know why he apologised. However, he rationalised that, knowing his past, he would have done something wrong to upset you.

“Why?” You replied, eager for him to continue.

[ Part 2 ]

[tonysopranosfeverdreams]

31. “Can I kiss you?”thank u @hyruling 💖

“Mac,” he starts, slowly, like explaining something very complicated to a very small child“it’s the middle of August. It’s going to be warm. It’s North Dakota, not the North Pole. There is literally no reason for me to bring a jacket.”

***

Dennis exhales heavily  as he feels the muscles in his back relax slightly underneath the heavy stream of hot water. He had been on edge for the better part of the day, having woken up at barely 5 in the morning, short of breath and only half-remembering his dream. He thinks he had been playing with Brian Jr. in a park that Dennis vaguely remembers from his own childhood, from countless afternoons spent with Dee on a pair of rusty swings during the summer days that their mother would sleep away with a bottle of gin (or wine, or Valium, depending on the particular day) on her pristine designer couch, leaving the twins to find their own sources of entertainment.

In the dream, Dennis remembers hearing Brian’s  delighted laughter, chasing him around the perimeter of the bright red slide that used to be Dennis’s favorite, remembers the sun glaring down so painfully bright that Dennis could barely see, the scene sun-bleached and searing in front of his eyes. Remembers turning the corner where he expected to find Brian, only to find his son was nowhere to be seen.

After trying in vain to fall back asleep for at least another hour, Dennis had  resigned himself to consciousness, opening his eyes to see the curve of Mac’s slightly curved back, inches away from where Dennis himself was resting. Bathed in the gray morning light, Dennis thought he could make out dozens of patterns in the smattering of freckles that covered his strong back and shoulders. He had wondered, absently, why anyone considered them imperfections, even as he remembered always covering his own with a generous layer of foundation, whenever a stray freckle dared to make an appearance after he accidentally spent too long in the sun without his sunscreen.

 Looking down at his soft, wrinkled fingertips, Dennis sighs and steps out of the shower, using a towel to dry off before stepping into a soft pair of sweatpants and  a worn shirt from some High School Baseball team (it must have been Mac’s, he realizes), before emerging into his bedroom.

He is greeted by the sight of Mac, hunched over the bed, fussing with the contents of Dennis’s navy vinyl duffle bag. He raises an eyebrow.

“Dude,” Dennis deadpans “what am I looking at here? Is this, like, some weird panty raid situation? If you were looking for some action, all you had to do was ask.” He ended the sentence with a playful smirk, the corner of his mouth twitching upward.

Mac snorts, looking up at Dennis and grinning at him brightly for just a moment before quickly turning his attention back to the somewhat overstuffed suitcase, already filled with Dennis’s somewhat extensive collection of skincare products, along with all the other essentials  for a couple of weeks out of town. Normally, Mac would tease Dennis by saying that he needed at least three suitcases of his own just to hold his beauty regimen. Dennis, however, knew how Mac liked to watch him sometimes, when they were in the bathroom brushing their teeth for bed  or getting ready for the day, how his eyes would linger over Dennis’s reflection in the mirror as he lightly spread his night moisturizer over his face. Once, when Dennis had gotten really drunk at the bar, but refused to go to bed without finishing his skin care routine,  Mac had actually done it for him, sitting Dennis on the edge of the bathtub as he used the pad of one finger to softly, softly, dab his eye cream under his eyes. He couldn’t remember ever seeing Mac so concentrated, so still.

“In your dreams. Nah, man, it’s just I noticed that you didn’t pack a jacket yet, so I wanted to make sure you had one. I know you get like, cold, sometimes. So. You know.” Mac shrugged easily,  like it was the most natural thing in the world, although Dennis could see a patch of red coloring the tops of his ears. Mac cleared his throat and took out one of Dennis’s plaid button-downs, refolding it somewhat uselessly, before placing it back in the bag. Dennis furrows his brow.

“Mac,” he starts, slowly, like explaining something very complicated to a very small child“it’s the middle of August. It’s going to be warm. It’s North Dakota, not the North Pole. There is literally no reason for me to bring a jacket.”

“ You never know, dude,” Mac plows forward, stubbornly, placing his hands on his hips  as he fixes Dennis with  his most serious look. “I’ve been looking up a lot of weather forecasts for you and it’s like fucking russian roulette. One day it’s sunny, the next it’s snowing. I swear to God man, it’s like they don’t understand seasons out there or something. It’s fucked up.” He pats the neatly jacket lying at the top of the suitcase for emphasis.

Only then does Dennis realize Mac had packed one of his own leather jackets for him, which, although it does somewhat clash with Dennis’s own more elegant, refined fashion sensibilities, is bound to still have the scent of Mac’s cheap body wash and cologne lingering in the lining, and Dennis suddenly doesn’t feel so keen to press Mac further on the subject. Dennis raises his arms in mock surrender.

“Besides,” Mac continues, somehow managing to flatten out Dennis’s belongings enough to pull the zipper shut and flop himself down on the edge of the bed “you’re going to be out there for three weeks, so it’ll most likely be getting colder as time goes on. You’ll thank me later.”

Dennis sighs, sitting next to Mac at the edge of the bed. He didn’t appreciate the reminder of exactly how long he was going to be away. He knew, objectively, three weeks wasn’t a long time, and he had been the one to accept the invitation when Mandy had mentioned the possibility of  him maybe coming up for a few weeks to spend some time with Brian before he started preschool. Brian was his son, and he was charming, funny, and pretty fucking intelligent for a creature that who still wasn’t capable of putting his own shirt on right-side out. And Brian was kind. Even after it had gotten bad, and Dennis locked himself in his room all day, even after he had skipped every therapy appointment for the past three months, and come home at 4 in the morning reeking of alcohol and self-loathing, Brian, for some reason, still wanted to be near him. Brian  was probably one of the only people in the world who, no matter what kind of mood he was in, no matter what new extravagant way he managed to fuck up, still looked at him like he was one of his very favorite people in the world, like he knew that Dennis had something good inside of him still, even when Dennis couldn’t see it. He was the only person who had ever looked at him like that, except for-

“Hey,” Mac mutters, snapping Dennis out of his thoughts. He runs his fingers softly through Dennis’s hair, just pushing it back, before  lightly tapping the side of his brow with two fingers . “Everything okay in there?”

It’s hard for Dennis to put it into words. For the past few months, ever since he and Mac had crossed this unnameable, unmistakable line that they’d been hurtling toward for the past 25 years, Dennis has had a hard time articulating exactly what it is that he is thinking or feeling. The strangest part was how natural, how inevitable it all felt, waking up with some part of Mac’s body touching his, an arm flung over his torso, or his shoulder pressed against his chest;  Mac’s hand wrapping around his during their Lethal Weapon rewatches, thumb running soothingly over his knuckles. They don’t talk about it, and it’s not something they flaunt in public, simultaneously too different and too familiar for them to define, although Dennis suspects the rest of the gang must have picked up on it to some extent- must know them both too well not to have done. It would be easier to explain, comprehend, maybe if it had been more difficult, had come less easily to him.

That year he had been away, he had missed so much.

It’s hard for Dennis to put into words. So he lowers his forehead, resting it on Mac’s shoulder. For a few minutes they sit there in silence, Mac soothingly stroking through the hair at the back Dennis’s neck. Finally, Dennis lifts his head, stifling a yawn with the back of his hand. He’s hit with the sudden reality that the night is about to end, that this is the last time he’s going to get to be alone with Mac for weeks.

“Wanna watch a movie?” he asks, groggily.

Mac glances at the clock on his bedside table, which reads half past midnight. Late, too late for a movie, really, considering Dennis needs to be at the airport by 7 AM for Dennis to catch his flight. Mac looks back at Dennis, studying his face for a moment, considering.

“Sure.” He stands up, offering Dennis his hand and leading him to the living room where he pops in one of their DVDs, some generic 90s action flick. Dennis doesn’t mind. Dennis falls asleep, faced tucked against Mac’s shoulder, during the opening fight sequence.

***

Dennis jolts awake, heart fluttering and bile rising in his throat, remnants of the same dream from the night before floating around his mind; Brian’s laughter, the bright bright light, the incomparable panic, realizing he had vanished. On the other side of the bed, Mac sleeps soundly, his chest rising and falling in a peaceful rhythm. Not trusting himself to lie still, Dennis pads out of bed to the kitchen, where the  oven clock informs him it’s just turned 3. Only  a couple more hours until he has to be awake.

Dennis pours himself a glass of water, and gulps it down, paces as he regulates his breathing, trying to remind himself how to inhale and exhale in a normal fashion.

“Dennis?” a soft, groggy voice calls him from the bedroom doorway, where he sees Mac. Confused, sleep-ruffled, Mac, features softened somewhat from the moonlight pouring in through the bedroom window.

Dennis is still, waits for Mac  to walk over to him, wrap one gentle hand around his wrist.

“Okay,” Mac says.

Mac walks him back to the bedroom, pulling back the covers on Dennis’s side and waiting for him to crawl underneath before he climbs in beside him, folding one arm carefully around Dennis’s waist.

“Mac,” Dennis whispers, an edge of panic creeping into his voice. The arm around his waist tightens.

“Go to sleep, sweetheart.”

Eventually, he does.

***

This time, Dennis wakes to an alarm blaring, and to the smell of freshly brewed coffee wafting in from the kitchen. The other side of the bed is unusually empty, for a change (Mac would always swear to anyone who asked that if God had intended for man to be up before 10 am, he wouldn’t have made it so fucking miserable). He dresses quickly, and emerges to find Mac sitting across from a cup of coffee, presumably for Dennis, while yawning into his own. Mac had apparently snuck out early to  pick up blueberry muffins from the bakery down the street, and Dennis picked at it on their way to the airport, mostly to appease Mac, who was insisting that the only way to fight motion sickness was to fly on a full stomach, something about an article he had read somewhere. He kept one hand on the wheel, resting his others on top of Dennis’s where it lay on his knee.

They end up making it to the airport just in time for Dennis’s flight to board, which was quite honestly a miracle considering the amount of time that Mac had spent fretting over whether Dennis had forgotten anything in his suitcase, almost insisting they stop at a pharmacy to buy Dennis a travel toothpaste before Dennis managed to convince him that Mandy was, in fact, a human person, who almost certainly had toothpaste he could borrow at her place until he managed to get out and get his own.

Their hands stay linked on the long walk to the main entrance,  where Dennis instinctively drops Mac’s, noticing the small frown  cross his face, unable to quelch the slight pang of regret he feels at the sight. Dennis has never understood the rules, with this type of thing. Dennis has never had anything like this. Maybe someday, he will be better at it.

They make their way to the security checkpoint nearest to Dennis’s gate with relative ease, the airport filled mostly with business people in crisp suits, and families heading south to their beach houses for their last trip of the summer, desperate to savor the last few weeks of freedom before they return to the dull drone of their daily lives.

“All right, well, this is it,” Dennis coughs, lightly, the two of them standing there, facing each other, seemingly at a loss for words. “Thanks, man, for like. Driving me in and stuff. I’ll text you when I get in?”

Mac’s wringing his hands, and he’s got this look on his face as he gazes back at him, like he’s taking in as much of Dennis as humanly possible in case he doesn’t get another chance. It makes something in Dennis’s chest ache. He has to look away.

“Yeah, dude.” Mac chokes a little on his words, “Of course. Any time.” He tries to play it off as casual, but  his eyes are unmistakably sincere.

“Anyway, I’ll be seeing you soon? Don’t you guys get too used to life without me again.” Dennis grins, very slightly, seeing something in Mac’s posture change, soften, with the joke. Mac gives a small, startled, genuine laugh. Dennis would make Mac laugh like that everyday, if he could.

“Never, man.” He promises, joking at first, but tone turning surprisingly serious when he adds “Not even if we tried.”

Dennis nods, wiping his nose with the back of his hand as he turns to enter the checkpoint, only making it a few steps before he pauses for just a moment. He  turns back around, somewhat wildly, making his way back to a very confused Mac, who’s currently looking at him like he’s lost his goddamn mind.

“Dennis, you’re going to miss your flight! What the-”

“Can I kiss you?” Dennis blurts out, interrupting him, before continuing, deliriously, like he can’t help himself, can’t keep the words from rushing out. “I really want to kiss you right now. Can I?”

In the span of approximately 3 seconds, Dennis swears he  watches Mac’s face go through an abbreviated version of every phase of medical shock, and just when Dennis is about to slink away with his tail between his legs, and quite possibly begin a new life as a recluse in the woods where no one will ever be able to contact him again, he sees Mac’s expression change into something so reverent, so happy it’s like he’s looking at one of the 7 wonders of the goddamn world, and Dennis thinks it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

Wordlessly, Mac nods, and the kiss is a quick, intense, thing, with Dennis clutching at Mac’s back like he’s the last thing anchoring him to this planet or else he’ll drift away.

Dennis boards the flight already dreaming about coming back home.

[antonioburke]

Shame

Shame has been on my mind a lot, lately. Where does it come from? Is it inherited or developed? Inferiority and shame seem to go hand in hand as they are both brought on by our projection of ourselves compared to others. For me there is a big difference between the two, however. Inferiority encompasses a belief we are inherently lesser than others while shame is what we feel when we're dealt a bad hand. The ashamed are able to conclude that their circumstances are not the result of their own actions and thus resent those with the Full House or Royal Flush. Inferiority may have plagued me at select times in the past but I’ve felt shame practically all of my life.  

I suppose this negative thinking combined with my selective muteness from the age of 5 until my early twenties are common symptoms of a traumatic childhood. It's understandable that a child constantly in the presence of danger would learn to avoid it by avoiding people.  

My most traumatic memory is of my brother, sister, and I hiding in the closet of our room while my mother was being beaten by her boyfriend Calvin. This was practically a normal event in our household; men and women came before and did the same thing.  

Kerline was a big, black Haitian-American lesbian my mom became romantically involved with. She lived with us for a few years with her son Randy. Kerline could be fairly jovial and quite interesting. She would listen to Bob Marley vinyl records every Sunday morning and take us to San Francisco to buy mangoes from street vendors. She made us celebrate Kwanzaa and wore Nefertiti earrings.  Despite what one may think she was apparently pretty Catholic. Attending Mass and Sunday school at St. Joseph's was a regular event and reading the picture bible every night was mandatory. Underneath the eclectic and free-spirited demeanor there was a sadism she could only satisfy by striking my mother or her son. Kerline also had the peculiar hobby of lining up the male children every school night before “Mommy Monique” arrived home and whipping us with a belt as we bent down bare-bottomed. Every night on clockwork for no reason or occasion. To a certain extent, her discipline had benefits.  Neither my siblings or I (or Randy) ever talked back at home or in class. The “study hall” Kerline presided over at our kitchen table on the weekends and in the summers did translate to success in the classroom. There were drawbacks; I was kicked out of Orchestra because I could not stop making flinching motions as if someone were about to hit me whenever the instructor called my name. Still, Kerline's most important contribution came on those violent nights when she would condition us for the years to come.

We were all born and raised on Berkeley's "black” South side but were living in a public housing condominium on the quaint North side. I can only imagine what the medium-income level of our neighborhood was but trust that the inhabitants of our complex were the only black, brown, or poor residents in the immediate area. Maybe it's the city's liberal brainwashing or the fact that the local school bussed in children of color from all corners of the city, but I never noticed that the only other black kids in our area were the Cokes brothers from our housing project or questioned how my mom could afford to live on this side of town working part-time in a department store.  

This afternoon with Calvin the usual soundtrack of my mother's whimpering and sobbing has been replaced with screams and begging interjected with his threats to "snap her neck". I'm not sure if you've ever had the opportunity to hear a woman being battered in person but there is almost a certain rhythm that eavesdroppers become very accustomed to. First there's the arguing. At this point there may be some back and forth that keeps up the facade that the woman still has control of her body or fate. There's increasingly loud discussion about whatever today's conflict may be as the male becomes noticeably more irritated and begins to drown out the conversation. The irritation begins to manifest in physical ways; he may break a vase or punch a wall. Now that the facade is over the pleading begins, her voice will go from appeasing to panicky to desperate until it finally settles on a simple cry as she realizes there's nothing she can do. Now there's only one item to take care of before the actual act begins and it's an important one. The music. Or more precisely, the radio. Screams, wails, and feet stomping are understandably alarming and noise mitigation measures must be taken for the sake of the neighbors. Usually this is less of a cover-up than a simple act of courtesy. Anybody that's lived in a thin-walled apartment complex that’s not in the greatest part of town knows what it means when the neighbor with the girlfriend that lives down the hall has talk radio blasting full volume at 3:00 in the morning even though he never listens to talk radio. This is a nuisance but less disturbing than what they know is underneath.

I don't remember what Calvin turned on this day, KQED, The Quiet Storm, Wild 107; the score is set and it’s time to begin. The sound of a hand slapping a face and a body dropping to the floor. Screams muffled by a hand covering a face turn into muffled moans as the blows keep pouring down. Of course, there's still the occasional talking. Calvin asks why she made him do this. She whispers gargled apologies that are coded pleas to spare her life. The lulls are the worst moments. The parts where all of the sounds cease and we’re in the closet wondering if Calvin made good on his promise to snap our mother's neck. What should we do? Would we have heard it, if he did? Would it make a sound? Knowing we should not stick around to find out, my siblings and I exit the house.  

We were standing on the sidewalk for a short while when our mother emerged screaming for help with Calvin chasing her down the porch. He catches up, grabs on to her, then proceeds to slap her in the face while pulling her hair and muttering curses. Her sundress begins to tear and her breasts become completely exposed as he beats her in the street during a sunny Sunday afternoon in North Berkeley. Our fellow public housing beneficiaries, the "indigenous" neighbors whose tax dollars fund our dwellings, the patrons across the street at Fat Apple Bakery; everyone is witness as two white neighbors rush in and attempt to pull Calvin off.  My mother is in the middle of Rose Street half bare when a lady in a minivan pulls up and summons us to get in.

The four of us are crammed into the backseat of the Good Samaritan's car as she drives us to the police station downtown. She is a white lady with short-black hair that is very Courtney Cox mid-1990s, looks to be in her 40s. It would be hard to describe her after all of these years, all I can say is that she is very Berkeley. That may not mean anything to you unless you grew up in the Bay Area but it is an excellent adjective. I could see her operating one of the tie-dye stations along Telegraph Avenue on the weekends or volunteering at the Edible Garden at Martin Luther King Middle School. The good-natured, bleeding-heart-liberal with a sense of civic responsibility that is so typical of Berkeley. The people I would come to loathe and love simultaneously as the years go by, though that is a story for another day.

I hadn't quite noticed her through all the earlier commotion, but the lady asks her daughter in the passenger seat to hand my mother a white t-shirt and my siblings and I some snacks. She does this and introduces herself with pleasant greetings. She is around my age with dirty blonde hair and seems very precocious (again, very Berkeley) and talkative. Really talkative. One of the first things I notice is how she has no hesitation at all speaking so freely to my mother, an adult. Sure, she was polite. Sure, we probably had an unnatural fear of adults and strangers at this point and understandably so all things considered. Children should be seen and not heard. It seems old-fashioned but this is basically how our family unit operated anytime we were around adults we did not know well. Do not talk out of turn. Do not ask any questions. Do not ask for or accept anything, especially food. We could all be stuck in the forest for three days without food or water only to come upon  a cabin occupied by friendly strangers in the midst of preparations for a gigantic feast. Even touching a utensil or breadstick may earn you a merciless pinch on the cheek later. I couldn't help but wonder if she would have felt that comfortable had my mom not been half naked and bruised in her backseat.

I can recall exchanging maybe a few words with her. We live only a few blocks away from my school but I do not recognize her. The daughter seems genuine as she darts questions to the backseat about school and hobbies and absurdly seems to have memorized our names by now. As the ride goes on, I start to notice the relatively dirty and tacky clothing my brother, sister, and I rushed out of the house wearing. My mother sits in the middle of the backseat with the oversized white t-shirt and her hair pointing in all directions, undoubtedly with small patches missing at this point.

I don’t think anybody at school has ever been as nice to me as this dirty-blond haired girl is being right now. Maybe she is just overly friendly?

This is one of the first moments I can recall feeling shame. I knew then we were being pitied. This girl, she may be my age. She may even go to my school. She is not my peer. I would never be able to look her in the eyes again without recalling this moment and this day. I was dealt a bad hand.

[onenightandgone]

Mind’s Eye - Chapter Seven

Chapter Six Mutant!AU KaixReaderxSehun

A gentle voice was calling your name. You blinked slowly, your empty stomach turning uselessly in fear.  

'Did you have a good rest?'  

Your eyes finally focused in relief to see that it wasn't Rebecca or Dr. Kratz, but a younger staff member.  

‘Is it really rest if you have no choice?’ you muttered, sitting up in your bed slowly.  

‘We have a couple of tests for you this afternoon,’ the attendant ignored you. ‘Some routine medical imaging, some not-so-routine. You won't need this anymore either way.'  

She switched off the IV pump and gently removed the long needle from your arm. Next, she lowered the metal sidebar of your bed and spread open a wheelchair that she must have brought in with her.  

'Let's go,' she said. 'They'll be waiting for us.'  

You moved to the edge of the bed and let your legs dangle off the side. Your toes touched the cold vinyl precariously, your paper-thin gown bunched around your thighs. You wobbled unsteadily as you let your weight sink down onto the floor.  

'The medicine is still wearing off,' the attendant said. 'It's probably better that you sit anyway.'  

You listened and followed apprehensively her motioning to the wheelchair.  

Your head was still foggy, but not so much that you didn't notice the large iron bars over the window as she performed a three-point turn with the wheelchair and started toward the door.  

The corridor outside your room was filled with a bright white light. It gleamed off sparkling clean floors, only slightly tamed by the faint shade of gray used on the subway-tiled walls.  

'Where are we?' you asked quietly. The atmosphere even as you reached the small nurses' station before the elevator bay was grandiose, intimidating. A modern logo featuring a twisting, 3-D double-helix and the words 'Kratz Intragenetics' was pasted to the front of the desk.  

'The inpatient wing of the facility,' she replied simply.  

'I've been told,' you said, recalling your experience with Dr. Kratz earlier. But when was that? How long had you been sleeping? 'But where is the facility?'  

'Oh, the outside doesn't matter anymore to you now that you're home,' said the attendant. She only looked ahead and not down at you.  

Arriving at the elevator, the call button remained unlit until she waved her security badge over the reader. It beeped a low note, and the call button turned green. She wheeled you onboard after the door slid open silently.  

You noticed the fogginess start to fade, and as it did so, you were keenly aware of the lack of Kai or Sehun's presence anywhere. You closed your eyes, searching inside, calling for them. You didn't know what was happening, or why. You had been told that you were special, but nothing more. This place - you had been born here. What did they mean by that? Your anxiety began to increase with the silence of Sehun and Kai.

The elevator began to lower rapidly, slowing and stopping with a sickening bump. You read the words on the wall as the doors revealed a new corridor.  

Imaging and Mapping.

The attendant pushed the wheelchair out gently, as if she had been doing this for years, in spite of her youthful appearance.

You felt yourself start to panic at the newfound silence in your mind. Where had they gone?

A small hand appeared on your shoulder unexpectedly, startling you and making you jump.

'Try to relax, okay?' the attendant said. 'Everything will go much easier if you relax.'

You heard the advice, but your body was unable to follow. Your heartrate skyrocketed as you arrived at what appeared to be your destination. The sign hanging from the ceiling read 'X-Ray Room.'

You took a deep breath and steeled yourself. You could handle x-rays, right? But why did they need to take them? There wasn't anything wrong with you as far as you knew.

'Why do I need x-rays?' you said quietly.

'I'm sure they'll explain it. Let me just see if they're ready for you,' the attendant smiled sympathetically even though her words were more than evasive.  

You sat in the wheelchair in the lonely brightness of the hallway, alone with your thoughts and your overwhelming lack of understanding of your current situation.

Who were you really? Was your life a lie?

You tried to focus your thoughts and thought back to the medical journals you had read through for your articles and columns. Intragenetics, from what you could remember, had to do with genomes and the building blocks of DNA and human genetics. The name finally rang a bell as your mind cleared from the chemical haze. Kratz and her team of geneticists were on the forefront of the 'designer baby' craze and were the first to begin offering genome editing to the public, albeit at ludicrous prices only the one-percent could afford. But what did you have to do with all that?

Finally, the door to the x-ray room was opened, and the attendant came out to bring you back inside with her.  

The room was cold and dimly lit compared to the hallway you had just been in. A long table stretched out in the center of the room, complemented by another similar table that stood vertically against the wall. Standard equipment so far.

'I'm going to leave you with our technologist, Angela, who's more than capable of taking care of you,' the attendant said. She looked relieved to be free of you. She gave Angela a pointed look and left.

'Hi, so you're Y/N? I've heard so much about you,' Angela beamed.  

She stood you up and walked you over to the horizontal table.

'I'm just going to run you through a simple set of pictures, and then you'll be free to go do whatever else they have planned for you, okay?' She was cheerful and reminded you of Rebecca, but brunette.  

'Why do I need x-rays?' you repeated.

'Your doctor wants to get a better picture of what's going on inside, structurally,' Angela answered, pushing you down onto your back on the table. 'A good way to start is with a set of x-rays. Now hold still and follow my directions. We'll be done before you know it.'

The whole experience took almost an hour as Angela put you through a series of poses and flexes, some asking you to hold your breath, and others putting you in strange positions that were uncomfortable and made you feel extremely vulnerable. But at last she said the words.

'And we're done! If you want to get back into your chair there, I'll get Nicole,' said Angela with a smile. She walked out from behind the technician's glass and opened the door. 'She's all yours!'

Nicole the attendant sighed as she entered and left pushing you down the hall.

'One more test today,' she said.

The corridor seemed endless as you passed door after door until you did find an end. Nicole pointed you towards a wide door with an entirely new waiting room behind it. The sign above read 'Neurology.'

Another attendant came forward as Nicole brought you inside. She ran the small white hand scanner over your wrist. She waited for the confirmation beep before walking behind and taking control of the wheelchair.

'How is she?'

'Cooperative for now,' Nicole said. 'Call me when you're done.'

You bristled inwardly at them speaking so lightly of you when you were right in front of them.

Nicole left without another word, and the new attendant brought you into what looked like another exam room, except for the giant tube with a slide-out table in the centre.  

Dr. Bill stood at the side of the tube, pressing buttons and adjusting dials on a panel at the side of the tube.

'Oh, there you are, Y/N!' he said cheerfully. 'Did you have a good rest? You're in good shape for this test then.'  

He pressed a few more buttons and the table pushed out from the middle of the tube with a whoosh. Several other staff members, many years his juniors, scattered around him, one laying a sheet over the table, another arranging a tray full of medical tools and needles.  

You watched it all with wide eyes and alarm. What was this?

'No need for alarm,' Dr. Bill said with a smile. 'This is a standard procedural test for a patient of your caliber.'

'Poor thing,' said one of the assistants. 'I don't think much at all has been explained to her.'

'You're right,' said Dr. Bill.  

He sidled over, his girth appearing lessened underneath the aqua green scrubs he wore. He crouched to your low, wheelchair-bound eye level with a loud groan.

'Now,' he began. 'We know that you're a gifted individual. That 'gift' comes from genetic alterations, manmade mutations, if you will, made here when you were just an embryo. At the time, we didn't have much idea of the extent of this branch of science, what we were capable of. But seeing you, seeing the things that you're capable of projecting with a single, focused thought, it's exceptional – revolutionary, almost. We had no idea that you would be this powerful or that we would be this successful.'

'Mutation?'

'Correct,' said Dr. Bill with a nod. He got to his feet with a noisy complaint that matched his earlier one. 'Now we need to find out where exactly in your nervous system these projections are being originated. It's a tricky process that involves mapping out the entire system, but you don't need to worry – it involves little effort on your part except to lie still for us. Now, if you don't mind.'

He motioned to the awaiting table.  

The attendant pushing your wheelchair stepped out from behind you and took your elbow, pulling you to your feet.

Your breathing intensified as you were put on the table. The attendant smiled down at you warmly before nodding to the assistant who came up on your other side.

Suddenly they were holding down your arms with unforgiving force, pinning them down and wrapping solid black restraints around your wrists. They moved down to your legs and swiftly attached the restraints to your ankles.  

You pulled against them uselessly, tears starting to form in the corners of your eyes. Why were they doing this?

'During this test, we find that sometimes patients tend to lose control a bit, so we find it best to restrain ahead of time instead of waiting for something inevitably bad to happen,' Dr. Bill explained calmly. 'Dr. Resnekov, you'll see to the implementations?'

Another doctor, the one standing and organizing the tray, nodded and stepped forward confidently.

'Absolutely,' she said with a deep voice.

Dr. Bill returned the expression and exited quickly.  

You turned your head to the side to notice a darkly tinted observation window. A second later, the attendants forced your attention back up the ceiling, placing another thick restraint over your forehead.

The panic started, deep in your centre, spilling up to your throat and clenching it tight. It was hard to breathe and it was cold and too bright.  

You could do nothing to prevent the tears that came spilling out as the thin gown was removed from your body. The cold air flowed over your exposed skin, leaving trails of shivers and goosebumps everywhere. You pulled at the restraints in an attempt to cover yourself, but your efforts were in vain and your muscles ached sharply.

'Don't worry,' said the attendant. Still, she persisted in smiling at you. 'You won't notice the cold after a while.'

'Shall we begin?' said Dr. Resnekov. She tightened her medical gloves, snapping the bands at her wrists.

'Of course, Doctor,' the attendant agreed. She stepped around the table to stand beside the doctor and put on gloves of her own. Carefully, she opened a pack of alcohol swabs.

You closed your eyes firmly as you felt the first swab on the top of your shoulder. There was a brief pause and then it began.  

The first needle was jabbed deep into your skin. It was thin, but produced a sharp jolt as it was left where it had been placed. Like you were being struck by lightning in that single spot, repeatedly.

You wanted to pull it out, to object and scream in protest, but this was only the beginning.

You did scream, inside, as the process was repeated over and over and over.  

Swab. Stab. Sharp.

'Stop!' you begged as your abdomen and up had been covered with the long needles. 'Please, it hurts!'

They didn't even acknowledge that you had made a noise at all. Dr. Resnekov firmly inserted another needle above your hip. The attendant pushed the tray down toward your legs.

Kai. Sehun. Where were they? You turned your thoughts to them, and the feelings they gave you as another sharp pain began at your thigh.

You thought of Kai's lovemaking, the exuberant noises of pleasure, in a desperate attempt to focus on something other than the stabbing pain down your body. You tried to bring back the feeling of his heated breath on the crook of your neck, but the icy points of the needles drove it away each time it felt like you were bringing him closer.

'Last one,' the doctor announced a moment before jabbing it into your ankle. 'We're ready, sir.'

Dr. Resnekov and the attendants stepped back to inspect the scene.  

'Looks good, Doctor,' Dr. Bill's voice sounded through the intercom, tinny and metallic. 'Come back for observation.'

The combined footsteps echoed in a tangled cacophony as Dr. Resnekov and her assistants made their exit.

From your limited vantage point, you could only see the thick forest of needles that coated and immobilized your body, piercing virtually every muscle.  

'We're ready to begin,' Dr. Bill's disembodied voice said. 'Please, try not to struggle. We'll be able to finish so much faster if you don't struggle.'

'Opening circuits,' Resnekov said, her voice robotic.  

The pain was almost indescribable. One part hellfire, one part pure electricity – combined with acid and inserted into every nerve. You heard yourself scream and pulled desperately against your restraints as you burned from the inside out.

'Relax please,' a voice said. Dr. Bill, you thought. 'Don't fight it!'

Your throat tore itself open with the force of your screaming, your chords ragged. Your arms and legs ached sharply as you tried to free yourself like a caged animal, the nylon restraints digging into your wrists and ankles.  

The blackness creeped into the corners of your vision, your eyes forced shut by the pain and pure anguish that your body experienced.

Noises sounded distant and far away, the fire in your veins burned as if on the horizon. You felt its heat, smelled the singeing but nothing more.

The feel of the stabbing metal faded and the warmth of being held took their place.  

You were flooded by the feeling of security and it was a few moments before you realized that the source wasn't the refuge itself, but the familiar limbs that ensconced you, arms and legs. The beats of his heart burst in rapid succession against the shell of your ear. The pain that had so ravenously consumed you now tingled distantly, a reminder of what was taking place in your reality.

Full lips kissed your forehead more than benevolently. The emotions they betrayed left a mark far deeper than any needle could.

'I've got you,' a deep voice whispered. 'You're safe here, I've got you.'

Kai?

You blinked softly and opened your eyes slowly.

The lofty cavern ceiling vaulted overhead and disappeared into the gray ambiguous clouds. A green fire burned brightly beyond the quilt they made. Everything else was just as you had remembered it from the last time you had been here – the interior refuge. The games still lined the walls, the toys still piled willy-nilly in the closest thing to a corner that there was. You hadn't needed to come back ever since the boys had been strong enough to appear on your normal plane of reality. Had it always seemed so small though?

You looked up and Kai smiled down weakly. He brushed your hair out of your face quickly before returning to his constriction of you.

Quick footsteps kicked loose gravel down the room as Sehun kneeled beside you. He took your hand in between his two large ones, squeezing and caressing while he inspected you visually.

'Are you ok?' You couldn't avoid seeing the panic that soaked into his features, lines of worry creasing his elegant face. 'Y/N? Are you ok?'

All thoughts that translated to words seemed to derail and die halfway to your vocal chords, and you stared up at him helplessly. His decision made, Sehun pulled on your arm trying to wrench you out of Kai's hold.

'Let me,' he demanded, his jaw set in iron.

Kai opened his mouth to protest, but the resoluteness and present circumstances combined made the timing to argue all wrong. He sucked back his words and bit his lip. Kai let go reluctantly and allowed Sehun to pull you against his chest.

'Here, I'm here,' he said lowly, his voice small and light.  

Kai looked on with pained eyes, his only hold on you now a warm hand on your calf.

Finally the realization of what was being done set in, catching up with you and overwhelming you. You curled into a tight ball in Sehun's arms, whimpering as the tears started.

'It hurts,' you said quietly. 'It hurts so much!'

The pain had lessened in this hiding place, but it still burned and stung under the surface, an insistent reminder of what was happening on your plan of existence.

'What are they doing?' Kai asked, his thumb caressing its spot on your leg as he looked on with deep concern.  

'N-n-needles,' you stammered. 'Testing.' You clung to Sehun, trembling in his arms. The tears poured from your eyes as he held you tightly, stroking your hair back repeatedly.

'I'm here,' he murmured, his lips pressing warmly against your chilled forehead.

Kai looked up at Sehun with wide eyes.

'I could go up,' he offered. He rocketed to his feet and started to pace back and forth. 'I could make them stop.'

You jolted as you felt them increase the intensity of the electric current, and the clouds overhead flashed dangerously. The pain pushed sharply through your system, like your skin was being peeled off in ribbons from the inside. Your knuckles turned white as you gripped bunches of Sehun's shirt in your fists, trying to outlast the torture that was being inflicted on your body.

Sehun's grasp on you tightened, keeping you still in the valley of his chest.  

Kai cursed and kicked at a pebble helplessly.

'No!' You gasped. 'It's too – too dangerous. You saw the way that doctor looked at you.'

'You don't know that,' he replied. 'I could grab you and bring us back home before they could do anything. Please, let me try at least!'

'Kai, I'm covered in needles. You would have to take them all out before you could do anything -'

Another jolt, another flash – another twisting spasm of pain.

'Shh,' hushed Sehun quietly. He tucked you under his chin, but not fast enough to avoid you feeling the solitary teardrop fall down his cheek. He took a deep breath that was choked with emotion, his chest expanding underneath you. 'She's right. I wish - I could do something, anything to stop this, but we're going to have to wait it out,' said Sehun, his voice soaked in regret.  

You folded yourself smaller in his arms, the chill running up and down your body. Your bare skin rose in goosebumps no matter how much Sehun tried to soothe them away.  

'We can't just do nothing!' Kai complained loudly. He paced endlessly, his anger and tension filling the room much as your pain decorated it.

'We're not doing nothing! We're helping Y/N survive!' Sehun said, his voice rising. 'At least – I'm helping. You're just creating more problems. Typical.'

Kai turned on his heel, his eyes flaring.

'Please,' you whimpered. 'Please don't fight.'

Sehun laid a placating kiss on your forehead and ran his fingers back through your hair.

You reached out a trembling hand; Kai stepped forward and took it without question. As he kneeled beside Sehun's and yours combined forms, his expression softened. The anger dissolved into sadness and part frustration.

'It's okay,' you whispered, cupping his cheek. Kai leaned into your touch, closing his eyes. 'We'll figure this out.' The simple action of touching him, speaking to him, took much of your strength and determination.

'What about as soon as they take out the needles?' He said. 'I have to get you out of there.'

You felt Sehun glaring at him over the top of your head.

'I need to stay for now,' you said, shaking your head slightly. 'You don't get it - I was born here, I think they made me. I need to know what they know. Just a little bit longer, okay?'

Kai gritted his teeth and inhaled sharply. His eyes flew open on the exhale, and as they bore into yours, you recognized the distant fire in them, a resolute passion just under the surface of him. He tilted his head to the side to kiss your wrist tenderly. He smiled weakly.

'What are you planning?' you said seriously. Your jaw clenched through a light spasm, the current lessening.

Kai took hold your wrist and used your arm to pull you towards himself, off Sehun's chest, but not out of his arms. He leaned forward until his forehead pressed against yours.

Sehun squeezed your upper arm and tried to bring you back to his security, but not before Kai's lips brushed yours.

You felt all their warmth, the whiff of lust brought to check. The shiver that ran up your spine as he broke away and reconnected his gaze had nothing to do with the cold.

All too soon for you, Kai dissipated under your touch, fading away to nothing.

You cried out and reached into the empty space he had just occupied in hopes of finding him again, but Kai was gone.

'Hey, hey,' Sehun murmured, pulling you back into his hold. 'I'm here, it's okay.'

You buried your face as deep as his chest would allow, the tears streaming fast and furiously down your cheeks.

Sehun stroked your hair while he rocked you back and forth like a child and plied your forehead with attentive kisses. He cooed and hushed you gently until your sobs began to subside.

Suddenly the clouds overhead faded away – the storm in them no longer threatened. The sensation of underlying pain and the sharp current under your skin ceased as well.

'Well, well, look at him!' A voice resembling Dr. Bill's echoed through the hiding place as if through a loudspeaker. 'What a specimen!'

'Kai,' you whispered, your voice completely shot from crying. 'I have to help him!'

'No, don't! Don't wake up,' Sehun pleaded. 'Not just yet. Stay, just for a moment. Stay with me.'

You looked up at him in wonder.

'If I have that chance you said I did before, you'll stay,' he said. His brow formed a solid line, his thumb caressing your cheek as he pressed his forehead tenderly against yours. 'He'll be okay, I promise.'

You took a deep breath and closed your eyes, settling back against Sehun's chest.

His steady heartbeat in your ear was the last thing you could remember before everything started to fade to black.

A/N: I’m alive! I hope this chapter comes as a pleasant surprise - and that you enjoyed it. As always, let me know your thoughts!

Prologue | One | Two | Three | Four | Four (B) | Five | Six | Seven | Eight

[w1club]

storybook: kang daniel

Title: storybook Word count: 2778 Pairing: daniel x oc (no name) Warning: one or two curse words Genre: angst? idk lol

a/n: idk why i wrote this i was bored and dead,,,

In a story there was always the protagonist and the antagonist, in this story I was neither. My life seemed to fall in the way of unimportance. I mean, I was average in all sorts of ways. I wasn’t what you called ugly, I wasn’t what you called extremely gorgeous either. I wasn’t smart yet you wouldn’t call me dumb. I was just average. Not that I minded, I hated being in the spotlight but at times I wanted to feel as big as everyone else in the world. I wanted to be important. I wanted to have a role.

It was hard being the best friend of two incredible girls that played the leading characters of their own story. It was as if even in my point of view, I was viewed slightly less than others. I didn’t have much problems that would resort in me crying to sleep, I didn’t have boys around me that would create a chaos in my life. So while my friends were out finding love, I was the friend in every movie that was just there to give advice or sometimes not even say anything. While my friends had drowned themselves in different problems, it seemed like I was just there as a backdrop, giving them seemingly unnecessary advice.

I had someone I liked. His name was Daniel. He had a sense of humour and no one would deny his boyish charms that fell beneath his handsome exterior. I wasn’t exactly best friends with him, nor was I his enemy. We’ve never actually came across each other’s paths. He had his own group of friends, I had mine. But when my best friends started dating his best friends, we came in contact quite often. He would smile at me and I would smile back. We talked about the weather and sometimes our friends, but that was it.

I had only myself to blame when I finally realised that I liked the boy, I decided to distance myself away from both my best friends and the group of boys that I had taken liking to. The group of boys weren’t very affected by my absence whereas my best friends did care but never bothered to push further as they were afraid to cross my boundaries.

Months passed and we had a new transfer student in our class. She had long locks of hair, big eyes and a slender body. Everyone and anyone could tell she was pretty. She was loud, outgoing and friendly. Unfortunately, she had a deep hatred for Daniel while making friends with my best friends and I. The two of them- Daniel and the new girl, were like ticking time bombs. They had fought almost every single day over incredibly stupid things.

“That was mine, asshole!” She screamed at Daniel.

Daniel gave her a smug look as he sunk his teeth into her cupcake and moaning as he chewed it, “Delicious!”

Just like any other love story, the hate soon blossomed. The two would fight every single day only to realise that emptiness had found a way into their hearts when one of them wasn’t there.

“Where’s that annoying little shit anyway?” She asked the group.

Minhyun shrugged before giving her a small little smile, “You like Daniel, don’t you?”

She frowned and shook her head furiously, “Over my dead body!”

Occasionally they would come to school together amidst of their own problems and infatuation. Like how she once told me that she had been tricked to babysit Daniel’s cousin and how they almost kissed. She was frustrated. She had told me other incidences like when Daniel pulled her from the road after almost getting run over by a high speeding Lamborghini. She also told me about her crying into Daniel’s arms when her father had just recently passed. The two shared a strong connection no one had. Although my heart ached when she talked about Daniel, I had realised that I was never meant to be his in the first place.

I would go home, crying at how undeniably unimportant I was. Why did everyone have a life worth living? Why was I just here? What was my purpose of existing?

The doorbell rang incessantly as I dragged my feet across the living room to get to the door. I opened the door revealing Daniel. My heart accelerated, wondering why he had stumbled on my front door.

“Daniel?” I mumbled softly.

He smiled widely and greeted me excitedly, “Hey! So I was wondering prom’s coming up right?”

I nodded, a bit excited to see what he was going to say next.

“I wanted to ask her to prom and I’m planning a huge promposal for her! I need your help.” Daniel begged. He had then gone on explaining to me the event he had planned for her. He had recruited his friends and then my friends and finally me.

I never really talked to him so I wondered why he wanted me to help him.

I must’ve said that out loud when I noticed Daniel’s pink cheeks, “I’m sorry. I know we don’t talk much but I’m not very close to anyone else after my friends and yours.”

My heart felt a slight pinch realising that he had only come to me as he had no other choice.

“I’ll help.” I smiled.

He thanked me with a large grin. He got up to leave when he stopped to look at the albums I had placed neatly on a display case by the balcony.

“Pink Floyd?” He wondered aloud, staring at the vinyl record I had of one of my favourite bands. “The Division Bell.” He mumbles before looking at me. “Sick choice.”

He then began inspecting my display case and mumbling the band names when he finally came across my favourite band of all time, “Deep purple’s Fireball? You have good taste.” He chuckled before taking the vinyl record in his hands.

“Can I?” He asked, gesturing to the vinyl player I had beside my TV.

I nodded slowly. He clapped his hands joyously before playing the album. He began singing along as if he was reliving something.

“My dad and I used to listen to this album a lot.” I mumbled.

Daniel looked at me, “Me too! Ugh, this album is too good.”

I laughed and agreed.

“Hey, you know where I can buy this album?” Daniel questioned.

“You can have it.” I said.

“What? No way! This is yours, I can’t-“

“I’ve had it for 17 years, you can have it for the next 17 years.” I chuckled.

Daniel grinned brightly, giving me a small hug. “Thank you!”

Feeling like I had a ton of bricks lifted off my shoulder, I thought Daniel and I had a connection through music. Something we shared just between us. Just us.

She had invited my friends and I over for drinks one time. Not knowing she had invited the boys, I had gone eager to catch up with some girl friends. When I was finally there, I had realised that I was the odd one out. The whole lot had been three separate couples while I had been alone. It was almost frustrating as I had close to no relationship with anyone there. I had no attachments towards Sungwoon and Minhyun. They were barely friends to me. I had never considered Daniel as a friend but after the day he came to my house I began overthinking our relationship.

I sat alone as I stared blankly at the TV as the couples cuddled each other unaware of my discomfort and wallowing pity towards myself. I glanced over to the side of the TV console when my eyes landed on a familiar object. My deep purple album. My heart shattered into a million pieces. The only connection I had with Daniel was given away to his girlfriend.

I felt tears filling my eyes and before I knew it I was out the door. I heard my friends calling my name when I turned and said, “I forgot I had something on. Don’t wait up for me.”

I ran and ran. I knew that I shouldn’t have let something as a mere music taste coincidence define what chances I had with Daniel but what was I supposed to do? I was begging, I merely wanted to taste the feeling of being significant.

The tears wouldn’t stop leaving my eyes, no matter how much I wanted it to stop. A part of me wanted someone to arrive and ask me what’s wrong like in the movies and the other part of me wanted to stop crying over something so stupid.

I looked around the abandoned playground I was at. Scoffing at my wild imagination, “So when the hell is my prince charming gonna come out now?”

After that day, I distanced myself from my friends and the boys once again. When my friends had asked me what was wrong, I’d simply shrug saying I was uncomfortable and that I wasn’t close to the boys and hoped to God they would understand. I even went to the extent of telling my friends to inform Daniel that the day of the promposal for his girlfriend I would be busy with other things. I was simply too tired to cry over a boy who had never even treated me as a friend in the first place. Maybe an acquaintance. But a friend? I was pushing it.

Daniel had reached out to me the day before the promposal, texting me that he was sad I couldn’t make it. I apologised to him and said I was attending something really important. He had shrugged it off and thanked me either way.

Prom was the week after and I had decided that I wasn’t going to go. My friends had begged for an explanation when I just replied that I had no desire whatsoever.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come? Minhyun’s bringing his friend from the other school, Jaehwan. He’s sort of cute, don’t you want to come and meet him?” My friend questioned, eager for me to come.

I shook my head uninterested, “I’m just here to get you guys dressed up.”

Daniel’s girlfriend looked at me apologetically, “It won’t be any fun without you.”

I highly doubted she was telling the truth. Even I could tell that I wasn’t the same person 6 months ago before everything had started. I was pretty sure my best friends felt it too. I was no longer the noisy girl who would joke around sending ugly pictures of myself. I was no longer the girl that would hop on board every time they had asked me out. I was now the girl who never bothered to start a conversation. I was now the girl who declined every outing that they had planned. I was pretty sure at this point Daniel’s girlfriend had taken my place in this friendship.

Daniel’s girlfriend glanced at her watch and immediately began rushing.

“I have to meet Daniel in an hour so I have to go!” She said, rushing out the door.

My best friends looked at me and smiled sadly.

“Are you okay? You seem a bit out of it lately.”

I nodded, hoping the conversation would end.

“If you need anything, we’re here for you.”

And that’s when I snapped.

“Are you?” I murmured.

My friends looked at me curiously.

“It’s been 6 months and only now you’ve asked me how I am?” I said softly.

My friends looked at me, guilt filling their eyes.

“We-“ I cut them off.

“6 months was what it took for you to ask me what’s wrong? Have you ever thought that maybe I needed my best friends to be by my side? No? I’m pretty sure the two of you couldn’t care less.”

“We care about you, it’s just-“

“It’s just you have a boyfriend now. I get it. But does it mean you can just abandon me one side, since you have new friends, boyfriends and just a shit ton of things?” my voice cracked as tears began filling my eyes. The emotions I had been bottling up for the past 6 months urgently rushing out of my mouth.

“Does it make you feel better that I’m just a side character in your love story? Wait, I’m probably not even a fucking side character. I’m the girl that gives the advice and waits for what’s gonna happen next. I’m the girl who shows up 6 seconds on camera when everyone gets a solid 30 minutes of their own screen time. I’m the girl who fell in love with someone but none of her best friends know because they’re too caught up in their own story.” I spat angrily.

My friends stay silent looking at me.

“You’re in love with Daniel, aren’t you?”

My head shot up as my eyes widened in horror. It was Daniel’s girlfriend. She looked at me apologetically with slight anger and pity in her eyes. But my eyes flutter to the person at the back, Daniel. He stares at me, surprised. I shake my head and felt my heart drop. Daniel’s girlfriend turned around and noticed Daniel by the door.

“I thought I told you to wait for me in the car.” She mumbled.

My hands were shaking, I felt my whole entire life flash before my eyes. My cheeks reddened as I felt everyone’s stares on me. I pushed my way through my friends and shoved Daniel away from the door, fleeing from the scene.

If you read this in Daniel’s girlfriend’s point of view, I would have been seen as another obstacle in their love life. I would have been seen as a villain.

Embarrassment ate me alive as I hid in my room the week, passing prom and the annual school outing to the nearby islands. My parents were worried, asking me profusely if I needed time off from school. Holidays were coming up anyway they didn’t mind if I missed 2 days of lessons that had now been filled with just fun and games since exams were over.

I had dozens of missed calls from my best friends and some from Daniel’s girlfriend. And even a text from Daniel which I had yet to open till this day.

All of them had given up on the third day when they knew that I was going to avoid them for as long as I could.

“Sweetheart, your father and I have something to tell you.”

“Your father has been transferred to a higher position in Seoul and we we-“ I cut them off.

“Take it. Take it and bring me there with you.”

My parents looked at me with wide eyes. My father had previously been offered a high paying job in Seoul just earlier this year and I had declined thinking that I had friends and a life here not wanting to move to a new place where I had to start over so when I agreed, my parents were nothing but surprised.

“Th…that’s great!” My father managed to stutter.

“When are we moving?” I questioned eagerly.

“The house is being prepared but since the company’s paying for the house, probably by next week?” My father said.

“Can we start packing today and leave as soon as we can? Please?”

My parents looked at me, not wanting to pry further as they nodded.

“Anything for you.” My mother smiled.

“One more thing…” I drifted off. “Don’t tell anyone we’re moving, not even my friends.”

A week later, everything in the house was packed. I was eager to start afresh, eager to finally be the main character of my own story. I was convinced that this place was nothing but a haunting memory.

“Honey, we’ll be waiting for you in the car!” My mom yelled loudly.

I showed a sign of acknowledgment as I checked my room to see if I was missing anything. I smiled, genuinely happy that I was done packing everything and that I was leaving.

“You’re moving?”

I spin around coming eye to eye with Daniel. I feel my heart beating at an unhealthy rate. I nod, giving him a small smile before dragging my suitcase past him.

“Wait…” He said.

I stopped in my tracks, not wanting to turn around.

I heard Daniel’s soft sigh, “I really wish you had told me you liked me sooner.”

My heart stopped for a brief moment to take in his sudden confession that had been proved to be too late before I finally mustered all I had in me to walk away from him.

[tackyink]

I shouldn’t be writing. I have a pair of pants to sew and a hat to accessorize, but these fricking cosplays haven’t let me write for weeks, and I needed to. I’ve gone from the aftermath of the terror attack, to protests on the streets, to the uncertainty of this political unstability, and right when I was settling down the only convention I go to every year is coming up. I just want to write in peace!

This was written a few months ago, but I’ve added things, changed a few others and edited a bit, badly, because my eyes hurt and I’m medicated and falling asleep.

Fourth installment of the terrible YYH self-insert.

There I go again Pretending to be you Make-believing That I have a soul beneath the surface

When my father asked what I wanted for Christmas, I knew right away what to reply. It might sound weird putting it like this, but if it was 1984, there was something I was in time to do for the first and last time.

I had known from the moment I saw it announced in a music magazine, just a week ago. The Yu Yu Hakusho world may have differed from my own, but some things remained the same, and one of them was the existence of my favorite band.

Queen was going to play its last concerts in Japan in 1985, and I had to go see them. I could not miss my last opportunity to see Freddie Mercury and John Deacon live, no matter how out of character it may have been for Satori.

But the request didn’t surprise my father. In fact, he said he had thought I’d ask for something like that.

That day I learned that the vinyl records and the CDs next to the music player in the living room were Satori’s, not her parents’. I had found out the one thing she and I seemed to have in common: a love of classic rock.

If you had asked me at that moment in time if travelling through dimensions thirty-three years in time and getting stuck in the body of a teenager in order to see Queen in their prime had been worth it, I would have said yes, logic be damned.

But before that could happen, a lot more had to be done.

For months, I had been stuck studying at home with tutors helping in my recovery, so for all effects and purposes, my job from September to April was to cram in my brain all the knowledge I had supposedly lost, and while subjects like math and science only warranted a quick refresher (and it was a good thing that Satori wasn’t in high school yet, because I hadn’t done any real math in close to twelve years), Japanese and history were another matter altogether. Luckily for me, I suppose, both were things I’d been interested in in my previous life and I couldn’t have found a more immersive way to learn the language if I tried, so catching up didn’t feel as frustrating as it would have otherwise, and I had always been good at studying.

The biggest hurdle came from elsewhere.

While I had determined that I wouldn’t go back to the tennis club once I returned to school, nothing could save me from the small piano at home.

Don’t get me wrong. At first, I thought it was amazing to have one. Learning how to play one had been a lifelong wish back when I wasn’t Satori. Then I had been asked if I remembered how to play it, and my deer in the headlights face had said it all.

About two months after the accident, my piano teacher came home, and though the news that I’d forgotten everything had been broken to her, I don’t think anybody realized the extent of the drama until I said I couldn’t read a score. If I had wished a thousand times in my previous life that my parents had signed me up for music lessons as a kid, I wished it even harder now. The extent of my musical ability was singing decently and having learned to play Greensleeves by ear on a toy keyboard. That was it. I had to start from scratch at thirteen-slash-twenty-eight years old.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t as disastrous as I had expected. As if Satori’s own body had grown frustrated with my uselessness, the hands seemed to move over the keys more easily than they should have. I realized it was muscle memory, moving my fingers to the keys without knowing what they were and pushing the pedals at the appropriate time.

But it sounded horrible, anyway. Muscle memory could only take me so far, and it didn’t matter much when it came to learning more pieces, but it was a small consolation that my new body was cooperating. My lack of coordination in my past life had been nothing short of sad, and this was a welcome change.

It wasn’t the first time I had thought so. Satori’s body was, nearsightedness notwithstanding, an upgrade from mine. She was more agile and in better shape than my paper-pusher butt used to be, but the most remarkable change was her brain. I don’t know what the physiological differences between hers and mine were, because I still felt very much like myself, but thinking with her brain was like coming into a sunlit clearing after wading through fog for years. Her attention span, her quick thinking, the way she absorbed information like a sponge was something I hadn’t felt for well over ten years. I didn’t get startled as easily, I wasn’t in an alert state 24/7, I didn’t feel anxiety creeping up on me at every little setback. My new brain was working with me instead of being bent on self-sabotage.

Thanks to that, I was able to make good progress with my studies before I went reenrolled at school. I still sucked at piano, but time and practice would take care of that, I hoped.

I remember the day at the end of February, nearly half a year after my accident, that my parents sat me down and told me with as much tact as they could that the school had decided to hold me back a year. This was a rare occurrence in Japan, from what I’d gathered, usually reserved for students who had missed too many school days.

My parents thought that Satori would think this was the end of the world. Fortunately, I wasn’t her, and since I didn’t know anybody at school save for one girl that had come visit me once while I was home, I didn’t care in which class I was put. If anything, I was worried about going back to school, in general.

All in all, I thought my parents took the grade repetition harder than me. There was probably some social stigma I wasn’t aware of associated to it.

I asked Yu about it when they weren’t around, but he shrugged off my concerns, instead asking me, “Do you mind being held back a year?”

“No.”

“Then however they think it reflects on you is their problem, not yours.”

This kid had just turned eleven and already had more aplomb than most adults I knew.

This kid also would, in five years’ time, if my assumptions were correct, have the guts to purposefully piss off Kurama in a room full of plants. I tried not to think about that.

“So you don’t care, either? Won’t the other kids laugh at you because your sister is dumb?” I joked, though in truth I was a little worried about it.

He looked at me like I had just demonstrated how dumb I really was. Kid could stare down a giant if he wanted. “I don’t care about their opinion. But I do care that you’re repeating a year.”

“Oh?”

“Next year we’ll go to school together.”

He was on his last year of elementary school. Normally, the gap of three years between us would have meant we’d always go to separate schools, but now we would be in the same place in middle and high school while I was a third-year and he a freshman. I would have an ally at school, however briefly! But then, the implications of that dawned on me right away.

If I was going to be at the same school as Yu, it meant that I was going to share a school with Kurama, as well.

I tried to smile sincerely at Yu’s comment, because it had been cute as heck, but the sudden realization had killed my enthusiasm swiftly.

“Yeah,” I said, hoping that he didn’t notice my mood change. “That will be cool.”

For five months, I’d managed to keep myself from thinking about it. For five blissful months of denial, I had concentrated on family life, on studies, and thought as little as I could about what the future held.

Because I had a good inkling of what my brother would get involved in in a few years, and I wasn’t sure I would be able to stay out of it myself. I didn’t think I wanted to, even, but then again, it’s easy to be brave when you’re looking at problems from a distance. I couldn’t tell how I’d react when the time came.

I had gone through many possibilities in the time I’d spent at home since I realized in which reality I was, but one that hadn’t crossed my mind until Yu pointed it out was that we were going to share a school, and that, in time, that would probably translate into going to Meiou with him. The perspective made me both excited and nervous.

Saying that Kurama was my favorite Yu Yu Hakusho character would have been the understatement of the two centuries I’d lived in. Saying that I’d been crushing on him since I was a teen would have only taken second place to the former assertion.

And I still hadn’t come to terms with him being a real person that I had a more than fair chance of meeting him in this reality.

And, because I had to be a worrywart, instead of being happy about it, I grew increasingly anxious about it as time passed. I didn’t want to be within ten miles of the guy lest I risk blubbering something silly and giving myself away.

But that would happen in time, I thought.

Maybe inspired by this turn of events, and since I’ve always had a bit of a masochistic streak, along with a liking of cacti and all manner of spiky flora, and four prickly children of my own at the time of my accident, when the school year started, I dropped tennis to go for gardening.

This caused some confusion among the staff and Satori’s teammates. Apparently nobody switched clubs once enrolled in one, but people were willing to overlook it because of my rather odd circumstances. There were still a lot of whispers behind my back – way to start off at school on the right foot.

Yu thought it was funny and more constructive that I had chosen to spend the next two years learning how not to kill a potted plant than hitting a ball, because it turns out that Satori had a notoriously black thumb.

I did, too. I once managed to kill a succulent in one month. And I’d felt horribly guilty even as I repeated to myself that it had been ill by the time I’d received it.

…Anyway.

I joined the gardening club because my other options were a sports team, which would mean I’d have no excuse to not go back to tennis, brass band, with was a definite no because I had enough embarrassing myself home with a piano in private, and calligraphy, which looked really cool but, call me weird if you may, I thought that before trying to draw kanji skillfully I should learn to read them.

So gardening it was. And being a non-sports, non-musical club, it only met three days a week, so it left me plenty of time to study.

Because that’s how I spent my first two years in the Yu Yu Hakusho world: learning nonstop all the things I should already know, and learning what I should have been learning at the time so I could enroll to a good high school.

Something I noticed as the months went by is that my parents seemed to be fascinated by the change in disposition in her daughter. I never got the impression from them or Satori’s own diaries that she had been a bad student, but I suppose she hadn’t shown so much drive to absorb knowledge as I did. Though, of course, I was doing it out of necessity, not just for the sake of knowing.

They were proud. And the prouder they were of their daughter, the guiltier I felt for not being her.

Yu didn’t have many friends at school.

I’d had the impression that smart kids were treated better here than they were back in my country, and that was true, with conditions: Yu was admired for his brains, but was worse, much worse with social niceties than I’d been at my prime.

For the record, I had been an absolute and complete disaster at getting along with most kids in my class, and that was taking into account that I saw them every school day for ten whooping years.

On the other hand, Satori’s classmates had moved onto high school, and the only friendships I retained were those of the people in the tennis club, who I didn’t know, and, frankly, did not care to. I more than doubled their age, and it was evident that they felt awkward talking to someone who didn’t remember who they were.

That gave me the perfect excuse to spend most of my free time with Yu, who made everything better with that thinly-veiled disdain for humanity of his and made him look like a pompous prick in the eyes of his peers. I, in turn, found it incredibly funny coming from someone his age.

Despite that, I told him to cut the back on the attitude because I was supposed to give him good advice, but he wouldn’t budge. He was at a difficult age, in an isolating position, and he had time to change.

I would lie if I said I didn’t worry about what he would do when I graduated, but while it lasted, we took comfort in each other’s company, a much needed familiarity for two introverts who’d been dropped in a foreign place.

During my first semester at school, I went with my father to see Queen at Yoyogi National Stadium.

I cried like the little girl I was supposed to be, and the next day I had no voice from singing along at the top of my lungs. I also had a lot of tears to spare when thinking about the band’s future, and it was hard to keep them at bay while I wasn’t alone.

On the way out, we bought tour shirts and a badge with the group’s logo that I proudly hung from my schoolbag.

Nobody took more than passing notice of it in class, except for a boy in my grade that I found staring really hard at the badge one afternoon, while I spoke to a club companion. He seemed to freeze for a second when he noticed that I’d caught him staring, but then he came closer. My clubmate observed the exchange quietly.

“Do you like Queen?” He asked.

He was a bit shorter than me, with stark black hair and piercing violet eyes, and he had spoken so seriously that I wondered if he would try to maim me if the answer wasn’t satisfactory.

“Of course I do,” I replied. “I wouldn’t carry this otherwise.”

His stony expression didn’t change, but his eyes sparkled. “I like them too. Who’s your favorite?”

“Um, I like them all, but Brian and Freddie—”

His expression lit up, but even then he didn’t smile. He sounded excited when he spoke next. “Did you know Brian May made his guitar himself?”

A smile escaped me before I could notice it. “Yeah! With an old fireplace and mother-of-pearl buttons—”

“I heard he spent years on it!”

“Can you imagine building your own guitar so young and so well that you can go pro with it?”

“He’s a genius.”

“Dang right he—”

Someone cleared their throat behind me. “Um, Kaito…”

My clubmate looked very much out of place when I looked at her.

“O-oh,” I said embarrassedly. “Yes, we should get going.” I turned to the boy. “Sorry, I should go. I didn’t catch your name…?”

“Kaname Hagiri.”

This world was rife with school kids trying to surprise kill me, I swear. I stared owlishly at him for a second before I remembered my manners. “Nice to meet you. I’m—”

“Everybody at school knows who you are. You’re the girl who lost her memory.”

I didn’t like the tone he used. “I have a name.”

I was surprised at how much it bothered me. Reducing Satori’s existence to her accident felt… wrong. And in turn I felt like a hypocrite, because what was Satori to me but another body? Yu’s sister? The girl who played tennis and piano and that had had a lot of friends that I’d managed to alienate in just a few weeks of school?

Satori’s existence, even to me, wasn’t an entity in itself. I always thought about her in relation to something, someone else. It wasn’t fair.

Hagiri was taken aback by my brusque reply, but he turned around and left anyway without saying anything else.

I thought that had been the end of it, and I was wrong.

He caught me by surprise one day after lunch, just as I’d left Yu to go back to class.

“Kaito,” he called solemnly, and his face wore the same immutable and slightly threatening expression from last time. His words didn’t match. “Do you listen to Deep Purple?”

As a matter of fact, I did.

I wondered if that was his way of apologizing for his rudeness, though I had been rude right back, so he had no reason to do it.

But what mattered was that, from then on, we stopped to talk to each other on the corridor, and that occasionally I’d have company when I wanted to pick up something from the music store.

This only lasted until the end of the school year, when we went on our separate ways to different schools. I wondered if I’d meet him again. I wondered if it would happen during the Sensui saga, and I wondered if I should, could have done something to prevent him from getting recruited. That nagging feeling wouldn’t leave me for months after I graduated, but only time would tell.

It was precisely during this year that the training wheels came off. The high school access exams were closing in, and my parents, who years ago had hoped to send Satori to one where she could focus better on developing her tennis skills, had to let go of the idea and find another place for me. I needed to compensate my lack of physical skills with raw brainpower, and given how tough school in this country was, I wasn’t sure I’d be up to par.

That insecurity kept on building up as the months passed, and by the time March was approaching I was a bundle of nerves. I took the Step Eiken, the exams to get an English certification, and took tests for public and private schools. My parents weren’t sure I’d be able to get into Meiou, since that school could afford to be picky with its students and my middle school hadn’t given me a recommendation thanks to me spending the last year and a half just trying to catch up. But if there’s something that drives me to do things is people telling me I can’t pull them off, so I studied like I’d never studied in my life. Harder than when I first woke up and had to learn all the grammar and vocabulary I didn’t know just to communicate with my family.

Having an obsessive personality has its perks, every now and then.

Yu supported me in this endeavor, even if he didn’t outright say it. On occasion, he made flashcards and diagrams with the excuse that they were meant for him, but I could use them too if I wanted. I knew him enough by then to realize that he knew the material better than the teachers. I think he was actually proud that his sister had turned bookish, that we had something else to bond over, and wanted to help.

In two months’ time, the exam results came, and with them the resolution of this weird phase of my life. First arrived the letters for public high schools, then for private ones.

I opened that last one with my parents breathing down my neck.

A year ago, I wouldn’t have been able to read its contents.

But now, clear as day, I was able to see that I’d made it into Meiou.

I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding it as my mother announced that we were going out for sushi that night, and my father clapped me on the shoulder with a satisfied smile and told me to think if I wanted anything as a present.

I considered the admission a present in and of itself, but that didn’t stop me from asking if I could have a Discman.

[jugandbettsdetectiveagency]

After The Storm - A T&T Coda, 3/3

Jughead comes to Riverdale to meet the partents.

1 . 2 . 3 . Read on AO3

Everything is very distinctive shades of either white or green.

Jughead laces his fingers through Betty’s over the centre console as they drive through her hometown of Riverdale, gazing curiously out of the window at the stepford scenery that flies past.

“Pep?” he asks as they pass the welcome sign, quirking his eyebrows in amusement. Betty simply rolls her eyes, shaking her head at the quaintness of her town, but he can still see the fondness hidden behind the actions.

“Juggie, are you sure you want to come?” she’d asked him over the phone as he packed the last of his stuff into a duffle bag. She was due to arrive to pick him up on the way back home the next day. “I mean, I want you there but I’m not sure you understand the true extent of my family’s intimidation tactics.” He could practically hear her cringe through the speakers. Even though she couldn’t see him he still gave her an affectionate smile.

“Yes, Betts, I’m sure I want to come,” he sighed, knowing she wouldn’t let up. But he knew she was only trying to protect him from the oncoming storm of House Cooper.

“But it’s spring break and you live in California! Wouldn’t you much rather go home and be living it up on the beach instead of getting the third degree in the sleepiest town on the East Coast?” she asked, teeth tugging at her lower lip worriedly.

“‘Living it up’? Betty, I don’t believe we’ve met. My name is Jughead Jones, resident outsider,” he quipped, smirking as he stuffed a last minute sweater on top of the rest of his stuff and zipped up the bag.

“Hardy-har,” she deadpanned, following it up with a noisy exhale. “Fine, I’ll stop asking. But only if you’re sure.”

“Betty!”

There was no going back now, she thinks, as they wind through the familiar streets. In reality, she is eternally grateful that Jughead had agreed to come home with her for their vacation. His sturdy presence by her side would make things insurmountably easier.

She’d been doing well with her new motto of doing things for herself while at Columbia. Part of her motivation, she’ll admit, is the look of unbridled pride Jughead gives her whenever she tells him she’s done something outside of her comfort zone, or caught herself before her fingernails press into her palms. He’d offered to get her as many fidget spinners as she wanted, once, laughing at the way she scrunched up her nose at the suggestion – she hadn’t seen the appeal of the fad.

Maybe she should have tried them out, she wonders as her home draws nearer, subconsciously tightening her grip on his hand. He rubs his thumb over the back of her soft skin in soothing circles, feeling the tension rolling off her in waves. The truth is while his company is a blessing it is also one of the reasons she is so nervous. She knew how intimidating her parents (read: mother) could be, and while he was a complete gentleman Jughead wasn’t exactly the squeaky clean, khaki pants and button down kind of guy Alice would approve of.

“Anything I should see while I’m here?” he asks in an attempt at a distraction, watching as the colour fades back into her knuckles around the steering wheel. Betty peeks at him from the corner of her eye, lips shifting into the blossoming smile he’s come to know well.

“Well…” she begins slowly, lifting up a delicate shoulder to rest against her ear. The gesture is so genuinely endearing that Jughead can’t help but grin, raising a hand to toy with the end of her ponytail. “I promised you a trip,” she says coyly. Jughead tilts his head in question.

“You did?” he queries.

“Yep,” she replies, popping her p and then pressing her lips together, the corners still quirked upwards as they drive down the tree-lined road. They don’t appear to be getting any closer to civilisation.

“Is this the part where you kill me in the woods so no one can hear me scream?” he asks dryly, fixing her with a serious expression. Betty rolls her eyes at his joke and flicks on her blinker, glancing around before she pulls off the road, parking up and switching off the engine before she turns to him.

“Like I would. No, remember when you took me to Mama’s?” He does remember; he couldn’t possibly forget a single detail of that first weekend they spent together.

“I remember the enthusiastic sounds you made when you ate those tacos,” he supplies instead, earning himself as soft smack on the chest as her lips drop open. He chuckles, catching her hand and bringing it to his lips, pressing them against her fingers chastely.

“I told you about Pop’s and said I’d take you one day. At the time I don’t really know why I said that, but now that I’ve got you here…” she trails off, nodding towards the little shack outside of their windshield.

Jughead leans forward, the bright red neon of the diner’s sign falling across his face as he takes it in. It’s quaint and neat and looks a little like it just fell through a time portal right in the middle of the woods. He turns back to face her, noting that she looks a little embarrassed.

“I figured you could eat after the drive,” Jughead snorts at that, because when could he not eat? “And if I’m being honest anything I can do to delay the inevitable is a plus in my books,” she sighs, looking up at him beneath her lashes shyly. Jughead can feel his lips twist in sympathy as he leans over, hooking his arm around her shoulders and pressing a kiss to her temple. Betty melts into his touch, her fingers grabbing a tiny handful of his sweater.

Jughead thanks the comedic timing of his body as his stomach lets out a loud gurgle at the prospect of food. Betty pulls back, laughing, and he’s pleased to see there’s no trace of tears in her eyes.

“Come on, you. Let’s eat,” she chirps, dipping forwards to cover his lips with hers before stepping out of the car.

Jughead slides into the red vinyl booth opposite Betty, glancing over the menu in front of him before pushing it off to one side.

“You know what’s good here. I ordered for you in Boston, your turn to return the favour,” he tells her, settling back into his seat. She’s only too happy to oblige, calling over the waitress and ordering the house burger and fries, vanilla milkshake for her, and chocolate milkshake for him. Betty briefly chats with the middle aged waitress that greets them, the woman only too enthusiastic in her questions about Betty’s latest semester at Columbia.

Their food arrives after some minutes and Jughead wastes no time diving in, Betty shaking her head at his voracious appetite, but her gaze holds nothing but warmth as she waits to hear his opinion.

“Oh my God,” he moans around a mouthful, and Betty hushes him through a giggle, the loud noise having attracted the attention of the mother a booth over. She mouths a quick ‘sorry’ at the disapproving look sent their way before turning back to Jughead. His eyes are closed as he chews the combination of bread, meat and cheese, a tiny blob of ketchup tucked in the corner of his mouth. It’s so cute that Betty has to resist the urge to lean over and wipe it away with a spit-slicked thumb.

“You like?” she asks anyway, even though she’s pretty sure she already knows the answer. Jughead finishes his mouthful before he answers. He looks down at the remaining food on his plate, a little bit star-struck by the delights that await him.

“This is one of the– no, the best burger I’ve ever eaten. And I’m from the West Coast, I grew up on In-N-Out,” he tells her seriously, as if this is a big deal. Betty bites her lip but the grin she’s been sporting refuses to be beat. “I’m moving here, just so I can eat these burgers every day.”

The thought of Jughead being a permanent resident in her hometown sends butterflies flapping through Betty’s stomach, but just as quickly they die as she remembers where they’re heading after their meal. She picks at her fries, shuffling them around her plate more so than actually eating them.

He can see the slight shake of her body as her knee bounces beneath the table, wiping his greasy fingers on a deep red napkin and reaching over to clasp her hand in his.

“Don’t worry, Betts. I know introducing me to your parents seems kind of terrifying right now. But no matter what happens, it won’t change anything between us,” he reassures, ducking his head to meet her downturned eyes. She looks up to give him a weak attempt at a smile.

“I know, Juggie. She can just be so… imposing,” she says finally, having clearly spent some time searching for the right word to describe her mother. “And she’s rude and invasive and I don’t like that I have to throw you to the hounds this way,” she sighs, taking a sip of her milkshake. Jughead rearranges his face into a grin to quell her worries.

“Hey, I’ve met worse. Probably,” he adds at her wry look. “And you’re severely underestimating my charms, Miss Cooper. Give me a few hours with your parents and I’m sure I’ll get them to love me in no time,” he quips, folding his arms on the table.

“That’s all it took for me,” she says in return, her voice light and unassuming in what was meant to be a joke. Jughead stills, and so does Betty once the meaning behind her words sinks in. Her face instantly turns a bright shade of crimson, and if she could move she’s sure she’d avert her eyes.

“What?” Jughead breathes, eyes wide.

“I–” Betty opens her mouth to cover her tracks, to take it back, make a joke, something. But as she looks at him, all soft sweaters and honest eyes and ridiculously cute beanie, her brain detaches from her betraying mouth. “I love you.”

The words hang between them for a moment and Betty’s heart is pounding so fast she can feel it in her throat. She can’t even imagine trying to eat her burger now.

“Really?” Jughead whispers finally, and if she’s not mistaken Betty swears that what is glittering in his eyes is hope. She nods, not trusting her voice anymore.

“I love you, too,” he replies. Betty can finally breathe again, shoulders dropping in relief as the memory of his words wash over her again and again.

“Really?” she echoes, just because she’s Betty Cooper and she has to make sure.

“Really,” he confirms, cheeks mirroring her happy flush.

Going home to see her parents suddenly doesn’t seem so bad.  

[anthonianrhapsody-blog]

Whispering Thoughts

by Arielle Bustamante

Moving forward bit by bit to the edge of the tip of a mountain, she realized that she was being pushed by her own intention and was holding still with only one hope, but the grasp of embracing to the good side and half of it to the bad side. Falling down full of confusion and anxiety, she closed her eyes, feeling the warm kisses and the loving tenderness of a tight hug until she finally reached the extent of the depths of her despair, buried with the smell of rotten food. She sought her true self down to her true identity and the memories that were worth more than any of her possessions. Slowly breathing out all of her negativity, she calmed herself with a sweet voice that was heard through the slow tempo of a song, and opened her eyes. She knew that it was just a dream, but a dream that had been kept in her mind and in her heart, full of miseries. But the only thing that she remembered was her own name. Her name was Vinyl. Stretching every part of her body including her legs and arms, yawning with a wide stretch of her mouth with the sound of an exhausted person, she looked to the mirror and ended up saying three words that ran through her mind with desperation. Without even noticing, she spoke, “Who am I?” It still marked the dream that was unforgettable and a mystery in her full emotions and thoughts. Vinyl still didn’t know her true self, only her name. She even didn’t know how she ended up staying in a mansion that was quite peaceful perhaps on the outside but clueless on the inside. She imaged that she was just an empty container without anything inside, waiting to be filled up with something and expecting to useful somehow. Of all the things that she could think of, it was that she was living in the same world as the other people did but as she passed by the corridors of the mansion, she expected that she was known by all of the people, and yet the feeling of being rejected by the person you know will accept you even though you’re being as hard as metal that was hard to be broken. She accepted the fact that there was a missing piece that she couldn’t get through with and being clueless as it seemed. All she did was keep on doing the things that a rich person could possibly have and can do without even stopping them because all she thought was that she lived in a mansion with all the possessions and necessities that she could have. She had entered through all kinds of rooms, with different kinds of appearances and ambiances inside of a room, but it seemed that there was a room for her that she couldn’t even dare herself to enter because of the feeling of her rapid beating heart and breathing through her lungs. Even she had everything without even knowing where all of these things came from and with just a snap, it can also be wasted. She had it all but all of these were just temporary, temporary to make her happy and start again with her mindset of being all alone. 

She stopped being a spoiled brat to herself even though no one even cared about what she did, what she said, and what she decided for herself because all she knew was that she never existed as a person as she could possibly be. From the day that she woke up, starting to consume her with more than just a bucket of tears but also more than just a jar of thoughts, thoughts that hindered her to escape from the barricade and to see the reality behind those barriers. Vinyl was always that kind of person that always spoke to herself, saying, “Whatever happens, I know there is always a reason.” She kept on saying these lines everyday together with the ticking of a clock but to every dilemma that she could think of seemed that she couldn’t find the reason to make her satisfied with all of these.   On a Sunday morning, she heated up her boost of confidence through the warm heat of wood being lighted. Walking through a path, seeing the patch of blue skies and a harmonized sea, she encountered a good looking boy with a good sense of fashion and perhaps he didn’t look like he lived in this kind of place. Vinyl, out of a blue moon, suddenly felt that she already knew that boy with just a quick glance, gazing into his eyes and going deeper to who he really was. In the depths of seeing herself like an unusual self of an ordinary person was like being drowned by the dense of lies and floating of truth away from the land. Looking straight in the midpoint of the view she was focused on and rather not to strike her gaze upon the eyes of the only person she would not expect that he would be the one to give the surprise that would light up her day to suddenly that will pop up at the back of her mind to get back all of her memories. As the boy stepped on each of the tiles, getting closer to Vinyl, he brushed his hair with the arrogant perspective. Through the way, he straightened up his shirt, seeing a firm personality. “I can see the burdens which are buried down to your grave of your miseries, seeing that you have in mind that hinders you to tell to someone. Aren’t you?” he said. Vinyl focused her sight and listened to the voice of like a highly honored man, imagining that he was professional into something. “Look how certain you are to predict everything that the world would evolve around me. That wouldn’t happen,” she said. With an amusement like the fireworks touching the sky and hitting the bull’s eye in a dart, he said “Yes, I’m assured that I really know you, Vinyl, and I can assure you that coming from the smallest up to the biggest things that you equipped since the day that you have come to this world.” A horrific expression suddenly crossed the veins of Vinyl with cold chills and sudden sickness that was evident in her whole body. Even she kept on remembering that she had this feeling that he had been part of her life that accompanied her since she was kid throughout the stage of adulthood. She decided that she would travel around the world by following her sense of instinct, or the first thing that would come into her mind. And the place that came into her mind was Lincoln, Nebraska. She immediately packed her things with the hesitation if she would say her farewell to the people inside the mansion even if in their mindset, she never existed. She wrote a letter to those she really valued the most, even with their perception that she was nothing but a piece of a coin that would just be thrown away. She had known it all along that she didn’t belong to the place she wanted to belong to. Living like a plant that was supported with a specific need and died little by little when it couldn’t live like they used to be anymore. Living in the first 3 months in her migration in Lincoln, Nebraska to the starting point of her, to live in a new environment seemed  like she had already experienced all kinds of punishments that she didn’t perhaps deserve it. She met the first person that she didn’t expect and his name was Eros. By another chance and another opportunity to be a another person to the perspective of another’s eye, all things seemed to go to plan like what it looked like on the outside looks of her; she even looked like a Barbie doll that didn’t receive any direct sunlight because of her flawless skin. Vinyl thought comparing her outside looks first but when she accidentally bumped into her shoulder, she didn’t expect by any chance she’d been noticed by that girl. She introduced herself with the right diction. “I didn’t mean to bump you intentionally. Even I saw you that you were taking a sneak peek on me and I don’t know if there is something wrong with my looks or the way I act, but I just really want say that I’m sorry for bumping you because I didn’t think that you were supposed to go across the direction that I’m also going to. Perhaps let me treat you with a better meal,” Vinyl said, immediately in a stuttering voice, releasing her unexpected choice of words that first came into her mind. “I don’t even mind if you did it intentionally or even not. What really matters is that you are sincerely apologizing and I accept that. It’s okay. Also, thank you for the offer but I think I will pass. Hmm, maybe some other time...?” “Vinyl, you can call me just Vinyl.” “Oh, Vinyl. What a really unique name, do you have any nicknames or even a surname?” “To the back of my thoughts down to my deeper memories, I just can’t remember anything. All I know is just my name.” “I see. Well, I don’t want to force you to remember anything or even your name. It’s nice meeting you, just even knowing only your first name. Oh, and btw, I’m Venus Kelly. Don’t treat me like I’m the same with other people, being happy go lucky and being like they are all above other people, reigning to their own rules… well, before I used to be one of them but it goes around quite different this time. Anyway, I would be happy if I can be your friend.” “Sure, I would love to but aren’t you afraid of me? All along the way, I’m being just nobody but how you treated me, it’s different from what I expected.” “Why would I? You even have the urge to talk to me like this and I would greatly accept you for who you are. So just be yourself.” Being loved again and to the time has come for her waiting to an end. Going through a life long journey is on the middle of a journey in a dessert, going through hardships but the worth will come. They became friends, indeed like destined sisters going all through their ups and downs to their friendship, surviving their dilemmas, and coping with change. All they knew was that they didn’t need  anyone to complete them. Having each other was a chain that was unbreakable and locked since the day they met each other. After a year, everything seemed fine. Having a family or like a sister carried all the burdens since that day and changed the mindset into something new. Looking through the window with a cup of coffee, sipping the warm taste of dark coffee and the moisture of the heat going through another dimension of reality and out of nowhere, after a year, she saw Eros again with the same perspective and direction to where she was looking at. She immediately ran towards him to get the answer she’d been looking for since the day she met him. “Eros! I will not let this thing slip again. I would like to ask something about my past, my past memories. I bet I have so much things that I must know for myself.” “I really expected that you would come for me because you would like to ask those questions that run in your mind. Well, I’m willing to give you those answers since you’re being left behind and knowing your true self.”

As Vinyl put her ears on track and her eyes on focus, the numbness of her palm as the slow dropping of her sweat that might give her a jaw dropping result to her answers. “You still don’t know, don’t you? You don’t seem to notice that you are being neglected and rejected by people you try to reach out to, but the connection doesn’t seem to match to the way you want because you still don’t know the truth. Okay, let me start. You died Vinyl, yo…” “Do you expect me to believe you? To believe all those lies? I would rather not fall into your trap, Eros, not again.” “Well, I’m not also expecting you to believe me, I’m just here to tell you for the sake of those things that hinder you from doing things and to guide you to the right path where you belong to. So do you mind letting me continue?” “Go on.” “As I said, you died a long time ago, Vinyl, since that day you opened up your eyes and you felt the struck of your inexistence. You died because you have done an immoral sin in which you killed your own individuality that caused you to erase and forget all your memories that you most valued. It’s your own job and obligation to bring back all your memories if you know how to bring back your own self. Find that missing jigsaw puzzle and you can find the answer.” “But how come Venus can see me despite the other people who might think that she is talking to herself?” “Because she has the ability to connect with the other dimension in which she is the chosen one to help you with your mission to bring back yourself.” “But what will happen to myself and to Venus if we successfully find the missing piece? Will this be the cause of the breakage of our relationship and can this be the loss of the ability of Venus?” “Somehow, it might be the case of the reality of your world.” As Vinyl urged to release all her doubts and confusion, she pushed herself to reach the edge of her throat to say the things that she wanted to say but unfortunately, in one snap, she wasn’t able to come after Eros and he was gone. Containing in an isolated place where no one can reach the extent to it but only herself where she can put endlessly all she’s been thinking because she is the only one that has it. There was a purpose that destiny brought Vinyl back to Lincoln, Nebraska because there was a map to find the location of the missing puzzle pieces and to put it together in a destined place where all her memories could be back again. She never knew that one of the keys to unlocking the treasure was Venus wherein Eros said that she was the destined one to help Vinyl set free her miseries towards her to lose out of control of her immoral sin, that reason why she was still trapped in a never ending world she’d been into. She never opened her briefcase since the day she moved in to the place where Venus lived. When there was something that Vinyl bothered in which she is not herself when she did her packing. She opened it with a click of the lock and slowly dripping of her sweat down to the briefcase and she saw an old locket, a diary with a small keyhole on the side to be opened by a key, and an embroidered handkerchief with the initials “V & E.” All of these things marked in her mind that this was intended and on purpose to show Vinyl that there was a truth behind all of it, to bring back her memories. Started with an old locket in which there was a small picture of a woman that looked like her and man on a suit that somehow looked familiar to her. At the back of the locket, there were also initials which she had already seen on the handkerchief. To the diary in which there was a specific key that will unlock the diary. She tended to throw things out of sight just to find what she’d been looking for but as she was about to lose faith and give up, reflecting in the light of a shimmering glow inside the handkerchief where there were the embroidered initials, there she saw a silver key inside it. She placed it on the keyhole, slowly turning the key, and it fit to unlock the diary. She noticed that there were also initials in the diary, written on the side of it, “V & E.” It had been 3 days since she began reading every detailed parts of the life she was supposed to continue. But it ended up this way. It gave her the hint through one part of the diary. “To the person that I once loved,           I bet that in the perfect time, you will be better than the person who is writing this because you wouldn’t know that you can be my future self. I’ve put myself into a critical decision that I decided that it will be better than to live in the past that I’m living right now. Even though I will not anymore be around as myself, you can continue what you have started. But can you promise me that you won’t forget everything that I have kept, most especially to one of the chosen people that I really loved and valued the most.           Please keep in mind our father and our mother that even they abandoned me as their only child. I would keep in mind and in my heart that they have supported me and given an undying love that I don’t even deserve. To the person that I have loved and treasured the most up to my extent of my life, Eros. Please look after him and give him the most undying love, care, and support that I’d not given to him when I was still living. Make him happy and be yourself and don’t force yourself to be like me, my old self, because I know that when you live, you’re the right person that Eros would choose to love. To my most precious friend, Venus Kelly, I know she’s been suffering and down blaming herself for what happened to me. She might have a bucket of tears each day. Please let her feel that even in another persona, she may still feel my existence in you. Love her, all her ups and downs, and don’t let her be alone at times she needs you. And lastly, to the person that even I have suffered deeply with wounds every single day and pulling me to go to the wrong path that I’ve taken before and now I regret to what I’ve made and now to pass my responsibility into another persona. I trust you to my future self. I know that you can be better than me. I already predicted that this would happen because God has given me the extinct and the signs throughout all of this. I hope that you will not also regret the decision of putting you into this kind of situation and do not make the same mistake that I have done. I hope you can remember the key to your memories.                                                                                                      Your loving self,                                                                                                     Vinyl Hazeldine” It gave her the struck of her memories, flowing throughout her mind and recalling all the things that had happened but still no signs of feeling the same like the old Vinyl. Continuous flowing of tears through her crystal-like eyes gave so much pain in the heart of Venus like a needle slowly being pressed in her chest, seeing her friend able to remember everything but suffering with it. Venus gave Vinyl a very well deserved tight hug that she most needed as her voice slowly released, softly and swiftly. “You remembered everything, my friend. I’m waiting for you for a very long time, going back to this place and start again from beginning even it is not you anymore, even you are different.” “I may not anymore be the Vinyl that you knew before but I can still be the Vinyl that will keep all the memories that we have treasured and I will not anymore leave you just like what I did before, I promise.” “You still don’t remember that your parents aren’t living anymore?” “I can probably say so. To just what I have remembered, they died because of me.” “It’s not what you think, it is only what you thought before because of the wound that you’ve gained from then. But don’t blame yourself that it’s all your fault. They died because of a car accident. Based from the investigation of the police, they have evidences that the location that they were about to go to was your location where you died. Always remember that a parent will always be a parent. They cannot abandon their own responsibilities. It’s not because of their responsibilities that they came to you but because they love you, Vinyl. Even if they abandoned you as their daughter, they have given you so much love that a worth of money can’t level.” “The pressure inside me really motivates me to be a better Vinyl Hazeldine. I really must find the other missing puzzle pieces and I know that I’m almost there, to the end line.” Vinyl visited the grave of her parents. She prayed sincerely with wholehearted prayers and she apologized for the past mistakes that she had done. She left a bouquet of daffodils put into a vase and lit a rose-scented candle. While leaving the marks of her past through each path she passed, she had already conquered her fear to the reason and the place of miseries where she had died. Looking down with a down curve of her eyes, falling apart through her tears, and almost getting to the way of the fast phase of cars, a tight grip pulling her to the side street made her hug the guy that saved her life. When she looked straight upon the gazed eye contact of Eros, the twilight stars twinkling showed upon and her heart racing so fast, she remembered that this happened before and this feelings went back again. She was indeed in love again. “Are you alright? I have this feeling that you were gonna be in this kind of situation, and my intuition was right. We’ve all been waiting for you and this day was the right time you have gained your true self. And I’m also waiting for you, Vinyl, my love.” As Eros wiped the tears of joy of Vinyl, she just hugged him as a teddy bear and let him continue say the words that she’d been waiting for through the ambiance of their love. “I already knew from the start since, I saw you back then in front of the mansion, that you were not the Vinyl that I know before. I’ve always been following you because I miss you so much and I’m waiting for you to come back again. I still love for who you are even you are in different persona, you still have the existence of Vinyl Hazeldine. But there is one thing that you don’t know about me. I’m still Eros that you loved but I’m a God that gave you all of these burdens, sufferings, and realizations for you to remember again and to be reborn again as the better Vinyl. I didn’t do it on purpose or intentionally, it made me do it even the replacement is also to suffer because I want you for the better and I love you.” Vinyl felt the speed of her mind and heart in reaction to each line that Eros was saying. Blood flowwed rapidly in the hands of Vinyl as she eagerly wanted to do it. She slapped Eros with tears of disappointment flowing. “Why did you even do it? Do you know how painful it was for me to know that all of these came from you, Eros?!” “I knew it all along that you would react this way. Do you even know how it is hard to open up this serious topic because I want you to know everything? I don’t want to lie to you again and I want to end the painful memories that all of us are experiencing. I will grant a wish for you, Vinyl.” “What kind of wish that you think this will change the situation that I’m experiencing every single day? Do you even know that you were about to give me will change everything?’ “I can’t guarantee that will change everything into good place. But I must say that the decision is still up to you.” “Let me hear those words from you.” “I will make you live like a human again. I’m not abusing my powers as a God but it is the will of the highest God and to my decision that I wanted to make. But there is a condition.” “I will let you finish until I make my final decision.” “You will be reborn again as Vinyl Hazeldine but the memories that you have input into your mind for a lifetime will all be erased once again but to the people that you value the most will still be in existence and will remain all the memories in you.” “So do you want me to live again with the same sufferings and miseries? Is that what you intended to say?” “No, but I want you to live as a human being and not in spiritual presence. Also, it is not my intention for you to suffer again. One condition is also stated that all the happy moments of the people you treasured will remain and it will eradicate all their sufferings as well.” Recalling using her mind palace and her heart conspirating. The needle that Venus had experienced was occurring in the chest of Vinyl as it continued to put pressure on it and continue to bleed as the scars of the wound left behind but as she made the decision if this will make her live a peaceful and joyful life with butterflies flying in colors? “Yes, you heard it right. That I’ve made my decision and I want that wish to happen.” “I’m sorry but it’s only our choice and my choice to be with you once again and I don’t want to lose you again. It is not easy for me to do this but I must. But I have one favor. Please close your eyes and imagine that you are in an isolated place that is all white and think that you are in peace and this will lead you to…” As he was about to continue to what he is saying, Vinyl fell asleep and fell into the plan of Eros. “All white, nothing more and nothing less but it is only me. It is just me that feels the ambiance of love, hearing a bunch of voices with laughter and soft voices crying, and the smell of a sea being in silence and peace?” “Vinyl?” “Venus? If you’re here please let me see you. I want you here.” With a desperate voice and reaching the extent of her vocal chords, she cried in a stuttering voice. Venus hugged Vinyl tightly as she couldn’t possibly breathe. “Vinyl, do you know why we are here? Do you know what is this place?” “You probably know the reason. Aren’t you Venus?” “Yes, I am. We are in your mind palace, Vinyl. It is the only place that we can talk in a very long time than being in the reality world. As you can notice, as we lived together for about a year already, I couldn’t even touch you or even be with you for a long time because you are in spiritual presence, Vinyl, and I’m in human form. I have only this ability but it is only temporary that’s why Eros made this plan because you have made the decision and I understand you, Vinyl. I would still be your best buddy and your precious friend. I would never forget you and I will wait for you once again. I love you. Farewell, my friend, and see you soon on the other side.” Every gesture of her mouth while she spoke, single drop of her tears being in filtered into her happy moments of her life. As the view of Vinyl began to blur and the feeling of wanted to rest. She couldn’t anymore see anyone but her spirit was still active, she heard the voice like Eros. “I love you, my dear Vinyl. I will be waiting for you on the other side. Please forgive me for what I’ve done. I promise that this won’t happen anymore.”

[taylorwritesnonstop-blog]

Album Review: Janelle Monáe - Dirty Computer

Despite her rise to mainstream commercial and critical success, I had somehow managed to get through 2018 without the experience of Janelle Monáe’s Dirty Computer. The 33-year old released her third studio album on April 27, 2018, backed by production teams Wondaland Arts Society, Bad Boy Records, and Atlantic Records. The album was accompanied by an Emotion Picture of the same name a la Beyoncé’s Lemonade.

While Lemonade made strides empowering women, particularly black women, through their sexuality, Dirty Computer takes these feminist concepts a step further into intersectionality. Both the album and Emotion Picture center on the queer black female experience; the artist has been candid over her sexuality, stating, “Being a black queer woman in America...someone who has been in relationships with both men and women—I consider myself to be a free-** motherf**ker”. Monáe is honest with her audience in ways previously unexplored, straying into autobiography and baring herself, honestly and vulnerably, only to come out the other side fortified and hopeful.

Prior to taking the time to intentionally listen to this album, I would say that I have been Janelle Monáe adjacent for a couple years. I had seen her star in the 2016 Oscar Nominees/Winners, Hidden Figures and Moonlight, and heard her featured or sampled on other artists’ work. Of course I heard the controversy stoked by the right-wing hate-monger Ben Shapiro’s winging on the obscenity of the vulva imagery in the Pynk music video (which was released separately before the full album) and saw the SJW twitter clapback. As a member of the LGBTQ community, I knew that Janelle Monáe was a big inspiration for many of my friends.

However, I could not have expected how deeply this album would touch me. I plan to invest in a vinyl record, and that’s how I know it’s real.

The film, a visually stunning production starring Janelle Monáe (as singer, writer, musician, dancer, lead actor, and director), is a stunningly well-executed, fully-formed, artistic vision. The themes of automation, lack of privacy, and the pervasiveness of technology are presented in a dystopian near-future scenario, blending sci-fi with social criticism similarly to Hulu’s Handmaid’s Tale or Netflix’s Black Mirror.

“Pynk (feat. Grimes)” is definitely one of the highlights of the album for me. Grimes brings an alternative-pop grit to the single. Extremely sexual without being explicit, the restrained groove and digging guitar riffs back lyrics about the soft and feminine, the reproductive and anatomical. Flashes of lipstick, orchids, shells, and a bubbling a strawberry milkshake are interspersed with shots of Monáe and her Black Girl Magic backup dancers in “vaginapants”, covered in flowery gradient (pink) frills. It is refreshing to see black women who are so carefree, feeling themselves, and in charge of their sexuality, “Boy its cool; if you’ve got blue, We’ve got the pink”.

While the comparisons to Lemonade are inevitable, I found myself being reminded of another musical legend as I spent time with Dirty Computer. Prince makes his way into the funky guitar, sexed-up lyrics, and extravagant, gender-bending performance style. It is bittersweet that he never got to see the final product, but his presence is felt in the songwriting, none more evocative of his unique confidence than “Make Me Feel”.

I have grown into my womanhood at a time when progress clashed with traditionalism, melding my pluralistic, cynical worldview. I have grown up in a constantly fluctuating world of millions of lives projecting blue light from pixelated screens, witnessed the shrinking of privacy and authenticity. I have seen the omens of climate change in unprecedented natural disasters, watched too many massacres of schoolchildren broadcasted on the evening news, and looked on as the greed and corruption of the few have made life hard for the many. I have felt alienated, by my country, my body, the modern world, by the endless consumption of an automated capitalist culture.

Janelle Monáe provided us with the perfect antidote to the uphill battle we are all facing as we look toward the future. The artist has been open about her political views to the extent that she has involved herself in voting activism and encouraging her fans to be politically active—asking them to take charge of the future they want for America.

To anyone looking for a shot of confidence, a splash of wit, or just a really good song to jam out to, I highly recommend checking out Dirty Computer. Monáe has the stuff to become an icon for a generation, a rallying cry that resonates with not only those at the margins, but also seeps into the fabric of our popular culture to speak truth to power.

[theliterateape]

Our Weekend with Michael Jackson and R. Kelly

By David Himmel

The first rule of moving into a new place is to set up, even in a temporary location, the stereo. Good music sets the beat for organizing your new digs and allows for mini-dance parties as you determine which cabinet the coffee mugs will call home. This is what I did when Katie and I moved into our first and current apartment together.

Katie came with a record player. I had planned on buying one for myself just about the time we got serious, so when we moved in together, hers became mine, and I was Don Hall-excited about it. I could finally dust off my vinyl collection and give the discs a spin. The first one I chose was my original pressing of Michael Jackson’s Thriller. At about the third track, the Paul McCartney duet “The Girl is Mine,” Katie asked, “Who is this?”

“Who is this!?” I responded, astounded and slightly confused. “It’s Michael Jackson. It’s Thriller — the second best-selling album of all time.”

“Oh, I don’t like Michael Jackson.”

I immediately questioned our entire relationship and my taste in women. “What!? How can you not like Michael Jackson?”

“He’s super creepy.”

 “Okay. But what about his music? You like his music, right?”

“Eh. It’s okay.”

Once my wave of panic broke, I realized why Katie’s opinion was what it was. She’s six years younger than me. She was born in 1986, a year before Bad was released. By the time she was old enough to purposefully consume music, MJ was well past the mercurial and eccentric pop god the majority of the world adored. Balancing the art and the artist wasn’t an issue for Katie because she never experienced Michael at his best, before the cracks in his façade began to show.

She admitted that his influence in pop music was undeniable and that she didn’t dislike his music, so I happily let the rest of the album play. As it did, I age-splained what Michael Jackson was like before the pedophilia stories broke and he dangled his child over a balcony and his face and skin looked like Vincent Price’s nightmares and he painfully French kissed Lisa Marie Presley on TV. I told her how I, like millions of children and adults, copied his dance moves as best we could, and how I listened to my Bad tape so much that I eventually wore it out and had to have my parents buy me a new one. I told her how we — the fans — let slide the strangeness of carrying Emanuel Lewis like a baby at the 1984 AMAs because, well, geniuses do strange things. Michael Jackson fandom was completely lost on her. And it makes perfect sense as to why. She was, ironically, too young to have been pulled in by the magnificence of Michael’s magnetism.

 ✶

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, I was a huge fan of hip-hop, R&B, and rap music. I sought that music out and consumed it ferociously and almost exclusively.

Throughout my pre-teen and early teenage years, I was so into the music that my bedroom walls were plastered in magazine clipping photos of my favorite artists: Bell Biv DeVoe, Boyz II Men, Father MC, En Vogue, TLC, Tony Terry, Tony! Toni! Toné!, Mary J. Blige, Postive K, R. Kelly, New Edition, 2Pac, etc. My father, standing with me in my room, once asked me, “Are you gay?”

“No. Why”

“You have all these pictures of men hanging up.”

 “I like their music.”

 “Do you want to be black?”

 “I’ve never thought of that.”

I would rush home from junior high school every day (when I didn’t have band or spring musical rehearsal, or Hebrew school) to watch BET’s half-hour music video show. It played a lot of my music and a lot of music that wasn’t being played on radio. It introduced me to artists that were under the radar compared to what the rest of my friends were listening to. I reveled in knowing about music they didn’t. One artist, early on in his career, was R. Kelly.

The video for “She’s Got That Vibe” wowed me. The song was New Jack Swing perfection. The video was early ’90s cool. I wanted that CD. I needed that CD. Since I was only twelve years old and there was no internet, I was at the mercy of my parents driving me to the mall and other record stores to find the CD. No place we knew of carried it. One desk clerk at the Lincoln mall Sam Goody almost laughed at me when I asked him if they had R. Kelly’s album.

“Never heard of it.”

Oh, you will, I thought.

Soon after, a mailer from Columbia House arrived in our mailbox. “12 CDs for a Penny!” it advertised. I flipped through the pamphlet to see what they were offering and there it was: R. Kelly and the Public Announcement’s Born Into the ‘90s. I was sold. I told my parents I wanted to do it.

“It’s a scam,” my parents told me. I didn’t care. I wanted that album, and eleven other albums Columbia House had available for my listening pleasure. After the twelve CDs for a penny, I’d be locked in to purchase another set number of CDs at their price within a certain time period. I don’t remember what that was exactly, but I told my parents that I’d assume all financial responsibility. They decided to let me go forward on it, and in what may well be my most successful moment of money management, I met my requirements with no problem. Babysitting, cutting grass and saving my allowance money afforded me the ability to score stacks of amazing CDs.

When Born Into the ’90s arrived, I devoured it. Every single track was incredible. I couldn’t get enough of it. I loved that R. Kelly was from Chicago. I loved that his voice sounded unique against everything else out there. I loved that his songs were all about girls because I was all about girls.

Not long after I memorized every lyric on the album, I discovered the first clue that R. Kelly was a little odd. It had been there, right in my ears the whole time. Toward the end of “She’s Got that Vibe,” R. Kelly starts listing all the girls who “got that vibe.”

“… Stephanie's got it And Sabrina's got it Rachelle has got it yeah Gladys got it Fontina's got it Little cute Aaliyah's got it Ooh Stacy's got it I tell ya Tita's got it I tell ya Rita's got it Oh Laurel's got it And Kim's got it, yeah”

“Little cute Aaliyah’s got it.” Harmless the first few hundred times I heard it, but once Aaliyah came onto the scene, I had to pause. Aaliyah was my age — five months older. She was a child. Why would he be singing about a child having that vibe? I knew it had to have been that Aaliyah because I knew R. Kelly wrote and produced her first hit, “Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number.” Weird, I thought. But that was the extent of it. Because what did I know? I was twelve.

When R. Kelly’s second album, 12 Play dropped, I bought it immediately. This time Sam Goody had it. The songs were a whole lot sexier. While still a great album, I didn’t really understand why he was so fixated on screwing. Where was the romance I thought I heard on Born Into the ’90s? By the time his third album, R. Kelly was released, I had lost interest. In part because I had discovered punk rock and also because I couldn’t relate to much of what he was singing about. I was fifteen years old and horny as hell, but I couldn’t understand why R. Kelly seemed to be so incredibly horny. It was extreme.

I moved on. But I still would go back to those first two albums and play them. When the accusations about more inappropriate sexual activity and molestation and predatory behavior came to the surface, I wasn’t surprised at all. R. Kelly was a dangerous pervert from the very beginning and he’d been telling us about it every step of the way.

 ✶ 

In January, Katie and I watched the Lifetime documentary Surviving R, Kelly. It was, of course, disturbing and disgusting but it was hardly shocking. Similar to her experience with Michael Jackson, Katie never got into R. Kelly’s music, and though I told her of my love for the guy in the early ’90s, I was not inclined to promote his impact on music or make any case for separating the art from the artist because, for one, R. Kelly’s art was chock-full of his disgusting behavior and two, because while some have called R. Kelly a genius, he’s not. R. Kelly is no Michael Jackson. 

As more stories about Jackson’s alleged pedophilia came to surface, I never once denied that it was wrong. But I never thought he was a predator. I always figured — like so many of us — that he was a product of his wonky childhood and was a broken man who didn’t know appropriate social behavior. He was the proverbial man-child — a little, lonely boy stuck in the body of a grown man. I believed that he did some inappropriate things like sleeping in the same bed with his boy fans and playing odd, pervy little kid games that kids might play when they’re just figuring out what their penises are for. But I never thought he was a rapist, a pedophile, a predator. He was just a really, really weird dude. The whole thing struck me as sad, and yes, gross.

When we watched Leaving Neverland, I did so with ever-increasing discomfort as the indisputable stories of rape, manipulation, and the twisted workings of a predator unfolded. When it was over, Katie asked me, “What do you think about Michael Jackson now?”

“He’s a fucking monster,” I said.

✶

I’ll still go back to Born Into the ’90s and 12 Play because when I do, I’m brought back to where I was at the time when they were new music. At this point, I now I’ll enjoy them even more once the sonofabitch is in jail. Proper justice makes everything sweeter. But is there still enough salt in R. Kelly’s music when I think about the damage he caused all of those girls and their families? Damn right.

Michael’s music doesn’t gross me out as much. It’s too much a part of my DNA. It’s too much a part of the world’s DNA. The influence of 1980s Michael Jackson is a through line in almost every single pop song since and will likely continue to be. My son is almost a year old and Thriller gets him dancing every single time. (I haven’t played any R. Kelly for him yet, so I’m not sure how he’ll like that stuff.) And when he’s old enough, I’m sure I’ll have to have The Talk with him. I imagine it’ll go something like this:

“Harry, Michael Jackson’s music is incredible. Appreciate that. But know that Michael Jackson was a horrifying person. He hurt people while singing about healing the world. People are complicated. His music may inspire you, but please don’t let the man behind the music inspire you. Unless we’re talking about Quincy Jones. Because as far as we know, Quincy Jones is still a stand-up guy.

I loved Michael Jackson growing up. And I can’t forgive him for what he did. It’s not really my place to forgive him because he didn’t hurt me or my family, but I still feel slighted by his foul behavior. So keep on dancing, my son. Get up off the wall, shake your body down to the ground, moonwalk, if you can, but know that even the greatest artists, our heroes, can be hideous monsters.”

Like so many of us who are or were Michael Jackson fans, I’ve been pouring over my relationship with him and his music. I’m not ashamed that I wasn’t fully committed to thinking he was a pedophile rapist. I needed the facts laid out before me.

But I’ll tell you this: even at the height of my adoration for the King of Pop, I never thought Captain EO was anything but wretchedly uncomfortable. Worse than kissing Lisa Marie.

[imaginaryculturepress-blog]

TFTP: The Faux at the Garage

In which we photograph at a new venue, almost get attacked by an ibis, and visit JB HI-FI.

Hi, hello, and welcome!

My name is Skyler and I’m running out of intros. If I don’t come up with any witty or interesting ones I’m going to use minimalism quotes instead, and if you’re my friend you’ve probably heard enough of those. Anywho… I recently received the wonderful opportunity to shoot The Faux’s headliner at the Garage, and holy shit… t’was incredible. The Faux are arguably my favourite local band (alongside fifty or so others… I’m sorry, I’m indecisive and local artists are amazing), so being able to photograph their show was marvellous. December 16th came quicker than I anticipated, and I was far too enthusiastic – but that’s a good thing, right? But let’s take it back a step, back to the 13th. T’was my final day of school – for the year – and I couldn’t wait to leave. Technically speaking, the 14th was the final day… but nobody goes to that, right? So I came home, had a one-person party featuring the All-American Rejects on fancy blue vinyl, and messed around with my Olympus compact camera. The gadget was recently repaired by the lovely lads at JB HI-FI (we all saw this coming), however t’wasn’t the same. Apparently they’d repaired it but it was replaced but no it was only a battery issue but then agai--- essentially, nobody knew what the hell actually happened. Not JB’s fault, rather that of their repairers. I had the option of returning it back. I wanted to, since a renewed item with an unsure background concerned me, so I decided to take it back on Friday. Come Friday, I found myself in JB in the midst of the Christmas shopping season. The meagre idea of it gave me a migraine; did you know that approximately one in seven Americans would avoid gift exchanges if only they addressed the subject with their family and friends? The Australian statistic would likely be relatively similar. That’s a lot of wasted money and resources. Hey look, I’m turning this into a minimalism rant! Yay! Moving right along… After returning the item successfully, the manager asked me: Manager: Would you be interested in another camera? Me: Why, yes… You see, I’ve been considering purchasing a Nikon D750 for a while now… Manager: Let’s go have a look. Me to myself: YAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYY Me: Okay. Manager: So do you know how much it’ll cost you? Me: Oh, only an arm and a leg… Long story short, they’re willing to do a crazy discount and I feel spoilt. I’m picking it up this week and I cannot contain my excitement. JB HI-FI promo over. Back to Saturday: I’d never visited let alone shot at the Garage before, so I had no clue about what to expect. I knew the lighting setup wasn’t ideal, but I didn’t know the extent of its… horribleness. Not taking shady public transport was weird. I was far too used to trains that ran along the Joondalup line and hopes of “that one random pissed dude” not sitting next to me, all whilst wishing that someone cleaned up the puke that ran along the vehicle’s carpeted interior. So driving to a venue crept me out, and I’m sure it crept everyone else out, too; considering how my mother slowly pulled up, deliriously staring out the window and heavily judging everything in sight. Y’know what else was weird and creepy? The ibises. Do you know how many ibises flew overhead at that place? Too many. “But you’re overreacting, Sky, they’re just flying past. Honestly, your phobia is so irrational.” Just shut up, you fearless bastards… the bin chickens are out to get me. I feel as though there’s been too much complaining already… but then again, every TFTP is essentially a collection of rants. Can we just take a moment to consider the atmosphere of that venue? It’s so cool. If I were writing some random posh novel and had it as a setting, it’d probably be described like this: "The exterior mirrored its neighbours, a sickening shade of pale grey… or something of that nature; one failed to recount such nugatory information after being enthralled by the venue’s interior. Despite, its inhabitants participated in an abundance of ravishment and instilled nostalgia. And the aforementioned interior… oh, the intrigue: kindred furnishings lay upon the adamantine floors, accompanied by beguile characters pursuing carmine relations… and receiving little more than they desired. Candescent ornaments lined each wall surrounding the mezzanine, blinding and heating those standing below, and omitting photographers’ chances of exquisite shots… though that’d also fall blame on their expertise. Luminous bodies inside, celestial ones glittering beyond… what more could one desire?" …I realise how little sense that made… it only makes sense in my mind, and sometimes not even there. It’s probably worth noting I spent three hours writing another two pages worth of that random crap and spared you the time of reading it. So I suppose you’re welcome. (Side note: that is not how I usually write fiction, so please don't be deterred from reading my novels when they're released!!! Shameless self-promotion.) Serious question though, what style of writing do you guys prefer: blog or novel style? Not that one would be incorporated into the other, but I’m just curious. Time to get to the point… First up was Ashleigh Carr-White, an enthusiastic young singer and instrumentalist. Supported by her vast and talented band, she provided a smooth start to the night, and did incredibly well for a debut performance. Her skills are impeccable, though she seemed under-appreciated by the audience… that wasn’t her fault whatsoever; it was probably still early and everyone was still getting into the spirit. She’s also super humble and easy-going, so all the more reason to check her out! Intermission. Panic! at the Disco, The Killers, more of my faves played through the speakers. Failing not to dance around in my seat. Sheepish grinning whilst mouthing “CAUSE I’M MR. BRIGHTSIDEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE”. Up next was Those Who Dream. Now listen… Those Who Dream… Those Who freaken Dream… Smurf dudes… I owe a lot to those lads. They gave me my first ever photo pass back in April, and have always been super sweet and helpful in terms of scoring gigs. Not to mention that their sets are the most energetic and fun things to shoot. They truly give it their all onstage. You’ve got those bands that just stand there, that don’t jump off the stage and run through the entire venue, that don’t swap instruments and don’t invite members of The Faim to party with them. But Those Who Dream does. They go at it until they’re falling to the floor, and then give it some more. They go all out, no regrets, no drawbacks, both musically and in terms of their performance. Josh is the upbeat cyan dude who honestly cannot stay still, and Cooper is the innocent-smiling, hard-hitting drummer who keeps the duo going. Without one, ya can’t have the other. And they are the best Twenty Øne Piløts cover band – and an incredible original band – in Perth. Intermission. The Encounters. Sound familiar? Oh, they’re only those super cool dudes who play great music and have too many technical difficulties because technology hates us. Seriously though, these guys continue the evening’s trend of humbleness whilst providing some killer tunes. The band did a marvellous job with their short set – they were unfortunately cut short due to the excessive time spent dealing with technical issues, thus why I hate technology – and definitely left everyone begging for more. T’was during their set that I had the most trouble with lighting, particularly since I was shooting a lot from the right of the stage, where the lights were shining directly yet nowhere. It was really shitty lighting, man. Really shitty. That’s why I only managed to revive thirteen photos via Lightroom. That app’s tagline should be: “Lightroom: saving sanities and photography careers est. [whenever t’was released]”. (Sponsor me, Adobe.) Nevertheless, the guys did a fabulous job with the time – or lack thereof – that they had. Intermission. T’was time for the headliners, our folks in The Faux. From the first note, the crowd was chanting alongside Alex, swaying along to the aesthetic instrumentals, and having one hell of a good time. There were lyrics that were certainly crowd favourites, including the band’s trademark, “I can’t dance with you, but I can write you a love song.” Each and every audience member was part of a special collective, a group of fun-loving teens and young adults celebrating the year’s end and the band’s 2017 achievements. The band performed fantastically, quite the opposite of the lighting’s performance. Their style is so simplistic and elegant that it’s rather fascinating. Don’t get me wrong; they give it their all, they’re sweaty messes by the hour’s end, but they maintain a minimalistic stage quality that’s somewhat indescribable and is evidently making little sense. In short, they’re one hell of an incredible band. …And that was that. Up next: I don’t fucken know, I’m not even following the upload schedule.

MUSICAL SUMMARY: Ashleigh Carr-White: chill and groovy/5 Those Who Dream: Smurfs on acid + hi Stevie pls get me into the sws show ill do anything/5 The Encounters: tHEY DESERVED BETTER (butitsnobodysfaultokay)/5 The Faux: aesthetic eargasms/5

PHOTOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY: Lenses: Better than our government (and their citizenships are clear)/5 Camera: last time shooting with the D3400/5 Lighting: Kill me with a butter knife/5 Editing: life saving/5 My sanity: nope never heard of it/5 Check out all the amazing artists via the following links: Ashleigh Carr-White Those Who Dream The Encounters The Faux

Live long and headbang, xx-Skyler Slate