#well anyway. the image of him as this meme has been haunting me for months

[mooshroomterrarium]

when you drop a tnt minecart on your mom, killing her instantly

[shurisneakers]

unsolved (i)

Summary: Bucky doesn't even believe in the paranormal. So who the hell thought it was a good idea to stick him in a series about everything haunted for the internet's amusement? With his loose-canon of a teammate who has no concept of subtlety or any shits left to give, to make things even worse. (Buzzfeed unsolved AU)

Warnings: swearing, frustrated bucky at his little shit supreme, Very Loud reader, images and memes that all have alt texts.

A/N: yes this is literally harmless in a different font. do not ask me if anything doesn't make sense. i cannot explain. i resurface every 3 years to present you with ideas born from menty b's. ANYWAY shout out to my beloved ryan and shane. pls enjoy <3

Bucky doesn’t appeal to the youths.

Apparently. 

On God, he cannot fathom why.

He had definitely left the house in the last six months, maybe. Smiled in at least two pictures that existed on the internet. He even knew what Discord was. Sort of.  

By all accounts, he should be treated as the modern day icon that he was.  

“The youths?” he repeats, the word so foreign on his tongue it felt odd to even say it.

“Your numbers are the lowest of the whole team.” The latest tech-dude, with a tablet twelve models ahead of the one Bucky had in his room, tells him monotonously. “Wilson, Romanoff and Barton score the highest. Everyone else lies around the middle. You are dead-last.”

Bucky has the audacity to look offended. 

“Anything to say?” Their PR head, Maya, asks him, amused. 

He stares, formulating the wittiest one liner he could in three seconds.

“I don’ care,” he mumbles. 

Maya sighs. “Look, the team took the decision together. As far as I’m aware, you are still a member. You need some PR if you guys want to stay in the public’s good books.”

“No one’s gonna listen to me.” Bucky wasn’t exactly the poster child for American values. He couldn’t even vote until three years ago, and that came only after the full wrath of a Steve Rogers descended on the email inbox of the DMV. 

“That’s why it’s important to get them to like you,” Maya emphasizes. “Or the idea of you at least. A very sanitized, corporate friendly version.”

His eyebrow twitches unintentionally.  

“And also you signed the contract.”

Well. Shit. 

Truth be told– and he has openly and rather loudly stated this on numerous occasions even especially when no one asked– he doesn’t understand why they need a PR team. The world has calmed down significantly over the last few years. Bucky hadn’t really been out crime-fighting as much as he was people-watching. There hasn’t been an earth-shatteringly dystopian-level event in the longest time, and there seemed to be a group of spandex-clad teenagers who seemed to do a good job at taking care of them when they did threaten to occur. Go kids.

Even if they needed PR, he could arguably understand the appeal of Sam and Nat and why the people would want to see more of them. Bucky, on the other hand, looked like he crawled onto Earth most days of the week. 

“What do I have to do?” he asks ultimately, knowing there was no way to get out of this. “Interviews?”

The intern shares a look with Maya. Bucky shares a look with the ceiling. 

“The team agreed to do a series of videos, each focusing on a different niche,” she begins, “Crash courses on science, pointing out mistakes in spy movies. Once a week.”

Bucky nods along. He can pinpoint Bruce and Nat for those.

Maya stares at him.

Bucky stares back.

“So,” she says slowly, like he’s a moron, “you would–”

“No.” 

The intern sighs heavily like they discussed that this was going to happen. Bucky was getting predictable. This annoys him even further, for some reason.

“Only once a week, and it doesn’t have to be anything crazy–”

“I’m not doing videos,” he interjects. “I’ll tweet a few times. I’ll even go outside. But ’m not doin’ videos.”

A big step was to get the Avengers off Twitter after the regular shit-storm that occurs every time they’d quote-tweet another politician calling them shitheads. Getting them back on seems counterproductive. 

“Fine,” Maya relents, looking at the intern. “We'll work something out.”

Bucky leans back in his chair, and meditating on ways he can weasel his way out of those too.

So they stick him in a couple of interviews.

Bucky, as the recluse extraordinaire that he was, does unsurprisingly terrible at them.

Variety does a piece on him that was supposed to take up 2 pages. They send back half a page worth of usable material and Bucky gets a lecture on how monosyllables don't count as answers.

He grunts in return. Maya’s itch to smack his shoulder with the rolled up draft increases.

They set him up for pap walks. Just him getting fast food for the team, or sitting in the park.

They don’t take into account that Bucky was trained professionally for years on how to hide, sneak in and out of places without a soul knowing he was ever there. 

The paparazzi spend three hours waiting for him outside the pizza place, while he’s been home for two hours with two demolished pepperonis and an order of mozzarella sticks. 

They give him access to his Twitter. 

He tweets some dumb shit and gets shadow banned by that evening. 

Maya is sick and tired, and the interns have shifted three times since the whole ordeal started. Bucky honestly feels a little bad. Maybe he should try to be like Scott, who not only wrote a book, finger-gunned at photographers, did an interview a week, but also agreed to a podcast and a video series about literally anything they suggested. 

“Play nice,” Sam tells Bucky one evening. 

It’s an off-hand comment, not even really looking at him while he says it. 

Bucky doesn’t need to ask what he’s referring to, but he thinks that maybe he has gone too far.

He begrudgingly agrees. 

Therefore, it begins. 

They stick him in the background of a few videos. Just to interact, add his commentary on what was going on, suggestions. 

Then the jokes really start.

“I just don’t got anything to add,” Bucky tries, in a failure of an attempt to justify his lack of contribution. 

Maya only stares at him, but Bucky swears he can hear her curse quietly, even though her lips don’t move even a millimeter.  

He is not put in another video. 

And so he finds himself here. 

In a meeting room that he’s convinced is barricaded from the outside so he can’t slither out the door again. Another intern with pink-tinted glasses that took up half their face.

Maya’s in the midst of explaining to him that sure, his numbers had gone up by a decimal, but that was because people had started editing him into the backgrounds of other pictures for other users to find in a perplexing take on Where’s Waldo.

“Videos seem to be working,” she ties it together. “But we need more than you just standing silently behind Captain Rogers.”

“But it’s working,” Bucky objects. “I don’t see why it has to change.”

Maya sends him a glare. Bucky decides then it’s good to shut up. 

“Are you on the internet a significant amount?” the intern asks. The glasses on their face have changed colours to green. Bucky’s eyebrow furrows. 

“No.” 

For the next thirty minutes, he is subjected to a pop quiz about too many words ending with ‘core’, ‘coded’ and ‘eras’. He’s surprised that he knows what cottagecore is. He definitely doesn’t fucking know what a tomatogirl, nor does he want to. 

“What do you like doing?” the intern enunciates, pulling up a spreadsheet of niches that had built a dedicated community around themselves over the years. “Makeup? Cleaning? Parkour?”

Bucky wonders if they’d really create a montage of him just micro cleaning the kitchen every week. It doesn’t sound half bad. 

Beyond that, the only thing he can think of is woodworking, which Sam introduced him to. While he spends time creating little figures, he wouldn’t say it was– 

“You really are dead silent,” the intern breaks his train of thought, tone almost that of wonder. “Guess the whole ‘ghost story for seventy years’ is more true than I thought.”

Bucky throws him a weary look, and works on unclenching the fist that tightened involuntarily. 

“Was that necessary?” Maya’s voice comes coldly. “Take fifteen. Go find the other one we were supposed to meet.”

While sheepish and somewhat apologetic, the kid still looks relieved to be out of there. To be honest, Bucky isn’t really offended– he’s grown a thick skin over the years. But he also thought the guy was a little shit now. 

Maya turns back to him, but Bucky finds that the table contains wonders far more interesting than the conversation at hand.

“Back to what we were talking about.” She ruffles through something on her laptop. “Puppets? History?”

He wordlessly shakes his head. 

Been the former, seen too much of the latter.

Maya’s head tilts abruptly. “You like ghosts?”  

He wonders if the prior conversation had anything to do with this insightful question. 

Bucky shrugs. “Don’t exist.”

“Really,” Maya deadpans. “Aliens and multiversal baboons are fine, but no ghosts.”

“I’ve seen aliens and multiversal baboons. Never seen a ghost in my life,” Bucky argues right back.

“Other people have seen ghosts.”

“Good for other people.”

The door swings open right as Maya’s eyes narrow at him. Guess it wasn’t padlocked. 

“Whatever it is you think I did, Maya, I didn’t. I think,” you announce in a volume too much for a closed room, stopping when you see Bucky sitting cross-armed and looking delightfully disgruntled. “Oh hey, Barnes. Fancy seeing you here.”

Bucky had met you. The newest addition to the team that had made a grand entrance a couple of weeks ago. He thinks you stay on the floor below him, but he has nothing backing this hypothesis other than the disco funk music that had started appearing at odd hours of the night. 

“Please sit,” Maya cracks a smile at you that Bucky had yet to earn. “Sorry, I know our meeting is scheduled for later, but I figured we could kill two birds with one stone.”

You look between her and Bucky, who hasn’t moved an inch since you got here, much less even said hello.

“You must be really bad if Maya had to call me in,” you tell him outright. “I’m usually like, her last option.”

“Thanks,” Bucky replies dryly. 

“Look, here’s my final pitch.” Maya sighs, before turning to you. “You’re new, and we need something to introduce you slowly to the public.”

“Oh, am I finally getting hard launched?” You grin, and Bucky doesn’t know what that means. “Just imagine me kicking my feet, giggling or whatever.” 

“And he needs… an upgrade.” Maya’s thumb juts out towards Bucky who simply rolls his eyes.

“Right.” Your sight lands on him from across the table. “I’ve seen the memes.”

“What memes?” he grunts, because while the team had definitely seen them, it didn't occur to anyone they should show it to him. He loves them. Really. So much. Die for them. 

You only look too happy to pull out your phone and start typing.

“Do you know what skinwalkers are?” 

“No.”

“That’s what they say you look like, lurking in the back of all your friends’ videos,” you continue, swerving around your phone to show him.

Bucky doesn’t look impressed. He can’t say he blames them either, which makes him inexplicably maddens him.  

“At least they’re calling you their boyfriend,” you add, entirely unhelpfully. “That’s gotta count.”

“Right.” Maya clears her throat. “The both of you–” 

“Are getting paired together, I suppose,” you hum. 

Bucky’s eyebrows pull together. 

He barely knows you. Just a little bit on how you ended up here, that you enjoyed hanging out with the team, figuring out your place in the compound, and were seemingly doing a great job at it. 

You were… loud. And open. 

Bucky feels the compulsive need to compensate for that by doubling down on how silent he could get, as if the two of you couldn’t co-exist in the same space in equilibrium. 

Maya pointedly raises a finger at you. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

“For the right price, I will believe in whatever you tell me to.”

Her face lights up brighter than Bucky's ever seen.

“Great.” Maya slams her laptop closed. “See you later.”

Bucky’s left staring as she exits, not even throwing the both of you another look.

“That was quick,” your voice cuts through the silence. “What was that all about?”

 “Don’ ask me,” he grumbles, with a sinking feeling that he knew exactly what was about to follow. 

“Ghost hunting?” Bucky echoes a week later, as expected.

“Yes,” Maya tells him simply. “Two of you. A series based on paranormal activity.”

“I don’t even believe in them,” he reiterates. 

“That’s the point,” she emphasises. “Skeptic and believer. It makes for a good contrast.”

“Why us both?” He hopes it doesn’t come off as offensive. He just doesn’t see why he can’t do this with Sam. Even Clint, if a gun was really pressed to his head. 

“I’m new, no one gives a shit about me,” you say brightly and full of promise. “Yet.”

“Exactly. It’ll be low key. Not an overwhelming number of viewers, no expectations. It’s perfect for launching one Avenger and re-launching another.”

“Sounds rad.” You grin, leaning back as your feet rest on the chair in front of you.

Maya looks relieved for a moment that at least one of you was on board. “No promises on anything. We shoot one video, and if it does well, we stick with it.”

“What if I don’t want to?” Bucky argues. 

“Then you have until tomorrow morning to give us another feasible idea,” Maya dishes back.

Bucky retreats into his seat, arms crossed over his chest. 

Truth be told, he considered himself to be the most boring person in the team and though he had made his peace with that, he was sure thar bringing that up now would entail Maya shooting him in the foot.

“Fine,” he agrees and the sighs around the room are loud. 

He scoffs. So fucking dramatic and for what.

“Put her there, partner.” You stretch ungracefully over the large table, sticking out your hand.

Bucky eyes your hand. “Do you even believe in ghosts?” 

“I do now, yeah.” You nod seriously. “Love ‘em. Can’t get enough of them.”

“One video,” Maya reminds him as a balm. “And if it doesn’t work, you’re off the hook forever.”

Off the hook? Forever? For Bucky?

Yay. 

“One video,” he reiterates.

You roll your eyes before smiling when he leans forward to grab it. You yank it up and down clunkily. He blinks at you, letting go slowly. 

“Thank fuck,” Maya groans, head dropping onto the table. 

Your smile is wild. “Guess we’re doing this shit together.”

He doesn’t even have to look very deep in his soul. He already knows he’s going to suffer.

here’s my ko-fi if you’d like to support my writing!

to keep up with updates for this fic and others, please follow @shurisneakersupdates and turn on post notifications!

also i'd absolutely love to make this a community led fic like how harmless was! if you have memes or any paranormal ideas or just any prompts in general, please please send them my way <3

Next part

[aylinaliens]

The Not So Scary Haunting of Sarawat Guntithanon— Chapter 1

Fandom: 2Gether

Pairings: Sarawat/Tine

Summary: Sarawat Gay Panics 24/7 over his new roommate (who, by the way, might be a ghost, which is weird on so many levels but whatever, if a man wants to thirst over the supernatural being haunting his apartment so be it!)

Word Count: 1621

Notes: i'm not even excited for 2gether the movie yet here i am, posting another sarawatine fic. basically our boy Sarawat gay panics every single minute of every single day because the ghost who is haunting his apartment is pretty. that's it. that's the plot. just sarawatine being dumb, mutually pining idiots.

Read the first chapter on Ao3 or down below!

+

How was it possible that a disembodied voice could sound so... god damn enticing and lovely? At first, Sarawat found himself pressing his body deeper into his bed but after getting over to his initial shock and fear he allowed himself sometime to appreciate the sound of it. Although his heart was in his throat, Sarawat could not deny the wave of comfort that filled his veins, from his finger to his toes warm spread through his body.

Which was weird—and frankly crazy. Ghosts can possess people, right? Or kill them? Sarawat wished he paid more attention to all the horror movies Man and Boss dragged him to because maybe then he wouldn’t be laying in bed, already whipped, ready to drop down on knee. Hand in marriage sir, please give me your hand in marriage.

He should be terrified of this figure, not lowkey turned on.

Curse Sarawat and his inability to function around attractive boys. Curse this motherfucking hot as heck ghost and his stupid dimples.

Sarawat awakes to a blurry and translucent figure hovering mere inches from his face.

The next day he swears to Man and Boss that the reason he remains frozen was because of fear and not because he was having a full on gay panic attack... over a ghost. That’s what this person was, right? A ghost? He was a rationale adult but he had enough brain cells to connect all the dots.

Sarawat sucks in a deep inhale of breath, allowing his eyes to burn every line, curve, and dip of this mysterious figure's face.

The dim light of his bedroom combined with the near translucent nature of the figure meant that Sarawat never was able to get a clear idea of what this ghost looked like. Just the glimpses he did get left his throat dry and heart pounding rapidly.

The figure had a closed mouth smile etched across his features, all soft pink lips and crinkly eyes and dimples. Sarawat briefly thought of leaning forward to press his fingertips against those pink lips just to see if they were as soft as they looked. But then he realized that was insane and weird so instead he just beat that thought away with a stick. Gay thoughts: be gone! Don’t you dare become a simp over a motherfucking ghost.

The bottom half of his face was crystal clear which was both a blessing and curse while his top half looked as if it was about to flicker away at any moment. Sarawat was positive that this was abnormal, but then again this was his first encounter with a ghost so maybe it was, in fact, normal? It’s not as if he was given a manual or anything.

He couldn’t quite tell what shade of brown this mysterious figures eyes but he allowed his brain to imagine that it was probably vivid, just like the rest of his face. He was debating on the actual shade when he a disembodied voice spoke.

“Hello.”

How was it possible that a disembodied voice could sound so... god damn enticing and lovely? At first, Sarawat found himself pressing his body deeper into his bed but after getting over to his initial shock and fear he allowed himself sometime to appreciate the sound of it. Although his heart was in his throat, Sarawat could not deny the wave of comfort that filled his veins, from his finger to his toes warm spread through his body.

Which was weird—and frankly crazy. Ghosts can possess people, right? Or kill them? Sarawat wished he paid more attention to all the horror movies Man and Boss dragged him to because maybe then he wouldn’t be laying in bed, already whipped, ready to drop down on knee. Hand in marriage sir, please give me your hand in marriage.

He should be terrified of this figure, not lowkey turned on.

Curse Sarawat and his inability to function around attractive boys. Curse this motherfucking hot as heck ghost and his stupid dimples.

Sarawat was like ninety percent sure of his sexual identity but now he was having a crisis about the fact he was possibly crushing on a whole new species. Needless to say he was losing his mind!

He could just imagine the headline of the video Man would inevitably make him sit down to film and post on their jointed YouTube channel.

STORYTIME: I ALMOST MADE OUT WITH THE GHOST THAT'S HAUNTING MY APARTMENT!

Sarawat was positive that his best friend would insert various memes and jokes throughout his very honest and real existential-slash-moral-slash- philosophical crisis Sarawat was having.

It would probably rake in a lot of views but Sarawat did not want to be known as That One Guy Who Simped Over A Ghost for the rest of his life.

He was almost positive that if he told his friends the trust extent of how he felt, they would want to change their channel from music and vlogs to something more akin to Buzzfeed Unsolved.

They would buy a spirit box and Ouija board online and force Sarawat to try to communicate because of course they fucking would, those absolute menaces.

He could already see Boss glancing around like a conspiracy theorist, seriously asking the ghost are you DTF (that means down to fornicate in case you need clarification), Mr. Ghost? Just give us a sign, any sign. Man would most definitely feed into this or make the situation even worse.

Which is why he was not going to reveal what happened tonight. He would just play off as sleep paralysis. Yeah. That is the best way to prevent his best friends from blowing this situation out of proportion.

Sarawat wanted to say something but the words died in his throat. What would he even say? Hello. Please smash your face against mine! Uh, no way in hell. Maybe it was a good thing that he had trouble forming words right now. It would save him a lot of embarrassment.

The figure leaned down closer and— fuck fuck fuck gay thoughts go away— peering curiously down at Sarawat. “He definitely can see me so why isn’t he saying anything?”

Because you can’t verbally keysmash in real life you beautiful and vaguely threatening supernatural being.

The figure hummed, deep in thought, before leaning back (thank goodness) only to do something that made Sarawat let out a very unflattering shriek in surprise. Well there goes his reputation. He didn’t have one in the first place to begin with, especially not with this ghost, but still. There it goes.

Ghosts were unable to touch people right? Right? So why did a ghost...just touch him?

Sarawat raked his brain trying to remember the drama he watched a few months back with his brother (it was Phukong unsubtle way of being like, hey, bro, I like boys but I’m still scared of coming out so let’s just both pretend like I didn’t just cry at the scene where Ohm Pawat’s character comes out to his mother, I swear I’m emotional because of the acting not because I can relate to it).

Sarawat was positive that the ghost in that drama couldn’t actually touch anyone. He was like ninety-six percent sure that every time he tried his body would just go straight through the other characters.

He forgot how it was possible that the ghost could touch, and kiss, the human, though. He should have paid more attention but hey, he was also trying to think of an inconspicuous way to let it slip that he was also gay. Great (disaster gays) apparently think a lot alike.

Anyways, the figure poked his chest and Sarawat almost pissed his pants in shock. Clearly the ghost was just as surprised that he could actually touch Sarawat because he froze, making Sarawat happy that he decided to wear a shirt to bed tonight.

He assumed that the ghost must have thought he was dreaming to (wait can ghost dream?) so just to make sure he poked Sarawat three more times in the same spot and yup—Sarawat felt it. He felt it clear as day.

“Oh.” The figure tilted his head to the side. “This is weird. I shouldn’t be able to do that.”

Yeah, obviously.

Sarawat opened his mouth to finally speak (he swore he was going to play it cool and be all like: hi! i promise i’m not having gay thoughts right now!) but before he could a loud crash in the next room made him jolt in surprise.

After being rendered motionless for a few minutes, Sarawat finally gained control of his own body. He threw himself upright into a sitting position but in the process of doing so he accidentally slammed his forehead against the figure whose face was technically still in close proximity.

Cursing, Sarawat clutched his head as pain made white spots cloud his vision. “ Fuck .”

From next to him the figure cursed too. “ Shit.”

Eventually the pain subsided into a dull ache, allowing Sarawat to glance over at the boy—ghost, supernatural being, angel, whatever—next to him.

The top half of his face was no longer translucent anymore.

In fact, he wasn’t translucent at all.

Crimson blood began to trickle out from his nose, causing Sarawat to gape in horror.

Not because the image was a terrifying one. I mean, yeah, it was a bit weird but it has been established that Sarawat, that certifiable himbo, was in a constant state of ‘mark me down as scared and horny’ tonight, but because a ghost...was bleeding. From a wound that Sarawat gave him. Was that like, scientifically possible? Note to self: send a text to Earn so that she can ask her girlfriend about it.

Also? Sarawat was finally able to label the ghost's eyes as being a cross between honey and caramel. Obviously, his poor gay started chanting oh oh oh oh oh because yeah, read above, Sarawat Guntithanon? Himbo, Simp, Dumbass Extraordinaire. Either way he was a mess.

The possible brain injury and the shock of the entire night finally caught up to Sarawat, making his stomach churn with nausea and vision become blurry.

Without meaning to, Sarawat fainted—not even elegantly like one of those heroines in a romance novel but like a dead, fucking fish, limbs flopping every which way—right into the arms of the mysterious figure he was still dying ( yikes bad choice of words) to know the name of.

The last thing he registered before completely blacking out was that someone was cradling him to their chest, rambling away.

“Oh my god. Did I just kill him? No. No way. He’s still breathing. Shit. Sarawat! Hey, you saraleo, wake up!”

[depressedoverdrawings]

Can you hear the tumult of our youth?

KazeKi is the first romance I’ve ever enjoyed, or rather, that I emotionally connected with, as “enjoy” is a funny word choice for a work that made me feel so miserable. Personally, I’ve never enjoyed media that focuses on relationships and love, were they movies, TV, or literature.

But after I discovered KazeKi, I found myself drawn to it, almost involuntarily so. It was as if a spell had been cast. I suppose what superficially drew me in, at first, was the art. It had the charm of retro manga (I absolutely love retro manga/anime looks, IMO they have so much more character than most modern anime and manga), the nostalgic elegance of the idealized upper-class XIX century, and the unrelenting beauty and cuteness of all the boys.

It was mildly surreal and highly entertaining to witness the seed of so many shounen-ai visual tropes: The flower motifs, the flowery poetry, the impossibly pretty boys in dramatic embraces and breathy kisses, the aggressive frenchness of it all. Even it was shocking to me how these elements, instead of striking me as the tired, sappy tropes I saw them as, were now all genuine and beautiful, somehow. Even those silly sparkles around pretty boys seemed fitting. I realized these weren’t tropes back then, but elements of a sincere artistc vision. However, while the art was mesmerizing to me, I came to realize that what drew me in deeper, and kept me anchored to KazeKi, were the themes explored, and the character-based drama, the very stuff I had always avoided.

Without getting far too personal about it, Kaze to Ki no Uta was the first romance that struck something within me, somewhere personal. Now, I certainly have never faced trauma and pain anywhere near to what poor Gilbert and Serge face in their absurdly depressing story, but I definitely wouldn’t call myself emotionally and sexually resolved and healthy, and once upon a time I was a closeted boy in a catholic school, so I guess there’s space for a little bit of self-identification. My coping mechanism to my personal woes had always been to just bottle them up and distract myself with entertainment and art. And that was exactly what I was doing, browsing music on YouTube, when I stumbled upon the KazeKi OVA’s soundtrack.

I found myself listening to this gorgeous arrangement of a Chopin piece, and thought to myself, staring at the angelic figure looking back at me, across the screen: “Gee whilikers, that’s sure is a pretty drawing of a pretty girl”. Then, after reading the comments, I found out that was a boy. As much as the “draw a girl, call it a boy” school of drawing pretty boys makes me groan, I could still feel it, that first hook of interest, stabbing me. As the slideshow enticed me with pictures of Keiko Takemiya’s gorgeous art, I found myself enamoured by it. It was a particular drawing that made KazeKi finally snatch me: that same boy, lounging angelically on some sort of abstract architectural design; in the background, a neoclassical vase flanked by two neoclassical girls, and, above and below, this stunningly beautiful vegetation. So much care, skill, and good taste, concentrated in just one image! I’d have it as a poster, if I could. So, I googled “Kaze to Ki no Uta”, unwittingly throwing myself in a rabbit hole I could not have prepared myself for. Trying to read it was in itself a journey, but, to sum it up: I managed to read it about as well as one can, if they don’t speak japanese and have no access to the spanish and italian translations.

It had been years since I had started feeling emotionally numb. My most extreme displays of emotion came in the form of quiet, teary eyes, reserved for those rare, impactful pieces of art, and those rarer moments of despair-inducing introspection that I couldn’t manage to suppress, but even those lasted little, as I fought to recover my composure. By the end of Kaze to Ki no Uta, I was a sobbing wreck, doing my best (and failing) to contain my ugly crying. Ugly crying, for god’s sake. I was ugly crying, actually sobbing like a kid, because of an yaoi manga. Crying in the shower, even! What kind of weeb had I degenerated into? It hurt. It deeply hurt, in a way I hadn’t been made to hurt in a long, long while. KazeKi had impacted me to the point that I wasn’t just sad, I was scared too, as the waterfall of emotion opened the path for that deeper, personal darkness to come out. And it did.

Now, I admit I’d been a little bit more emotionally fragile than usual right before I read it, due to the effects of the quarantine and the previous consumption of a highly depressing piece of media: Les Amitiés Particulières, which is probably even more depressing than KazeKi as it deals with a much more grounded homophobia-induced tragedy based in real life. Somehow, it didn’t impact me as much as KazeKi, however. Also, it was definitely what influenced my personal YouTube algorithm to recommend me the KazeKi soundtrack, so I wouldn’t know of KazeKi if it weren’t for Amitiés. But even then, it felt unnatural to, well, feel so much. I hadn’t felt this invested in and attached to fictional characters ever since I was a little kid, too young to realize those people in the TV weren’t real. In the following couple of weeks, I was crying over these boys, spending whole days feeling like trash, feeling mild anxiety spikes whenever I remembered about KazeKi, having (even more) difficulty falling asleep, and utterly failing to avoid thinking about my deep-seated intimate issues, all because of these dumb, pretty anime boys. Not even my trusty prayer of “they’re not real people, stop being stupid” worked. In an attempt to stop wallowing in this shounen-ai hell, I decided to consume a whole lot of escapist media while I deliberately avoided any activity related to KazeKi, be it reading the manga, listening to the OVA’s soundtrack, looking at fanart, or even just thinking about it. It “worked” for a month or so, but now I’m back here, wallowing in KazeKi’s painful beauty again, stalking the other seven people in the western world that seem to care about KazeKi, and distilling my thoughts in this bizarre textwall, in an attempt to work it out. If you’re one of those seven people, please don’t refrain from talking to me, if you feel like it! I’ve had just one opportunity to have a conversation about KazeKi, and it was in YouTube comments, for heaven’s sake. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m this afflicted by KazeKi due to its unrelenting, merciless, cruel beauty. Everything about it is presented in this assembly of pure beauty and lost perfection, this painful nostalgia that is present in its aesthetics of an idealized Europe which lives only in its surviving art, that is present in the story which ultimately tells us of the loss of love, and is present in the fact that the whole story is a broken man’s reverie about the past. Tragedy might make me sad, but tragedy with beauty will destroy me. Bittersweetness is just so more cruel than bitterness. And it was this masterpiece of sadistic bittersweetness that permanently broke something in how I deal with my emotions. Kaze to Ki no Uta touched me deeply, to the point of leaving a permanent impression, I’m afraid. I can count in one hand the pieces of art that have punched my soul in the face like KazeKi did. I am honestly flabbergasted over the effect it had over me. At first I felt embarrassed over being emotionally obliterated by a freaking shounen-ai, but I’ve since come to the conclusion that KazeKi is a work of art, a genuine, sincere work of art, deserving of the title. Now I just hope I’m not alone in being emotionally obliterated by this freaking shounen-ai. After everything they went through, the personal fights, the shaky development of their relationship, the undeserved ostracism at Lacombrade, Auguste’s demonic persecution, the escape; how could it be that Gilbert’s life would end in such a horrible way, and that Serge would be left alone to face the full, unbearable weight of his grief! Why?! Keiko Takemiya, you’re a vile sadist. You’re a genius, too, of course. But you’re a vile sadist.

I knew that a happy ending wasn’t going to happen. The horrible ending was a pretty early spoiler, really. Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t stop myself from reading on anyway, and I couldn’t stop myself from having an inkling of illogical hope. Even if my logical self knew a happy ending wasn’t gonna happen, it couldn’t prepare me for just how tragically their love would end, and how awful it all would feel, once I knew their full story.

It’s all the more bitter because of how close Serge came to saving him, too. Having escaped together to a place where they could’ve built the nearest thing to a normal life a gay couple could have, back then. But in the end, not even Serge’s love could mend Gilbert’s mutilated soul. Those boys deserved so much better, especially Serge. Serge, you sweet angel! You were created to suffer.

KazeKi really is a masterpiece in how it explores its extremely heavy themes and the minds of its characters, and how it flawlessly meshes that with perfect art. There are many moments in KazeKi that haunt me: Serge letting that bird go, Serge’s vision of Gilbert at the Lacombrade grounds, Gilbert running into the carriage, angel wings behind him; Serge laying alone on the bed in Room 17. I cannot look at those pages without tearing up and feeling this horrible feeling in my heart, and this feeling is literal: My heart actually feels heavy and constricted when I think about it, it can’t be healthy. Up until now, I thought “cri evrytiem” was just a meme. KazeKi has woken me up to the fact that bottling up one’s own personal issues will inevitably end with them exploding out, leading to something much, much worse. I am scared by the prospect of facing my personal issues. To me, they are horribly strong, and seem incredibly hard to solve, if they’re even solvable at all. I’m horrified by the prospect of facing them, working to solve them. I’m so scared, that simply thinking about it, right now, gives me this awful weight in my chest, and makes me want to cry, again. But I know now that I have no choice in this matter, as the only alternative is that abyss I dare not speak of, and one cannot return from. Melodramatic? Yes. But I did just read Kaze to Ki no Uta.

Thank you for getting this far, whoever you are.

I’m forever haunted by Serge’s words to his long-gone Gilbert, right at the beginning:

“Gilbert Cocteau, you were the greatest flower to ever bloom in my life. In the faraway dreams of youth, you were a bright red flame, blazing so fiercely… You were the wind that stirred my branches. Can you hear the poem of the wind and trees? Can you hear the tumult of our youth? Oh, there must be others who so remember their own days of youth…”

[lost-in-zembla]

On Metamodernism

It’s tough to grasp metamodernism as an artistic movement but most of us live lives strongly affected by the concepts of metamodernism every day. You’re having a serious conversation with your friend about her mental health; simultaneously, you and your friend are part of a groupchat where you are currently making fun of the very friend you are supporting. This isn’t necessarily disingenuous; you are witnessing two different instances of a person and those two instantiations of you happen to be different depending on context and medium. In part, metamodernism is a kind of acceptance of our multiple selves, our tendency to oscillate between states or even inhabit both in a sort of human superposition.

I taught my friends about metamodernism in our groupchat as my friend Jarett consoled me via one-on-one text after the sudden implosion of my five-year long relationship and the fact that my life is generally unbearable—a fact that is more embarrassing when one considers how easy I have it. It’s sort of a shame feedback loop. 

As I was explaining metamodernism for my own satisfaction, I thought that I might actually make an okay professor. I could teach American literature. Maybe. 

So I get a job teaching at the local community college and my life slowly comes back together like a cut that heals. I am relatively respected by my students and I have some abstract sense purpose, the cracks in the surface of which are only visible if one spends a long, existential period of time contemplating the practical or, god-forbid, spiritual uses of an education in American literature what with the reality of a global climate catastrophe and the approaching drumbeats of right-wing strongmen leaders reaching positions of power all around the world.

But things are pretty good.

I get a parking space. I get an apartment that looks bad, then looks better. I start to open the curtains. I don’t want to hide so much. A year or two down the line I lease a practical car and people treat me with a bit more respect when they see me step out of it. I smile at people in the grocery store. At this point I can see peoples’ mouths when I go outside. When I see their mouths, they’re smiling. They can see my mouth. I’m smiling.

I get to know people and people think I’m lovely. The faculty all look up to me. How young and handsome and intelligent he is! He’ll sure go places, they say. And I do. I quickly earn a raise and then I’m head of the department. And so young! When I’m not inspiring awe I inspire smoldering jealousy. Women? Naturally. And I treat each of them with utmost respect. I value these women for more than the thousands of hours of hot naked ecstasy they provide me. I buy more fresh produce. I throw none of it out.

I single-handedly save the English department at the community college. Funding comes pouring in. Eventually, it becomes one of the premier colleges for literary studies in the Midwest. They rename a building after me. I just turned thirty. Before long, I’m offered a job at the prestigious private university in town, with nods toward a proverbial shoe in the door when it comes to tenure. Unheard of! But he’s just that good. My wrists and forearms become perceptibly thicker. People cross the street in front of traffic to shake my hand. I learn what the fuck “ketosis” is.

Then there I am one day in my cushy office. Rows of leather-bound books fill the shelves around the ample perimeter of the room. I’ve read them all, naturally. My hair has started to grey in places but damn if it’s not as thick and lush as the heart of the Amazon. A knock on the door. My office hours ended at one. I answer and it’s, oh, Claire from this semester’s modern American literature course. Of course I’ve noticed her in class. How could I not? But I’d always maintained a professional and appropriately avuncular demeanor in front of her. She’s twenty-eight, French, gorgeous. Naturally.

We discuss her essay on Light in August and I say to her, you know, Claire, it was the French who were among the first to notice Faulkner’s genius. She puts her hand on my thigh. In her accent that itself somehow resembles a beautiful naked body she says, The French notice lots of things. I slide my attractively thick forearm over the crowded desk space and knock the books and pens and everything onto the floor and—well, let’s just say that my life of success and talent has enhanced me in other ways. And it’s hot and insane and weird and papers fly everywhere. And it sort of just goes on like that for weeks and then months—the relationship, not that particular sexual event. At my age, after all the sex and drugs and joy and tragedy, sometimes I think that it’s the clandestine nature of the thing that really gets me off. Like I need more and more secret or shameful shit to fire off those tired old neurons. I start to become cavalier in front of the students. I begin to, perhaps, show my hand. 

I get another knock on my office, sometime in the Spring. Bill, I say. Come in. He sits down and we engage in a tense discussion where every syllable is laced with a double entendre because he can’t just say it out loud, for Christ’s sake. That’s just not how these things are done. He’s old school, but firm, Bill. She’s graduating anyway, and something tells me when we can finally be together publicly then the thrill will already be gone. 

The students already know. I’ve seen the screenshots. I’ve been memed. Things are tense in class and they can tell that I’ve given up. The fire in my eye that led to my meteoric rise has dimmed to a pathetic ember. Sometimes I take my Audi out on a dark highway outside of town and I press on the accelerator until I can’t go any faster. I have to stop myself from shutting my eyes.

One day in class, I look up from my papers and all the students are out of their desks, standing over me. They’re holding pencils and yardsticks that have been modified into edged weapons. What’s the meaning of this? They use my Tom Ford tie to tie my arms behind me and to my chair. They put me in the center of the room. I knew they would betray me. I’d always known. For years this notion has haunted the deepest recesses of my mind: these people, these kids, are going to be the ones to put this old dog down. Is this because of Claire, I ask. They laugh. They laugh because they think I’m an old fool. I am an old fool.

No, professor, Shellie says. She seems to be the leader. It’s much more serious than that, she says. O life! Everything I’ve ever done. I’ve stomped on people all the way to the top and now it’s all coming back to me, some sort of holdup in the karmic clerical system that led to forty years of consequences all delivered at once. Things were so easy for so long, so fun, that I forgot what it was like to live a life with consequences.

Shut up, she says. You’re here for a reason. What could she know? How did she mobilize all of these students? When did they make the weapons? How many questions could I possibly pose in sequence?

Professor, she says, we have one question for you. Anything, I say. And answer truthfully, she says. And I say of course, of course I’ll be completely honest. Okay, professor, she says, do you consider yourself… a historicist? At this very moment I know it’s over for me. Well, I say, it’s not so simple, Shellie. The mob is in an uproar. A fair bit of verbal sparring ensues. Shellie and the other students in favor of the transcendent nature of literature—whatever that means—and me in favor of a more context-based approach. Sure, if I thought that novels were a good way to learn about history then I’d deserve this. I’d deserve all of this.

How can you read these works outside of their historical context? What about Light in August for God’s sake?  The mob lashes out again—not Faulkner fans, go figure—but Shellie shushes them until the classroom is as silent as the dusty hills of Jerusalem. Literature, she says, is timeless. And this essentially breaks me. I begin weeping openly. You might as well kill me, then, I say. They set upon me like a pack of hyenas. 

A moment or an eternity after my head is pulled off my body like the Bacchae in that Euripides tragedy, I hear waves lap against the rocks. I feel in my face the salty breeze of the ocean. I open my eyes to find a beautiful Mediterranean island. It feels neither hot nor cold. The breeze from the ocean feels perfect, as though there were no storms to be found in any corner of the Earth.

Behind me, inland, I hear the sound of approaching footsteps. I turn around to find Vladimir goddamn Nabokov of all people. It’s perfect. So I tell him the story, how I was murdered by my students over two reductive and non-mutually exclusive schools of thought in literature—two schools of thought that are both perfect lenses through which to view Nabokov’s work. When I tell him he laughs his big Russian laugh and slaps me on the shoulder, and I laugh. Then he hands me a butterfly net and we skip through pleasant hills in that vast and timeless place forever and ever.

No. What’s happening? It’s all slipping away from me now. All the memories, the moments, the time, leaking out of my mind to become something ghostly, an image half-developed, a thought unspoken. I lift my head and look at my hands and there I am, lying on a couch in a high school faculty lounge. My hands are unwrinkled. My body is young. There is no Humanities Wing in my name, no tenure, no Audi. No Claire. Was it all just a dream? Could it all have been just a dream? Is it within the realm of possibility that such an absurdly bad trope could have manifested into my life naturally? Or am I the subject of a cruel and untalented god who simply bats me about and writes hack narratives for me to tumble through like some Sisyphean Rube Goldberg machine? Coffee. Need Coffee.

It’s all silly, anyway. Nabokov and myself cavorting through some weird Elysium? Ridiculous. If that was what the afterlife had in store for me, then Nabokov would probably be hanging out with Pushkin and Tolstoy while maybe Dostoevsky and I build a sandcastle. Maybe. But then, in all likelihood, Nabokov, Pushkin, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and the other cool kids would kick sand in my face and walk off with whatever beautiful ladies happen to inhabit this weird Russian-literary Elysium that I’ve somehow ended up in. I haven’t thought this out very well.

What was this all about, again? Metamodernism. Easy. Let’s think.

Okay.

As I write this now, behind my computer, watching Youtube videos about sushi, wondering how the sushi will make its way into my writing through mental osmosis (not subtly, it turns out), I look at these instances of me, with the meteoric success or the banal day-to-day life, and I wonder who exactly I am. I am a thousand selves. I am nothing. I am trying to remember into the future who I am. I am a metamodernist—no, I’m not.

[hothian-snow]

OC Music Meme

List one or more songs that relate to the following tagged by @a-muirehen​ tagging @sith-nb @elvhenyoung @rainofaugustsith @jacemalcom

OC: Yennevyr Dosal aka Lord Soteira

Reminds you of them most:

Moonsea by Phildel Don't share the past, if you won't share your heart All that we share is the view of these stars There are diamonds on the floor you can't take back There's an eyelash on the board, does she wear black? All the violence that I swore you could have back There's red varnish on the door, I don't wear that I called it, I called it, I called it the moon scene

The song depicts how she views the relationships in her life, from her very first lover to her current master. It speaks of the surface glam, the glittering mystique, the toxicity she sometimes fall into (most of the time originating from her), and the conflicting feelings of vulnerability. The tone of the song represents her perfectly.

Teen Idle by MARINA I want blood, guts, and angel cake I'm gonna puke it anyway I wish I'd been a teen idle Wish I'd been a prom queen, fighting for the title Instead of being sixteen and burning up a bible Feeling super, super, super suicidal

It's almost narcissistic how much Yen hates herself. She had battled with mental health issues which she hides away for the majority of her childhood and teenage years. Her father was oblivious to how bad she was suffering, and Gisele saw glimpses but not enough for her to directly intervene. Yen's obsession with creating an image for herself, of wanting to be unattainable just so she could be wanted, is depicted tragically well in this song. Also, the teen angst is lovely.

No Children by The Mountain Goats

And I hope I never get sober And I hope when you think of me years down the line You can't find one good thing to say [...] I am drowning There is no sign of land You are coming down with me Hand in unlovable hand And I hope you die I hope we both die

Yen’s depression song. Her self-destructiveness coupled with her spite makes a horrible combination that encapsulates her dysfunctional state.

Blinding by Florence + The Machine No more dreaming of the dead as if death itself was undone No more calling like a crow for a boy, for a body in the garden No more dreaming like a girl so in love, so in love

Yen has always been an escapist at heart- escaping the world, escaping from herself. It's about time she stops running, and wake up from that dream world. The death of her father and the supposed death of her childhood lover haunts her. It's time that she moved on.

Reminds another character of them:

Sober II by Lorde You asked if I was feeling it, I'm psycho high Know you won't remember in the morning when I speak my mind Lights are on and they've gone home, but who am I? Oh, how fast the evening passes Cleaning up the champagne glasses

Anyone who knew Yen on Celanon (or on her late night outs on Dromund Kaas) knows that she is a woman who wears 'glamour and trauma' like they are designer clothes. She loves to drink just so she can feel good, to flirt just so she can feel attractive, to party just so she can forget. An unhealthy coping mechanism to deal with what was initially just an unfulfilling familial relationship, and later to deal with her various emotional baggage.

Watching Ruth by Alexandre Desplat

A musical ost from The Shape of Water, one of my favorite films. The music reminds Darth Kharopos so much of Yen, even if Yen would never see herself in this song. A low, dramatic, slightly foreboding tune that turns into something out of a romantic bed-time story. He senses the pain and anguish in her, but in the end, he sees her in the best light possible. It is in their initial meeting that he sees her doing something out of the goodness of her heart- hence, he knows she isn't who she pretends to be, that she is better than she thinks she is. He sees the girl who, deep down, wishes that life would play out like a fairy tale.

Reminds you of a relationship of theirs

Gisele and Yen

Whisper by Birdeatsbaby Pulling through the distant nightmare A pain I’m hungry to share You’re my dirty secret But I won’t keep it Simmering and spilling over Calling every, every quarter I’ll be fire, earth and water Now you’re shouting I can hear ya Bang bang lover we’re running undercover From the guns of tyranny 

Gisele was her bodyguard and Yen was the crime princess. It was a fairy tale romance, only with guns and blood. Of course, Gisele realizes that the explosiveness and drama of their relationship was partially performative too- something Yen won’t admit.

Tyrkos Rosokor aka Darth Kharopos and Yen

Sylvia by The Antlers Sylvia, get your head out of the oven Go back to screaming and cursing Remind me again how everyone betrayed you Sylvia, get your head out of the covers Let me take your temperature You can throw the thermometer right back at me If that's what you want to do, okay?

Sometimes, Yen spirals. Their relationship becomes heavily toxic. At first, Darth Kharopos thought he’d helped her through her issues but mental health maintenance is a lifelong process, one that cannot be fixed with a few months of therapy. Especially, not when it is a childhood issue that is worsened by constant trauma. It gets worse when Yen reaches the point where she is powerful enough to lash out at the world, to potentially kill her master if she wishes it so.

Falling by Florence + The Machine

I've fallen out of favor and I've fallen from grace Fallen out of trees and I've fallen on my face Fallen out of taxis, out of windows too Fell in your opinion when I fell in love with you [...] I'm not scared to jump, I'm not scared to fall If there was nowhere to land I wouldn't be scared at all

Yen knew the dark side has become a part of her, no matter how much Darth Kharopos preaches about balance, about the light. Then, Yen realizes eventually that her master means something to her. She loves him- and that truly scares her. Stars, why did she ever catch feelings?

Love Run by The Amazing Devil

Love run, love run For all the things we wished we’d done Run from all you know that’s coming Run to show that love’s worth running to

Their bond has grown into something beyond that of master and apprentice. Love is a double-edged blade.

Darth Tiophis and Yen

Seven Devils by Florence + the Machine Seven devils all around you Seven devils in your house See, I was dead when I woke up this morning I'll be dead before the day is done

The ghost of Darth Tiphios has bored her way through Yen's spirit, and turned Yen into something else, something Other, one foot in this world and another elsewhere. Yen is ready to be a vessel for retribution.

The Horror and the Wild by The Amazing Devil

You're the daughter of sightless watching stones You watch the stars hurl all their fundaments In wonderment, at you and yours, forever asking more [...] We're drunk but drinking, sunk but sinking They thought us blind, we were just blinking [...] Give me back my heart you wingless thing

Darth Tiophis to Yen is like the Devil to a witch, like Hekate to Medea. This song is the song of Yen, the woman who bleed stars and learn from ghosts, a Sith powerful enough to go toe-to-toe with the likes of Darth Malgus. She is the legacy of Darth Tiophis, ancestor of Darth Lokess who is the infamous sorceress that attempted to overthrow the Sith Emperor and paid for it with her life.

[elichorph]

ok hi i’m back with a second character ...

the member of the yale's elite, they're twenty three and a grad student majoring in film & media studies. they are as amicable as they are histrionic.

stats:

full name: gordon minjun teller nicknames: goose. gordon is for business only age: twenty three  birthday: june 13, 1997 chart: gemini sun / cancer moon / leo rising gender: cis male pronouns: he / him sexuality: bisexual & biromantic height: 6′1 hair color: blue (now blonde) tattoos: none piercings: nose stud (right side), earlobes (always have silver hoops in them)

PINTEREST BOARD 

blackmail:

while the public believes that goose’s family retired and moved to another country, this was actually released as a coverup because they went missing. goose withheld information from the court about their last whereabouts which could have prevented it from becoming a cold case.

he was expelled from high school after vandalizing a statue on campus and his uncle paid the school to go back on their decision.

he lost a third of his inheritance money to a cult he briefly followed in his sophomore year of college while looking for guidance.

backstory:

tw: implied death

right at birth, goose was adopted into the teller family who were pretty well known. his father was a young ceo of an oil company in texas. goose’s family eventually became public figures and tabloid favorites after a long riveting love story between his father and mother, who belonged to opposing business families. it really was a quick rise and fall to fame, starting when it was revealed goose’s adoptive mom, grace, couldn’t have kids, he was in her arms not even a month after and right out of them thirteen years later when she disappeared and the family really was never to be heard of again. 

but as the only adopted child into a family who had to keep their public image up, goose’s dreams of being a fun loving kid were crushed. really, it was strictly gordon - gordon on the tabloids, you’d see his baby face like aw thank god grace got to have a kid of her own <3 he was posted up at galas, listening to his dad speak about oil and shit every weekend and going back to his small private school every monday and it was just the same routine conditioning to keep the image of the teller family spotless and to hopefully get gOrDoN to become the next ceo.

that all kind of went to shit though when goose turned 14. his parents miraculously went missing (don’t ask me what happened i don’t even know) one night when he was tucked into bed. seriously, he woke up one morning and they were gone and suddenly there were police storming the house and he was being questioned and things weren’t routine or safe anymore. in order to still save face for the family though, news was quickly put out that the family went on a private vacation while the investigation went on privately. it was taken to court, people signed nda’s, and all little goose knew was that he his parents were going to a party that night and hadn’t told anybody else and he was too scared to tell anyone. at one point goose became the main suspect and he had to put his freshman year of high school on pause, but he was dismissed months after even though he hadn’t shared the detail that they went to a party. if he had shared it, they literally would’ve been found. eventually, there were no new leads, the case was declared cold, and an official statement was put out that the teller parents “retired” and “moved” to a different country that wouldn’t be disclosed and gOrDoN would be under the care of his uncle.

gordon was like mad though haha. even though he’d gotten his family’s entire inheritance as a fifteen year old and should’ve been happy that he was basically a millionaire, he wasn’t used to things not being in the same routine and actually having to make decisions for himself. newsflash, but goose can’t handle emotions really well and he got angry and well i don’t know if you’ve seen donnie darko where donnie literally put an axe through the statue’s head and spray painted “they made me do it” below the statue? but yeah, that. goose wasn’t slick though, got caught by security, and his uncle paid the school to let it slide and then sent goose to a boarding school in maruland.

he spent the last couple years of high school trying to figure out who he actually was outside of the tabloids and the teller name and image, and eventually got the hang of it by the time he enrolled at yale. he started going by goose instead of gordon, went into film instead of business like his family wanted him to and slowly started to blossom into the weirdo he is today <3 his dad was in the elites so he was able to secure a legacy spot and reluctantly said yes to joining. he was kinda quiet the first year, but now he’s all gungho to do charity events and make people happy and shit like that. 

his sophomore year though he kinda doubted the path he was on and his naive ass got roped up into a cult. anyways, he ended up trusting them a lot and donated 1/3 of his family’s inheritance to the cult and kinda blew it. goose was acting hella weird around this time though, i imagine people around him could kinda sense he wasn’t like alright for a few months. anyways someone ended up giving him an intervention about acting kinda whack and he realized and thankfully was able to leave the cult pretty unscathed. but he is deeply, deeply ashamed about his time in the cult though.

personality:

he is one gigantic deranged baby. like he is baby, but he’s also kind of crazy. if goose feels any normal emotion, it instantly bass boosts and he feels it in full. goose genuinely is so sensitive, he’ll physically flinch if you say something merely mean to him because he was used to growing up so perfect that he really can’t take criticism. however, he’ll do his best to patch things up by saying some incomprehensible joke right there and then. the only exception to this is the tabloids. goose has become so immune to them that he will straight up troll them back on twitter because he just doesn’t give two shits.

he’s incredibly kind. so so so kind (not really gentle though). the type to remember your favorite candy bar and hand one to you on a random tuesday. he’ll remember your name even if you’ve only met once and even if you didn’t give him your name, he’ll look it up somehow just so he knows next time. he loves to make jokes all the time. none of them ever make sense, but they’re funny to him and he won’t apologize for it. and he’s LOUD. you probably can hear his cackles and snorts and dramatic screams even when you’re on the other side of campus. he’s just a kid in a candy store excited to finally enjoy life, especially now that things have seemed to settle down. even though he’ll probably have a whole breakdown and a half the first time the blackmailer mentions his name.

yes, he actually believes he’s being haunted by jfk. goose had a string of dreams about him and witnessed some doors opening and closing on their own around the same time, and he quickly jumped to the conclusion and never thought twice about it. another strange belief that goose has? that he’s friends with a ton of a-listers. even though it’s mainly jessica alba, he won’t hesitate to tweet at extremely famous actors and thank them for getting lunch with him even if they’ve never spoke. multiple management companies have his twitter handle blacklisted. while he currently has blue hair, it’s always quick to change. for how much he dyes it, it’s surprising that it doesn’t feel like hay.  if goose feels a mental breakdown coming or simply is bored or needs attention, his hair color will do a straight 180. he hasn’t had a natural hair color since he enrolled at yale.

things that are very goose: beat up yellow high top converse, getting to know every person in existence, having memes plastered over his wall to make him smile after a long day, wearing fancy cologne to the grocery store because one cashier said he smelled good and he thinks it makes them happy to wear that, throwing a shoe across a crowd at a party, going to sulk in the bathroom or leave the party early when a song plays that brings up bad memories, keeping every movie stub, restaurant punch card, and lost button in a little scrapbook just because he wants to remember the good things in life, thinking the karate kid is the best movie to ever exist despite being five years into a film major.

wanted connections

since he doesn’t have any pre-established connections, here are some ones that could kinda be fun

someone who protects his naive ass <3

an ex or old one sided crush who hurt him so bad lmao. they really wouldn’t have to a lot to do that, but it would be juicy if they did

roommate? maybe? he lived in a really shitty apartment his first few years, maybe they convinced him to move out or moved in

or neighbors? like he will knock on their door 3 times a week with half burnt brownies to offer or because he doesn’t know where his tv remote is and needs help

someone who gave him the intervention about like “you’re acting weird are you okay” that indirectly got him to leave the cult and he feels like he’s forever indebted to them

someone who just despises goose and he doesn’t understand why and tries to make things better even though it just makes things worse

family friends? maybe? when he was in ct and his uncle didn’t let him come home with him during the holidays he would go to their house or something like that

gentle romance <3 maybe. Please

he’s their secret admirer and sends them gifts and flowers and writes them bad poems and recommends them shitty romance films

someone who takes advantage of how naive he is

anything <3 come 2 me or i will dm you or venmo you and force u to plot with me

[chainsmokespens]

2021.01.10: Redcaps and Manga Reviewing, Vigor and Nostalgia

Alright, so what happened this week?

Well, I don’t think I’ll ever forget what happened this week. I was six when September 11th occurred, so I wasn’t really cognizant of what had happened. But I am cognizant now. And I won’t forget what happened on January 6th for a very long time. I don’t consider myself especially patriotic or loyal to the democratic system of government as it operates in this country, but I do acknowledge when something so sacrosanct is violated.

I don’t want to spend time getting into this. If you’re old enough to find this blog post you’re old enough to know what happen. I hadn’t intended for that to be what I wanted to talk about anyway.

Where I left off last week, I wanted to announce my intention of making a video on Shaman King.

There are a number of hurdles—some might even dare to call them issues—with this idea. I’m not a reviewer. I don’t have any video editing experience. I don’t have a platform of great enough scale to protect my work. And, for the nature of what I intend to write, I may not even have enough time to get it out before the series drops in April.

So why bother?

Because I love the series. For years, it almost never came up in conversation, but when it did, I was pumped up with the nostalgia I had while reading it. I didn’t know where this excitement came from for years.

It’s a good manga. Not the best that there ever was, but yet I inexplicably loved it. And I didn’t really know why. But when I was asked what my favorite manga of all time was my answer would be Shaman King.

When I heard the anime was getting a re-release and when I heard they were going to re-publish the manga in full this time, I was ecstatic. I told my friend about it and, being the type of person who’s typically late regarding news related to anime releases, they already knew.

Then, I saw the articles. And my heart ached.

Read my article about how Shaman King is pulling a Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood.

Read my article about ten characters that will be in this anime that weren’t in the original.

Read about whether or not this character is okay for woke 2021.

And I my stomach sinks when I think about what will be coming next.

Theories made by people who read the series and are reciting spoilers for clicks.

Essays on why Hao is the greatest anime villain of all time for clicks.

Speculation on whether or not Yoh can beat Goku in a fight.

I don’t have a very high opinion of journalism. And knowing that the series I love will be used and disposed of for quick clicks is upsetting to me.

In deciding to do this project, I put it all together. I realized why I loved this series.

When I drew as a youngster, Shaman King’s stab-your-eye-out-on-my-protagonist’s-edges art was my early influence for character design.

Every story I’ve come up with—whether or not it’s been continued, recycled into another idea, or wholly abandoned—has had themes of spirituality that I’d only seen present in Shaman King as a child watching it on the FoxBox.

It was my exposure to the reality that manga and anime don’t always coincide; I hadn’t watched FMA or FMAB yet.

I used to record the Saturday morning cartoons and watch them with my grandmother, and while for years I’d hop between Fox, the WB, and ABC recording cartoons so that we’d watch things like Lilo and Stitch, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, the Proud Family, Xiaolin Showdown, Coconut Fred, Ultimate Muscle, Johnny Test, Mucha Lucha, Jackie Chan Adventures, even One Piece—to name what I could from the top of my head, these shows didn’t all run on these channels in the same breadth of time—I’d skip over Shaman King, keeping it selfishly to myself like a child would.

This week, it hurt watching a bunch of redneck monsters trample over the Capitol. As someone cynical of the government, it hurt to know something so sacrosanct could be treated so shamefully. But it hurts so much worse to imagine that I wasted all these years, like a boy concealing his affection for a girl until she falls into the arms of someone else, to actually take the time and express the love I have for this series.

The image of this post is an issue of Jump a buddy of mine bought at a thrift store or yard sale and gave me almost three years ago. I posted the picture with a long blurb about how my week feeling on Facebook. A lot of it is auxiliary, but I’d like to recount what I wrote here.

Spoiler alert, I was feeling a little pretentious that day:

 “Vigor. Even writing this feels more cumbersome than it actually is.

How do I say what I mean? I hate nostalgia. It’s true, if hyperbolic. I see it cut down so many peers, creatives, and critics like a guillotine; a sloppy, artificially guided, swift force that lops their heads into a collective basket of thought.

Still, this past week I’ve felt my own dismissive chest opened with a more surgical precision that permissed” [NOT A WORD] “nostalgia to play with my heart strings. I reflected on Avatar, a show from a time when animated shows didn’t have their runtimes bisected for the simpler consumption of children that would choke on anything longer, that powered itself on the labor and inspired vision of its creators and crew as opposed to memes for the children and references for the adults, and had the temerity to demand that an audience be comfortable going thirty minutes at a time without a joke to amuse them.

My friend went to Pennsylvania and got me an issue of the now defunct Shonen Jump magazine from 2004. It had series of comics I’d forgotten about and an ad for Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, but those were inconsequential. I find Shaman King to be the greatest comic I’ve ever read and in August, the month of the issue I’d received, the protagonist was featured prominently on the cover. I remembered how engrossing it was to read something with that level of complexity; taking into account my age. And never since have I seen a series with such a great balance of brutality and humor and never since have I seen any form of media where” [REDACTED FOR SPOILERS] “led to a happy ending.

To round it off, within the hours before writing this I’d watched Feel Good Inc. I couldn’t help but feel my eyes begin to water at the genius of Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett. An unforgettable song latticed with moments of haunting beauty and brilliance.

As a child I would sit down for hours to draw terribly. And I loved every warped, misshapen, humanoid, tailed thing I drew. I’d scan my grandmother’s cookbooks and write recipes by mending foods I liked together in a manner similar to Frankenstein assembling his monster. I wrote chapter after chapter of a terrible story because I wanted to prove to my first girlfriend that I could write something better than twilight. I had a sense of self-motivation. I hadn’t struggled through college for a year to graduate without confidence in my own abilities. Or lost friends to unfair circumstances beyond my control or the ignorance of how much control I had. Or been stressed to the point of genuine fear from some of my earlier work. In many ways I still feel like the child I was when I lived at my grandmother’s house. Except now as a child too anxious to do anything besides what he knows will keep him alive.

How do I say what I mean? Not well. That, too, may have been a bit too hyperbolic. It’s not that I hate nostalgia, but that I fear being stagnated in memories of better days. Still, like a failing vegetarian having a hamburger the time I’ve taken to indulge myself has let me realize something I’ve been missing from my diet.

Vigor.”

[yandereshit]

707 x Reader: chance encounter.

It’s my piece for the @2019loveforallseasons. A big thank you to the mods for making up the title becuz I was just SO UNCREATIVE ON THAT DAY.

And of course an even bigger thank you for making this zine. I’m so proud to be a part of it!

“Ever considered you are a piece of trash yourself? You can’t imagine how much it would explain.”

Unwelcoming voice brought the man back to reality. He stared forward blankly, trying to get back to his casual self.

A futile attempt, really.

“Do I stink that much?” he shared a doubt, finally moving to check if the shirt he was wearing for the past few days was still somewhat fresh.

“I think there are flies living in your trash hoodie.”

“Excuse you. It’s my best hoodie.”

“Its trashness suits you.”

Seven rolled his eyes.

It’s easy to insult him when he’s like this, a realization came. When he literally feels like a trash. When his head throbs and every line of code he writes makes close to no sense. So he has to rewrite it at least twice before it does. And once he writes the whole text it turns out it doesn’t work anyway and then he’s forced to rewrite it once more. IT specialist? More like IT loser.

Now, he sat in front of his computer with his legs curled up under his chin and stared at the screen that was already covered in cat memes he set as his screensaver.

How long has he been staring before Vanderwood put a plate in front of him and told him to turn the computer off because he’s being useless anyway? He wasn’t even sure what time of the day it was until he spotted the numbers on his phone’s screen.

“Don’t even think about it” Vanderwood muttered, snatching his phone away. “If you take a break from computer, no way you’ll be texting these RFA guys instead.”

“But that’s a good break…”

“Your eyes are so red I’m surprised you haven’t gone blind yet.”

Seven huffed, looking away and then at the plate in front of him. Its content looked like some kind of meat. He took a fork and suspiciously poked the surface.

“You haven’t poisoned it, have you? It looks too good to be sincere” he noticed.

“If you want I can splash it on your face. Will it look sincere enough?”

“No, thanks. I like it how it is” Seven muttered, taking the plate and spinning on his chair so that he wouldn’t have to face Vanderwood anymore.

Instead, his eyes fixated on the wall in front of him as he took the first bite of the food.

Walls, walls, walls. A red wall with thick, yellow stripes all over its lower half. Walls thick enough to not let a single sound outside. To separate him from the outside world. To make him believe he’s alone here, so that nothing ever bothers him.

But it was only the theory. He still would get bothered. By everything. By cats, photos, RFA, Vanderwood. And now by…

By the hopeless girl on the chat, the one who tried to break his peace, who felt like his opposite. Bright and innocent, with no dark past to haunt her, nor ties to some fishy organizations.

A complete opposite of himself.

He had no idea why it kept bothering him.

But he knew much enough to be aware that he won’t focus until he manages to get it all off his head.

“You’re really hopeless, you know?”

“No, you” Seven muttered, putting down the empty plate and glancing up at the other. Vanderwood stood in the doorstep of his working space, with his arms crossed. “Give me back my phone” the redhead ordered, but his colleague only snorted in response.

“Not until you rest.”

“That’s incredibly touching you suddenly started to care about my well-being but I still would rather you give me back my phone.”

“You’re addicted and not getting it back until you look like a human in the first place. I don’t want you to waste your time on being useless so at least spend try for once to look less vulnerable.”

“You’ll call me useless no matter if I-”

“Seven Zero Seven. Get your ass off the damn chair and get out of this house.”

“...Out?”

“Yes.”

“Out… like outside…?”

“Yes.”

Seven pressed his lips together, his face twisting in unease.

“But…”

“When was the last time you were outside? Was it like, in this century?”

“Oh excuse you, now you’re trying to insult me” Seven huffed, crossing his arms. “I was outside two months ago, don’t you remember?”

“Great! Then you don’t have to worry!” The mean apparently brought out his whole sarcasm supply. “You’re used to it, right? Or should I taser you and just throw your limp body out the door?”

A single bond of cold sweat ran down Seven’s neck.

“I-I will leave on my own” he mumbled, still not convinced but pretty much ensured that it’ll be safer for him this way.

But his doubt only grew stronger as he thought about what weather there is outside.

With no windows to look out through, he didn’t even know what season it was until he checked the date, and even then he wasn’t sure just how much of said season was visible outside. All he ever saw was Vanderwood dripping wet when he escaped the rain, or his red face when the sun was way too strong and the poor guy cursed all the clothes that were his usual attire.

For Seven, every day of the year was the same. He’d go out if there was a need to, and if there was none, he usually didn’t have time to take walks either. His load of work increased greatly since a few months ago a few other IT specialists have been fired due to… various circumstances Seven preferred not to know about. Ever since then, even Vanderwood was more stressed and usually decided to restrain Seven from making breaks even when the hacker was clearly overworked. He only ensured the redhead had some nutritious (not necessarily good-looking) food that made him able to stay up longer and work… till he fainted.

That’s how Seven’s life looked like and no matter how suffocating it was, he had no right to deny it. The realization was so strong that he managed to convince himself that he doesn’t want any other life. That it’s the best to just stay and work till the end of his miserable life.

However, on days like this, he got painfully reminded that food and work was not all he needed to live. Puffy eyes, increasing headache, a will to just faint so that he doesn’t have to deal with reality – that was his life now.

“...How long do I have to stay out?”

“...What?”

“Will you count the time? Is five minutes enough?”

Vanderwood’s eyebrow twitched dangerously.

“You’re kidding, aren’t you? I’m letting you leave and do whatever but you don’t even want to?  You’re really hopeless.”

“Yeeah…”

“I don’t want to see you here before dinner.”

Pushing himself off the chair, Seven yawned and stretched, as if he just woke up from a nap. Not longer than five seconds later, he tripped over his own pants sprawled on the floor and fell down the short stairs that led from his workspace to the main room.

Vanderwood stared with his eyebrow raised, as the guy slowly stood up and limped to the main door, acting as tough as it was only possible with his ankle probably almost strained.

“You’re leaving like this?”

“What do you mean like this.”

“You know it’s autumn, don’t you?”

“What, already?” The man looked sincerely surprised.

His colleague rolled eyes.

“Put on a scarf or something. And don’t kill yourself while trying to walk. Good luck.” With these words, Vanderwood disappeared in the kitchen’s door, as if completely losing interest in Seven’s vulnerability.

Opening the closet next to the door, Seven started throwing everything out until he found a scarf – the only one he had. He couldn’t care less, but if it turned out to be cold outside, maybe the scarf would save him from catching a cold? Because a cold would definitely be the last thing he’d like to catch during this cursed walk.

The world inside was always different than outside. No one changed their bedroom depending on the weather or even season. So when you were inside, you could spend long days in a perfectly stable temperature, where it never rained, where you could focus on what wanted to because the weather wouldn’t absorb you.

The world outside was always different than inside. It was full of life, full of changes. One moment, you could be standing in the sun rays and the next – rain was dropping onto your head and you would ought to accept this fact. It was more difficult to focus on what you’d like to, because the surroundings would always somehow attract your attention. Their changes, moves, cycles.

That’s how the girl felt, walking among the trees slowly losing its colors and leaves. More and more, the world was fading to reds, yellows and blacks. Slowly, but constantly. And yet the changes were made in silence. Low whistling of the wind was nothing in comparison to what one heard outside the park. Here, everything was quiet and relaxing.

So when she went forward, ridden of her worries, hiding among a hat, scarf and ear warmers, the sight of a weirdly familiar silhouette was what she welcomed with peace. It didn’t disturb her at first, only brought out some curiosity, like a soft accent that rid her off the first signs of boredom.

The man sat on one of the benches, not really standing out. Among other people passing by or sitting on other benches, he looked really average. Maybe except for his intensively red hair and the childish scarf, but in the end, no one seemed to pay attention to him.

The girl did.

For a long while she stood in her place, subconsciously tilting her head to the side as she thought. Was it him, she asked herself. Pieces of images started roaming through her head, her eyebrows furrowed as she wondered, unsure whether the feeling she had was true or not. But once her eyes landed on the man’s hoodie, she recognized it in an instant, and it was enough to convince her.

She went forward, confidently at first, but when she came closer, she started noticing more and more in the other’s silhouette.

He was hiding his face’s lower half in the scarf tied tightly, but messily around his neck. His hands were tucked into the hoodie’s pockets, and behind a pair of glasses, she saw his eyes closed as the man just sat there, with no intention to even look around.

It was one of the colder days this Autumn. She made sure to not get cold herself, but the other apparently didn’t care much enough. Or maybe he didn’t notice it was that cold outside? He should have checked it. Or went back home when it turned out it’s colder than he predicted. How irresponsible of him.

She had to take this matter in her own hands and at least try to soothe his misery.

Sitting on a bench without as much as a phone to busy himself with was just boring. Boring as hell. He wanted to go home, but he left barely a quarter ago and he was afraid Vanderwood wouldn’t even let him back in.

The man didn’t let him even take a car (or more precisely – he blocked the garage’s door). He’d rather go to someplace warmer than that, but he didn’t take a wallet either. However, what he was lacking of the most, was a hat. His ears were so cold he flinched when he touched them with his hands. Oh, gloves would be nice too.

He closed his eyes, kind of wishing to just take a nap, completely ignoring how irresponsible it’d be. The coldness around, soft wind, everything was like a lullaby.

And when he was already about to give up and fall asleep, the steps of a person passing by suddenly stopped, pulling him out of the trance.

He heard many people passing by and steps were nothing out of ordinary. It’s just that the steps actually stopping were what brought out his uneasiness.

He opened his eyes and looked up at the silhouette in front of him.

Just a girl, he thought. Not a danger, he more of prayed than realized.

“Um… hi?” the girl spoke, smiling kindly. She extended her hands to him, showing him a cup of coffee, steaming and smelling. “Here, take it. You look like you need something to warm up.”

He stared back, dumbfounded. What did this girl want him to do? To take this cup? Was she giving him coffee?

Wait… Was it poisoned? Was she an enemy?

Or just someone who enjoyed poisoning innocent passers? No one just comes to a stranger and hands them a coffee. Things like this… just don’t happen. And he didn’t look like he’s homeless or something. So there was no reason to show him pity either.

He couldn’t let her know how suspicious he was though, could he? She’d think he’s smarter than her and that’d make the situation more dangerous. That’s what his instincts were telling him.

So he took the cup. It was warm, very warm. So warm he decided to just hold it in one hand for no longer than five seconds and then switch to the other. She probably didn’t feel it that strongly because she had gloves.

She has no idea how lucky she is, Seven thought.

“Er… thanks” he mumbled, trying to sound natural. He looked down at the cup, but his attention would never leave her silhouette.

“Can I… um… sit with you?” she uttered.

He shrugged.

“Sure.”

The girl sat next to him, in a safe distance, yet not awkwardly far. Her eyes were focused on him for some time as he tried to smell the coffee. She probably thought he was going to try it, but he more of wanted to find out what kind of toxin could be inside.

She didn’t look too bothered and just rested back, glancing up at the clouded sky.

“You don’t look prepared for Autumn, you know?” she chuckled.

He frowned, not responding. Was she trying to distract his attention? He wasn’t going to give in. For his own good.

The girl tilted her head to the side, a bit concerned.

“Are you feeling alright? You look upset” she noticed, pointing at his face. The man quickly hid himself in the scarf, welcoming the slight warmth it gave him when he exhaled and his own breath hit his face.

“I’m… fine. It’s just the weather, I guess” he mumbled.

“You should have taken something warmer than that” she scolded him.

“I… uh… guess so” he stuttered, unsure if that was the right thing to say. No one besides Vanderwood ever scolded him before. That was a weird feeling. “I was just in hurry, I guess.”

“Where were you hurrying if you’ve been sitting here for the last ten minutes at least?”

He frowned. Did she watch him before she approached? Suspicious.

“I was… hurrying out” he precised, even though he felt like he had no obligation to. What kind of conversation it even was?

The girl tilted her head to the side, clearly confused. Should he explain that? Probably not. But on the other hand, what harm would it be?

“Well… My maid said I should breathe with fresh air for once” he said, shrugging. The hotness of the coffee cup in his hands became unbearable and he put it on the ground next to the bench, hoping so that he doesn’t accidentally knock it over. Or… should he? So that he spills the poison… if there’s one… the girl won’t be able to urge him to drink it… Was it even poisonous in the first place…? Just what kind of situation it was?!

The girl laughed, as if he just said a good joke. But he didn’t. Why was she laughing?

“It’s hard to imagine it. But your maid must be a very specific person” she noticed, smiling cheerfully, which he knew from the wrinkled skin around her eyes, as the lower half of her face was hidden underneath that thick scarf of hers.

“Well… yes, she’s specific” he only admitted, afraid of spilling any more. Staring at the girl for a few long seconds, his thoughts started to stir. Something in his mind started to shuffle, as though there was some kind of thought, begging for him to hear. Something deadly obvious he couldn’t quite put his hands on.

“Do I… have something on my face?” the girl asked and he quickly shook his head, pushing his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and looking down as he was doing before. “Hm… What are you going to do? You know like. It’ll start getting dark soon, and even colder, do you have to stay here? If your maid doesn’t want you back at home, we can go to some cafeteria at least. You shouldn’t risk catching a cold like this. She surely wouldn’t like that either.”

He shivered at the thought of Mary Vanderwood 3rd yelling at him for getting sick on his day off.

Somehow, the girl’s attempt to lead him somewhere else calmed down his mistrust. He glanced down at the cup of coffee, slowly cooling down on the ground. The girl looked like she completely forgot about it.

“And how about you?” he asked, picking up the cup and warming his hands on it again. It was already cold enough to hold it normally. The coffee inside must have been good to drink by now, but there was something still holding him back from doing so.

“Hm?”

“Weren’t you on your way somewhere? Is it normal for you to just… stop by and buy strangers coffees?”

Strangers.

What Seven could not, by any chance, be aware of, the girl merely smirked at the remark. She was very well aware by now that the man just didn’t recognize her.

“That’s not a bad thing to do, you know” she smiled. “Especially when you see someone freeze because of their own stupidity” she added with such kindness in her tone that he was dumbfounded for the next few seconds, torn between did she just diss me and no way she would do that.

He must have made a really funny face because the girl suddenly started to laugh. And he just kept staring, unsure what else to do.

“Come on… I didn’t think you’d be so gloomy in real...” he noticed slight hesitation in her voice, when the girl corrected herself. “Laugh will help you warm up!”

“...I’m warm” he mumbled, taking a sip of his coffee.

Did he really just do that?

He panicked slightly, staring down at the cup. The coffee was still somewhat warm, with a perfect amount of sugar, maybe a bit too strong for his liking, but the milk was making up for it. But overall, it tasted just normal. He was aware some kinds of poisons had no flavor and he wouldn’t be able to recognize them. Yet…

It was just so tempting to give in. The girl didn’t look like she was a bad person. All she did was… just too sincere to be a cover-up. Because she made herself so suspicious in his eyes he just didn’t believe it all would be to make him give in. That would have to be some twisted kind of double bind.

He took another sip.

“You’re dumb” she exclaimed in such a straightforward voice he had no space there to disagree. He just pressed his lips together and took yet another sip, as though filling the stagnant silence with coffee.

“Yeet.”

The silence that took over from the next moment was way more relaxing and the two didn’t bother either looking at each other or even moving much. They both just stared forward as they sat, eyes glued to the world around. Seven, a bit warmed up already, felt more willing to actually look at anything besides his own feet and only then he started to notice how Autumn had started to take over the park.

Seasons were something quite weird to him. He never really saw them change. He just saw the results. In his childhood, he didn’t get to look outside too often. Once he grew up a bit, his house didn’t even have windows to peek through.

Yet when he looked up, he felt some kind of longing. The Autumn sky held some sort of nostalgia, as though he’s been waiting for the whole year to see it.

“It’s time for me” the girl suddenly announced. Seven glanced at her and although unwittingly, he felt quite disappointed with the fact he won’t get to sit with her anymore. They haven’t talked much. It was each other’s presence that kept them there, not some kind of conversation. “It’s quite cold already.”

There was no kind of mutual feeling connecting them, and no bonds.

Barely a few days of vague knowing, not enough to set anything for sure, and not enough for the one to recognize the other on a street. Not enough for the other to see through the sadness that dwelt in the man for over twenty years of his life.

Enough to enjoy the touch of weather, to rest in the soft colors, as though nothing else in the world existed, besides wind and leaves.

“Thanks for the coffee” Seven said, staring as she stood up, fixing the scarf wrapped around her neck.

“Sure. Don’t want strangers around me to get sick” she hummed, sending him a sincere smile.

Seven smiled against himself, but hid it in his own scarf.

“Well, anyway. Get going soon too, or you’ll get sick” she added, pushing hands in her coat’s pockets. Another smile lightened up her face. “Have a good day, Luciel.”

With these words, she walked away, quickly disappearing behind the trees where the park alley turned.

Seven stared forward dumbly for a few long minutes, as though unsure how to proceed this whole situation.

Luciel.

His name he never shared with the strange girl, yet the one she knew.

She knew.

She knew him.

The man, with his face completely unmoved, finished the last sip of coffee and threw the cup perfectly into the nearby trashcan. Now he could say that with hundred percent certainty.

She had to be a spy.

[taiblogcomics]

THEN WHO WAS PHONE? (Repost)

Originally posted to Xanga on December 6, 2012

Hey there, sacred artifacts. Well, it's been a while. I'm sure we're all better off for it, but eventually that time had to come again. And so, here we are. It's time once more to read a ridiculous children's horror novel by R.L. Stine. Since we already covered books three and four in the Hall of Horrors line earlier, let's move right along to Goosebumps Hall of Horrors #5: Don't Scream!. Just don't do it, man!

This book sure has a cover:

That disembodied mouth really needs to see an orthodontist, let me tell you. In fact, I'm not even sure that lower jaw has any human teeth at all. Surprisingly, this image does happen in the book. It's not indicative of the story in any way, but it's there.

Our protagonist for this go-round is Jack Harmon. His one-dimensional character trait is being picked on by bullies. His most frequent tormenters are "Big Mick" Owens and Darryl "The Hammer" Oliva. Darryl is never referred to as "The Hammer" anywhere but the first page, but this is such a cool name that we're going to keep using it, quotes and all. Today they're twisting Jack's arm, stealing his Red Sox cap, spitting in it, and then getting off the school bus. This is how we're introduced to our main character, guys. Certainly a sign of good things to come!

Jack slumps in some random seat, disappointed he can't be as lucky as you blog readers and be spared all the description of the spit in his hair. As an extra bonus, the story kicks off right away with Jack finding a cellphone in the seat. And if you're wondering, yes, it's specifically a smartphone with "all kinds of apps". Jack doesn't think to check the address book or anything, he just turns it on and puts it to his ear. To his surprise, he's immediately greeted by a girl's voice. Possible references to make jokes on:

A) The Ring 2) Calling D) When A Stranger Calls ?) [reader's choice of phone-based horror story]

The girl on the other end introduces herself as Jack's new best friend. I'm going to save myself some trouble and reveal now that her name is Emmy, since she doesn't actually get a name until late in the book. Jack at first thinks it's his younger sister's babysitter playing a prank. What the heck kind of babysitter is this that this is your first thought? In fact, her name is Mindy, not Vicky or Rosalyn. Jack continues trying to insist it is Mindy, at which point Emmy snaps and says she's not Mindy, and Jack better not make her angry. He wouldn't like her when she's angry.

So if she's not Mindy, the girl must be Jack's pal Eli. Eli wears the hat of "improbable electronics geek" in this story, including a voice changer that clearly Jack thinks can make him sound like a girl. See, Emmy, if you had introduced yourself at the beginning instead of three-quarters of the way into the story, you could avoid this whole thing. This was just a clumsy way to introduce us to characters without introducing the characters, wasn't it? As it is, Jack gets tired of the whole thing and tries to hang up. Unfortunately, turning the power off doesn't make the creepy voice go away, and Emmy continues to talk to him. Hanging up on people is rude, Jack, maybe this haunting will help you improve as a person~

Jack is at first terrified and confused, but then he gets a great idea: get off the bus and leave the phone behind. Ah, Goosebumps: where a main character's intricate plan equates to a real-world person's common sense. Jack puts this daring plan into action, only to be thwarted by an incidental character throwing the phone out the window to him. Wow, what if this had been different circumstances, where the owner cared and she missed? In fact, why did Jack bother to catch it? You knucklehead. Everything that happens now is directly the fault of your hand-eye coordination. Jack then starts screaming at the phone, saying how it can't call him because he switched it off. Passersby give him "this kid is a lunatic" stares.

Jack gets home and starts fiddling with the phone some more, despite it containing the threatening voice of a disembodied girl. He checks the section labelled "My Photos", and finds it's all full of pictures of him and his family. And, like, not candid shots either. Though that would've been a good, creepy, "holy shit, real-world stalkers" bit. No, it's just more supernatural nonsense that is never explained or mentioned again. Jack decides this is the best thing to freak out over and trots downstairs to show the phone to Mindy. Mindy's in the kitchen making mac-and-cheese for little sister Rachel. Jack doesn't want any, which baffles Mindy. "Everybody likes mac and cheese after school." And if you don't, you're an America-hating commie Martian!

Jack decides to tell everything to Mindy, and Mindy is appropriately skeptical. She picks up the phone herself and begins asking into it for the girl. There's no response, and Jack looks like an idiot. Ah, a Goosebumps protagonist in their natural habitat. Rachel chimes in that Jack is always a liar, and I've used flimsier excuses to post the Applejack meme.

"'Course some girl talks to me through the phone! Ah get loads of calls from girls every day!"

Jack shamefully goes back to his room, and Emmy chides him for trying to show her to the babysitter. Jack counters with the notion that he could just give the phone to his parents and ask them to find the owner. Emmy is quiet for a moment, then electrocutes Jack. Why, of course a phone's battery has enough charge to reduce a person to twitching spasms! Also, completely reasonable reaction, and a sure route to friendship. Emmy threatens to do it again if Jack doesn't listen to her, and even threatens his sister. More friendship!

Eli shows up now, having been summoned by Jack earlier. Eli is described as a little chubby and wearing cargo pants with pockets full of junk and T-shirts with jokes that aren't funny on them. Finally, an accurate description of what a kid would wear. If you were wondering, today's shirt says "I'm with brilliant" and points up at Eli's face. Wow, they weren't kidding about the "not funny" bit, eh? Now that we've had some accuracy, are you ready for irrelevant nonsense that I'm going to rant about anyway?

Eli also shows up playing a handheld video game system. It's a touch-controlled game with glasses-less 3D graphics. Why, it's the... Digi-GameFreak 4. What. C'mon, guys, these books have referred to the Wii by name before. And this book came out in January 2012, only a couple months before the 3DS hit the market. Did you really have to make up some generic bullshit system that doesn't exist? Also, stop saying "game-player". Nobody calls them that. They're handhelds or portables. I normally wouldn't mind so much, this is pretty standard for Goosebumps to make up fake things (see: any time comics are mentioned), but they have specifically mentioned the Wii by name before, as I said. It just feels horribly inconsistant

Jack explains the whole story to Eli, and he's a little more believing than Mindy. In fact, Emmy even obliges him a "go away, Jack has a new best friend", and Eli has to think about that for a while. Eventually, he comes to the conclusion that the phone has two SIM cards in it. And a second set of receivers and speakers, too. I'm not sure you can get all that junk inside a thin little smartphone and have it still function, and even if you can, that's a really elaborate and expensive prank to play on a middle schooler.

Jack considers this, then decides that even if this is a thing, Eli can't open it up because of how shocking Emmy reacts. Eli comes up with another plan. He'll put the phone in a box, and then he'll put that box inside of another box, and then he'll mail that box to himself. And when it arrives, he'll smash it with a hammer! Or, to save on postage, he'll just skip to the last step and gets a sledgehammer out of Jack's basement. The phone is quickly reduced to its component parts and splinters of plastic. Emmy doesn't even have the decency to scream.

Well, book's over, right? Not quite.

Satisfied that his technical knowhow (i.e. breaking stuff) has triumphed, Eli decides to play his bullshit video game some more. Oh, but this turns out to be a dumb idea. Emmy has moved from the broken phone to the handheld. So, she's basically the Cyborg Superman now. And boy is she miffed. And thus, she electrocutes Eli so badly that the game melts. Um, wow. The fact that he even moves after that is kind of unbelievable. The only damage he incurs are various burns on his hands. Jack's dad (Peter, I hope) walks by and notices the smoldering wreckage. He comments that games shouldn't overheat like that, it could be dangerous.

Eli stays for dinner, Emmy stays forever, and Jack's dad decides they should all go to the big electronics store after dinner. Dad has an itching for a new HD TV (you know what HD is, Stine/ghostwriter, but not the 3DS?), and he invites Jack along. Jack decides to yet again tell everyone about the phone and the girl inside it. His parents are horrified that he would wantonly smash a piece of electronic equipment that didn't belong to him, and they're kind of skeptical about electronic ghost girls, too. His mom shows her general ignorance of modern technology by suggesting the idea that he just didn't turn off the phone good enough, so Emmy just kept talking. They then demand to see the ruins of the bullshit handheld game.

Dad looks over the device for a minute, asking the girl to speak up. Then he hits it against his palm as if it lost its picture or something. This causes the handheld to let out a deafening screech that keeps on screeching. Eventually it subsides, and everyone is in quite a bit of pain. Dad decides "That player is defective. It's dangerous." Please refer to my previous Pinkie Pie clip. Conveniently, Eli bought the thing at the same place Dad intends to buy his new TV, so he's going to show it to the manager while there and get it replaced for Eli. He then herds the two boys into the car with him, and Jack wonders what the worst Emmy could do if she found out where they're going. Eli replies, "She could blow up the car." Yes, you're being very helpful.

Unfortunately for us, Emmy does not blow up the car, and the story continues. In fact, pretty much nothing happens at all. They get to the store without incident, and the defective video game is turned in to the manager. Eli and Jack dare to hope they are finally free. This is an incredibly dumb thing to do, because almost immediately all the lights and televisions flicker, and a giant pair of lips appears on each screen. Hey, there's that cover image. The lips start announcing that Jack can't outwit her and she'll always be here. People are confused, and it goes away as suddenly as it happened. Wow, this was such a climactic scene that it needed to be on the cover, yes?

Anyway, Eli gets his new handheld, Dad mistook the sale date of televisions, and they leave almost without incident. Then Dad suddenly remembers what else they should be doing: he buys Jack a cellphone. You know, the very device you were just deeply upset with him for destroying 20 minutes ago at dinner. Dad says it's high time he had one, so I guess destroying equipment is a rite of passage in the Harmon family? Hey, try wrecking the car next, Jack. After lengthy paperwork (one of the true horrors in the book), Jack has his own phone and is at home. Suddenly, Emmy starts talking to him through the phone, telling Jack not to worry, she's still here~

Jack thinks it's high time for some damn answers. He wants to know exactly who Emmy is (who still hasn't been named at this point, remember), and she's reluctant to say anything. Eventually she fesses up to being an AI glitch. Just an experiment in artificial intelligence that somehow got an electrical glitch and became a sentient digital lifeform.

Welp.

Anyway, Emmy (finally named now) is a living virtual pet, basically, and she can manipulate electricity (or "digital signals", as she says) to attack or move around. They're what keep her alive. But being alive isn't enough for her. She wants companionship. She's sure other digital people like her exist, and Jack's going to help her find them. In fact, he'll do whatever she wants or she'll hurt him. How fun~ All this aside, shouldn't this be a sci-fi book, and not horror?

Next day at school, Jack tries to text this to Eli, but Eli reports he didn't get them. Eli is intrigued by this whole artificial intelligence slant, and believe me, he's the only one. They head for class, and class is uneventful. That is, until Emmy starts detecting a signal. Another digital person is nearby, and she wants Jack to go retrieve it. Yes, in the middle of class. Jack refuses, of course, and Emmy threatens to burn all the flesh off his leg if he doesn't. I'm no leg expert, but that may hinder the retrieval of electric friends, you know. Either way, Emmy orders Jack to steal the laptop. Jack protests that he's in the middle of class, but she doesn't care. In fact, she finds him highly disobedient, and demands a show of obedience or she'll flashfry his pants. "Stand on your head, Jack," she commands.

Jack, not wanting the book to be any stupider, refuses. He gets a big shock for his trouble, and yelps and falls out of his chair. The teacher asks what the commotion is, and Jack claims to have been stung by a bee. The teacher dryly replies that it must've been a very big bee for him to make such a fuss. Hey. Hey, teach. Fuck you. You ever been stung by a bee? It fucking hurts. I'd like to see you not yelp and jump when stung. Hell, maybe he's allergic and is now dying. But no, you gotta be a snarky bitch about it.

Despite all this, Emmy still demands headstands. The chapter ends, and it cuts to after class, where he has clearly done a headstand. Mick and "The Hammer" are riding him about it, and Jack says that the bee sting just made him loopy. Everyone in this school is nuts, and I'm even including Emmy in that. Seriously, Emmy, you haunt technology, and this is the best you can do? There's more generic harassment, Mick expresses interest in Jack's digital watch, and Jack threatens to tell the bus driver, and she'll throw them off the bus. They laugh and say she can't do that, she'll lose her job. Um, hi, dumbshits, that's exactly what she can do. She won't lose her job, that is her job. This is completely ridiculous. It's like the author lives slightly left of reality. Handheld video game with touch controls and 3D graphics? Some other brand. Bus driver enforces rules? Lose her job. Bruce Wayne's parents shot in alley? Becomes the Joker.

The next day, Jack hides in the school so he can steal a laptop with a digital person inside. I totally just typed that sentence. He doesn't even wait until nightfall when all the teachers have left. No, just 'til, like, five. All the kids are gone, but there's still plenty of adults around. Yeah, I feel good about this plan. I'm excited by this. Well, long story short, due to this plan being super dumb, Jack is caught with laptop in his hands. The teacher questions him about it, and he makes up a story about how he was putting the laptop back. The teacher buys this, and Emmy is annoyed. But what can they do~? Emmy says Jack better do better next time. Jack is sure next time he'll be caught. And he narrates to us that, in fact, he was. But that's a long frightening story. So it has no chance of being in this book~?

The next next day, Emmy now detects a signal from none other than Mick's camera. Naturally, Jack is not keen on stealing from Mick. But after Emmy makes his backpack burst into flames, Jack starts to warm up to the idea. Jack makes a show of bumping into Mick at lunch, and deftly steals the camera in the mashup. Mick and "The Hammer" respond by eating Jack's lunch. Emmy doesn't have time to check out the camera yet, and thusly on the bus, Mick decides to go through Jack's backpack when he notices the burns. He finds the camera, but doesn't realise it's his. Instead he decides to give it to "The Hammer" as a present. So they lose the camera without accomplishing anything. Way to waste our time~

Not having had his fill of doing dumb stuff, Jack sneaks out of the house that night to wander the streets until Emmy picks up a signal. Finally she notices one outside a darkened house, one of Jack's neighbours. She commands Jack to break in and steal whatever it is that she's registering. Since this is obviously the best possible plan, Jack does, in fact, break into the house, reasoning that his neighbour is out late. There's a brief scene where Jack is startled by a cat that adds nothing, and then he locates the source of the signal: a clock radio. He takes it and leaves. Here's the super-dumb part: Emmy has him stop and let her scan the radio before they get too far. Couldn't she have done that in the bedroom? It'd be easier, because now Jack has to sneak back into the house and put the clock radio back. Predictably, he gets caught in the middle of this.

We cut away, and return to Jack being returned home and explaining this whole thing to his parents. Jack has the brilliant idea of saying it was a dare and pinning it on Mick and "The Hammer". What he doesn't realise until seconds later is that his mother would call up their parents. There's a brief phone conversation, and Jack's mom comes back mad. Turns out Mick figured out the camera switcheroo. Jack apologised a crazy amount and basically goes to bed mad.

The next morning, Jack wakes up to find his sister in his room. She's messing with the cellphone, and Jack realises what's going to happen just before it does: the cellphone messes back, and little Rachel is electrocuted. Jack finally snaps like a twig and smashes the cellphone with the sledgehammer that just happened to still be lying around. Emmy chides him for being dumb and says he can't get rid of her that easily. Jack smashes his iPod too, followed by his computer. Then the TV. Then the clock above the bed. Jack later discovers himself being hugged by Mindy, completely unaware of exactly what went on. Jack may be the first Goosebumps character to officially go super nuts~

No, really. He even sees a child psychologist. There's talking, there's therapy, there's a timeskip. And Jack doesn't hear from Emmy at all. Until one day a couple weeks later, he does. He's not happy about this. Turns out she's been hiding in his digital watch the whole time. And she's ready for him to find more friends for her again~

Jack suddenly has an out, though. Mick walks up, mocking Jack for talking to his watch. He's going to beat Jack up for stealing his camera, and then he's moving away to Detroit. Jack suddenly gets an idea. He gives Mick his digital watch as a gift. Mick's been admiring it throughout the book, and he decides this is good enough. He exits, and takes the watch with Emmy in it with him. And this time, Jack is really free~

Oh, except we need a crappy twist ending. Mick moves and days pass. Emmy is not heard from whatsoever. Eventually, the phone rings, and Jack nervously picks it up. Fortunately, it's not Emmy. It's a boy's voice. Mick's, to be exact. He begs Jack to help him. He's trapped in the phone, thanks to Emmy. And he can hurt Jack if he won't help... Haha, that makes no sense~

Sheesh. Well, despite what you might think, this book is not the worst thing I've ever read. In fact, this might be one of the better books I've read in this series. It's kind of a clever idea, and as usual it's ruined by shoddy execution. It also makes no sense as a Goosebumps book. It's like a sci-fi novel that got misappropriated into crappy children's horror. The ending also comes right the fuck out of nowhere, and has no explanation with the rest of the text. Were there even any other digital entities? Who can tell~? And yet, despite the dumbness present throughout, it wasn't the worst thing ever. It was at least readable, and had a interesting premise. But really, leave the technology-based horror to those who have actually used technology invented in the last 20 years~

One more thing: what the hell does the title have to do with anything? Were there no phone puns available?