#while openly admitting he is a white canvas

[musubiki]

Been thinking about Marshall and Lime, and im not sure if perhaps you havent already mentioned it:

Does being a white or black canvas doesnt make them part of a magic community by default/at birth?? (Putting aside the special force smth of m34, and any witches and guilds and etc.)

thats a good question!!! its a bit of a gray area (ba dum ts 🥁), in my head i always considered "being a member of the magic community" as having something that makes you like. not a normal human. like having some kind of magic or being a spirit/monster/cryptid/etc!!

for black and white canvases, theres nothing inherently special about them besides the level of their magic resistance..,,everyone has some level of resistance, they are just the most extreme levels, but i dont think having it is considered any kind of special magic power or sets you too far apart from other humans!!

for a black canvas its being a part of a guild/the m-34th is what makes you part of the magic community!! the m-34th has nothing inherently magic but since they involve themselves so much in police-ing the magic community they are by and large considered a part of it

for a white canvas its actually incredibly hard to get involved with the magic community i feel... mostly for this reason: a lot of the community hides behind some kind of masking spell-- witches use the mob spell, the merchant uses...something, sulluvan only appears to those who he wants to, but all of it has its roots in "using magic to conceal yourself from the world," and the less resistance you have the less you're able to break from that!! essentially, a white canvas is the most magic-gullible type LOL!! contrast this to a black canvas where you couldnt use a masking spell around them if you tried your best, theyd see right through it

im actually not sure how marshall even ends up being part of the m-34th and gets involved anyway...his pipeline into the magic community must have been someone directly pulling him in and getting him straight to the m-34th because theres no way he couldve gotten in organically the way lime did, he would just be going about his merry way...

[theblackphoenixwritings]

-𝘊𝘢𝘯𝘷𝘢𝘴- -𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘶𝘴/𝘋𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘦𝘭

Those distant nights full of tender love had returned to him like the voice of the Ocean, or the white froth of the waves enveloping their ankles, in the moments when kisses held them firm, and were all they lacked. Or the faint low music, of times gone by, from the nostalgic words, that accompanied them during those slow dances, as squeezed together, they lived on the harmony of their bodies joined in those endless embraces. All the love in the world was theirs. And the two of them the bastions of a love that left them exhausted and happy at times, while at other times sweet and fulfilled. All those nights when Marius had tried to seal on canvas the beauty of that soul who loved him, and his own dedicated and love-filled self.

All those nights when on the canvas from elegant hand and graceful brushstrokes Marius had tried to recreate the purple hues of those eyes in whose purity it was impossible not to be mirrored, and in that purity and dedication, Marius saw reflected a self not immune from mistakes, but a man who had finally realized that he could admit them and try to be better because of that love. The iridescent colors of those eyes did not cloud their dedicated attention or unwavering trust, and Marius was somehow troubled by not being able to stop on canvas every moment and every memory or story those eyes could tell him. They were here now, and to their joyful surprise, both of them realized that those nights had never gone away, nothing between the two of them was different or less intense, and both of them had been ready to take that firm and steadfast step of love toward each other to erase every uncertainty, every fear.

Those nights had returned to them as the foam of the Ocean returns to the sand shining under the moon. They were theirs and had remained theirs always, for though distant, the strength of those feelings between them had remained in their hearts, like the figure of the other walking beside every experience they had lived without each other. As with a sure hand, the brush stroked the canvas, Daniel's smile widened and mirrored the joy on Marius' face. The delicate blue shadows of night on this canvas spoke of love. As Daniel stared at him from his bed with his hair tousled and his face resting on his hands, his smile the perfect mirror of the one on the canvas, as Marius with care and dedication laid each color to give that painting the beauty of the soul of the one he loved.

"When will you be satisfied?" the voice of Daniel came to Marius as an appeal, which was met with an elegant arched eyebrow. "Never." and Marius' answer at first left Daniel puzzled, but then realizing its truest meaning made him laugh openly with delight and satisfaction. "You know I wasn't referring to me, I was referring to the painting," Daniel pointed out. "Hmm." was Marius's only reply, and he placed the canvas beside the large French window, and in a moment he was in Daniel's arms. The white curtain danced at the invitation of the night breeze, from the canvas bright and delightful violet eyes stared out into the night, filled with sincerity and trusting love. The fear of getting lost annihilated. That purple told of how in reality love stays, never leaves us, just waiting for us to return to it, with our hearts ready to embrace it again.

[spinchip]

As in Lonesome South

Summary: After returning to Ninjago from that Lighthouse prison, Dr. Julien decides it's time for him and his son to move on.

Warnings:  Dr. Julien is not a good dad. Memory alteration and Controlling behavior. ask to tag? Pairing: gen Wordcount:1700 A/N: The name for this fic comes from Hillbilly Man by Gorillaz lol

Packing up his meager room is not a difficult feat, Dr. Julien is glad to note, even in his advanced age. He doesn’t have many belongings now, his life spread out across Ninjago and across the sea, the things left behind and abandoned worthless in his eyes now that he’s been reunited with his son. His greatest creation. It’s not as if he couldn’t stop by that ancient bunker out in Birchwood Forest and gather up his old blueprints, maybe pick up projects left half-finished as his hands wrinkled and gave out, but there’s a clean and simple sort of appeal to a fresh start. Out with the old, in with the new. He had time to start again now. He and Zane could travel down to the outskirts of Metalonia, there’s raw materials there, new construction. Its growing fast with the upcoming tech giant Borg Industries basing it’s manufacturing plants in the heart of the city. It’s an easy place to get lost in, an old man and his son blending in with the crowd, a perfect spot to camp out at and get back to work inventing something new. Something to show up all those slip-shod messes he’d slapped together to appease Samukai.

In a way though, he can’t help but be grateful to the skulkin and his cronies. Without the elixir of life they’d handed him, without the resurrection tea poured down his throat, he’d have been lost years ago. The gift they’d given him had come with a price, seasons passing wondering if his son was safe out in the world without him, stuck up in that lighthouse tinkering away at inventions he felt no passion for. All alone except for the silly little bots he cooked up in his spare time. Now thought, free from the sea salt and stone, he had time laid ahead and a million projects he thought he’d never have the years for suddenly at his fingertips. Zane was his life’s work, and he’d turned out wonderfully. What could he do now, with another life to dedicate?

Organizing his meager things, he pulls out a duffle bag from the School's storage with DARKLEYS slapped on the side, not quite dusty but on its way there with the rebranding they were undergoing. Gutting the School’s unsavory past and installing a new, more healthy learning environment was a big endeavor for the ninja, especially since they wouldn’t be able to rely on his son to help pull it off. He and Zane pitched in when they could, helping repaint, clean up, and discuss a new curriculum, but it was a shame they’d never get to see it come to fruition. It reminded him of his days teaching to pay the bills while he chased his masters degree, there was a comforting nostalgia he almost didn’t want to leave. A shame it was time to go. Zane might have been a good teacher, too, if given the chance- he was as smart as his old man sometimes! Remarkably patient too, always willing to try and talk it out and find the best in people. Too bad. Maybe they could come back and visit, if work didn’t get too busy. He wouldn’t mind getting into the swing of things and whipping up a lecture for the kiddos. He could decide all that later, though. Now it was time to pack. He shakes out the bag and stacks his items neatly inside: a few notebooks of ideas he’d already cooked up, spare clothes Zane and Sensei Wu had graciously paid for, a few old books from the Library he was positive no one would miss. He was even sure to grab a copy of Zanes old favorites, maybe he’d like to read them again when they got settled. He made a mental note to grab his toothbrush and comb from the bathroom before they departed, puttering about his meager living accommodations to make sure he hadn’t missed anything.

The room itself was a modest little thing, an old student live-in dorm repurposed into more permanent lodging for himself and Zanes other team members. They were nice, a bit more long-term than he thinks Master Wu is willing to admit, but Dr. Julien found them quite cosy. Though anything was a step up from that damp and dreary prison he’d been locked in. He’d always loved the beach, but if he never smelled salt water ever again it’d be a blessing… He frowns, stepping over to the map spread out across his tiny desk, mapping out a possible route down to Metalonia. Sticking to the outskirts would take them closer to the coast, but setting up shop in town might bring unwanted attention. It could be worth it to take the longer route along the east if he really wanted to avoid the sea… it’d put him close to Ignacia, but it might work.

There’s a knock on the door, bright and sharp, and Dr. Julien isn’t surprised when he hurries over and opens the door to his son on the other side, “Zane!” He greets warmly, ignoring the troubled look on his face and pulling him into an embrace, “Have you finished packing yet?” He asks, breaking away.

“That is what I came to speak to you about.” Zane says hesitantly as his father begins to tidy up the room, closing the door behind him for privacy despite the others doing their best to give them space and clearing out for this conversation, “Father, we have discussed this, I…” He frowns openly, “I do not wish to leave.”

Julien stops where he’s folding up his map, staring up at his son with a scrutinizing look, “Zane, I thought you said you didn’t want to be separated from me again? Are you feeling alright, son? Come here, let me check.” He beckons Zane over as he tucks the map into his coat pocket, moving out of the way so he can sit on the edge of the mattress for a diagnostic.

Zane obliges on instinct alone, sitting down, “I am fine, Father,” He says, moving his gi aside to open his chest panel anyway, “And I do not want to be apart, which is why I think you should stay.” Dr. Julien moves to sit next to his son, running a quick inspection of Zanes internal wiring as he speaks, and Zane zeroes in on the way he collapses onto the bed- his knees aren’t what they used to be, “At your age, you shouldn’t be traveling anyways.” He says, obviously trying to be gentle.

Dr. Julien laughs, smiling up at his son as he shifts through the mechanics in a confident routine so familiar it came second nature, memories of them going through these exact motions surfacing faintly, “You don’t need to worry about me, Zane, I have plenty of time left. The ressurectea has given me another lifetime, and I want to spend it with you. It could be like it was before, just the two of us. I was happy.” He examines the connection points on his switchboard, making sure they’re all attached properly, “Weren’t you?”

“Of course!” Zane says instantly, cupping his father's hands to send the confirmation home, “I love you, and I’ve missed you ever since I got my memories back.”

“But now you want to go our separate ways?” He squeezes Zanes fingers, before letting go, going back to his ministrations inside his chest to distract himself, “You and I are family, Zane. I’m disappointed you want me to spend my final years alone.”

Zane shrinks, curling in on himself at those words. Dr. Julien has to hold onto the door of his chest panelling so he won’t pull away too far, where he can’t complete his check-up, “I don’t. I am sorry.”

“Come with me.” He insists, smiling up at Zane as if to say all will be forgiven. They would be, these moments of hesitance. He could let them go.

The checkup is comfortingly familiar, but Zane shakes his head, “My friends are here, they are my family too. I cannot leave- I have responsibilities. I am the white ninja, I am protecting people who cannot protect themselves. Is that not what you wanted?” his vocal processor goes small at the end, soft and uncertain.

“It is, and you’ve done a great job. I’m so proud of you, but now it is time for us to move on to better things… You’re my son, Zane. My greatest creation. I love you, and I won’t leave here without you.” Dr. Julien trains his eyes on his inner workings, his hands stilling, a slight nod as a silent decision is made.

“And I am not leaving.” He says firmly, his own decision giving his words strength, then, “Will you stay?” Zane’s voice has the slightest hint of hope, complex emotions coming so easily now that he’s lived a long and complex life. A shame to lose all that progress.

He sighs deeply, a sad put-upon thing, “No, Zane.” and there’s no need to elaborate. 

He watches his facial expression as he does it, half a second of shock and raw hurt, a snap of devastation and fear before his mechanics register that the memory switch has been flipped, the click of it near deafening in the room- the expression vanishes, his wide eyes go glassy and half-lidded and his jaw clenches shut, his body locking and freezing as he goes into limbo. Shoulder stiffly casual, his hands dropping into his lap where they’d made a last-ditch attempt to stop this and stalling short, sitting open and useless on his thighs. All at once his humanity is stripped from him, leaving him a blank canvas, empty and waiting for either a reboot or specific command. He was his son. He was his creation. He was his.

Dr. Julien closes up his chest panel calmly, tying his suit back up properly. He’d need new clothes, these would make him ask questions when he reset him. Dr. Julien didn’t want questions. He didn’t want refusals.

“Come now, Zane.” He says, tapping the nindroid on his forehead, watching those hazy eyes try to focus while in forced stasis. There’s nothing behind his eyes, no recognition other than the need to obey that has been programmed into him, “Follow me. It’s time for us to go.”

Zane carries his bag as they walk right out the front door.

[willcwthewisp]

and the sky is grey | nora, tommy, & willow

PREVIOUSLY: all the leaves are brown PARTIES: @fearfordinner, @wrightnotwrcng, and @willcwthewisp. SUMMARY: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im9ffv1a_N0

At first Nora thought she’d found a like minded friend online. Someone who openly admitted to breaking the law online. Someone else who was aware that White Crest’s police force was a joke. Nora was against the police for multiple reasons; White Crest just happened to have the dumbest police force she’d ever met. She was probably being biased on that. It had taken a bit to track down the online stranger’s home address. Unfortunately for the woman against crime, there was nothing that money couldn’t be. Private investigators were good at their jobs and she was good at handing over boatloads of money to absolutely pointless endeavors. That was how Nora Pine, artist & fear incarnate, ended up outside Willow’s apartment window. The fire escape rattled under Nora’s boots as she climbed up and up. The window slid open easily. Not locked. Sliding in the window, Nora took her first look around and was surprised to find that it looked a lot like her own home. Art and art supplies everywhere. “Cool.”

Willow was sound asleep, blissfully unaware of the state of her apartment and the fact that it was being broken into while Nora began her study of the area. She might have even stayed that way had her local and friendly ghost friend in the form of Kal hadn’t taken it upon himself to try and wake her despite knowing how unreliable her ability to hear him was. “Willow! Willow!” he yelled as loudly as he could, frustrated beyond belief that the medium had chosen this time of all of them to be unable to hear him. “Willow, wake up! Someone’s here! Someone’s coming in!” But it was useless, and the blonde simply rolled restlessly in her sleep as Kal’s efforts persisted. However there was another ghost perched nearby, feet propped up on one of the canvasses he didn’t like nearly so much as the bear one the little artist had painted for him. “I don’t know why you even try!” Tommy chuckled as he watched Kal’s desperate attempts to wake the slumbering woman. “We both know she might as well be dead like us with the way she ignores us. Here- watch!” With that he banged a hand against the nearby dresser, only to be surprised when it actually made a loud and hearable noise. Willow jerked awake, looking around with groggy eyes in an attempt to find the source of the noise.

 “What? ….who?” Her voice was sleepy as she rubbed at her eyes, and though it hadn’t been Tommy’s true intention to wake her, he was more than pleased with the results as he barked out a laugh. “Ha! Did you see that shit? It fuckin’ worked! This is gonna be even better if she’s awake for a break in!” Now all there was to do was sit back, relax, and watch the beautiful series of events and terror unfold.

Nora was not deaf to the cries of the ghosts. With each cry for Willow to wake up Nora moved closer to where the sound was. “Is everything okay in here?” Nora asked upon reaching the threshold of the bedroom. Nora saw two ghosts sitting around a sleeping blonde. She seemed to be moving. “Why do you want her awake?” Nora asked them. She walked closer to the bed, rudely passing right through the legs of the ghost who was disrespecting some art. “Hey your friends think you should wake up now.” Nora said, looking down. “Ghosts are real. If you didn’t know. The library has been lying to everyone about them not being real.” Nora stopped. Now really wasn’t the time to get in her spiel about how ghosts were real. “Nice art by the way. Can I have the studio tour?” Nora was aware that she was speaking more than she normally did. It surprised her to look in on her own emotions and find that she was excited to meet another artist. One who had almost as much canvas, brushes and ghosts as her. 

“Get out!” Kal yelled as Nora made her entrance, hands in front of him as if he could push her away. “Get out!” Unfortunately it seemed the moment of the ghosts’ tangibility had been as brief as the loud thump Tommy had made, and he passed uselessly through the woman. Meanwhile, Tommy’s grin was nearly infectious on his lips as he realized this chick could see him and the other spirit. “Come in! Come in!” he goaded, his own arms making a welcoming motion in towards the center of the room. It was fine if she walked through his legs so long as she was gonna give him a good show. 

Willow’s eyes finally cleared as she heard a foreign voice enter the mix, one she’d assumed was another ghost until she found she could clearly make out the face of a woman standing over her. Her scream was instant, almost as quick as the pulse of energy that ricocheted out from her as she realized a stranger was standing in the middle of her bedroom. Or had been standing in her bedroom. The energy wave sent the woman flying back through the window from whence she’d come, landing her with a heavy thud on the fire escape outside. “Who are you?!” Willow screeched, hands gripping uselessly at her sheets as she frantically searched for something to defend herself with. “What are you doing in my apartment?!” Meanwhile, Tommy’s guffaws of amusement had already left him short of breath, his feet now solidly planted on the ground as things heated up. “Holy shit! Did you know she could do that?” he asked Kal with a hand point in Willow’s direction. “This is gonna be even better than I thought it would be! Hey, come back!” he yelled towards the woman who’d been thrown out the window. He wanted to see that again.

It was noteworthy that one ghost seemed very protective and the other ghost full of mirth. Nora had been turning to look at the distressed ghost, to tell him that it was okay. She wasn’t there to hurt anyone when the breath was stolen from her lungs. Stolen by the violent force propelling her back out the window. Nora thudded against the fire escape ladder. Her back let out a large cracking noise as the tension she’d been holding released with the crack. “Cool.” Nora mumbled. Sure, she was in a little bit of pain but that was to be expected after she was thrown across an apartment and into a fire escape. But there had been the crick in her back for so long she thought she’d never get rid of it. 

Nora climbed back into the window and right back. “That was cool. Can you do it again?” Nora asked while grabbing a pillow from the blonde’s bed and shoving it down the back of her shirt. It’d hurt less that way.  She looked around at the three in the room while she shimmed the pillow down. By the look on everyone’s face she had absolutely no clue which one had done it. Except one of the ghosts had said ‘did she know she could do that.’ Nora’s eyes moved back to the blonde. “Did you know you could do that?” Nora asked her. “I’m Nora by the way. We talked online. About breaking and entering.” 

“Oh God- oh no, oh no.” Somehow this was a nightmare Willow had never even considered. Someone was breaking into her home and she was throwing people? Very possibly breaking them? “Stop! No, that’s my pillow!” Willow cried as she reached out to try and yank the thing back, but it was too late. “Again? What do you mean again? Who are you?! Get out of my home! I don’t want to throw you again!” Unfortunately it seemed the unbridled anxiety racing through her veins had other plans Nora was once again sent soaring through the air. This time the angle launched Nora flying towards a few of Willow’s recently finished pieces, including the grizzly bear she’d finished earlier that day. “Please- please just leave,” the medium practically begged, breaths coming fast and short. “I don’t want to hurt you! And I don’t want you to hurt me!” 

Tommy was a much different story while he watched in absolute awe as the woman came trudging back, asking to be thrown once more. “Fucking superb, you funky little lady!” He got to see someone get thrown not once, but twice? He could only hope he might get to see it a third time. But concern managed to enter his voice as Nora ended up next to his painting. “Hold on! Be careful! That one’s mine,” he said while moving towards the bear portrait. “You wouldn’t wanna mess up such a handsome lookin’ fella would ya now?”

Willow had only just begun to process what it was that Nora had said as she finished her telekinetic throw, and her panicked tones continued. “You’re the girl from the internet?!” Why? Why, had she decided to break into Willow’s home? “I don’t want you to break into my apartment!”

Fear was abundant here. A veritable feast. A full ass eight course meal coming from probably the most scared person Nora had ever met. And Nora had met a lot of scared people in her life. This one, the blonde, just seemed more scared than most. “I’m not going to hurt yo-.” Nora tried explaining but her wish was coming true. Nora’s pillowed back hit the wall with a nice thud. She slid to the ground in a pile of canvases. A ghost, the one who was laughing and not the one who looked like he was about to meet his second death, said something about it being handsome. Nora looked for a moment, just long enough to recognize it as a bear before the blonde was talking again. This was something she’d have to process later. After she was done being thrown repeatedly. 

Nora picked up the canvas and slunk back into the bedroom. “You can invite me next time.” Nora explained, holding the canvas. “And your window was open. Nothing really broke. Besides, it's fun. So I won’t stop.” Nora came closer again sitting on the edge of the bed. “So how do you do it. Throw people?” She asked, then, pretending it was an afterthought she added. “You could do it again if you want. It’s fun.” Really fun. Nora found herself longing to be capable of flight in that moment. A longing she’d never had before. 

“I’m not gonna invite you!” Willow yelled, folding in on herself where she sat on her bed, her arms latching around her knees as she tried to make herself smaller and get as far away from this insane woman as possible. “Not after you came into my apartment without asking! You can’t just do that!” God damn it, her window. She’d been leaving it cracked more often the closer the warmer weather came, letting the freshness of the outside air trickle in whenever she could. After all, she didn’t get much of it anymore seeing as she minimized her time outdoors. That’s generally where all the people were. People who could be touched and thrown and broken. “But I don’t want you in here,” the blonde nearly cried, her bottom lip trembling as she tried to reconcile the fact that she’d now tossed this woman twice, and that she still wasn’t leaving Willow’s apartment. “And that’s- that’s victim shaming!” she managed to get out. “Just because someone’s window is open, doesn’t mean you can go through it! If you leave- if you go, I’ll tell you how I throw people! Not here, though!” The medium clutched desperately to the only thing she seemed to have over Nora, not bothering to consider that she also didn’t want to talk about her telekinetic abilities any time soon. “I don’t want to throw you! That’s how people get hurt! Please...please just leave,” Willow begged, looking as if she might actually start to cry. 

But Tommy had little interest in seeing Nora go. “Nah! Don’t leave! This is great! And she makes you fly! What’s more fun than flying, right?” He wanted to see it again! Plus this was the most interesting that had happened since he’d started following Willow around, and her face looked kinda hilarious when it was all scrunched up like this. “Listen- what other chance are you gonna get to fly?” Tommy asked Nora, crouching a little beside her to look her in the eye while he sent her a manipulative grin. But Kal was having none of it. “Do what Willow says, and get out! Both of you!” He said while pointing between Tommy and Nora. If this new asshole of a ghost was going to disturb Willow, he wouldn’t stand for it. After all she’d been nothing but sweet to him.

“That’s not nice.” Nora mumbled as Willow told Nora she wasn’t going to invite Nora and that she didn’t even want Nora there. It stung a little. Hurtful to say someone wasn’t welcome. How would Willow feel if Willow found out she wasn’t invited to  hang out in her own apartment. She also said she didn’t want to throw Nora. This was getting confusing. If she didn’t want to throw Nora then why had she thrown Nora twice already? Nora couldn’t keep up. Not when there were a lot of people talking at once. Willow, on the edge of tears. The laughing ghost somehow knew Nora was into flying and then the protective ghost was. Well, he was there telling two of them to go. Nora looked down at the canvas in her hand. “I do like flying.” She admitted absently. Her fingers lightly traced the bear on the canvas. She liked that piece of art a lot. An idea suddenly hit Nora. She could turn into a bear! She could show the other woman that she was different just like her and they could be friends and Nora could get the studio tour! 

“I like your bear.” Nora looked up from the canvas, flipping it around to show Willow what piece of art she was talking about. Getting off the bed Nora took off her jacket and boots. She tossed the borrowed pillow back to Willow. “I’m a bear too. Look.” Nora backed away from the bed, checking to make sure she had enough space for the transformation. It happened in an instant. Then there was Nora. Standing as a bear in front of Willow. She let out a friendly little yodel. As bear friends do. 

“You...you like my bear?” Willow managed to say through her panic, nonplussed and confused by the compliment. But what did Nora mean about the fact that she was a bear, too? Tommy, now absolutely certain that Nora had wonderful taste in artwork after seeing her reaction to his portrait straightened as his curiosity piqued. What did she mean by the fact that she was a bear? Certainly he couldn’t have had the absolute earth-shattering luck to stumble upon-

His hopes were answered as a little bear promptly filled the space where Nora had been, and his hands shot above his head in excitement as pure joy filtered through his laughs. “A bugbear! Holy fucking shit, you’re a bugbear! Look! Look!” He continued his display of exuberance with a boyish charm before he too was shifting, letting fur, claws, and teeth take him over as he turned into a behemoth, ghost, grizzly bear. Almost immediately he backed onto his hind legs in a bear welcome, answering Nora’s little yodel with an elated bear chuff and roar. 

Willow was not nearly so fond of seeing a human turn into a bear as Tommy was, and for the third time that night Nora was sent flying out of Willow’s room via mystical means as the medium screamed. Only this time it was in a mass of black fur and beady eyes. Had she ever thrown someone three times in a row? Had she ever thrown something nearly so large as a bear? She wasn’t sure, but as her arms went weak, and her eyes began to droop she was certain that this was how she was going to die. Eaten by a woman who turned into a bear while she couldn’t keep herself awake after expending so much energy through telekinesis.

Nora had come here for Willow but now Nora’s full attention was on the ghost. A bear. A Bugbear. The ghost shouting bugbear. “You’re a bugbear?” Nora tried to ask. It came out as low bear grumbling. But the ghost shifted. The ghost shifted into a bear. A really big bear. Oh god was her bear smaller than average like her height? Despite having been thrown twice before Nora didn’t see it coming. She was too enamoured by the ghost bear in front of her. Nora went flying, shattering the window that she landed against but didn’t make all the way through. Shards of glass poked her heavy hide. It didn’t matter. Nora shifted back, standing there naked and bleeding in a strangers apartment with open windows. 

This time when she ran back to Willow’s room Nora’s attention wasn’t on Willow. It was on the Bear ghost. “You’re a bugbear?” The words practically tumbled out of Nora’s normally taciturn mouth. Excitement was reaching her normally monotone affect. “You’re a bugbear?” She asked the ghost. She looked back at the really tired blonde. “You’re a friend of bugbears? Did you paint him?” Nora’s attention shifted to the third ghost. She didn’t have anything to say to him. Back to the bugbear. “Do you know other bugbears? Alive bugbears? I- How’d did you die? Why are you here?” Nora turned back to Willow. “So you can see ghosts then? Are you a bugbear too?” 

“Of course I’m a bugbear!” Tommy answered in his returned bear-talk, though it mostly just sounded like a series of grunts and growls to the human ear. The bear shaped ghost lumbered over to Nora, sniffing at her side as if he could tell whether or not the damage done to her was anything to be too concerned about. Thankfully, it mostly just seemed to be a few surface wounds. He let loose another inquisitive bear sound before shifting back into his human self, somehow still clothed. “You know the one good thing about being a ghost is you don’t have to find clothes all the time to change back into. The humans can get so weird about that whole not wearing them thing,” he commented with a roll of his eyes. “But you- I’m sure you understand,” he said brightly, all but forgetting that Kal and Willow even existed. “Of course I know other bugbears! We’re the best sort to know. As for how I died, that’s a bit of a longer story but I could tell it to ya if you wanna blow this popsicle stand. I think the blonde one needs a nap anyway- so she’s not gonna be much fun anymore.” 

Tommy was right. Willow was fading quickly now that the toll of what she’d done was beginning to manifest on her energy levels. Her eyes blinked closed a few times as she looked towards Nora and whatever mystery ghost she was talking to. Was it Kal? Was he here? Maybe he could help. But she was so tired. Very much against her will her body collapsed back onto the bed, but not before she saw the little pokes of blood marring Nora’s side. “I’m sorry,” she choked out, insufferable guilt already pooling in her stomach. “I’m so sorry- I didn’t want to- you’re hurt, and I didn’t want to-” A few tears finally slipped down her cheek, unable to keep the emotion at bay now that she’d injured another living being. But sleep made quick work of that despair, forcefully gripping the medium in its clutches as her body relinquished itself to exhaustion and she passed out in her bed. 

The strangest thing was Nora understood those bear grunts. Not like she understood language where the words formed letters and sounds but in an instinctual way. In the most primal of ways. Like that same grunt could be used to say so much but because it was another bear in that moment she understood what it was supposed to be. She blinked slowly revivling in this new discovery. Another bugbear. A ghost bugbear. “Yeah. Nudity is natural.” She blinked down at her own nude body really unsure of what to say. She had so many questions but all of them eluded her now. Now that she was face to face with a bugbear. Wow. Nora reached out to the ghost, her hand sliding through. Oh right. She thought, noting how stupid it was to try and touch a ghost to check if it was real. Real idiot moments. 

“Yeah. We can leave.” Nora looked over to Willow, about to explain that she had to go. Willow didn’t look great. She looked tired. Was she apologizing for the back thing? Nora was about to tell her it was absolutely no problem but the blonde collapsed into unconsciousness. “Do you think she’s okay?” Nora asked walking back over to Willow. “She’s probably just tired right?” Nora tucked in her new friend. There was a broken window, she didn’t want her to get cold. “Let me just… hmmm.” Nora left the bedroom and started snooping around the kitchen. A glass of water for her bedside. An advil cause she’d screamed so much. A ham sandwich to wake up to. Nora plopped the items on the bed side table before scribbling a note. ‘Sorry about your window. I’ll send someone to repair it tomorrow. You’ll have to invite them inside. - np.’  Nora borrowed a shirt and pants before she climbed back out the window. Beckoning to her new bugbear friend she said. “We can go to my place. I’m Nora by the way. It’s so great to meet you.” 

“Oh yeah- she’s fine,” Tommy said with a dismissive wave towards the blonde chick, his tone perfectly confident in the words. He didn’t actually know if she was fine, but he didn’t really care in the least whether she was or not. Sure, she was hot for a human. But she was just that- a human. Nasty little buggers who didn’t do much other than destroy things, and make a nice snack. “She’s easily tired. Most humans are, you know. They’re not as strong as us.” He finished on a point of pride, knowing it to be undoubtedly true. Tommy waited impatiently as Nora took careful steps to ensure what he was fairly certain was Willow’s comfort, and he carefully suppressed a disapproving frown while she finished writing her note. Strange. It was almost as if she cared about the human’s well-being or something. “Great!” he exhaled with a clap of his hands, rubbing them together in excitement as Nora gave her name. “A lovely name for a lovely bear,” he finished with a cheeky smile. “I’m Tommy. Tommy Wright.” Giving the other ghost, Kal, a sarcastic and cocky salute, Tommy made his way towards the window that Nora had shattered, bending at the waist in a little bow. “Ladies first, Nora.” Giving one last look back into the apartment, his gaze settled on the bear painting, and then the silly little note for Willow. Maybe the poor little bear hadn’t been taught better than to show kindness to humans. He’d heard of such terrible things before, though hadn’t come across it all that often. “You know I have a feeling we’re gonna get along great! I bet there’s a lot we could teach each other. How do ya feel about jacuzzis?” 

[yokelish]

The Safest Distance

✏ Fandom: Bungou Stray Dogs ✏ Characters: Dazai Osamu ✏ Word count: 2148 ✏ Warnings: none.

The Safest Distance

Dazai looked up and smiled. It was but a tremble of muscle yet something long forgotten just resurfaced in his mind. A long-forgotten memory painted with light strokes on the canvas of the pinkish sunset sky. The memory was a fleeting one, sure, washed in the dying out light of the day. It was fragile and oh-so-worn with time and deception of one’s perception. Nonetheless, a memory he didn’t mind coming for a visit today. Chin coming to rest on his palm, he breathed in the warm salty air, as the breeze ruffled through his hair, coat, and the pages of the book. Dazai sighed. The sound of the pages turning reminded him what the memory had interrupted: he was waiting. In a place he wouldn’t choose for a meeting, but still… Something possessed him to come to this place of unbearable quiet and serenity. Among people who can live — and he will never understand how — blissfully in deceit. They can live and laugh and do something else, many more other wondrous things, believing in deception of their own creation to the last breath. Washing with it, sleeping and eating, all the while wrapped in tender lie they tell day after day.

The symbols on the pages turned meaningless the longer he stared at them. Or perhaps they gained new and much deeper meanings. Each stroke of the black ink against the white pages, perfectly contained meaning and sense, word after word. It is but a neatly packaged experience of life, wrapped in a bound and cover. It is but an experience of things with the preservation of safety and distance, allowing for perspective and the greatest celebrated treachery: the meaning isn’t ascribed, it’s given. Its value is, too, but given by whatever hand holds it, whatever curious eyes read it, and whatever inquiring mind makes of it. The greatest celebrated treachery, a beautiful deceit that lives through centuries in a single breath.

“You aren’t reading,” said the voice behind him. Someone — that perfect someone —had taken a seat behind his. In this café, among the people, this was the voice he came to hear and listen to. The sound of it carefully unwrapping the memories he purposefully put away in the deepest corner and laid them to rest. If only one could tell him to dismiss them all together, to forget whatever cupboard it was hidden in. No one could, however. No one was there for that.

“I am reading,” he meekly protested, “but not the book itself. I’m reading everything about it.” He closed the book and leaned back in his seat. The person on the other side, sitting behind his seat, Dazai could choose to turn around and look. It would be a simple thing, an expected thing from people who meet in a place like this, from people who met on purpose. But there was a reason why they didn’t share a table, why the talked to each other without looking. There was an unwritten history between them, a story that will never be told. And the words they exchanged now or ever will never be put on the whiteness of a paper. The safest distance lies beyond the horizon where the eye cannot see.

“That’s an unexpected depth to you,” the voice replied, mocking with gentleness. “Regained your depth perception, I see.”

Dazai chuckled, amused by the reminder. Last time they saw each other, he was a Port Mafia executive. Dazai Osamu, the demonic protégé, the one who could and would become the Boss of Port Mafia. All that and he helped someone escape the dark and bloody claws of the Mafia. The cruel delight he felt while watching the chase enfold. The glee of hearing the teeth snapping at one’s heel. The cruelty, the malice, the tender and shameful amusement of it all. All that, and he was  — by the matter of fact —  a turncoat. He aided and abetted an escape of a person who was relentlessly pursued by the mad dogs of the Mafia. Dazai Osamu, the demonic protégé and the darkest future Port Mafia could ever hope for, was twice the betrayer he was branded for.

“Couldn’t do it without a friend,” Osamu replied. Half-joke, half-truth, but all-around tragedy. His hand made a gesture — quite unconscious one — of trying to grab onto something, to hold something in his hand. But, of course, there was nothing but the wind and the dying light of the day. And the words exchanged between them but those are the hardest to capture.

“What else are friends for if not to change our, hm,” there was a decisively placed pause in the middle a of a sentence. An alluring trap for him to jump into but Dazai didn’t. “Perspective, I guess, would be the right word.”

He felt as someone’s head barely touched the back of his. It was only for a second, almost accidental. It wasn’t. He could barely smile at that, the careful distance between two people who were sharing a conversation but not eye contact. Just like a story in a book: half-truth, half-lie, all-around tragedy. But the distance it offered was a guarantee of safety. While Dazai had a lot less to lose in the worst-case scenario, it wasn’t something he would openly admit to saying.

“I’d like to banter and pretend it doesn’t bother me after all those years,” the hazy voice spoke again, quieter this time. “But I have to know, otherwise, I am afraid, the question will eat up from the inside and leave nothing behind, not even bones.”

“Hm?”

“Why did you help me escape?”

The last ray of sunlight was now gone beyond the horizon, finally reaching the safest distance. Dazai didn’t answer right away. The words written in black ink against the darkness of his mind too muddled to be read clearly. The voices are too hazy and distant, coloured and voiced over by his own perception, by the meanings he wants to ascribe to them or take away. There were many reasons. There was no reason whatsoever. He closed his eyes and breathed in the warmth and salt.

While he was fighting with his mind, trying to read in the darkness and hear amidst the noise, something else was happening behind his back. Something he chose to ignore completely, never to register, never to remember, least he’d try to give any value to it. It would just one of those things forever hidden in the corner of his mind, forgotten and equated to nothing.

When Dazai finally regained his awareness, the first thing he heard was the sound of a cutlery against the plate. Ringing and tempting him to pose a question, to offer something else to speak off. It would be easy to turn away from the answer, to betray once again. And when he finally opened his eyes, there was still no one sitting in front of him. No company except for the person behind him, the hazy voice speaking behind his back. There was still light, reaching him from the safest distance, from beyond the horizon. If only such a moment could last a little longer, stretched out to last just a little bit longer, just like someone’s words…

“To amuse myself,” Dazai spoke evenly. “To see if I could do it without being suspected. And because I wondered if he would be proud.”

“Your friend?”

“Yes.”

“And was he?”

“I never told him, never, hm,” he placed a purposeful pause in the middle of the sentence trying to lure in more questions, to be allowed for once to speak of what he wanted to speak. No one took the bait. No one was there for that. “Got the chance to, I guess, is the right expression.”

“Why?” The question was half-expected, half-feared, and all-around invasive. Just as the cutlery was pulling apart whatever was on the plate —piece by piece — accompanied by the sound of ringing and soft clashing. The voice was pulling apart his memories slowly and utterly benevolent.

“Cowardice…?”

The sound of the cutlery against the plate rang once again. It was more contained and far more elegant in its nature. A lot more purposeful. It was no longer tempting him to ask questions. Something within his perception had already chose a satisfying answer without any given meaning or value. It was but a way to stifle the curiosity and desire, to keep it occupied.

“I see,” the voice said from behind. Tender touch of another person against him designed to look accidental to a curious eye until the design fell apart. And the weight of another’s touch came to rest against his back.

“I never got to thank you,” the voice spoke in a whisper.

Dazai smirked. “I never intended to give it a chance.” An honest confession: the only words that stood boldly against the darkness of his mind. From a safe distance, of course. “I told you to forget about me. To forget what I did.”

“You always have the right to ask, I always have the right to refuse. Isn’t that why human relationships are so complicated? It would be easier to have people do as you please, so easy, in fact, it would be boring. It would be an endless boredom.”

“Isn’t it already?”

“I guess it is,” the voice confirmed gently, too gently. “For you.”

The weight against his back left, leaving strange sense of hollowness instead. Dazai understood that it was but a retreat to a safe distance.

“After all, you knew I would be here.” There was a sigh that followed and not his. The sound just as hollow and meaningless, but he would remember it. And with time he would invest value in this trembling hollow sound or leave it to rust and turn to dust. It was so hollow it could be filled endlessly with meanings, imputed with infinite value.

“It’s bold to come back to Japan, to Yokohama. It hasn’t been that long since I aided you in escaping,” Dazai warned sincerely. It was a foolish affair. And him coming here wasn’t at all putting a safe distance. He should have chased something else today or nothing. He could have gone after the sun, it would be a safer and less foolish endeavour.

“He can do nothing to me,” the voice spoke sternly. “I am unreachable to him now,” the sound of a fork hitting the porcelain plate, cutting a piece, pulling apart. “And he can choke on it.”

Dazai turned his head just to steal a glance at the corner of his eye. Just a little reminder that it’s not his mind playing a twisted game, but life playing an even more cruel game. He couldn’t do it. He broke into a laugh before he could even see anything behind him. Not even a glimpse. Dazai leaned back in his seat until his head came in touch with something and closed his eyes.

“Sometimes I think of that time and I wonder if I simply dreamed of an idiotic nightmare,” the voice continued to lull him deep into thoughts.

“It was an idiotic nightmare. If you don’t want to see it, close your eyes.”

“How can you even say such words, I wonder.”

“You should forget them,” he smirked. It was another moment before he, too, withdrew to a safe distance. A heavy sigh escaped him. Heavy yet somehow hollow. It resonated nothing; it felt like nothingness itself.

��Maybe for a time,” the voice finally gave a reply. Then, Dazai heard a fork placed on the plate for the last time. Then, he heard the chair behind him move. He stood up from his seat. It was time to retreat, to return to everything they did not share and never will.

“I entrust you with my gratitude,” the voice spoke cheerfully behind him, “so, please, don’t forget it, even if it turns bitter or empty.”

Dazai smiled, only nodding in response. He couldn’t know if it was seen or noticed. But it was the only answer he could give. It was a hollow echo of his thoughts, strokes of black ink against the darkness of the mind, muddled and blurred. It could be given meaning and value, infinitely reinvented and lied about, repurposed and recycled, over and over, used and used and wasted. It could turn to nothing at all without leaving anything behind, not even a needle prick of a memory.

And they parted ways, each retreating to the safest distance: beyond the line of the horizon, where no prying eye could see. With the book in his hand, Dazai walked away, stuffing away the memory of such gratitude in the safest place of his mind: a dark and distant corner, where it can turn into anything: something empty, something rusted and bitter, or something infinitely valuable.

[gb-fics]

Art Class - Thursday (4)

AU Fanfiction:

Kiryuuin Shou x Kyan Yutaka (Golden Bomber)

Note: Read Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

She was back. Shou had not expected it and he was not prepared.

She had taken the easel next to the door, almost exactly opposite to Shou. If he peaked around his canvas, he could see her chatting and laughing with her friend.

Shou himself hadn’t done much chatting and laughing today. His throat felt dry and tight whenever he just thought of talking.

The last days, he had been incredible loud with Yutaka. Because Yutaka was incredible loud by nature and Shou hadn’t cared what the other students thought of him.

Ever since Sakura was back, he cared a whole damn lot.

She looked a little pale, he thought. Maybe she should have stayed at home longer. She should also have dressed more warmly. Wear a scarf maybe.

Shou’s painting was finished by now. He wasn’t really pleased with it, but didn’t know how to improve it, either. He hadn’t felt too motivation to improve it to begin with. The last hour, he had spent just holding up a paint brush, trying to look busy while secretly watching Sakura. She was prettier than he remembered. Three days, and he had almost forgotten her. But watching her, it all came back. Shou wished he had the courage to talk to her.

“Hey”, Yutaka said. “Hey, idiot, what do you think?”

He turned his canvas towards Shou.

Shou thought that it looked like a pretty bad painting of a toilet bowl.

“It’s alright”, he said.

Yutaka rolled his eyes at him.

“Dude, you really are no fun today”, he stated.

He turned his head and looked over at Sakura. Shou wanted to tell him to stop, because he was staring way too openly, but he was scared of drawing attention.

Finally, Yutaka turned to look back at Shou.

“Do me a favour and just ask her out already”, he said, not nearly as quiet as Shou would have preferred. “Your pining is becoming unbearable.”

“I can’t just ask her out”, Shou whispered back.

“Class will be over soon”, Yutaka pointed out. “Tomorrow, we’ll finish at noon already. If you ask now, tomorrow after class would be the perfect time for a date. It’s your last chance.”

Shou cast his eyes down and shook his head reluctantly.

For Yutaka it was easy to talk like that. Surely, he had picked up a girl at the group date just like that yesterday. Shou hadn’t dared to ask. Yutaka hadn’t mentioned it either. Shou wondered if he was mad at him for declining the invitation. He didn’t seem mad, but maybe not talking about something was Yutaka’s way of being angry at you.

“I just can’t”, Shou repeated softly.

He wished Yutaka would understand and leave him alone. Just watching Sakura from his stand by the window was enough for Shou already. He could fantasize about her and that was way better than actually trying and getting turned down.

Yutaka turned to look at his own canvas again. He was finished, too. The white paint was still wet.

“You are killing me”, Yutaka said.

Shou huffed and went back to watching Sakura. She was still working with her pencil. Since she had joined them only today, Utahiroba Sensei had agreed to letting her hand in a sketch instead of a full painting.

“I don’t understand what you are seeing in her anyway”, Yutaka went on. He was muttering now, which Shou was thankful for, so no one would be able to overhear their conversation. It also evoked the strange impression that Yutaka was talking to himself.

“She is so cute and delicate”, Shou replied quietly. “I bet she is a kind person.”

“I bet she is sketching flowers”, Yutaka said.

Shou threw him an angry side-glance. He understood perfectly well what Yutaka was implying. But to Shou, Sakura wasn’t boring at all.

“It would only mean she has a sense of beauty”, Shou said.

Yutaka opened his mouth to reply, but shut it again as Sakura stepped away from her easel. It seemed as if she wanted to walk to the shelf in the back to check for materials to work with.

“Now!”, Yutaka hissed. “It’s your chance to approach her casually.”

Shou had to admit that Yutaka was right. He would never gather the courage to just walk over and start a conversation with her surrounded by her friends. But just walking to the shelf at the same time and making it look like a coincidence might be doable. He could help her search for whatever it was she was looking for. He’d certainly find an excuse to start talking.

But his throat felt so dry, he wasn’t sure he’d get out a word. Yutaka would never understand what it meant to feel this nervous.

Very slightly Shou shook his head again.

Sakura was now about to reach the back of the room.

Yutaka sighed very quietly. Then he took up his canvas from the stand and held it up in front of himself as if wanting to present it to the room.

“Sensei!”, he called out. “I have a question. Could you …”

Hurriedly, he walked up to the teacher’s desk, heading into the opposite direction as Sakura.

He bumped right into her.

Yutaka cursed loudly.

He stepped back and looked at Sakura and then at his canvas. Sakura’s shirt and her bare arms were covered in white paint. Yutaka’s picture was smudged and ruined.

“Oh, no, no, no”, he said loudly. “I’m so sorry. I … I think I need to try and fix my painting, before it dries. My … my friend will help you clean up.” He turned around and made a face. “Shou!”, he called.

Shou swallowed hard.

“It’s alright, really”, Sakura said shyly. “I can take care of it myself.”

“No, I insist”, Yutaka said. “I’m busy, but a gentleman. Shou, move your ass!”

He didn’t really leave him with a choice. But weirdly enough, Shou was thankful for that. As long as he still had a choice, he would have chosen not to talk to Sakura. He just wished Yutaka had found a way to do it without drawing the attention of the entire class.

Shou hurried from his easel to get some paper towels for Sakura. Yutaka went back to his place by the window and started fussing over his painting. Shou wasn’t sure if he was actually trying to fix it or just acting busy.

He stopped short in front of Sakura and awkwardly handed her some of the tissues.

“Thank you”, she said and smiled at him.

She didn’t just smile about something her friend had said while Shou was watching. She looked at him directly and granted him with a smile only meant for him.

His ears felt hot and he was sure his face was slowly turning red.

“I’m sorry for my friend”, Shou stuttered and awkwardly started to rub Sakura’s lower arm with one of the tissues.

He wasn’t sure where he was allowed to touch her. The arm felt safe. Yet, it was already a little too much for Shou.

“I’m just worried if his painting is not ruined. He’ll get a bad grade now for sure”, Sakura said.

She had a very soft way of speaking, so her words sounded quiet and gentle. Shou thought that it was the exact opposite of how Yutaka spoke.

He had to admit, that he hadn’t really paid a thought to Yutaka’s painting yet. He would probably get a bad grade. And he had accepted that just to provide Shou with the chance to talk to Sakura. Shou wasn’t sure he’d done the same. It was kind of selfless.

But on the other hand, Yutaka hadn’t exactly destroyed an artistic masterpiece. His grade wouldn’t have been good to begin with.

“Honestly”, he said and leaned in a little. When talking to Sakura, he automatically spoke more softly, too. “I don’t think it looks any worse than before.”

Sakura giggled very quietly and looked down on her shirt.

“Maybe I should go to the bathroom to clean this”, she said.

“Sure, I will take you”, Shou hurried to say.

Sakura blushed slightly. Shou realized what he had just said. He probably blushed a little, too.

“I mean, just, you know, I will walk you there. I uhm. Yutaka will be furious, if I don’t make sure you are alright.”

He knew that he had used Yutaka as a pretty cheap excuse, but Shou could hardly admit that he didn’t want to stop talking to Sakura yet. A chance like that would probably not show itself again any time soon.

“Thank you”, Sakura said and smiled at him once more.

Shou realized that she could have turned the offer down as well. Was it possible that she actually liked Shou? Or at least did not mind him liking her? Shou had always assumed she would be uncomfortable, if an awkward guy like him approached her. But the way she smiled at him indicated that she didn’t find him all that awkward.

They walked to the door, Shou gesturing over to Utahiroba Sensei, who just nodded as if he didn’t really care.

Out on the corridor, Shou became aware that they were alone now. Just him and Sakura. It was quiet. He wrecked his brain for something intelligent to say.

“It’s a shame you missed the first three days of the project week”, Shou said.

“Yes”, Sakura agreed.

Shou actually had to strain his ears to understand her. He wished she would speak up just a tiny bit more.

There was awkward silence for a moment, before Sakura picked up talking again. Shou wondered if maybe she was inwardly cursing herself, too, for not being able to keep the conversation going normally.

“I like art and drawing, so I really wanted to be there.”

“I don’t really know anything about art, to be honest”, Shou admitted. “I just thought art class would be most relaxed.” He had stolen that from Yutaka, but he couldn’t very well tell Sakura why he actually had chosen art class. “But I can’t draw and don’t know any artists at all.”

They rounded a corner that led to the restrooms.

“I really like the old European artists”, Sakura said shyly. “Like the Italian Renaissance painters.”

Shou hesitated.

“Well”, he said. “I like Italian food.”

Sakura laughed. It wasn’t just a shy giggle, but an actual laugh. Shou relaxed instantly.

“I only know pizza, so I guess we are even”, she said. “I don’t really know about European food.”

Shou hesitated. It wouldn’t get any easier than that and he knew it. Moreover, Sakura had laughed. That probably meant she enjoyed talking to him just a little. It probably meant she liked Shou – just a little.

His throat felt dry again.

He swallowed and wondered what Kyan Yutaka would do. Yutaka was fearless and carefree. If Shou was just a little bit more like him, life would be easier. Kyan Yutaka would ask the girl out.

“Actually, I know a nice Italian place around here. We could eat there together sometime, if you want to.”

For a few heartbeats Shou held his breath. It was impossible that she would say yes.

“Really?”, Sakura asked and looked up. Shou realized that she seemed happy. “I would really like to go.”

They had reached the restrooms now. It would be good timing to part and end with the promise of going out sometime. But Shou thought of Yutaka’s words and of the painting he had sacrificed.

“Tomorrow, class ends early”, Shou said. “How about afterwards?”

Sakura nodded.

“Sure”, she said, still smiling. For a moment, they just stood, smiling at each other. Finally, Sakura gestured towards the ladies’ room. “I should ...”, she said.

“Uhm, yeah”, Shou said. “Okay, I’ll go back. You don’t want me to wait out here for you like a creep. So, uhm, tomorrow.”

“Yes”, Sakura confirmed.

As the door fell shut behind her, Shou already dashed off back to the art classroom. He couldn’t wait to tell Yutaka.

He slowed down his steps again before entering the room, trying to keep a casual expression. He walked back to his easel. He had expected Yutaka to wait for him curiously, but he was staring at his canvas instead. As Shou looked over, he realized that the painting was completely smudged indeed.

“I’m sorry”, Shou mumbled. Then he boxed Yutaka lightly against the shoulder. “But hey, I have a date tomorrow after class.”

Yutaka swirled around, suddenly beaming.

“Oh man, I was totally expecting you to blow this”, he said. “But then it was worth it. Name one of your kids after me, will you?”

Shou snorted. He was still beaming as well, though. He hadn’t imagined this to work out. On his own, he would never have managed to get a date like this.

“Seriously, thank you”, he said. “The weird thing is that she actually doesn’t seem to hate me.”

Yutaka rolled his eyes.

“Trust me, I’m not the only one who noticed you at this festival”, he said. “You are funny and friendly and you can sing. You’d be surprised how many girls would go out with you, if only you’d asked them.”

“One girl at a time”, Shou said jokingly and then shut up as he noticed Utahiroba Sensei walking towards them.

Their teacher remained standing next to Yutaka, looking onto the left-overs of his painting.

“I was expecting you to fail class already”, he said coldly.

Shou wondered why Utahiroba Sensei was being so harsh all of a sudden. Maybe he assumed it hadn’t been an accident, but that Yutaka had been out trying to cause trouble again. Shou wished he could explain that it wasn’t Yutaka’s usual reckless behaviour, but that he had actually done a really nice thing for a friend.

“Fail class?!”, Yutaka repeated. “But Sensei, I worked hard on this.”

“Well, you will get your grades tomorrow morning and class ends at noon”, Utahiroba Sensei said. “I don’t think you will be able to fix it until then.”

The school bell rang out, announcing the end of the school day.

“See”, Utahiroba Sensei said. “You are out of time.”

“Maybe I could stay longer and try to fix it?”, Yutaka suggested.

His face looked worried and his voice sounded begging. In spite of his attitude of not caring very much for anything, Shou realized that he dreaded failing class. The results of project week would be written on their next report. Maybe he’d be in trouble with his family. Shou’s parents surely wouldn’t be amused about something like that.

“I might make a mistake once”, Utahiroba Sensei said. “But I don’t make it twice.”

Yutaka stared at their teacher angrily. Shou could tell that this wasn’t the best way to change his mind.

“Utahiroba Sensei, please”, he said. “I know what you think, but this time, it wasn’t Yutaka’s fault. It really wasn’t.”

Utahiroba Sensei turned his head to look at Shou. For a moment, he just eyed him critically, then Shou saw the lines around his mouth soften. He obviously believed him.

“Please”, Shou repeated. “We will both stay longer and try to fix it. It wouldn’t be fair to let him fail class for something that wasn’t his fault.”

“You’ll stay, too?”, Utahiroba Sensei assured.

Yutaka was looking at him curiously, too.

“We’re partners, right?”, Shou said. “We are supposed to learn teamwork with this exercise.”

Utahiroba Sensei snorted very quietly, then he gave a small shrug.

“Alright, I was planning to stay longer and get some work done at the teacher’s room anyway. Just leave the key with the gatekeeper again.”

“Thank you, Sensei!”, Yutaka shouted, suddenly so cheerful again that Utahiroba Sensei shook his head.

He put the key onto the desk like last time and gathered his things before leaving the room. The other students had headed out already.

“So, what are we going to do about this?”, Shou asked and pointed at the picture.

“I will just fix the outlines”, Yutaka suggested and took up a small brush. “Then we need to colour in the white parts again. You can help with that in a bit.”

“You mind if I make a call?”, Shou asked. “I invited Sakura to this Italian restaurant around here and should make a reservation.”

Yutaka shrugged as if he wanted to indicate that he didn’t really care. Shou went over to his bag to get out his mobile. Luckily, he found the phone number of the Italian place easily once he typed its name into google. It took quite a while until someone picked up, though. Shou already started to worry they were still closed.

“Hello?”, a female voice finally greeted him. She was speaking English.

“Uhm, I’d like, uhm, I’d like to reserve a table for tomorrow at lunch”, Shou stuttered in Japanese, hoping they would understand him. He had only ever walked past the restaurant looking in from the outside and hadn’t known they were so exclusive that they spoke in other languages.

“Sure”, the woman replied; thankfully in Japanese this time. “How many people and what time?”

“Two. Two people”, Shou said. He felt weirdly nervous. He wasn’t used to reserving tables at real restaurants. Usually, if he went out with friends, they lived of fast food. It made the whole date feel even more serious. “At 12:30 pm?”

“What’s the name?”, the woman asked.

Shou cursed himself. He hadn’t even introduced himself. Didn’t you do that first when calling a stranger? Why was he so bad at things like that?

“Kiryuuin. The name is Kiryuuin”, he said.

“Alright, we’ll have the table ready at 12:30”, the woman assured. “We are looking forward to your visit.”

“Thank you”, Shou mumbled and hung up.

“Man, you seemed stressed”, Yutaka observed.

“She was speaking English when she picked up. English. I thought that was it. I was ready to give up on the date and die.”

Yutaka chuckled.

“Stop being overdramatic and get to work already”, he said.

Shou walked over and picked up a paint brush of his own. Yutaka still wasn’t done with the outlines entirely. Shou had to bent awkwardly to work with Yutaka’s arm partly blocking the view. They were working in silence for a while.

“Thanks for helping”, Yutaka said finally. “You didn’t have to stay. It’s not your problem after all.”

“But it’s my fault”, Shou said.

He paused.

“You didn’t have to do that for me, either”, he then added.

Yutaka shrugged.

He was done with the lines now and pulled back his arm.

“You told me that you like her”, he said. “If that’s what you want, I thought I might help. I want you to be happy, you know.”

Shou thought that regardless of his outward attitude, Yutaka might very well be the nicest person he had ever met.

“You are a good friend”, he said.

“Yeah”, Yutaka said, speaking rather harshly. He started to colour in white now, too, but worked on the left side only. They were no longer getting into each other’s way.

“I want to be your friend. I mean …” Yutaka broke off.

Shou wondered if Yutaka knew how he felt. That he thought they’d probably lose touch as soon as the project week was over, because that was what usually happened to Shou’s friendships. Maybe Yutaka was soothing him.

“I’m glad”, Shou said.

This week with Yutaka really had been a lot of fun. Sure, he had been a little confused somewhere along the second half, but now that he got his date with Sakura, things were clear to Shou again. Yutaka wanted him to date Sakura. Shou wanted to date Sakura. Even Sakura seemingly wanted Shou to date her. They were good.

Now that the apprehension about getting turned down by Sakura and about Yutaka possibly flirting with him had faded, Shou felt incredible lightheaded. Things were looking up. He saw a fair chance that it would work out with Sakura. He saw a fair chance, too, that he might stay friends with Yutaka and would still get their occasional adventures minus the weird tension. Kissing girls and being silly with Yutaka was pretty much all Shou could ever ask for in life.

He hummed under his breath while drawing.

After a while Yutaka chuckled.

Shou stopped his humming.

“What?”, he asked.

“It’s like someone turned on the radio”, Yutaka said.

“You mind?”, Shou wanted to know.

Yutaka shook his head.

“It’s nice to have some music, actually.”

Shou picked up his humming again, louder this time. He was humming the melody of a pop song he knew from the radio, singing words during the chorus that he remembered and humming along to the parts he couldn’t recall. He started moving his brush in the rhythm of the song, too.

After a moment, he looked up, realizing that Yutaka had stopped painting but was just watching him.

“I’m really glad I got you this date”, Yutaka said as their eyes met. “You are too wholesome when you are happy.”

“I am happy”, Shou confirmed and went on painting. “Sakura is really sweet. I’m glad now that I didn’t let you set me up with some random girl yesterday.”

“What?”, Yutaka asked.

“Well, the group date. Yesterday”, Shou reminded him. “You wanted to introduce me to some girls, remember?”

Yutaka was silent for a moment and Shou wondered if he had really managed to forget after such a short time. But then Yutaka seemed to live very much in the present. He probably couldn’t even recall what he had eaten for breakfast this morning.

“The girls, right”, Yutaka said. “I wanted to, yes, I wanted to introduce you to girls. That’s totally what I wanted to do.”

“So, how did it go anyway?”, Shou asked. “Met anyone nice?”

He wasn’t sure why, but somehow the question made him uncomfortable. He did not want to think of whom Yutaka might have met yesterday. That was stupid of course, because Yutaka had every right to meet whomever he wanted. And Shou had a date with Sakura.

“Oh, I didn’t go in the end”, Yutaka said, clearing his throat as if he was somehow embarrassed to admit that.

Shou felt relieved. Then he felt guilty for feeling relieved instantly.

“How come?”, he asked anyway.

Yutaka had seemed quite eager on going the other day.

“I guess, well, I didn’t feel like it, that’s all”, Yutaka said.

“I’m sure the girls were very disappointed”, Shou said lightly.

Yutaka was still staring at him instead of painting.

“Shou, you really …?” Yutaka broke off. From the corner of his eyes, Shou saw him shake his head. “Well, you’ve got your date with Sakura now anyway.”

Yutaka turned towards the canvas again and picked up painting. Shou wondered what he had wanted to ask.

They kept painting in silence. It was really just about filling the white paint back in, so it wasn’t complicated and they would be done fast. When he was done with his half, Shou put aside his paint brush and studied the picture while Yutaka filled in the last bits.

Suddenly, his outburst from Monday felt very ridiculous to Shou. Back then, it had made sense to him. Now, he just wondered why they hadn’t just painted flowers like any normal person would. Yutaka had painted a toilet bowl. A toilet bowl for fuck’s sake. The paintings would be on display for the students from the entire year.

He couldn’t help laughing.

“I can’t believe we actually stayed in school longer than necessary to paint a toilet”, Shou observed.

Yutaka started laughing quietly, too. He took a step back to eye his work.

“That should do”, he stated. “They should give me an A for stupidity already.”

“Stupidity is not a discipline, idiot. Otherwise, you’d be top of the class”, Shou said and turned to Yutaka. He was still holding the paint brush in his hand and pushed a strand of hair out of his eyes now. He left behind a white streak on his cheek.

Yutaka grinned widely. He wasn’t looking at Shou but at his painting. He looked proud.

And Shou thought that right now, right there, he looked stunningly beautiful. There was something about his lopsided grin that wasn’t meant for anyone. The fact that he was ridiculously happy about his painting of a toilet. The white paint on his cheek, because he seemed to bring chaos whenever he walked. His willingness to destroy his picture for Shou. He hadn’t even hesitated. And Shou thought of his date with Sakura tomorrow and he realized that this was his last chance. If he wanted to know what it would feel like, he had to try it now. Because if it worked out with Sakura tomorrow, he might never find out.

“You have …”, he said, shocked at how hoarse his own voice sounded. His throat felt dry again. But this afternoon he had tried to act like Kyan Yutaka and it had worked out fine. He looked at Yutaka now and imagined to be carefree and fearless.

“Huh?”, Yutaka made, turning to look at Shou. He looked only mildly curious and Shou realized that he had no idea of what Shou was intending to do.

“You have paint on your cheek”, he said and took a step towards Yutaka.

He placed his hand against Yutaka’s cheek, rubbing his thumb against the paint to wipe it off. It had already dried and stayed in place.

Yutaka grimaced at him as if indicating that Shou was being too rough on him. His eyes seemed large, though and Shou thought he looked a little panicked, like a small animal in a trap. But he did not pull back.

“You are supposed to remove the paint, not my face, moron”, Yutaka said weakly.

“Just let me …”, Shou mumbled and then he finally found his courage.

He leaned in and kissed Yutaka right on the lips.

He had expected Yutaka to remain stiff with surprise, but his whole body grew soft against Shou almost immediately. Shou felt him leaning in, his lips parting and his stomach took a little leap. His whole body felt tingly and he couldn’t focus on anything but the soft sensation of Yutaka’s lips.

Shou had kissed girls before, though not many and the kisses had always felt awkward somehow. With Yutaka, though, it didn’t feel weird. He put his hands onto Shou’s shoulders and added just the right amount of pressure. With him, Shou felt guided and not clumsy at all.

After a moment, he pulled back, still standing close.

Yutaka smiled at him and started to straighten out the collar of Shou’s school uniform. It was a weirdly sweet, intimate gesture that did not seem to suit Yutaka at all. He usually was one to cause chaos, not sort it out again.

“It was the star gazing, right?”, he asked.

Shou chuckled and shook his head.

“It was when you dropped the lighter. On the first day”, he replied.

Because for a moment there, Yutaka’s mask had dropped and he had looked a little embarrassed and very likeable.

“Ah, right”, Yutaka said knowingly. “Getting really nervous in front of a cute guy. That’s my special seduction move.”

Shou snorted quietly, but was shut up when Yutaka leaned in to kiss him again. Shou met with his lips willingly. Of all the people Shou had kissed so far, Yutaka was definitely the most skilful.

Without breaking the kiss, he took a step forward, forcing Yutaka to take a step back. Yutaka’s back was now pressing against the window sill. Shou put his hands onto it on each side of Yutaka, caging him in and pressing their bodies closer together. Yutaka’s hands were still on his shoulders.

Shou felt like maybe he was being too greedy, but he couldn’t help all of his teenage hormones rioting. Yutaka’s body was warm and Shou thought of undressing him and running his hands across his bare skin. He hadn’t expected to feel so excited by the thought of doing that to a male body, but he sensed the outline of Yutaka’s flat chest and his narrow hips clearly and the grip of his hands was strong and firm, and Shou thought that all of that felt pretty amazing.

He broke the kiss again to catch his breath.

“Not to be rushing things”, Yutaka mumbled. “But if that groping offer still stands, I have the key to the astronomy club and they have a couch there, you know?”

Shou rubbed his nose against the white streak on Yutaka’s cheek and placed a short kiss right below it. Then he put his forehead against Yutaka’s shoulder, inhaling deeply.

He thought of touching Yutaka while lying on that couch with him. He thought of taking off his shirt and maybe rubbing against his pants until he felt him grow hard. And he thought of having a date with Sakura tomorrow.

“I’m sorry”, he whispered. “I really don’t know what I’m doing. I just thought of this all week, somehow. And before I go out with Sakura tomorrow, I thought. But I’m not sure we should.”

“Oh”, Yutaka said.

He said nothing else, but Shou felt his body growing stiff in his arms. He pulled back a little to get a good look at Yutaka.

“So, you were just curious like the rest of them”, Yutaka concluded. He sounded bitter.

Shou shook his head, but he didn’t know what to say. He had been curious after all. And he still wasn’t sure if this was what he wanted. Yes, he desired Yutaka right now. But he didn’t see a future for them. He didn’t want to remain invisible to everyone and sneak away with Yutaka in the evening sometimes to exchange kisses in secret. He wanted a real relationship. With holding hands and talking to each other and joining their common friends on group dates. Shou wanted to be loved. With Yutaka, it would never be stable, but always just another adventure, at least that was how he felt about kissing him. That probably meant he was just curious.

“I’m not like the others”, Shou said softly. His voice sounded as if he was begging. Kissing Yutaka had felt so nice just now, but now he was all cold and things were feeling complicated. Shou was begging for them to be easy again.

“I swear, I’m not ducking out, because I’m not attracted to you. Maybe the others didn’t want to take it any further, but I don’t mind. I want to touch you everywhere.” Shou felt his cheeks heating up with the last sentence. But he needed Yutaka to know that he wasn’t scared.

“But you are still going out with Sakura”, Yutaka said flatly.

Shou shrugged.

“If I get aroused, what difference does it make if I’m just curious?”, he asked.

Yutaka stared at him for a long time without saying anything.

Then he put his hands against Shou’s chest gently, making him take a step back.

“The difference is”, he clarified. “That I get emotionally invested. It can break my heart.”

He sidestepped Shou and without haste collected his things.

“Yutaka”, Shou said softly.

Yutaka shouldered his bag without looking back at Shou. He walked towards the door, but stopped before he reached it.

“I’m not mad at you”, Yutaka clarified without turning. “But I need boundaries.” Then he left the room.

Shou stared after him for a moment and then lowered his eyes. On the floor next to his feet, the paint brush with the white tip was lying. Yutaka must have dropped it when Shou had kissed him.

He understood very well why Yutaka had left.

Because what was just another adventure to Shou, had meant holding hands and talking to each other and going out on group dates to Yutaka. To Yutaka it meant being loved, too. Because to him two men were no different to a man and a woman, while to Shou it still felt like something that could not be viewed as a real relationship. All the boys kissing boys Shou knew personally, had been experimenting, not seriously considered dating. And even then, it had only been talked about in hushed voices.

He thought of Utahiroba Sensei and wondered if he loved Darvish Sensei. He wondered if that was why Yutaka had taken art class, too. Not because Utahiroba was a relaxed teacher, but because Yutaka needed some kind of role model. Shou thought that it must feel lonely and difficult to accept yourself, when there was hardly anyone around accepting you as you were.

He knelt down on the floor, picking of the brush. There were smears of paint on the floor now, too. He’d have to clean those up as well.

Shou wondered if he really had been curious or just bad at accepting himself.

He got up again to get a cloth to clean up yet another mess Yutaka had left behind. This time, though, Shou knew that it was him who had caused the mess.

[arcticdementor]

My take on modern Star Trek compared to the old:

Star Trek very much embodied what liberal American white males of the 1980s and 1990s thought the future would (or should) look like: secular, sexually liberated, humanistic, meritocratic, equitable, and technological – a man’s world, basically. In this world, religion plays practically no role in public life. Problems are solved with diplomacy instead of violence. Money doesn’t exist, so there is no capitalism, greed, or want. People spend their lives bettering humanity and doing other such noble things like negotiating peace with aliens or exploring the universe in one of Starfleet’s advanced starships, each equipped with a plethora of miraculous technologies. In their leisure time, the crews of these starships visit a holographic room, the holodeck, which can conjure any fantasy into a photorealistic facsimile of the real thing.

Probably the only place in the Western world where this mentality can still be found is California’s Silicon Valley. As in the fictional world of Star Trek, men do most of the work; they advance through meritocracy; and there is something akin to a fraternal culture, irrespective of the prevailing progressive ideology. Silicon Valley is also still largely free of the odious diversity requirements imposed on the rest of society.

…

The high point of the franchise, The Next Generation, featured a mostly white liberal cast and various things white liberals liked at the time – sex appeal, food, pseudointellectualism (although handled capably by talented male writers), cutting edge tech, meritocracy, optimism, exploration, and the white man’s moralism.

Starfleet, the Federation’s military and scientific branch, was a rigorous meritocracy, just as Silicon Valley is today. Members were admitted only through a combination of senior officer recommendations, high scholastic achievement, and phenomenally high standardized test scores. Character was also paramount. Crew evaluations feature prominently in several episodes of TNG, and it was made clear to underperforming members that the starship Enterprise cuts a standard above the rest; perform or hit the road.

In the diverse world of Star Trek, the white writers imagined meritocracy would ensure whites like themselves would still have a position at the top of society (just as in Hollywood then and Silicon Valley now) despite soon becoming a minority in real life America. You’ll notice progressive humans are at the center of the Federation in Star Trek despite being a small minority in that fictional universe as well. That’s by design, conscious or not.

…

In the TNG episode The Drumhead, Picard faces down a witch hunting admiral — a woman, no less. The plot revolves around an incident that occurred on the starship Enterprise. Sabotage is suspected, and the situation is tense. The initial evidence points to a low ranking crewman who is later discovered to be of mixed race, one-quarter of the Federation’s most feared enemy. This all but convicts him in the eyes of the admiral’s tribunal. The admiral mercilessly presses her case, threatening to destroy anyone who gets in her way. She’s meant to be a caricature of conservative jingoists of the era – always scared of the Russians, racist against minorities, emotional. In Hollywood’s view of history, those were the people behind the McCarthy hearings, which this episode obviously pulls from.

…

Toward the end of the episode, Captain Picard confronts his antagonist and gives a fine speech about principle, temperament, and morality in the process. The admiral is defeated when a fellow admiral, a black male character, stands up and walks out in disgust at her actions.

This is one of the reasons why fans liked the character of Jean-Luc Picard: he was a decent, honorable man despite not being perfect himself. He had a code he lived by, and he led by example. Men like that sort of thing. Star Trek Picard, in contrast, portrays him as a bumbling moron who is always wrong and continually berated by female underlings. His view of the world is portrayed as naive or just wrong, requiring strong SJW women to take it to the enemy themselves, often employing violence – including rank murder and sadistic violence.

In another episode of TNG, white male commander Riker stands up to his white male superior — an admiral — who wishes to break the terms of a peace treaty to gain a military edge over a mortal enemy. Riker prevents him from doing so and exposes the dastardly plot. Moral of the story: principle trumps Machiavellianism.

Star Trek was very much a pre-Millennial liberal morality play whereby inspired characters (mostly white) would often stand up to authority figures (mostly white) in order to promote a general moral code — a greater authority — among fellow whites.

Consider some of the following things about Star Trek: The Next Generation and ask yourself if any of this would be allowed on television today without controversy.

…

The diverse new cast of Discovery and Picard mostly excludes white males. The only principle white men who did not appear in make-up during Discovery’s first season were either villains or openly gay. The show’s lead is a black woman who’s the best at everything, acts bizarrely hostile towards the crew and later berates the male commanding officer, captain Pike – introduced in season 2. There’s also an assortment of other female archetypes more typically seen in network television crime dramas – the dorky female comic relief, the bestest ever leader, the tech guru.

Star Trek: Picard’s white male actors, aside from TNG cameos, are mostly villains when they appear at all. Picard himself is a senile old man who contributes essentially nothing to the show. He is used as the butt of criticism from the cast. It’s clear the writers are using him as a canvas to paint their grievances with the real world. Picard — white male America — stands in the new boss’s empowered way. He lives in luxury as minority characters live in poverty. The (white) institutions he represents are all corrupt and racist. To rectify this injustice, the diverse cast must defy Star Trek convention – up to and including committing acts of cold-blooded murder (even villains don’t deserve that).

The new shows also – bizarrely — feature a dearth of straight black male actors. TNG had two; Voyager had one; DS9 had several, including a masculine male captain. The feminists who write this newer junk must feel threatened by their masculinity, a common phenomenon in modern Hollywood movies, comic books, and in network television: black men are usually removed (Star Trek), made gay (Marvel’s New Warriors), or turned into female servants (Samuel L. Jackson in Captain Marvel – a pet to Brie Larson). So, they’ve almost entirely been excised as primary leads in the new shows. The mostly unaccomplished female writers of Discovery even reported the more accomplished (read: threatening) black male writer, Walter Mosley, to Human Resources for uttering a racial epithet (in context with writing about racism), causing him to quit the show in disgust.

Author Walter Mosley Quits ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ After Using N-Word in Writers Room

Discovery and Picard are both written by a crowd that obviously hates the demographic they are writing for, so they pepper many of the episodes with things they know that demographic will take as insults – female characters insulting male characters, underhanded jokes about masculinity or mansplaining, obnoxious female leads, incompetent white male characters who need female instruction, excessive melodrama, denigration of lore. It’s patently obvious. They aren’t even being subtle about it.

…

Fundamentally, these new shows struggle because they are written by people wholly unlike the target audience, so they are not able to appeal to them (the same is true of other ruined male franchises like Star Wars – but I’ll save that for another time). These new shows aren’t for the old audience. The new — diverse — show runners have made that clear. Star Trek now serves as a vehicle for airing out racial and gender grievances against the perceived white male audience. It’s akin to planting your tribe’s flag on another tribe’s territory. The aggrieved gets a rush from being able to rub their enemy’s face in their loss. It’s intentional.

…

Regardless, the primary audience for a show like this is heterosexual men, disproportionately white … And when minority male characters appear, they’re not supposed to be losers upstaged by their sassy, disrespectful and arrogant female subordinates. In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the black male captain put his hothead female executive officer in her place more than once. In the new Treks, men are continually insulted, often for no good reason, by female crew members.

What do men like in Star Trek?

Men like technology. So, the writers of Picard introduced a magic wand to the newest iteration.

…

Men like adventure, not melodrama. So, obviously the female writers feature an inordinate number of episodes of characters crying.

…

Most of the adventure element prominent in previous shows is absent or poorly constructed in the newer ones … or ripped off from other properties, including video games. Paramount was being sued a while back for copyright infringement.

…

Men also like ship design, which was a major component of the old shows. They provided countless hours of free fan promotion across message boards and websites, they were cool locations for new episodes, and they inspired fan movies. So, obviously that had to be sidelined in the new shows. The ships, once iconic and profitable selling toy items, are now generic CGI models – totally uninspired trash hastily put together as an afterthought. The new shows can’t sell the merchandise, so the retailers have refused to license much of it.

Another thing men like? Group service – following rules, meritocracy, sacrifice for the tribe, defending territory (even the non-violent philosophical variety), that kind of thing. Well, that’s almost totally absent in Discovery and Picard. The once-honorable and meritocratic military-like Federation is portrayed as corrupt and unequal; the black female lead of Picard berates Jean-Luc in one episode for living “in his fine chateau” while she lived in poverty – again, a totally antithetical concept to the old shows.

…

The whole Federation is a dystopia with criminals and drugs and injustice all about.

Various Federation admirals in the new movies and television shows are belligerent, short-sighted, and rude; one is an outright war criminal. TNG featured at least two episodes with corrupt Federation admirals, but our show’s male heroes put them in their place by the end of the episode. Even the female captain Kathryn Janeway did this once in Voyager. Not true of these newer shows, though. Admirals berate the male characters, then go away – never to be redeemed or brought to justice.

Many of the characters in the new shows act entirely unprofessional towards each other. They are sometimes even cruel or sadistic. The female captain of one Discoveryshort Trek allowed a bumbling white male crewman (whom the female writers mocked the entire episode) to die horribly and then simply shrugged it off when asked about it, “he was an idiot” (implication: he deserved to die because he was annoying her).

…

The biggest supporters of these new incarnations, not surprisingly, are the show’s American writers – along with a few “critics”. These people lack any loyalty to a higher cause (other than themselves), are nihilistic, are sadistic, enjoy berating “the other” (men, whites, themselves even), and have practically no respect for anything they aren’t personally invested with. In other words, they are thoroughly Americanized losers.

There would be a college thesis in that observation if we lived in a better timeline. In this one, the world where the bad guys won, you are stuck reading it in a random internet comment.

I think that observation explains much of what is wrong with modern culture: the past, in many ways, was better than the present and probably will end up being better than the near future. That’s intolerable to a lot of political extremists, the very people who put us in this position in the first place. So, the past has to be destroyed; it serves as a foil to the current reigning madness. “Let the past die, kill it if you have to.” That’s why pop culture had to be denigrated. That’s why Star Trek is trash nowadays.

When conquering armies of the ancient world subdued an enemy, they often defaced the conquered tribe’s symbols – destroyed the statues, burned the temples, desecrated anything sacred; both Muslim and Christian conquerors were famous for this. Same thing here. The new regime is burning the cultural bridges so you can’t go back to the better world left behind, the one not ruled by them.

…

Although, in fairness to the ladies, it’s mostly men like Alex Kurtzman who have ruined the new shows. The guy once stated in an interview that he has a problem writing male characters. Hollywood: let’s hire that guy for Star Trek!

[kaunis-sielu]

Starstruck: 6

“Holy shit.” Viz breathes and Steve laughs awkwardly. “Woman you’re a saint. You’ve brought me the perfect canvas for my new stuff.”

“I know.” You tell him with a grin, “I was thinking the blue shirt, with that one jacket and dark pants.”

“Yes. Yes. Okay come with me.” He says and you gesture to Steve to follow. He does, a gentle hand on your back as you walk together after a bustling Viz. “Here. Try this, this, and these pants.” He passes them to Steve and then gestures to the curtained off space where he can change.

You and Viz chat while Steve changes, he wants your opinion on a couple of his shirts, not sure if the cuts will sell out east enough to be worth producing.

Steve comes out of the dressing room in just the pants, the shirt hanging from his hand.

“Hey, this doesn’t have buttons.” Thank you Viz.

“Oh, sorry. I gave you the wrong one.” Viz shoots you a wink and you have to bite the inside of your cheek to keep from smiling.

“I like the pants though.” Steve continues and you turn your attention back to him trying not to openly stare at him. You stand and make your way over to him.

“Is it okay if I touch you?” You ask and he nods. “Viz I’m gonna alter this a little bit.” You call. You grab the pins off of the table and pin the pants in a little bit more and then you shorten them, just a bit. “How does that feel?” You ask glancing up at him.

“Fine.”

“Steve you’ve gotta move.” You say with a smile, “Walk a little. Sit down. Maybe touch your toes.” He does as you ask and you’re able to openly ogle him while he does. After all you need to be sure that the pants fit okay.

“I like the fabric a lot. But they’re a bit saggy.”

“Saggy?” You don’t see it.

“Yea. In the...front.” He says not looking at you.

“Oh!” He means in the crotch. You definitely didn’t look there. “I’ll leave that for Viz to handle.” You tell him, “Do you like the length?” He sits down in the chair across from you and nods.

“I do. I don’t love it when my pants ride way up when I sit, so these are good.” He’s still shirtless, and you can’t help but notice how incredibly cut he is.

How the hell do you get yourself into situations like this?

“Why haven’t you ever done a fashion show?”

“Never had a reason to.” He says with a shrug. “And there always seemed to be better things to do, no offense.”

“None taken. They can be a bit much.”

“Here’s the right shirt.” Viz says hurrying back into the space, Steve takes it and shrugs it on before buttoning it, “Is this the jacket you were thinking?” He asks showing you a black jacket.

“No, the dark grey one. I think the grey will show off his eyes better.” You go grab the one you’re thinking of then head back to Steve. “Viz, we should take this in.” You tell him plucking at the fabric on Steve’s side causing him to flinch away from you. “Sorry!” You say yanking your hand away from him like he’s on fire.

“No, no sweetheart don’t be. I’m just really ticklish.” He admits looking embarrassed, you’re pretty sure it’s the cutest thing you’ve ever heard.

“Good to know.” You smirk up at him and he groans dramatically. You and Viz make quick work of pinning the shirt, Steve pulls the jacket on and you’re practically drooling he looks so good.

“I want him in those nice grey sneakers. The cloth ones with the white sole.” Viz says jotting it into his notes, “What size are you?”

“Tens.”

“Perfect. We’ll have this all sent over the day before. Please try everything on so we can be sure that everything fits.”

“Sounds good.” He ducks back behind the curtain to change. When he comes back out Viz takes everything and hurries off.

“So, can you ditch early?” Steve asks taking your hand again.

“Unfortunately no. I have a phone conference I need to be at with a new supplier in,” you glance at your watch, “about 20 minutes. Then I’ve got a couple of meetings with some of the girls for the show. We need to get everyone fitted and decide on looks today so we’re prepared for Saturday.” You tell him as the two of you make you way down the hall to the elevators.

“How about dinner? I could pick something up and bring it wherever.” He offers, blue eyes hopeful.

“I’d really love that.” You tell him, you would but you can’t.

“I’m sensing a but.” He says softly.

“You’re good. I don’t know when I’m gonna get out of here and I don’t know if I’ll have time to eat. Even if I do it might be bites between working. Once the show is over I’d love to. No buts.” You promise as the elevator doors slide open.

“Alright. I better let you get back to it.” He tells you, pressing a kiss to the back of your hand he lets go then steps into the elevator. He punches the button then looks up at you and throws you a wink just before the doors shut.

The rest of the week flies by, you basically live at the office. Steve has taken to sending food to the office for you and your coworkers because you’d admitted that during show week most of you would forget to eat. You were just so busy.

Steve was very quickly winning over your coworkers, and you found yourself constantly reminding yourself that you’re not actually dating him.

The day of the show you get to the venue early and start organizing the set up. This is your third show with Carol and she trusts you to get it going. The morning goes well, only one model shows up late, you can’t find a pair of shoes for a half hour and a hair stylist accidentally burns himself on a hot straighter but other than that there are no issues.

When Nat shows up and passes you a black apparel bag you’re confused.

“Manti made you a little something to go with Steve’s outfit.”

“What?”

“Carol’s orders.” She says with a smile. You unzip the side of the bag and gasp. It’s a light blue dress with a silver sheen to it, the neckline swoops down just enough to show off a little cleavage but not enough to make you uncomfortable while the back is open. The dress should fall to just about mid thigh and it should hug your curves perfectly. Manti always knows just how to make you look and feel incredible.

You seriously can’t wait to put this dress on.

Tag list

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[seeyuwriting]

Glittering Paradoxes

— The image of Snow in English Modernist Poetry

The idiom ichi-go ichi-e – literally translated as 'one time, one meeting' – describes the treasured Japanese tradition of hosting an unrepeatable gathering of weather, time of day and guests. Collectively reminding all involved parties of life's singularity, it is commonly linked to spontaneous tea ceremonies held until today. The Heian court, whose period spans from the 8th to the 12th century, is known for thereby becoming obsessed with snowy days: it most often chose the most unrecreatable of all moods of nature, and surely also the most visually intriguing one. 

In the presence of falling snow, my spectrum of feelings is incomparably celebratory as well. Collective softness rules every single association, and even though they are multiplying paradoxes – resistance and endurance, newness and familiarity, unification and uniqueness, oppression and reconciliation, rest and change, a purity that is both untouchable and violable, a barrier that can be both fleeting and perennial – there it always appears: a sense of comfort, settling down on my shoulders like the hands of my parents when I think of falling snow.

Its ample potential turned the archetypal image of snow not least into a glittering common thread in the works of many English Modernist poets. In 1922, it was Nobel laureate T. S. Eliot who burned it into the literary mass imagination by most famously telling us how "Winter kept us warm, covering / Earth in forgetful snow" in his 434-line poem "The Waste Land". Intriguingly, he contrasted snow with spring, also frequently found in Modernist poetry – encompassing rebirth, resurrection, rejuvenation, the pain of finally being illuminated – which, in this case, is embodied by the month of April: "April is the cruellest month, breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing / Memory and desire, stirring / Dull roots with spring rain".

This essay will attempt to trace snow's many facets as brilliantly employed in three later Modernist poems by Stephen Spender, Louis MacNeice and David Gascoyne, offering a glance beneath softness and an argumentation for how snow – just as well as ice, frost and winter – substantially carries the same meaning throughout all of them, although embedded in different sceneries.

I. The Vague Delight of Revolution

Spender – also called "the lyric poet of his generation" by none other than Eliot – let snow strikingly pervade one of his most well-known poems, "After They Have Tired". With its shine, its light and its whiteness outbidding the rest of the imagery, the metaphor gets repositioned among the lines of enthusiastic political upheaval. Spender even turns it into a two-sided device for describing the impacts of both capitalism and the grand rebirth of the proletarian spirit: "After They Have Tired" was written in 1932, when Spender was still a member of the political left, and had been sensing the catastrophes ahead for years.

While there is little commentary on "After They Have Tired" – "perhaps because it seems to be a self-explanatory satire of a generic communist", as literary scholar Richard Danson Brown suggests • – it did, without doubt, play a constitutional role in constructing his reputation as a poet of profound political and social conscience. Scholar and critic Sir Frank Kermode declared that Spender’s writings on politics "and on the relation of artists to politics, remain the most considered and the most serious of any by the young writers of the period".

Spender insisted on poetry's mission to explore political issues, although he also stated that it can only have a real effect on society or its direction in certain situations: yes, poetry could stimulate essential feelings but it was and never will be able to portray certain essential situations that are "quite literally unimaginable" in their horror. 

As the only organized opposition to fascism at that time, the communist party was increasing its membership with its literary scene gathering more closely – also including Christopher Isherwood and Cecil Day-Lewis among others – and eventually beginning to look forward to a new life, a new society, a new England. Spender, on top, had a reputation of being the archetype of the romantic poet. His poem is therefore saturated with hope and fervour, altruism, even love. All its four stanzas argue in favour of a heroic fight, albeit demonstrating another essential Modernist theme first.

The first stanza centres on urban decay, disillusion and alienation, caused by capitalism and the bourgeoisie – "they" who are predicted to slowly tire, who are haunted by "stalking" death – it is always the city that is doomed, the city with its crossing-sweepers and streets built by the rich, the city that has lost all faith. Here, its exploration furthermore spans from the metaphor of "easy chains" – the extensive, imperceptible imprisonment of its inhabitants – to the metaphor of "old cloths" – their pallor and vapidity. It closes with its first of mention of snow which equalizes the capitalists to a perversely repellent and empty mass.

The pains of the working class – depicted as the "pillars of that day's gold roof" in the second stanza, as society’s back-bone – are coldness, grief and hunger, but it ultimately is "hard light", it is light and not darkness that they face now. Light that is naturally destined to become the decisive spark igniting the fire of hope, "a strange language" shared by all the readers of this poem as if an automatism is being at work, the same automatism that leads Spender to speaking of a symphonious "we".

Strengthening its cohesion, the next stanzas continue to depict the revolutionary spirit as vigorously delighted with verses such as "We may strike fire, like fire from flint", preparing for the climax in the fourth: "Watch the admiring dawn explode like a shell / Around us, dazing us with its light like the shine from snow". Notwithstanding, Spender lends depth to the storybook mission shortly before, admitting to the complications ahead that are all seemingly caused by the poor, enemy- ruled past: "Banks", "cathedrals", "the declared insanity of our rulers" are depriving the revolution of its otherwise "Spring-like resources of the tiger / Or of plants who strike out new roots to gushing waters". He reasonably considers a beginning with a completely blank canvas impossible as "old fabric" still constrains sight.

The third and fourth stanza then reintroduce the image of snow, with its hard, white light now equal to that of endless hope: blazing, enlightening, piercing through the veil of the materialistic world ("works, money, interest, building") to reveal nothing but "love for each other", relentless capabilities to make the planet a better place, to mobilize.

Despite the predominating sacrifice of traditional syntax and grammar in Modernist poetry, enabling immediate and vivid thought-representation, "After They Have Tired" reads quite fluidly, openly. Its "strange language" resembles natural rhetorical speech by means of organic stanzaic shape, anaphora (especially the justifying "and"), empowering repetitions ("strength", "love", "failure of banks / failure of cathedrals", direct appeal and recurring variants of the key phrase "clean and equal like the shine from snow".

Spender makes it seem easy for the reader. Seamless. And just too romantic to be true. The imagery’s enormous energy feeds from its simplicity and universality, but it ultimately remains unspecific: Which grief pours over us? Which pain gleams at every street corner? Which strength is embedded in our bones? When he was asked about writing processes, Spender once stated: "My own experience is that a rhythm or something comes into my head, which I feel I must do, I must write it, create it." But which rhythm is it? Which rhythm is it that we must hear, which course is it that we must take in order to admire revolution’s dawn?

While the poem's optimism may seem too vague for the reader, it eventually most definitely seemed too vague for Spender. The publication of his programmatic "Forward from Liberalism" in 1937 led to an offical invitation of the British Communist Party which turned out to be a short-lived association: "I wrote something for The Daily Worker attacking the party and that was the last I heard of my membership", the poet recalled. The Spanish Civil War had shattered his – and many other’s – hopefulness towards communism.

Full text upon request. – Dieu Nguyen. Published 2016.

[xktheartx]

grey canvas//

 a min yoongi fanfiction

pairing: yoongi x reader

warnings: mentions of self harm

genre: angst

word count: 2.7k

summary: one winter after, you still hold onto the heartache he left you.

A/N: hello! I just wanted to thank you for reading and I hope you like it!:x this is my first fan fiction so please expect a lot of improvement over the time! thanks a lot once more!!

***

Winter has settled in early this year. Cold wind blows harshly, the skin of your hands is dry and rough, your chapped lips are on the verge of bleeding, but it is fine. Today, you open all of your apartment's windows and bath in the frosty gushes of air, as it reminds you that seasons change and life moves on, even if you don't. Today, you love winter—just like him.

You reach the end of the alley where an almost completely different bar replaces the rusty, old one, the bar where everything began. The bar you used to stop by at the end of every exhausting school week and leave the happiest. Your steps come to a sudden stop when you notice the different outer appearance of what used to be the second closest place to home for you ever since you have moved to Seoul. The neon that spelled in bold letters the name of the bar was now gone and so were the little white lamps illuminating the surroundings of it.

You push the door open only to be greeted by an unfamiliar sight. Red is now the dominant colour and, in comparison to the calming forest green, it feels tiring, almost wrong. The wooden chairs were replaced with black leather ones. The bar now hosts a large number of dubious people and you realise the people you knew, those who used to come frequently, were, surely, no longer doing so.

Jennie is also different. She cut her hair in one of the styles she swore she'd never do. She dyed it back to brunette from the adolescent strawberry blonde. She looks older. Her eyes had dark circles under them, a couple of fine wrinkles adding to her tired, but warm eyes and it's beyond obvious just how much she's changed. You knew she's wanted to drop out of college ever since she got in and what happened one year ago was a big wake up call for her. She moved on. She started anew.

And it is only you who's time stood still this past year.

"It's been an awful lot of time, huh?", Jennie speaks first, eyes fixed on her drink as she stirs it with the straw. You nod and look around absent-mindedly. No words come to your mind as you think about what to tell her. "Things changed quite a bit around here", she goes on when she realises you aren't going to speak too much tonight. "Now it's full of weird people", she whispers as she bends forward so you are the only one who hears her.

You can't help when the lightest chuckle escapes your lips, recalling that you also had this thought when you first entered the bar. Jennie looks content with your reaction, probably thankful for even the smallest of smiles. The last time the two of you met, all you could do was choke on your own tears. You couldn't stand on your own two feet without stumbling and falling down, you couldn't eat without throwing up, you couldn't even speak due to the lump that formed in your throat every time you parted your lips to say something.

"What have you been up to?", she inquires and your eyes follow hers as they trail down to the cuts on your left wrist the moment you roll up your sweater's sleeves. They were never too deep, but deep enough to leave small scars as reminders. You momentarily forgot about them and you regret letting Jennie see them, so you immediately take your left hand off the table and you put it between your thighs, your eyes looking sideways due to the awkward atmosphere. She pries her eyes off you for a bit to look at her almost empty glass, probably feeling the same as you. It didn't come as a shock to her, as you were deeply affected by the accident, but it still is hard to openly talk about such fragile subjects after an entire year of no contact.

"Um..well, you know", you begin, not really knowing how you should answer, "not much."

Everything felt unnatural about the two of you now. It was hard to believe that you used to be inseparable, that you used to know all the little, unimportant details about each other which made your friendship different from any other. You bet the people that as much as glanced your way would've considered the two of you mere acquaintances. Suddenly, there was a clear change in the way Jennie looked at you and, if your memories didn't fail you, it was a glare full of disappointment.

"So?", she started, gradually speaking harsher. "Why did you ask to meet if you have nothing to say to me?"

Jennie has always been the type to run out of patience quite fast and you couldn't blame her; you did ask her to meet, yet you haven't said anything to her the whole evening. After one year of complete solitude in the privacy of your apartment, only muttering a couple of reassuring words to your parents once in a while, you are at a loss for words. You don't have anything to tell her, or anyone for that matter. You don't want her to talk to you either, if you are being honest. You just couldn't bear to be alone today.

Today is terrifying.

"I'm sorry", you begin, words quiet, lips slightly trembling. "I just..", you trail off as you try to come up with the right words. "Today marks a year."

As your last words roll off your lips with hesitation, Jennie's eyes widen in response and her mouth opens up in an 'O' shape. Her focus immediately shifts to her iPhone as her slender, manicured fingers fold around the small device and hit the home button, the display lightening up right away. As she looks at the date shown on the lock screen, Jennie runs one hand through her hair nervously, mouth still agape, and she glances sideways, tears filling up her eyes. Finally admitting it out loud is surely harder than anyone could imagine. Tears threaten to spill in rivers and your voice seems to have lost itself on its way out. Both your hands go up to support your head which faces downwards, elbows propped on the table. You just need someone to take on the pain with you today. One year full of what if's and empty bottles, of why's and overthinking, of I miss you's and I love you's that never found their designed receiver.

"I can not believe it has been an entire year", Jennie spoke first. "How could I forget", she murmured more to herself than to you. "Love," you were surprised by the pet name she usually used back in freshman year, "I'm sorry."

Jennie reluctantly came over to hug you, genuinely apologetical for her earlier behaviour. She was tired and busy over her head, but you don't deserve to be treated with such impatience, especially because she knows how much you suffered and, apparently, still do. "Let's get out of here", her voice softly broke the silence of your heartfelt moment, "this is just a shell of the place we used to love and a harsh reminder of the things that are now long gone."

You nod once, wiping a tear that rolled down your cheek. With slightly trembling legs, you quickly walk across the bar that holds your most treasured memories—memories that now feel unreal and heart wrenching. Once you reach the bar so you can pay, you feel your fingertips freeze on the bill, a deja-vu creeping up on your spine like the slight shiver of a kiss on the neck. If there is one thing that stayed unchanged here, it is the actual bar. The glasses are the exact same shape, the large mirror in the middle, the wood shelves that carried all sorts of intoxicating liquid. You remember almost instantly Yoongi's cold digits that brushed your own warm ones, the unfazed look that tainted his eyes when he met yours and the rosy flush that tinted your cheeks. And what disappointment washed over you when he simply proceeded with giving you the receipt; that was a first. You'd have guessed it was a matter of kindness—how he followed you out in the cold, minutes after he barely acknowledged your existence, a worn out, plain black scarf in his left hand that he hung around your bare neck.

"Bring that back to me, will you?"

But it was more than that.

You somehow manage to reach Jennie's car, nose running, cheeks grazed by the rough caress of winter wind and eyes flooded with memories metamorphosed into watery pearls, spilling in abundance. Where will you go? Your family doesn't deserve the shell of the daughter you once were. Your "home" is now just a painful reminder of who you used to be, of what you could have had. A home that screams 'loneliness'. A home haunted by the ghosts of you; of both of you.

"Yoongi", you eyed him with a concerned look, silently pleading for him to believe in you. "Life is not only flaws and falls", you began quietly, almost like a whisper, afraid of saying something wrong. "It has so much to offer if you are willing to give it a shot. It has pianos, freshly brewed coffee, worlds of fantasy on pieces of paper, sunrise every morning", the words kept slipping off your tongue in a hurry, palms pressed together under your chin as your lips stretched out in a wide grin. "It has dreams and miracles and, Yoongi, it is yours to enjoy."

Although he smiled then, you knew he was not fully convinced, but it was a start. You had all the right colours to paint him and he was a monochrome, grey canvas.

"Mm", he acknowledged your brief speech with a muffled sound and a look in his eyes that was more than sufficient for you to know he was seriously thinking about the weight of your words. "You are enough."

And he had all the right words for you to fall even deeper in the paradise that loving him was.

"Where to?”– is a question that has your stomach double flip in anxiety.

Home, you want to say. Home—nestled in his arms, wrapped in white sheets, enveloped in his scent, a mix of cologne and tobacco, room echoing with the soft snores that escaped his swollen lips. Home—where you could wake up at the blissful sight of him on a Monday morning. One last “five more minutes, please, babe” as he hugs your waist and puts his mop of dark hair on your lap, waiting for you to gently caress it as he drifts back to sleep.

“Can you take me to him?”

***

Ten minutes into the drive and you can already feel your insides turning and churning in anxiety. You haven't visited him even once in the past year and now, for obvious reasons, the guilt is swallowing you whole. You despise the word "graveyard" and, even more so, the actual place. The sole thought that half of your soul is buried six feet deep in the dirt, rotting away next to other decomposing corpses—it's enough to drive you on the edge of madness.

Jennie's voice pulls you out of your thoughts. "We're here", she announces. You start looking around and as you recognise the place as the root of your nightmares, you find yourself wondering whether or not you have enough strength to finally face the reality of today. You ran away from it for a whole year, curled up in the white sheets that stopped smelling of his cologne a long time ago, never turning around at night to see the bed empty and cold, waiting for him to swing open the door, shouting his usual "I'm home, babe". You know you need to do this for you, for your well-being and sanity.

"Aren't you going?", she asks.

"What should I say?", you reply, your eyes set on the path which led inside the graveyard.

"I don’t think words are necessary."

You get off and breath in the cold air, shutting your eyes and remembering just how much he loved winter. Almost as much as he loved you, he used to say—but in the end, it was the winter who claimed him.

"Damn, I hate winter", you curse under your breathe as you slowly walk up the snowy path. Somewhere along the way, your head empties of all thoughts, of all blasphemies, pleas and love confessions. One year is a long time. Where is it?, you pinch the bridge of your nose as you try to recollect this particular piece of information. All of the tombstones are neatly aligned and the fact that they look the same definitely doesn't help. You walk frantically, trying to decipher the letters engraved in stone, as the wind starts to bite harshly.

Five minutes pass, then fifteen which turn into half an hour. Burying your face in your palms, you think about calling Jennie, but you are too ashamed of yourself to do so. How could you possibly not remember where your lover's grave is? How could you not visit his grave for an entire year, leaving it dirty, adorned by withered flowers—flowers at the thought of which your heart clenches.

And the fuzzy memory of him leaves yet another wet trace on your reddened cheek.

"Can I ask something of you?", Yoongi's eyes lingered as you grabbed a white sheet to cover your nudity with, crossing your legs on the edge of the ravaged bed. You met them halfway as you took in the sight of him - lean frame propped against the windowsill, covered only by a pair of black briefs, his features soft as he exhaled the last puff of poisoned smoke through the open window.

"Anything", you replied, your lips curving upwards in a reassuring smile as he approached you slowly. You watched attentively when he picked up his large, wool sweater and flunked it over your head in a sweet attempt at dressing you up.

"Don't forget me", he softly articulated as if he was afraid of rejection—something you would never. "You only."

Although it wasn't too often that he voiced his needs or wants, mostly because he never had any specific ones, you could understand perfectly. He needed to know that, in the end, there will have been someone whose whole soul he captured, whose entire being he corrupted—someone he branded as his. And that was you—you only.

"I won't", you cooed, your bare toes finding the cold of the floor as you pushed yourself off the bed. One hand slid behind his neck while the other rested on his cheek and, right before you brushed his lips with your own, you once again whispered. "I won't."

You promised. Yet here you are, frenetically searching for the grave of the only person to whom you've confessed eternal adoration, having forgotten where it is. Hot tears stain your frozen skin and you crouch to the ground, losing all sense of balance. The feeling of suffocation grows stronger by the minute and you find yourself gasping, inhaling deep breaths that didn't seem to suffice the need for air. Your hands start to shake uncontrollably as they reach for your tear tarnished cheeks and close to your buzzing ears.

"C-calm down", you stutter. "Calm d-down, calm down", you continue, chanting the words like a spell, a mantra.

And then, you look up. Teeth clattering, feet tingling and fingers trembling. You look up and you understand for the very first time why winter. It floods your line of vision the moment your eyelids flutter open. Grey was the muddy snow, grey were the gravestones, grey was the sky and so was he.

A grey canvas that fit him so, so well.

[cannedapricot]

spring.

a soft art student! au with pure boy renjun ft a y/n who keeps denying her feelings! i recommend listening to a couple of bolbbalgan4′s songs while reading! their songs make me soft siuvsesuvao

word count: 4.2k filled to the brim with fluff and slice of life because i can’t write anything else yikes

Spring.

The season of blue skies, cherry blossom showers and blooming flowers.

The season of red faces, sweaty palms and shy “I love you"s.

Spring was the season of affection blooming in your chest, struggling to keep itself hidden

Spring was the season of romance.

You wished you could relate to the crowds of girls that started whispering crazily whenever a certain boy walked past. 

Or to your table mate, who keeps staring at the back of Lee Jeno’s head with lovestruck eyes.

But alas, as much as you wanted to fall in love, you couldn’t force your heart to beat faster for someone.

You were pulled out of your daze when a stray cherry blossom petal found it’s way into the warm, lazy classroom. Riding the spring wind for a small while before settling itself onto your long forgotten textbook. The moment it landed, the sharp familiar noise of the recess bell rang throughout the school and suddenly chairs scraping across the tiled floor cut through the sleepy silence.

Girls bunched up into groups, starting to gossip about who’s dating who and boys started to race towards the cafeteria. You blow the pink petal off of your history textbook, then proceed to attempt to stuff it into your already crowded desk.

"Yo Y/N, here’s the banana milk I owe you from the other day.” You didn’t need to look up to know who it was. 

“Great, Donghyuck, it’s only been a week and a half since I gave you the answers to Mr Lee’s homework.” 

The boy grinned sheepishly to your remark as you successfully squeeze the thick book into the small space.

“Look, in my defense, I was busy.” He replied, plopping himself on top of your creaky desk.

“With what? Finding a date to the spring festival?”

Ah, the spring festival. It was the festival all art students looked forward to the most. It was a festival for all the students talented in art to proudly show off their work. Artists would set up little areas where they would happily talk of their pieces to anyone interested. Musicians would be busking, whether it be with their friends or by themselves and dancers would be dancing to their heart’s content with a crowd of people cheering them on. All of this would happen under the beautiful shower of the school’s multiple cherry blossom trees. 

The main event everyone would attend though, was the musical that would play on the outside stage during the afternoon. Mr Kim Dongyoung, the teacher in charge of the musical, was notorious for being picky with the students he would let on stage and it was considered a honor if you were picked to be take part in the musical. 

You didn’t need a date per say, but rumor has it that if you and your special someone share a sweet kiss under the oldest cherry blossom tree, you’d be happy together forever.

You thought that it was a bunch of baloney.

Forever Together? How cheesy. You’d rather it that you and your significant other stuck together due to affection for each other, not due to some old tree. It shocked you to learn how many people believe in that stupid rumor. 

Your friend, Lee Donghyuck, being one of those believers. 

But of course, he’s never admitted it to your face.

“No? Come on y/n, you know I don’t believe in that! Plus, I’m in the musical this year, I don’t have time for such childish things!”

Your eyebrows raised in doubt.

“Huh. Then I guess the person I saw trying to hit on one of our underclassmen this morning wasn’t you then?”

Donghyuck’s eyes broke contact and flew away from your own as he tried to come up with a reasonable explanation as to why he had attempted to get a girl’s number this morning. His eyes met with one of the many girls who was gossiping with her friends for a hot second. She then immediately ducked back to her friends and giggles were heard soon after.

Producing sandwiches out of your bag, you watched all of this with humor sparkling in your eyes, you had to bite the inside of your mouth to prevent yourself from bursting into obnoxious laughter. 

“You know Hyuck, you could always go with Mark if everything goes wrong.” You were hit with one of his famous ‘shut up or i’ll stab you with this pencil’ glares as soon as you said that. A string of giggles attempted to leave your mouth before one of the ham sandwiches you had packed was forcefully shoved onto your face.

“I hate you, y/n. Our friendship is officially over.”

“Great. Hey Jeno! You’re promoted to my best friend now! Hyuck doesn’t love me anymore.” You yelled across the room.

Jeno, who had just returned from the cafeteria with Jaemin at his side let out a hearty laugh.

“Thank god! I’ve been meaning to get rid of Jaemin for a while now!”

“Remember to finish your essay before the end of the week. Class dismissed.”

The usual high pitched noises of chairs being pushed back and chatter from your classmates started as soon as ‘class dismissed’ was heard. The sun was still high up in the sky but it had fallen from where it had been during noon and the temperature was slowing dropping along with it.

Pushing your own chair back, you lifted your arms up in a stretch before letting out a cat-like yawn. Falling back onto the hard, wooden desk, you waved lazily back at your table mate as she bid you goodbye for the day. Closing your eyes, you found yourself relaxing at the sound of cicadas calling to each other outside. The sunlight coming through the window dyed you and your desk a warm yellow. Suddenly, the urge to take a nap came over you.

“You remind me of a big, lazy cat sometimes.” 

Groaning, you moved you head so that you were facing your stupid friend. He was sitting in the chair in front of you, sucking on a lollipop as he met your eyes.

“Hyuck, don’t you have rehearsals today? You told me that you were going to have them everyday until the festival.”

Acting like he was offended, Donghyuck said, “I thought that my best friend would be lonely without me so I thought that I’d check up on you before going.”

You smiled into your arm. Donghyuck had a sharp tongue and you were used to him insulting you every second sentence without actually meaning it. But it always made your day whenever he openly shows that he cares. 

“I’m heading to the art room in a few, so no, I won’t be.” You said, the soft smile you had eariler being replaced with a teasing grin. 

“You’ve been going there since our first year! Aren’t you tired?” 

“Not at all.” Standing up, you swung your bag across your shoulder and ruffle Donghyuck’s golden locks before heading towards the classroom door.

Before stepping out, you said, “Also, I thought that we established that I’m now Jeno’s best friend?”

“Fine then, we don’t love Lee Donghyuk anymore then.” Your friend huffed out in annoyance to himself. 

“Just kidding! Love you, Hyuck!” You shouted with a smile before making your way to the art room.

As Donghyuck had stated, the art room has been the place you go to everyday after school. You loved drawing. People had asked you why you didn’t just join the art club instead of going to an empty classroom. Simple. You loved the quietness of the empty classroom. You loved getting caught up in your own thoughts without having anyone interrupt you. Most of all, you loved his company.

Just thinking about the boy put a bounce in your step.

The boy who started showing up to the same classroom a week after you had. The boy who would just sit there in silence while you both worked on your own paintings. The boy who would only leave after you did. The boy who would give you the warmest smile whenever your eyes met.

That boy was Huang Renjun. 

You only got to know his name during the autumn of your first year. When it was pouring and you found that you left your umbrella at home. Desperate to get home before your parents start ranting about how late you returned, you were ready to run all the way home. Until Renjun offered to share his umbrella. He had flashed a shy smile and you agreed without second thought. 

From that day on, the two of you would walk home together. You’d draw in silence, comfortable with each other’s company, then make small talk on the way home. 

You still couldn’t believe he was real. It was as if the spring wind had blew him into that classroom that year and he could disappear with the cherry blossom petals at anytime.

Maybe because it was spring. Maybe it was because you wanted to fall in love before graduating high school. But recently you found yourself growing more and more fond of the art room boy.

Peeking through the windows, your eyes immediately flew to the doe eyed student. He was already sitting in front of his own canvas, paintbrush in hand. Yet another smile climbed onto your face as a frown came onto his. He obviously wasn’t pleased with his painting so far. It was an adorable sight.

You knocked twice on the door to notify him of your presence. Renjun looked up from his canvas and his eyes lit up the moment he saw you. The previous pout he had sported now replaced with a smile that could rival the sun itself. Nodding as a greeting, you pull an easel out and start dying the white, blank canvas with bright, lively colors.

The sun had began to retire from standing in the sky, casting the school in orange hues. You took one look out the window, then decided that you’d stop for the day. Standing up to give your brushes a wash, you catch the attention of Renjun, who grinned to himself before also starting to pack his things away. It was always like this, one of you would deem it a good time to finish for the day and the other would follow.

You finished packing before Renjun did and leaned against the doorway, watching the dark haired boy stash his brushes back into his bag. Why Renjun didn’t have dates everyday after school was a mystery to you. Especially when he had a face carved by god himself. Shouldn’t the girls be all over him? Also, his lips looked really soft, you’d have to remind yourself to ask him what lip balm he used later on.

“Come on, stop spacing out. Let’s go home.” A gentle voice woke you from another one of your dazes. 

“Ah, right.” Embarrassed that you were caught daydreaming, you scramble to follow Renjun out the door, tripping a little in the process. 

Falling in step beside Renjun, you can’t help but notice how much he’s grown since you two first walked side by side together. He’s a least grown half a head taller. 

“Say, y/n, are you going to be participating in the spring festival?” He asked, the small breeze ruffling his brown locks. You noted that they looked super soft and would have to ask him about the conditioner he uses later on.

“Yeah, I do so every year. Not in the musical though. I can’t sing to save myself and Mr. Kim never chooses me for backdrop design.” Renjun hummed in response, kicking a stray pebble on the side walk. 

“I don’t see you around though? Do you participate or?” You’ve never seen Renjun under the pink trees exhibiting his work. You know he’s a talented artist. You’ve sneaked enough peeks at his work to know. 

“I get chosen to do the backdrop design every year. Everyone says that Mr. Kim has a soft spot for me.” He lets out a soft chuckle. “But this year, I turned down his offer.” 

“What? Why?”

He shrugged. “I wanted to exhibit my work like everyone else this year.”

“I can finally see your paintings without looking suspicious.” You mutter victoriously to yourself.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

 “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?”

“Y/n, could you put some emotions into your acting?” 

Thursday night, and you were at Donghyucks house, helping him rehearse one last time before the big day tomorrow. He had bugged you for ages before you caved in and shuffled to his house in your pajamas. And as if you weren’t already done with him, he then tells you to climb the tree up to his room because he couldn’t be bothered going down to open the door for you. 

“Hyuck, I’m not an actress and I’m not going to be going on stage tomorrow.” Running your hand through your hair in annoyance. Doing so reminded you that you forgot to ask Renjun about his conditioner. “Also, why Romeo and Juliet? It’s Shakespeare's most overrated piece.”

Tutting was heard from where Donghyuck was curled up on his bed. “We made changes so that it wouldn’t be a tragedy. A happy ending to the classic would make the spring season ten folds better”

You picked a stray leaf out of your hair. “Doesn’t make it any better in my opinion.”

A familiar ping signaled an arrival of a message. A smirk climbed onto your face as you realized it was from your friend’s phone. 

“Date?”

“I wish. It’s from Mark.” Donghyuck sighed, unlocking his phone. 

“Oooooh, you’re going with him then?” Rising from Hyuck’s creaky chair, you launch yourself onto the bed, clambering to sit beside your best friend. 

“No, he’s just coming to watch the musical. He might stay for a while afterwards though. And he’s bringing his university friends.” Donghyuck said as the messages came in. 

“I hope he brings some hotties.”

“Are you planning on cheating on your boyfriend or what?” Your eyebrows flew towards your hairline at his question. Boyfriend? Who? 

“Since when have I had a boyfriend?”

“Uh, the dude you walk home with?” Donghyuck mentioned as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “What was he called? Huang Renjun? Jeno and Jaemin’s friend?”

“Woah, hold up. First of all, he’s not my boyfriend, he probably doesn’t even like me that way. Secondly, Jeno and Jaemin know him? Thirdly, how do you know that we walk home together?” You had no idea that Renjun was friends with Jeno and Jaemin. Those two were loud and rowdy, different from the quiet boy you saw after school. You couldn’t imagine the three of them together.

Totally ignoring your questions, the third rowdy boy you’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting, sits up on his bed and says,

“So you like him?”

Suddenly, the room felt a few degrees hotter. Even though the windows were open and it wasn’t summer yet. You must have a fever. 

“No?”

“Liar! Your face is bright red!” Donghyuck starts cackling, hands over his stomach. “So if he asked you out, you would turn him down?”

“No?” You repeated the same word from earlier. This time in a much smaller volume. Except your ass of a friend hears anyways.

“Y/n finally has a crush! I thought this day would never come! In spring too! What a perfect season to fall in love!” You felt as though Hyuck might as well be exclaiming this to the whole school. Your face and ears was burning from embarrassment and you wanted to bury yourself in a hole.  

“I’m going home. Practice your lines by yourself.” 

“No, I’m sorry y/n, I love you please help me.”

The love you had for Renjun was completely platonic. 

Right?

You couldn’t sleep at all last night.

After returning from Donghyuck’s, all that was going through your mind was the quiet, sweet boy from the art room. Did you really like him like that? Or were you just overthinking. And, did he like you?

It drove you mad. Romance novels didn’t have anything on this situation. Romcom movies didn’t either! . 

So you woke up this morning with a huge bed head from rolling around and obvious dark eye circles. Halfway to school, you also realized that you forgot to bring your paintings with you. So you had to run back to get them. You must’ve looked like a mess when you arrived because Donghyuck winced the moment he saw you. But it only took a light slap from him to bring you back to the hostile being you were when you were with your dumb friend.

You had successfully told yourself that your love for Renjun was platonic.

The sky was a bright blue with just enough cloud cover so that you could enjoy your day without the sun shining into your eyes. The spring breeze scattered pink petals across the school lawn and on top of the excited chatter from students and teachers. You couldn’t ask for better weather.

Blowing a strand of hair away from your face, you stood back to admire your little station. You had chosen a spot next to the walkway this year. All of your proud works surrounded a wooden stool on which you would sit on. You had been lucky enough to secure a place next to the trunk of a cherry blossom tree. This meant that the pastel petals would shower down onto your station whenever a breeze blew through. 

You took a sip of water from your water bottle and glanced at your wristwatch, pleased to see that there was still a while before the gates opened to guests. Stretching, you scanned the area around you. Jeno and Jaemin were warming up in the open piece of grass behind the tree you were situated at while a poor first and second year, Jisung and Chenle, got their speaker ready for them. Donghyuck was probably running over his lines with the female lead behind the stage. You could imagine how nervous he was at this very second.

Across the walkway from you, was where Renjun had set up his station. Right under the old tree that was rumored to keep you and your special someone together. You giggled to yourself before jogging over and tapping the chinese boy’s shoulder.

“Hey.”

Renjun’s head snapped back to face you in shock. “Y/n! You scared me!”

You sent him an apologetic smile. Turning to look at the tree, you mentioned,

“You’re going to have a fun time watching couples make out today huh.”

“Is this the- Oh no- I chose the wrong tree.” Renjun’s hand came up to his forehead in regret. “Now I have to deal with couples shoving their tongues down the other’s throat. All day.”

Putting a hand on his shoulder in mock sympathy, you shook your head. “Look on the bright side. At least this is a nice tree.”

The festival was almost over. 

The musical was a huge hit with the multiple couples that came. Even though you were still convinced that Romeo and Juliet was overrated, you were extremely proud of Donghyuck. He executed the role of Romeo perfectly and his singing nearly brought you to tears. Though he was the one who burst into tears when he stumbled off stage after the show. Jaemin and Jeno’s dancing attracted many female fans. Some of them were ready to drag them under the old cherry blossom tree.

You and Renjun’s stations were well received by the comers. You even sold a few of your pieces! You had met Renjun’s eyes at one point during the festival and burst into laughter at the look on his face. He looked super uncomfortable stuck between two couples kissing.  

It was dusk and the bright blue sky had turned purple. The sun was sinking lower into the horizon, stars popping up one by one after it. Lanterns were starting to light up and even though the festival was coming to a close, it was just as lively as it was at the beginning. This was the time where students who had participated get to enjoy themselves.

Packing your last painting away, you pat yourself on the back for a successful last spring festival of your high school career. Setting the packed bag onto your wobbly stool, you turn to face the warm, spring-like boy who was waving to his last visitor. Skipping your way over, you plopped yourself on the patch of grass next to his stool, leaning on the tree trunk. 

“How was your first and last festival running a station?” You asked with a bright smile adoring your face.

“Very, interesting.” He replied, a sweet smile on his own face. Abandoning his own stool, he fell down next to you on the grass. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many kissing couples in my entire life.”

Your shoulder was touching his. You’ve never really noticed how much wider his shoulders were compared to yours. Renjun rips open a coke flavored lollipop and pops it into his mouth. Then he pulls another one out of his bag and offers it to you, to which you politely decline.

The two of you sat under the blooming tree for a while, making small talk here and there while watching people come and go busily. Occasionally blocking each other’s eyes when a couple came sauntering up to the tree the two of you were under.

“I’m going to have to wash my eyes after today.” You had hissed, peeking between the boy’s slim fingers. “Why aren’t they leaving. Go make out at home dammit.” You’ve never really noticed how soft Renjun’s palm is. You’ll have to ask him about the hand cream he uses later on. 

As the moon slowly rose up to take the sun’s shift, the pretty purple sky made way for the darker hues it brought. The students started yawning and the guests started bidding their goodbyes. Neither you nor Renjun moved from your spots, wanting to bathe in each other’s company for a while longer. 

“Say, y/n, do you believe in the rumor surrounding this tree?” The boy next to you suddenly piped, turning to face you. 

“Absolutely not.” You replied, certainty in your voice. “Why would an old tree have magical abilities? And how unsure do you have to feel about your relationship to actually kiss under this tree?”

You notice that Renjun started to fiddle with the lollipop stick, the candy on it long finished. Then he shuffled so that he was sitting cross legged, facing you. 

“See, I’m probably one of those people who believe it because I’m unsure.”

Your heart dropped. Oh, he was in a relationship. That explains why he didn’t have girls all over him like Jeno and Jaemin had. But why did you feel disappointed? Surely it was because he had kept his girlfriend a secret from you.

“Oh, you have a girlfriend?” You didn’t mean for it to come out in the malicious way it did.

“Ah, no, I’m unsure about our relationship.” 

Your eyes widened and you sat up from how you were leaning on the tree trunk. “Us?”

“Yeah, what are we? I would like to refer to us as friends but,” Renjun’s eyes darted to the lollipop stick in his hands. “My heart wants to refer us as a couple.”

Your heart fluttered. Heck, it wasn’t just fluttering, it was about to take off into the sky. Why was it acting like that?

“I didn’t set up under the wrong tree. I wanted to have enough courage to kiss you under the tree. I wanted us to be together forever. But it’s the end of the day and I still have yet to do it.” His voice was becoming smaller and smaller with each word, his face starting resemble a tomato by the end of his sentence. 

Without thinking, you lifted his head and pressed your lips to his. You weren’t sure how to kiss properly but the way you had done it seemed right. Pulling away, you realized that his lips tasted faintly of the sugary treat he eaten earlier. Breaking into the familiar smile that you’ve grown so fond of, Renjun pulled you back into another sweet, sugary kiss.

You didn’t believe in the stupid rumor of the old cherry blossom tree in the school grounds, but this once, you were willing to think that it was real.

You were woken from your nap when a stray cherry blossom petal found it’s way into the warm, lazy classroom. Riding the spring wind for a small while before settling itself onto your cheek. Brushing the pink piece of flower away, you sat up in your seat and stretched before gazing out the window. 

Spring had come early this year. Cherry blossoms were blooming much earlier than it had last year. Grey clouds were parting for the blue skies quicker than it had last year. 

Arrival of the pink blooming trees were a reminder that you and Renjun’s one year anniversary was coming up. 

Donghyuck had interrogated Renjun thoroughly when he found out you two were actually dating while Jeno and Jaemin both laughed at Renjun’s flustered answers. It had been smooth sailing ever since. The small disagreements you two had weren’t nearly enough to break you and the boy up.

Tearing your eyes away from the window, you rested your head on the palm of your hand, facing the rowdy boys next to you. The four of them had gotten along quite well for the past year as well. Renjun currently had Jeno and Jaemin in headlocks while Hyuck was edging your boyfriend on.

Letting out a content sigh, you looked down at your art piece you were about to submit as your graduation piece. 

It was a painting of a couple sharing a sweet kiss, under a blooming cherry blossom tree, below a purple sky. 

[sistercelluloid]

Welcome to another edition of TINTYPE TUESDAY! This week, we’re off to see The Wizard of Oz again on the big screen, courtesy of TCM and Fathom Events. For tickets, just click here!

But before you head out, let’s take a peek at what was really going on behind the wizard’s curtain.

The tornado in Kansas was nothing compared to the blizzard of cast and crew changes—not to mention the many mishaps, including a couple of near-fatalities. Even Toto didn’t escape unscathed…

So hang on to your hamper—here we go!

Dorothy: Both MGM unit head Arthur Freed and music maven Roger Edens fought for Judy Garland, but Louis B. Mayer—who often derided the painfully insecure teenager as “my little hunchback”—pressured producer Mervyn LeRoy to do whatever it took to land Shirley Temple for the lead. Fortunately, all attempts to get 20th Century Fox to loan out the wildly popular moppet went nowhere. (However, the long-standing rumor that MGM offered to swap the services of Clark Gable and Jean Harlow for Temple is false; Harlow succumbed to renal failure in June 1937, before MGM even had the rights to the book.) Deanna Durbin, whom Mayer openly preferred to Garland, was also considered—but because the film initially had a sub-plot involving Betty Jaynes, another operatic singer, she was dropped from the running. So Mayer had to “settle” for Judy.  (Oh and her ruby slippers were originally silver, as they were in the book. But in the age of Technicolor, red won out.)

The Scarecrow: Buddy Ebsen was the first loose-limbed, lanky dancer to step into the role, which would have worked out much better for him, as we’ll soon see… but Ray Bolger ultimately carried the day (and the hay). He also carried lines on his face from the rubber prosthetics for more than a year after filming ended. For that kind of grief, you’d think they’d have left his original dance number—longer, trippier, and choreographed by none other than Busby Berkeley—in the film:

The Tin Man: Much to his disappointment, Bolger was first cast in this clunkier role. If he’d only had the heart… but he longed to be the Scarecrow, the part he’d seen his childhood hero, Fred Stone, play in the 1902 Broadway show—which is what inspired him to hit the boards in the first place. “I’m not a tin performer—I’m fluid!” he reportedly pleaded to LeRoy, who finally caved in, allowing Bolger and Ebsen to swap roles. Ebsen was an absolute peach about the whole thing, even teaching Bolger the “wobbly walk” he’d perfected in rehearsals. But no good deed goes unpunished, and this one almost killed him: after about a week of breathing in the toxic aluminum powder that covered his “tin” face, Ebsen was rushed to the hospital in critical condition. (At first, Mayer—who assumed other people’s morals were as low as his own—thought the actor was faking an illness as some sort of contract ploy. So he dispatched his minions to the hospital—where they found Ebsen strapped into an iron lung.)

When Jack Haley, on loan from Fox, arrived to replace him, the make-up artists were much more careful: they protected his face with a thick layer of white greasepaint and diluted the aluminum powder into a paste. (Oh, and they never told him why his predecessor left the film—on a stretcher.) Ebsen didn’t vanish entirely, though: his voice can still be heard in the group vocals, as there was no time to re-record them.

And given all the gruesome drama surrounding the Tin Man, perhaps it’s appropriate that they used chocolate syrup to produce his tears—a technique later used by Hitchcock for the blood circling the drain in Psycho.

The Cowardly Lion: Bert Lahr’s costume was made of actual lion pelts—and weighed almost 100 pounds. The valiant wardrobe team did their best to rinse the sweat out of the sopping-wet suit at the end of each day, but, in the words of one unlucky staffer, “it reeked.”

The Wicked Witch of the West: Initially, the witch was fashioned along the glamorous lines of the evil queen in Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. When she morphed into something decidedly more hag-like—including green skin, a long, pointy nose and a wart or ten—Gale Sondergaard, MGM’s original choice, pointed her pumps toward the exit. Margaret Hamilton was cast just three days before shooting began. Told by her agent she was up for a part in the film, she asked which one. “The wicked witch—what else?” he helpfully replied. (That 10% they get? It ain’t for morale-boosting!)

She didn’t get much more respect after she signed on: her dressing room was a makeshift canvas tent, while Billie Burke had a hideaway that MGM dreams are made of. “She had a pink and blue dressing room, with pink and blue powder puffs and pink and blue bottles filled with powder and baby oil—and pink and blue peppermints,” Hamilton later recalled, admitting that she sometimes popped in for a nap on the glamorous Glinda’s days off.

And God knows she needed the rest, as she proved to be the second casualty on the set: In the scene where she seems to disappear in a cloud of fire and smoke, she very nearly did. At the last minute, a moving platform was supposed to lower her out of harm’s way, but her cape got snagged and she was trapped amid the flames—which fed on the greasepaint and copper makeup slathered on her face, arms and hands. Before she could be pulled free, the fire had seared into her skin, leaving her with second- and third-degree burns. Wise woman that she was, she later refused to do a post-production pick-up scene that involved a flaming broomstick. So they had to make do with maiming her stand-in: the smoke mechanism exploded, burning and permanently scarring Betty Danko’s legs.

The Wizard of Oz: After Ed Wynn refused the part because it wasn’t big enough, MGM turned to W.C. Fields, who thought the paycheck wasn’t big enough. During a few protracted rounds of haggling—they offered $75,000, he wanted $100,000—the producers burned while Fields fiddled. They finally gave and offered the role to Frank Morgan.

Oh and here’s a story you might have to close your eyes and click your heels together to believe, but some swear it’s true, and if it isn’t (which is probably the case), it should be: When wardrobe staffers went scavenging through second-hand stores to find the perfect tattered coat for Morgan, they returned with an armload of samples for Victor Fleming to choose from. He settled on one he thought conveyed just the right touch of “shabby gentility”—and, idly turning out the pockets, found a label with L. Frank Baum���s name on it. An MGM publicist reportedly contacted the tailor and Baum’s widow, who confirmed it was his (he did live in L.A. for a time), and the studio presented her with the coat at filming’s end.

Toto:  Shirley Temple may never have made it to Oz, but she did meet Toto five years before Garland did. Terry the terrier appeared in 16 films, including Temple’s Bright Eyes, as well as Fury, The Women and George Washington Slept Here. In Tortilla Flat, she re-teamed with Morgan and Fleming, and in Twin Beds, she reunited with Hamilton. Her $125 weekly salary for Oz was more than double than that of the Munchkins, who each earned $50 a week. And as it turned out, Terry should have gotten combat pay: one of the Wicked Witch’s heavy-heeled henchmen stepped on her tiny paw and broke it, sidelining her for several weeks. After filming, Garland, who’d fallen in love with the dog, wanted to adopt her, but the owner wouldn’t… surrender Terry.

All of which bring us to the director. Or directors. Richard Thorpe, whose previous work consisted mainly of quickie westerns, was first at the helm, but LeRoy felt he was shooting the film more like a low-budget oater than a lavish fantasy, rushing scenes along and not giving the production the care it deserved.

While he searched for a replacement, LeRoy left the project in the tender hands of George Cukor—who, in his brief stint as caretaker, made some critical changes. First, he ditched Garland’s blonde wig and heavy glamour-girl makeup, which made her look ridiculous and feel worse.

He also told Garland to relax and simply be herself—a lovely, vulnerable teenage girl—which was just what the part called for. Then he did something less crucial but pretty fabulous: he brought in Adrian to design the Wicked Witch’s costume. Which, if you peer beyond the black-on-black, is a real work of art, with its lace bodice, cut-out mutton sleeves, and pouch dangling fetchingly from the hip. To her pointy hat, Adrian added a long, silky-sheer scarf that floats menacingly behind her, like an ill wind.

Cukor was never meant to stay on when production began in earnest; he was due over at Gone with the Wind. Victor Fleming took the reins in October 1938, and oversaw everything but the sepia-tone scenes (including the Over the Rainbow number) that book-end Dorothy’s adventures in Oz. But the following February, he was called away suddenly… to direct  Gone with the Wind after Cukor was fired. Fleming’s close friend King Vidor came aboard to gently shepherd the crucial Kansas scenes through to completion, but never publicly acknowledged his involvement until after Fleming’s death in 1949.

And as if Fleming didn’t have enough on his mind during the shoot, he also had to protect Garland from her scenery-chewing companions on the Yellow Brick Road, seasoned old vaudeville pros who were none too excited about surrendering the spotlight to her (as she laughingly recalls in a clip from The Jack Paar Show, below). Ironically, her only close friend on the set was Hamilton, a former kindergarten teacher who gave her some much-needed mothering.

Whew! There’s enough material behind the scenes of The Wizard of Oz for a whole other movie… but in the meantime, enjoy seeing the original again on the big screen!

TINTYPE TUESDAY is a weekly feature on Sister Celluloid, with fabulous classic movie pix (and backstory!) to help you make it to Hump Day! For previous editions, just click here—and why not bookmark the page, to make sure you never miss a week?

TINTYPE TUESDAY: Head Off to See THE WIZARD OF OZ Again on the Big Screen! Welcome to another edition of TINTYPE TUESDAY! This week, we're off to see The Wizard of Oz…

[glitterypeanutmugnickel]

March 31, 2022

Heather Cox Richardson

Apr 1

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Today, Judge Mark E. Walker of the Federal District Court in Tallahassee, Florida, struck down much of the new elections law passed by the Florida legislature after the 2020 election. This is the first time a federal court has sought to overrule the recent attempts of Republican-dominated state legislatures to rig the vote, and Walker made thorough work of it.

Four cases were consolidated into one: the League of Women Voters v. Florida Secretary of State Laurel M. Lee, National Republican Senatorial Committee, and Republican National Committee. In his decision, Walker used Florida as a case study to explain how suppressing the Black vote rigs the system in favor of Republicans. His 288-page decision is a frightening portrait of how Republicans are taking control of certain states against the will of voters.

“This case is about our sacred right to vote,” Walker wrote, “won at great cost in blood and treasure. Courts have long recognized that, because “the right to exercise the franchise in a free and unimpaired manner is preservative of other basic civil and political rights, any alleged infringement of the right of citizens to vote must be carefully and meticulously scrutinized.”

While the defendants who wrote Florida’s new election law, SB 90, argued that the changes to voting rules were minor tweaks to avoid voter fraud, the plaintiffs said the new law “runs roughshod over the right to vote, unnecessarily making voting harder for all eligible Floridians, unduly burdening disabled voters, and intentionally targeting minority voters—all to improve the electoral prospects of the party in power.” Walker concluded that “for the most part, Plaintiffs are right,” and notes that “the right to vote, and the V[oting] R[ights] A[ct] particularly, are under siege.”

Walker notes that the issue at stake is not whether the legislators who wrote the new laws are racist, but rather whether race was a factor in the writing of SB 90. Recognizing that few people would today openly admit their racial motivations, he explains that the court needed to look at the circumstances around the passage of SB 90 to determine if race played a role in the law. “Think of it like viewing a pointillist painting, such as Georges Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte,” Walker wrote. “One dot of paint on the canvas is meaningless, but when thousands of dots are viewed together, they create something recognizable. So too here, one piece of evidence says little, but when all of the evidence is viewed together, a coherent picture emerges.”

Those dots of paint begin with Florida’s “grotesque history of racial discrimination.” After the Civil War, the Reconstruction legislature limited the vote to white men; when Congress insisted that Black men must be able to vote, Florida legislators changed the law to take their vote away little by little.

First, they changed the constitution to let the governor appoint all statewide officeholders; he appointed only white men. Then they required a sort of early voter ID: a voter had to bring a registration certificate to the polls. Finally, in 1888, the lawmakers passed the “Eight Box Law,” requiring that votes for each state office had to be dropped correctly into eight different boxes in order to count, an impossibility for illiterate farmers. It also passed a poll tax. Although all these new laws were neutral on their face, they drastically cut down Black voting. According to election historian J. Morgan Kousser, between 1888 and 1892, Black voting dropped from 62% to 11%.

For those still undaunted, violence sealed the deal. In 1960, Gadsden County had more than 12,000 Black residents old enough to vote, but only seven of them were registered. Not a single Black congress member was elected between 1877 and 1992. Latinos, too, have had trouble voting, largely because of language barriers.

Historic voter suppression is relevant today because differences in political power help to create differences in economic and social power. While 5.4% of White family households are below the poverty line, 15.8% of Black and 17.7% of Latino family households are. The median White household income ($65,149) is 46.7% higher than the Black median household income ($44,412) and about a quarter higher than the Latino median household income ($52,497). In terms of education, 6.9% of the White population has not finished high school, while 15.3% of the Black population and 20.4% of the Latino population have not.

About 4.8% of White households don’t have a car or a truck, while 7.3% of Latino households and 10.4% of Black households lack them, meaning they rely on public transportation at a higher rate than White Americans and so face longer commutes to work. Walker writes that “these disparities are the stark results of a political system that, for well over a century, has overrepresented White Floridians and underrepresented Black and Latino Floridians,” and he notes that 90% of Florida’s White voting age citizens are registered to vote, while only 83% of its Black and 77% of its Latino voting age population is.

Since 2004, White voters in Florida have been likely to vote for Republicans, but Black voters in Florida have favored Democratic candidates for president and governor at an average rate of about 89.7%. (In contrast, Latino voters tend to swing between parties.) Race and politics thus cannot be separated, and since Florida elections tend to be very close, decreasing the Black vote helps the Republican Party. Getting rid of even a few thousand votes can swing an election. It is “easy to see how Republican legislators who harbor no racial animus could be tempted to secure their own position by enacting laws targeting Black voters,” Walker wrote.

And since the days before the 2000 election, they have repeatedly done so. The infamous 2000 voter purge cut ten times as many Black voters as White voters from the rolls that year before victory in the presidential election came down to a few hundred votes in Florida for Republican candidate George W. Bush. Since then, the state has repeatedly purged its rolls, and legitimate Black voters have been disproportionately removed.

Similarly, when Black Floridians began to use early voting, the legislature changed the laws to limit that practice. So, in 2012, Black voters stood in line for as long as 8 hours, and tens of thousands ultimately were unable to cast a vote. In 2018, voters in Florida overwhelmingly favored restoring voting rights to felons who had served their sentences; the legislature promptly passed a law requiring felons to pay all fees they owed to the state before they could vote, a law that, again, affected Black voters more than White ones.

The 2020 election went smoothly in Florida, but the legislature nonetheless pushed through SB 90 to “instill voter confidence.” A text exchange between a legislator and the chair of the Florida Republican Party called this justification into question: they discussed how the standard procedures for absentee ballots were “killing” the Republican Party because the Democrats had so many more absentee voters the Republicans “could not cut down [that] lead” unless the law changed.

The new law makes it harder for voter-registration organizations to sign up voters. It limits the use of drop boxes and voting by mail, pushing people to vote in person, and then forbids giving food and water to the people who will inevitably be waiting in line to vote.

“This Court finds that the Legislature enacted SB 90 to improve the Republican Party’s electoral prospects,” Walker wrote. He required Florida to get the approval of the federal government before trying to make any such changes for the next ten years.

Florida will challenge this decision, and it may well win before the conservative Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit or the current Supreme Court. Republicans have defended their assaults on voting by citing the Constitution’s provision that “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof;” but Walker noted that there is another clause in the Constitution that follows that semicolon. It reads: “but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations….”

[christopherjwinter]

My earliest years were difficult.  There was much violence and suffering.  To belabor the point is to force one's audience to suffer.  While I may be cruel, I am not cruel in that fashion.  Garrick Herrod grew ill in time from a life too indulgent on drink, and with the flow of time's passage he allowed his nephew to assist him in matters before the fellow took on the role entirely.  While the members of the Herrod family and those like him came and went like many of the other orphans, I was a near constant.  It was far easier to measure my growth by decades than by seasons.  To some, I was the cursed orphan that would outlast any of my guardians and who created no end of trouble.  I was not alone in my leisurely maturity at the orphanage, however.  I can recall four gnomes who were my foster siblings in that home for lost children.  Mostly, I recall poor Lennitzath.  He grew paler and paler one autumn, like a shirt that's been washed too often.  Before the spring thaw came, he simply went to sleep one evening and never woke again.  I mourned him.  I volunteered to dig his grave in the hard, frozen ground.

It was Meejyq who encouraged me to start looking for work outside of those jobs offered by The Home.  She was always frail with a lame foot, so oftentimes Meejyq couldn't weather the arduous tasks The Home found for us.  She was very clever, however.

"Puck, you have a bit of hidden money, don't you?"  I gave her nervous eyes, and my mouth went tight.  Most orphans had 'hidden money', as we called it.  The odd copper that you found or stole.  We horded our miniscule collections, in constant fear that one of our own would discover and plunder whatever pathetic savings we possessed.  She gave me a sly look from beneath her bird's nest of lavender hair, before prodding me slightly with her walking stick.  "C'mon, I'm not asking to borrow any.  Or to trick you into telling me where it's hidden.  I'm just thinking that you've been here longer than any of us.  I bet you have enough saved up you could perhaps laze about for two or three weeks without concern."

I gave Meejyq a nod and a small smile, before admitting evasively, "Something like that."  She offered me a wider one in return.

"See?  Okay, here's what I do.  I make sure that I always keep enough hidden if one of my plans don't work out.  But I go out into town and I see if there isn't someone I can't con into some work or little task that will get me just as much as I'd get with Master Herrod.  Most times?  It's easier work, and it takes less time to finish."

I frowned slightly, and looked about at the narrow beds that filled our rooms.  It had been an hour after dinner, and in another pair of hours The Home was due to be locked up tightly.  There were some of our suffering foster siblings who took that time to wander around in the fresh air, but neither Meejyq or myself had felt much like it that evening.  I confessed to her my worries.  "I just don't want to be thrown out because I don't have enough money."

Meejyq openly scoffed at me, and gave another tap with her walking stick at my knee.  I grabbed it and pulled it out of her grasp, but only for long enough she got the point not to poke me further.  "If we never take a risk, our lives are over already, Puck."  With a shuffle, she settled back onto the end of my particular cot again, and moved her necessary support to the far side of her body.  "Honestly?  Two months ago, I had enough that I just took the week off."

The concept stymied me.  "What did you do all week?"  She gave me her warmest look, the thinness of her face amplifying those wide eyes of hers.

"I just... I just spent them in the forest.  Surrounded by all that green, listening to the birds and squirrels."  Her chest rose and fell, and Meejyq sighed a contented sigh.  I was envious of that sigh.  "You're an elf.  It's not good for our kind to always be surrounded by walls."

I like to think that blind fortune smiled on Meejyq for her magnificent suggestion.  The following spring, a gnome couple came around to the orphanage.  They were mature, with no children of their own.  Meejyq cried when they asked her if she would want to come home with them.  I cried as well, and a tiny part of me was more resentful than I can ever express.  I remember her climbing up into their pony drawn wagon and waving enthusiastically back at The Home.  It aches to think on her.

Meejyq was correct in that you could earn more in Gillamoor than you ever could with whatever menial work the current Master Herrod provided.  The first day alone, I earned three copper coins and a ripe pear for three hours of unloading a cart for a traveling merchant.  The next day, I sent a message off to the Chelaxian fort and was paid another two copper.  I made sure before I handed the note over that I rubbed it all against my bare bottom in private.  When another nation squeezes the pulp of life out of your own, you tend to harbor a few ounces of displeasure aimed towards their kind.  By the third day, however, I looked about and couldn't find a lick of work.  It occurred to me that instead of making myself a nuisance as I was certain to do if I listlessly roamed about the streets, I would explore Meejyq's idea and headed off to the woods.

It was simply the edge of the Chitterwood, one of several thick patches that sprouted up over the years.  Not so old as to gather the presence of lurking goblins, at least not yet.  The Goblinblood Wars were still yet to come.  As I took footsteps approaching the greenery, I knew Meejyq was right.  There was the feeling that my plum colored eyes were growing wide simply looking on all of that life.  Much of Isger had green to it, but it was dingy and half dead in many spots.  Here, there was life that had erupted from the earth and would not be contained.  A single white winged butterfly fluttered against the flowers of a hedge.  I heard the call of a Whip-poor-will, though the sun was still out in the sky.  I believe I began to run and dashed into the woods.

I thought that my hours would be spent fruitlessly, only meandering and participating in those small adventures that young children invent for themselves.  Tiny quests that too infrequently were indulged in my decades at The Home for Lost Children.  I was already scratched all over with a series of burrs and thorns, I had acquired a new series of tears in my already shabby trousers, and I was grinning from ear to ear when I heard something very unexpected.  A series of curses and complaints in a very human voice.  At the time, I considered it the wildest of conjunctions that I had stumbled far enough into the forest at the proper time to cross paths with that individual.  In hindsight, I could see where the entirety of the events were orchestrated with a gentle series of nuances.  From Meejyq's suggestion to that moment.  Sealing my fate, I stepped forwards to investigate.

What I saw was an old figure of a man with long wisps of white hair and a beard too overgrown to look styled or kempt.  He was dressed simply in clothing that had a series of patches over the knees and seat of his pants, barefoot, and struggling with a canvas sack that was nearly as big as he was.  I had hoped to be still, but he wasn't so old as to miss my presence.  Hazel eyes shot over and narrowed at me, before a craggy hand that was all knuckle and bone gestured me closer.  "Come here, you little imp!  Help an old fella."

Part of me wanted to run that instant.  Commands often were accompanied by heavy hands, so I had a natural aversion to anyone who told me what to do.  Still, if he strained with carrying that sack, I doubted he would have been able to hurt me very much.  I walked out and met his eye.  There was something about him that unnerved me.  I had never encountered a person as advanced in years as he was, and I found myself somewhat fascinated by him as well.  He was nearly all wrinkles and gristle, but the aura about him caused me to feel there was a sharper mind and will than a man half his years.

"I was right to call you imp... you're one of the fey.  A child of the Lantern King.  What should I call you, you wily forest beast?"  His accent was thick as well, and I found I had to pay close attention to what he said.  In town, I had heard other folk speak in a mellow version of his own fashion.  I started to realize the influence the Chelaxians had to the natural Isger speech for the first time.  The residents of Gillamoor spoke with the lightest sprinkle of this salt, while this older man spoke as thick as taking a long taste of a briny salt lick.

"Puck," I answered him in a voice that felt very small.

He burst out into a cackle of a laugh, smacking himself in the hip while shaking his head from side to side.  "Of course it is!  You look like a Puck, too.  The name suits you.  I'm called Old Jack."  He thrust his boney hand towards me, and I instinctively shook it out of habit.  There was more force to his grasp than I anticipated as well.  Introductions aside, Old Jack looked more serious and then shot his hazel gaze down at the canvas sack on the ground pointedly.  "Puck, I have a deal to make you.  I have a home, 'bout a mile deeper into the forest.  I'm having the damnedest time carrying the goods I bought in town back with me.  If you help out an old man and bring this back with me, I'll give you a copper and fix you up a proper meal.  What do ya say?"

In no time, I had shouldered the pack and was walking along with Old Jack.  I almost at once understood why he had grappled so with the effort.  I felt myself grow red in the face simply by lifting it off the ground, though I didn't have time to set it well as Old Jack was already walking off.  A mile of carrying that pack just about did me in, so that I was so utterly focused on my tasks that his cottage caught me full by surprise.  It was larger than I suspected, though just as aged and piecemeal as the clothes on Jack's body.  He urged me inside, and it was only through shear determination that my knees didn't buckle before I set the sack in the center of his kitchen.

"That's a good lad.  Here, have a seat.  I've got a well in the back, pull you up a cool glass of water."  I felt myself urged back into a chair, in which I almost collapsed.  My body ached in a way that I rarely did doing the work assigned by whichever high bastard Herrod was in charge of The Home for Lost Children.  It was briefer, but a greater struggle.  Just as my ability to breathe was returning, I was aware that Old Jack had returned and was placing a cup in my hand.  I drank so deeply I nearly choked myself.  Only then aware that those ancient hands were patting at my shoulders and arm and making all sorts of 'hmmm' sounds.  When I looked up, a disappointed frown met my eye.  "It's sad enough when Isger is all dried up and hungry.  Worse still when a child of the Lantern King is so scrawny he can barely lift his own head."

I blinked, and tilted my head at him.  "I'm sorry, Old Jack... but who's the Lantern King?"  I watched as a spark lit in those emerald and misty gray eyes of his, as the recluse allowed a small thrill reach his core before giving me a pat on the shoulder once more.

"I'll tell you what, Mister Puck.  I have a pair of hares that I trapped this morning.  I'll skin 'em and as soon as you get your feet back under yourself, you help me cut up some vegetables to roast.  As we're working, I'll tell you about about the Eldest of the Eldest.  The High King of the Fey!  The master of trickery and wonder."  Over the course of the next few hours, Old Jack told me a score of stories of the Lantern King.  Bold, sly, clever, and foolish.  He told me how this figure, the first of all the Fey, created all of my kind in a dare against his brethren.  How he disguised himself as a crow, and a sheep, and a salmon at different times.

Meanwhile, under Jack's instruction, I helped him cut up a meal that was no less than a feast by my previous experiences.  That afternoon, for the very first time, I felt truly full.  Not simply in my body, but also in my spirit.  My mind was full of images of that every changing deceiver.  Old Jack, whom I had only meet hours before, had suddenly become one of my most beloved friends.  When he'd urged me to pull out my knife and cut up some carrots, no sooner than I told him I had none but he placed one in my hand and told me to keep it.  I promptly cut myself half a dozen times on my fingers with it.  It was now my most prized possession.

We were sitting on his front porch, with the solid feel of good food inside of us when Old Jack spoke in his quavery voice to make me an offer.  "I'm no chick out of the shell, Puck.  I'm old."  He said this with the weight of certainty to it, but with a smile on his lips.  I almost wanted to argue with him, because that day I realized I'd never known anyone more alive in my life than him.  Still, he continued.  "There are days when I could use a hand getting things done.  Not every day, mind you.  I'm too long in the tooth to be chasing after some little sprite causing more harm than good.  But I think that it might benefit a fellow to have a young heart that could stand climbing onto the roof and patching up a hole or two.  Someone with strong arms to go chopping up firewood before winter rolls around.  Still... if you find your way back, I'll give you a copper piece and perhaps tell you a bit more about the Lantern King."

"I would like that greatly, Old Jack."  I don't know which of us smiled wider at our agreement.  I was hooked so certainly by his simple offer.  Thinking back, I can only roll my eyes and chuckle at how it all transpired.  The two of us shared some quiet company after that.  Old Jack was mostly talked out it seemed, and I was simply happy for one of the first times in my life.  It's no wonder that leaning back in that rocking chair I closed my eyes and began to drift off to sleep.

I became aware of a gentle voice saying my name.  "Puck.  Puck.  C'mon, wake now."  Old Jack had his hand on the rocking chair, giving it a good shake to stir me back to consciousness.  I blinked, and found the world had changed surprisingly.  Where there had been a hazy afternoon, now the air was cast in hues of indigo and black interrupted by the odd yellow flicker of a firefly.  "Didn't I just say that I didn't want to take in no child?  I don't know where you came from, but it's late.  Probably best you get on home."  His words were firm, but not unkind.  In a start, I realized I had no idea what hour it was, and panic set into me.

"Oh no oh no oh no!  I... I have to run!  Thank you, Jack!"  I tore through the forest, and ran straight into town.  I ran until my feet hurt and my chest burned.  My footfalls made at first a steady patter through the tall grass, but then as the exertion of the day caught up to me I could not help but toil to make each step as rapid as the one before it.  My lungs couldn't get enough air.  My mind quaked in fear, as I had no idea how late the hour was.  Seeing the orphanage before me, I almost burst out in tears as I noticed the door was still open.  Standing in the front of the entrance was one of the series of unpleasant Herrods, his face creased into a scowl and the bulk of his body almost barring the way to block me inside.  I had to slide around him, my back scratching against the frame of the door, and it was just as my whole body was inside we heard the tolling of the fort bell.  The tenth hour of the night, and I had only just returned.

I couldn't help myself.  Through the sweat that poured over me, my quaking limbs, I offered up a triumphant ivory smile at Master Herrod.  He shot a stubby finger in my face warningly.  "You pull that again, and I'm throwing you outside myself.  Little shit."

[dunkshotdreaming]

Spica: Alpha Virginis (pt.2)

Genre: action/adventure, fantasy, angst, romance Warnings: post-apocalyptic Characters: Leo (VIXX), Beth (oc), Lucy (oc) Word count: 1,255 Story type: series (completed)

part 1 / part 2 / part 3 / part 4 / part 5 (final)

(A/N): Reposting my series from AFF onto here!

///

   The Lab ran to the window suddenly, catching Leo’s attention. He walked over while throwing on a shirt, casually glancing at the building across. He carefully preened the balcony open, the rain no longer pouring down, giving him access to see a young girl dangling her feet on the rooftop. He wasn’t sure if it was the sun reappearing from behind the clouds or if she was just glowing, but Leo swore she was dazzling. It had been years since he’d… felt. Sure, he’d felt companionship and loyalty for his fellow rebels, but that could never compare to what blossomed deep within his chest at this very moment.

   Fearing he’d spoken too soon, Leo watched the in absolute horror as the girl threw herself off the building. He wanted to scream, to gasp, to call out to her, to run over, to have done something… but all he managed was to shut his eyes and clench his teeth, A roaring sound made his eyes snap open, jaw dropping in utter shock as the girl sprouted wings. Two long, gleaming white wings held her body suspended in the air, her pale gown fluttering in the breeze. She almost seemed to be searching for something as she scanned the land.

   Finding his voice, Leo called her over, waving to help catch her attention. It worked, and she flew over, giving him a once-over as he realized he had yet to put on pants, making him flush beet red. He ran inside to get dressed as she descended upon the balcony rail, wings far behind her, Lucy’s head in her lap as she casually pet the lovable Lab.

“My sincerest apologies, I got caught in the rain and... look, it’s been a very long time since I’ve even seen anyone in town,” Leo answered honestly, clearing his throat. A faint blush resided on the otherwise stoic man’s attractive features, causing the girl to suppress a chuckle.

“What’s a guy like you doing around these parts still? I thought the humans all fled after…” she trailed off, remembering too late it best not to bring that up.

“Most of us did, some stayed behind to fight,” Leo offered through clenched teeth. She motioned him closer, and so he curiously stepped forward, stopping just in front of her crossed legs as Lucy moved out of the way. The angel traced his raised eyebrow, then across his nose, before resting her hand on his jaw, cupping his cheek.

“I was sent to find any survivors,” the angel admitted, “I was banished for not taking my duties seriously, but at least they let me keep my wings.” She smiled sheepishly, somehow finding a positive outlook despite her situation. Leo felt strange around her, like her presence was calming somehow, so he decided to trust the fallen angel. What did he really have to lose at this point?

“My name is Leo,” he stuck his hand out to shake, immediately regretting it when she moved her hand away from his face.

“Is it really?” she teased, “Beth, call me Beth. That’s what they used to, anyway,” she shrugged. Leo snorted, biting his lip in hesitation, chewing on it softly.

“Fine, my birth name is Taekwoon. But I just…”

“It brings back painful memories, doesn’t it?” He nodded slowly, the sadness emanating from him only proving her theory. Beth hopped off the railing, stopping to give Lucy a quick scratch behind the ears, promptly making her way past Leo into the apartment. He watched, mesmerized, rubbing the bottom half of his face with a broad palm and long, slender fingers.

“Nice place you got here.” Beth took featherlight steps across the room, tips of her wings dragging across the wooden flooring. Still in a daze, Leo found himself unable to move, except for his eyes, the only part of his body not in stupor. “Did you suddenly forget how to speak?” Beth teased Leo, making him look away and curse under his breath. The crimson staining his porcelain features only gave away his embarrassment.

“I found this place one night while travelling in search of supplies. You’re free to stay if you need somewhere to crash, there’s a spare sofa.” Leo walked over to the armoire for his towel pile, pulling one out and walking back over to Beth. “Do you need another one to dry off your… wings?” Saying it aloud made him finally come to terms with the fact he wasn’t hallucinating, there really stood an angel amidst his living quarters.

   Considering his town was destroyed by demons, an angel at his doorstep should not have phased him one bit, becoming relatively immune to the supernatural over the years. It was her ethereal existence that had him playing the fool. She was absolutely gorgeous in his eyes, and anyone to tell him otherwise was obviously wrong. Leo remained floored by her presence, taking in her stunning features, all while trying not to look creepy for staring, feeling truly blessed in this moment. Both literally and figuratively, the girl was glowing.

   She spoke, pulling him from his daydream. “You wouldn’t happen to have any spare clothing for ladies, would you?” Leo shook his head with a sigh, as if in thought. Curiously, she reached out, tiptoeing, and just barely reached the hairs of his bangs with her fingers. His form towered over hers, though he was sure she could easily do the same to him should she chose to fly.

“Do you touch every guy you meet like this?” Leo joked.

“No!” she blushed, mortified at being called out for her tactless action, which he found irresistibly adorable. “I’ve just… never been so close to a human before, up close like this. I’ve only ever watched over from afar. I-I’m sorry—“

“Don’t sweat it,” Leo muttered shyly, mentally cursing his voice for betraying the feigned chic he was aiming for. She giggled, sending his heart into a hammering overdrive, and it only worsened when she tugged at his shirt, all doe eyes and pursed lips. “Beth—“

“Do you have another one of these? My dress is tattered beyond repair, those dead trees and this horrible dust across town ruined it,” she grimaced. “However, one of your shirts could do, for now.” Beth nodded absentmindedly, agreeing to her own suggestion, it seemed.

   With all the restraint left in him, after imagining her in one of his shirts, Leo practically fled to his room, leaving the poor angel in utter confusion. Beth sat on the couch, covering poor Lucy with a dry towel, as a makeshift blanket. Leo reappeared, emerging from his room with clothing in tow, handing her a shirt too large for her frame, which she accepted gratefully.

“Are you alright? You seem…strange?” Beth asked as she went to reach for the hem of her dress, making Leo panic.

“Clearly, things work very differently in our worlds. For starters, please refrain from undressing while I am still in the room.”

“But we always used to undress openly. We were taught our bodies were a beautiful gift and should be appreciated. Do humans really not like being naked, Taekwoon?” Upon hearing his birth name, all panic fled Leo’s face, an emotionless blank canvas left in its place. Beth didn’t catch onto her mistake, standing in silence as she watched his walk away, slamming the door to his room. Calling it a night, Leo settled down on some bedding that lay on the floor, the closest he’d had to a bed in quite some time.

[kusunogatari-a]

[ Relent ] [ @masterofwar ] [ Uchiha Madara, Uchiha Izuna, Fubuki, Suigin Ryū ] [ Blood mention ] [ Verse: At The Beginning ]

“You really should -”

“It's fine.”

Izuna gives a curt sigh, walking the path beside his brother. “If not now, then what's the point?”

“It's nothing she needs to bother with.”

“Onīsama, you're wounded. She's a healer. That's why you brought all of this about in the first place! You really think she won't notice?”

“It doesn't matter if she notices.”

The younger Uchiha stares at Madara with a furrowed brow, trying to puzzle out his stubbornness. “...you're avoiding her.”

No reply.

“Why? You've gotten what you wanted! Why not make use of it? Don't tell me you're regretting this, after all the effort you put in.”

“That's not it.”

“Then what?”

“I simply...do not wish to bother her with something so trivial.”

“Funny, usually you'll bother anyone about anything if it suits your mood, no matter how trivial,” Izuna counters. “If I didn't know better, I'd guess she makes you nervous.”

Dark eyes slide to their corners, giving Izuna a silent, warning glance.

“...why on earth...?”

“It is clear she resents me. I asserted power over her – no sane person would be happy with such a turn of events. I wouldn't.”

“You're also the first victim of your pride.”

“Izuna...”

“While it's clear Ryū-san has her share of self-held dignity, I don't think that interferes with her work. At the very least, she's a healer first and foremost – she would want to help you, regardless of anything else. As for your fears of resentment...maybe it's a matter of making it up to her.”

Before Madara can protest, Izuna lengthens his strides, carrying himself up through the squadron as they make their way through the valley spine.

“...brat,” the clan head mutters, hardly any weight to his tone.

Still settled in a temporary encampment, the Uchiha retreat back to the canvas of their tents, yards from the village proper. Though he has his own among them, Madara rarely uses it, spending his time examining as much of his new surroundings as possible...but avoiding the manor at the valley's tail. Despite the weight of their arrangement, he avoids her like the plague for reasons he'll never voice aloud...one of which Izuna has deduced. Surely she feels nothing but detestation for her conqueror, and he may as well ease her of his visage as much as he can help.

And though it was his intention (granted, it began as Izuna's suggestion), the agreement still leaves him...disquieted. He refuses to call it nerves – nothing makes him nervous. It's simply...not what he imagined having at such an age, or under such circumstances. So, for the time being, few would be able to guess the arrangement at all, given how little the pair see of one another.

Lost in his brooding thoughts, Madara eventually glances up as a streak of white blooms in the corner of his gaze. To his irritation, there's a clench of his chest at the assumption of white waves...but they're only feathers.

Alighting upon a branch, Fubuki gives a greeting clack of her beak. “Ryū-sama wishes to see you, Uchiha-sama.”

“What for?”

“An assessment of your wounds.”

Blinking, Madara looks askance from the summon to see his brother pointedly ignoring him.

“...you may tell her there's no need. I'm fine.”

“She was rather insistent, and...predicted your refusal. I was told to make her own intentions rather clear: if you do not come to her, she will come to you.”

“Must she meddle in every little thing?” the Uchiha growls, working at the straps of his gear.

“It is her occupation, Uchiha-sama – as such, she takes issues such as these quite seriously.” Shifting, Fubuki admits, “...she is...stubborn on the subject.”

“Fine,” he snaps, relinquishing his armor with a clatter. Venting his unease through temper, he adds, “Tell her I'll be there shortly.”

Withholding any reply, Fubuki gives a dip of her head before retreating.

Walking past his brother, Madara mutters, “You'll be answering for this in a spar later.”

“Whatever you say.”

Following the well-worn path, the clan head sets his jaw, stride full of purpose and drawing nervous gazes. Ignoring them, he soon finds himself at the manor door, taking a brief moment before entering.

“Almost done...”

Pausing, Madara's gaze is drawn to her voice, spotting her preoccupied by someone else: a boy of no more than six or seven. Clearly biting his lip against tears, he turns to give the man an anxious glance.

Sparing a hand, Ryū turns him back toward her by the cheek. “Pay him no mind.”

The gesture almost sparks his mood again, but he swallows it down, not wanting to interrupt. Instead, he leans against a corner, arms folded to watch.

In the dim belly of the manor, the white of her chakra is clear, seeping into a wound along the child's forearm. Minutes pass in silence, save for the boy's sniffling. And eventually, the gap in the skin disappears.

“There...now, do be more careful with those tools. They have their uses, but they're still sharp.” Ryū gives the boy a warm smile.

“Yes ma'am.”

“Go on, then.”

Skirting Madara nervously, the boy bolts through the door as Ryū straightens.

“...your turn.”

“There's nothing to fuss over.”

“I can smell the blood from here.” Her tone is soft, but not without a firmness that allows for no refusal. “We'll waste far less time if you set your pride aside for the moment and let me work.”

“We'd save more letting time tend it.”

“And risk unnecessary infection? That would take even more time.” Arms loosely cross beneath her bust, expression blank. “I'd rather save myself the work.”

Jaw tensing, it takes him a moment to respond. “...very well.”

“Bare the wounds.”

After a pause, Madara stands and removes his top, half-revealing a wound along his side. Several smaller breaks in the skin litter his chest.

Looking to the largest, Ryū carefully pulls at the waistband of his trousers, showing its trail down his hip. “...cause?”

“Mokuton.”

Silvers flicker to his face. “Hashirama...?”

“Hn.”

Replacing her gaze, she orders, “Sit. I need to clean it – there's debris in the muscle.”

Gingerly taking a seat, Madara favors his injured side, watching her work. Picking through herbs, she quickly filters them into water, boiling it with a spark of chakra. Every motion is done without hesitation, obviously made habit from years of practice.

Drawing the substance to the palm of her hand, she takes a knee at his side, guiding the formula into the tissue and drawing out traces of the Senju's technique.

Beyond a tensing of his jaw, Madara gives no reaction.

Once the water is soiled with blood and slivers, Ryū discards it into a nearby bucket before beginning to weave the wound closed.

“...you've been avoiding me.”

Though he gives no outward sign, the Uchiha mentally curses. “I've had no need of you.”

“And yet even when you did, you resisted. Which means it's not that simple.”

Another clench of his jaw. Damn her. “...I assumed...it would be easier this way.”

“There were other ways you could have gone about this. I'm assuming you chose this path out of some kind of civility. But if all avenues are not what you wanted...why bother? Why not choose one that would have led to less of...this?”

“I wished to avoid force.”

“I was still left mostly choiceless. Kinder in some ways, harsher in others.” Giving him a glance, she lets that settle for a moment. “...I'm not angry.”

Silence.

“...nor am I abhorrent. Uchiha-sama, I am not so caught up in myself that I cannot accept the circumstances. As of yet, I have no reason to dislike you. As...one-sided as this agreement may be, I still have yet to come to harm. Nor have my people. That, in the end, is all I truly care for amid the changes. So long as you keep your word, I am not ill at ease.” A pause. “...nor should you be.”

Still no reply.

Slightly, she softens. “...I want this to work. If I am to be at your side as you've willed it...then I will do my best to fill that role as expected. It may yet come to pass that we find ourselves...incompatible, to a point. But an agreement is still an agreement. Such things have been done solely out of duty before. But until I have absolute certainty...I will still give it an honest try.”

Dark brows raise ever so slightly. That was...unexpected. “...you have quite the open mind.”

“...I have my reasons to be.” When he offers no response, she goes on. “...little can be said to sully the name of a man who cries so openly as his brother dies in his arms.” Silvers lift again, managing to catch obsidian orbs. “I told you...I read people well. There was little left hidden in your heart that day. I still have hope that what I saw within it can yet find peace with what I hide within my own.”

With the wound stabilized, she brings a hand to his chest, making quick work of a mark amid aged scars, and then another, watching the skin rise and fall with his breath.

“...arrangements do not always have to be met with presumed disdain. I will not make the mistake of making my own assumptions regarding the man you are. I will let you prove your own impressions. That said...I will be watching.” One by one, she makes her way up the plane of his torso, until a palm cups a scrape along his jaw. Watching her work, Ryū eventually meets his eyes, her own flickering between them before she withdraws.

“...what I've done so far needs to stabilize. I'll wrap it to keep it clean. You will return this evening, and we will finish.”

Watching her retreat, Madara unabashedly continues as she returns, gesturing for him to stand. Reaching around and around his frame, she ignores his gaze until it's finished. “No bending, no twisting, no lifting. Not until I complete the structure, and the tissue is given time to adjust. If you tear the new muscle fibers, I will be...annoyed. We'll then have to start all over.”

“Yes, ma'am,” he replies lowly with a hint of flat humor, echoing the boy.

The corner of her lips twitch. “Then you're free to go for about...eight hours.”

“Understood.”

“And try not to avoid me this time...?”

Mood far flung from its beginnings, he manages a subtle smirk. We'll see how open-minded she is, then. A hand takes chin for a moment. “I think we've reached an...understanding.”

Expression momentarily shifted, Ryū manages a nod. “...good.”

He holds her just a little too long before releasing his hold, lingering for another moment before taking his leave, moving to take up his cloak.

“Leave it.”

A glance over his shoulder.

“It's bloodstained – I'll wash it.”

Something akin to surprise tinges his gaze for a moment. “...very well.”

Once back amidst the camp, Madara seeks his brother. “You're off the hook until morning.”

“Doctor's orders?”

“Hn.”

Tilting his head, Izuna dares to note, “...you seem...not quite so dour.”

“My mood has been tempered for the time being.”

Izuna's brow raises. “...oh really? I suppose it would be too much for me to ask for some admittance that my interference was for the better...?”

Madara gives his brother a cool look, lips ever so slightly upturned. “...I suppose I can relent.”

      ...oops I did more xD

      I am very quickly becoming too attached to this AU. I like the shift in dynamic compared to the threads we’ve had, so...I’ll indulge myself, haha~

     Izuna is best peacekeeper. Also best wingman x’’D

     The tension is TANGIBLE and I love it. Just...gahhhhhhhh.

     ...anyway, that’s all for now. But I’m sure there will be more soon :3c