#would it be weird to print & hang my own edit? cause i’m thinking about it

[liyazaki]

the brides 🌸 gap, ep. 10 | painting edit 🎨

[levinneheart]

Trouble Ahead

Prologue

A collab w/ @old-me-is-gone

➳ Description: This is a story between enemies; a middle school friend turned salty, a high school partner turned full debate sessions, and an unfortunate girl stuck in the middle… it seems there is going to be trouble ahead.

➳ Pairing: Tsukishima Kei x Feisty!F!Photographer!Reader x Akaashi Keiji

➳ Prompt: Frenemies, Enemies to Lovers, Love Triangle, Shy Confessions

➳ Genre: FLUFF, ANGST

➳ Word Count: 4,010

➳ Written by: @old-me-is-gone and co-edited by (banner also by): @levinneheart

➳ Disclaimer: Pictures used are not ours and are all credited to their owners. Haikyuu characters are owned by Haruichi Furudate.

Routes: Wit’s End || Partner in Crime

Middle school is meant to be a time where kids can develop and find themselves. In [Y/N]’s case, middle school was the time she garnered a skill and adept talent for photography while also meeting her first friend after moving from Tokyo.

Standing by the counter where she was waiting for her recent photos to be developed while she picked at her nails. The darkroom had become a place of solace for her. Moving from Tokyo to the middle of nowhere, a place also known as Miyagi, hadn’t been easy and starting middle school without any friends was even harder. Since no one made an effort to at least try and befriend her within the first month, [Y/N] had decided that she didn’t need anyone else. So being in the darkroom seemed to be the only valid option for her.

When her mom asked her about her day, she would ramble on and on about the fake experiences she had at school. In her fake world, she was popular and had a lot of friends. In reality, she was just the weird loner girl who took photos of trashcans around the cafeteria. [Y/N] had the darkroom all to herself as she was the only member of the photography club. Although, sometimes other clubs would use her clubroom to store excess club materials and such.

Leaving her to have a single counter for her photos. To make it an actual working darkroom, she used a red tissue paper that she had attached to the hanging ceiling light with a rubber band and blacked out the windows with random cardboard from the kitchens. The other two walls that she didn’t use were reserved for the volleyball club to shove extra netting and brooms into.

She really should have printed out a single paper that wrote: ‘Please Knock, Photos in Developing Stage’, that’s at least what she learned from the hindsight when the door opened again for the nth time and she was greeted with a single sliver of light. [Y/N]’s eye went wide as she stopped picking at her nails. “Wait! Don’t-”

The door slide completely open and [Y/N] squinted at all the sudden light. When she realized what had happened, she rushed to the tins of developing liquid and tried to cover them with her hands so her photos wouldn’t be exposed to light.

“Damn it.” She groaned. She tugged at her hair as her photos went streaky and the coloring blended in together from the light. [Y/N] felt a pang of sadness hit her heart as she whipped around to chastise the person who opened the door.

Standing in the doorway was an oddly tall blond boy. His hair seemed to glow from all the light streaming in. After rubbing her eyes slightly, [Y/N] could make out the glasses on his face and recognized him from the volleyball club. Tsukishima Kei.

Always pleasant visitor. She thought sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

“What the hell are you doing just hanging out in a darkroom?” Tsukishima walked in and inspected the shelves, looking for some equipment.

“Hey! Wait a minute! You should have knocked! Because of you, all my photos are ruined!” She exclaimed, huffing and stomping her foot as she brought Tsukishima’s attention to her by acting tough.

Tsukishima tilted his head before rolling his eyes and grabbing an air pump. Tossing it into the air before catching it again. “Because of me, your photos are ruined?” He scoffed at her, his tone was condescending and sarcastic.

[Y/N] stretched her hands out and gave a quick ‘duh’ in response. Tsukishima gave her a wicked smirk that begged to be punched off of his face. [Y/N] didn’t care if she was a lot shorter than him, she just wanted him to apologize for ruining her photos.

When Tsukishima started to walk towards the exit, [Y/N] ran to block the entrance while holding her hand out on either side of the frame and looking up at him as she sneered, “You need to apologize.” Tsukishima fake lunged at her, causing [Y/N] to flinch and bring her arms to her body while he grabbed hold of her shoulder and moved her away from the door with ease.

“I don’t apologize to entitled brats like you.”

“Entitled brat my ass,” She mumbled before chasing after him. “Get back here you tall excuse for a human!” When [Y/N] realized she wasn’t going to be able to stop him with force so she swallowed her pride and jumped on his back, wrapping her legs around his waist and holding onto his neck with her arms.

“What the fu-” Tsukishima turned around, before trying to pry her off.

“Not until you apologize!” [Y/N] argued.

“I’m sorry. Now, get off of me!”

“It doesn’t sound sincere enough.”

Tsukishima thought back to all the times he had jumped on Akiteru’s back, and how his brother had managed to get him to hop off all on his own. So, remembering what Akiteru did, Tsukishima dropped the air pump and started pretending he was being chocked.

[Y/N] immediately hopped off and ran in front of Tsukishima and held onto his shoulders. “Holy hell. Are you alright?”

Tsukishima held back a smirk as he faked being upset. “No. You really hurt me.”

“What can I do to make it up to you. Hell, I'm really sorry. Like really sorry.” [Y/N] rubbed her elbow and shuffled her feet. [Y/N] rubbed her elbow and shuffled her feet in guilt.

“I’ll think of something.” Tsukishima would never admit it but in the short period of time that he had known the strange (h/c) haired girl, he wanted to be around her more. Nobody had ever had the courage, or sheer idiocy to even try and stand up to him before.

[Y/N] threw her hands up into the air and glared at Tsukishima. “Great, you asshole! Now, I feel indebted to you for some emotional reason.” She picked up the air pump and started walking down the steps towards the gym when Tsukishima called out to her.

“What are you doing?” He walked down to her with a few short strides in his step.

“Helping you. I can work off this icky guilt by helping you. Okay? Let's go.”

Months went by after that. Tsukishima and [Y/N] most definitely didn’t become friends. They just sat together at lunch and hung out at the park. [Y/N] went to all of Tsukishima’s volleyball games whilst Tsukishima went to all of [Y/N]’s art shows. So no, they weren’t friends. They were, merely, people who shared a common experience and decided to continue building upon that shared experience.

Then, news of [Y/N] moving back to Tokyo happened during their third year in middle school. Someone heard [Y/N] talking to her dad on the phone about it, and eventually it spread like wildfire. Some people were pretty upset, after having gotten to know [Y/N]. Other people just honestly didn’t care, but instead wanted in on the drama.

The drama was that apparently since Tsukishima still didn’t know that [Y/N] was moving. And the entire school wanted to see him explode when he finally found out. Which meant that hordes of people hovered around Yamaguchi, Tsukishima, and [Y/N] as they went about their days.

“Do people just actively look for ways to piss me off.” Tsukishima grumbled as he took another spoonful of his chicken noodle soup. Tsukishima felt the eyes of the people hiding to the side of the wall right behind him.

“Tsukki, I honestly doubt it's that!” Yamaguchi comforted. [Y/N] was busy snapping photos of the trees far off while Tsukishima let his eyes and mind wander as he stared at her trying to find the right angle to take a picture. His Adam's apple bobbed when she stood up and stretched her back out. She knelt back down to take a photo but lost balance and fell on her butt, she laughed lightly at herself before getting back up. Tsukishima could feel his heart pound in his chest and his face heat up.

“Are you alright? You're looking a little red there Tsukki?’ Yamaguchi took a bite of the cookie his mom packed for him, talking with his mouth full.

“I'm fine. But, hey, why have so many people been like, extra nice to L/n? A whole bunch of guys from the volleyball club pitched in and bought her a polaroid camera.” Tsukishima wished that the group of underclassmen would have asked him to help pitch in to buy the yellow camera that she adores so much. She never left it alone, keeping it tucked away in its case amongst her school bag.

“Oh? [Y/N]’s moving to Tokyo. Remember?”

Tsukishima dropped his soup, the contents spilling all over the courtyard as he tightens his fists. “What?” He growls out while Yamaguchi slaps his hand over his mouth.

Mumbling his apologizes profusely, “[Y/N] said not to say anything, Tsukki please don’t hate [Y/N], she was just doing what she thought was best- “Tsukki, where are you going?” Tsukishima slams his hands against the table and pushes off, storming to where [Y/N] was standing.

“[Y/N]!” Tsukishima never yelled at her. So, she whips her head around to see a red-faced Tsukishima. [Y/N] thought she saw smoke coming out of his ears. “Were you going to tell me you were moving, or am I just an afterthought?” [Y/N] almost drops her camera from shock. She holds it tight to her chest, cradling it as she cowers away from the raging boy in front of her.

“I was gonna tell you.”

“No, you weren’t.” He spat. He gripped her forearm to pull her closer but when he did, [Y/N] dropped her yellow polaroid camera and it shattered, glass and parts of the camera flew around the concrete courtyard while her eyes glazed over with tears.

“You jerk! Don’t try talking to me, until you're ready to apologize for being such an asshole!” Tears fell from her eyes and spilling over her face before swinging her satchel over her shoulder as she marched to the school building. Tsukishima’s hands ran to his hair, pulling it tightly as he let out a short scream that sounded like a grunt. Yamaguchi walked into the school building and he knew, there wasn’t going to be a way to comfort Tsukishima’s mood when he got like this.

[Y/N] packed up and got ready to move. Putting all of her belongings into suitcases and duffle bags. When she was putting her pictures into her collection of shoeboxes, she glanced at the ones of her and Tsukishima. Her favorite picture was one she had originally given to Tsukishima for his birthday, but she liked it so much she had her mom scan it and print out another copy that [Y/N] laminated.

In the photo, [Y/N] had rubbed birthday cake all over Tsukishima’s face. Giving him a frosting mustache and his hair mixed in with chocolate cake. She pulled him in close, and Tsukishima rested his arm over his shoulders, he gave a side smile while rolling his eyes. Then she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, getting a photo of her giggling as Tsukishima turned to face her with a blushing face and cake all over him, his eyebrows shot up into his forehead.

Then [Y/N] remembered back at how he had grabbed her arm and made her drop her Polaroid camera. In a fury, she ripped up the photo, sliding down her bed and staring at the now empty wall that was once full of pictures of friends and family.

The next day, while saying goodbye to Yamaguchi, when her mom asked where Tsukishima was, [Y/N] simply said, “We aren’t talking at the moment.”

“Are you sure? I can always call his mom, and we can wait for him to come over so he can say goodbye?” Her mom waited outside the car, but [Y/N] got into the backseat and buckled her seatbelt, refusing to say more on the matter while Yamaguchi waved goodbye to her car that had begun driving off. He hoped that Tsukishima had gotten his text message. And he did, as of right now, he was begging his mom to drive him to [Y/N]’s house.

Tsukishima ran after her parents’ car, hopping out of his mom’s car and tried chasing after [Y/N]. Before realizing, she had already driven too far that his yells for her to come back fell to deaf ears. Tsukishima fell to the ground and stayed silent as he rubbed his thumb of the package of a yellow Polaroid camera that had a simple ‘I’m sorry’ written on a green sticky note.

When his chest began to heave, and his heart felt weighed down while watching her car got out of view. Because, for the first time, he longed for someone who was now gone. Someone who was really gone. And every day over the entire summer, he beat himself up more and more for not apologizing. Because not apologizing had meant that he lost the person he had grown closest to.

[Y/N] was used to going to new schools and moving around a lot in primary school, she had to adjust to all of the changes. But high school was a big jump. A bigger jump than any other jump she had ever taken. Luckily, Fukurodani had accepted her based on both her grades and her talent in photography, saying that such a talent must be nurtured with the right tutelage and proper education. Which [Y/N] thought was just a bunch of pretentious bullshit in order to try and use her grades on their average grade scale.

Needless to say, [Y/N] started her first day. Her dad had bought her a brand-new blue polaroid to make up for what had begun to be known around the L/n household as the ‘Tsukishima Incident’. Armed with a positive attitude and her blue camera, [Y/N] took the first step out of her house and into her high school career.

Trains move fast. And the train system was just so complex and so utterly beautiful. People rush around without a second thought. [Y/N] just had to capture that. Taking photos as she stepped onto the Fukurodani train though, probably wasn’t a good idea though. Because she bumped into someone and dropped her camera. When she heard the plastic crack she cringed and she turned around to face who she had run into.

A boy. A cute boy at that. One with dark blue eyes, with green floating around them. His black hair seemed to be slightly curly, or at the very least slightly wavy. [Y/N] opens her mouth slightly to try and say something but, no words come out as the boy stares to the side of her, not meeting her eyes. [Y/N]’s first thoughts were: wow okay, he’s hot and he’s intimidating.

Akaashi sighed before muttering, “Please pay attention, you could hurt someone.” He didn’t want to stare at her, so he opted for not meeting her eyes. Taking a mental note of her broken camera, and the way she didn’t wear the school skirt but chose to wear the pants instead. Not that he would admit that he was starting at her hips, or her legs for that matter.

“Sorry!”

“It's fine. Just don’t go bumping into people again okay?” Akaashi got off the train, the girl hopping off as well.

“Yeah of course.” [Y/N] paused, wondering if this could be the amplest time to make a friend at her new school, but when she looked back to him, he was gone.

Finally arriving to class, [Y/N] slipped into her new seat, and she bounced her leg up and down. Being in a mixed class with first and second years was going to be pretty exciting. She thought about all the people she could learn from and all the interesting things she would learn throughout the year. When the pretty boy walked in. [Y/N] stopped bouncing her leg in favor of just staying frozen.

Embarrassment flooded her senses. Akaashi sits down and makes conversation with the fellow second year next to him. [Y/N] slides down her seat and tries to cover her face with her long sleeve beige sweater. When the teacher walks in and brings the class to attention, [Y/N] clears her throat lightly and sits back up. Hoping that the boy doesn’t notice her sitting in the back row.

“For the rest of the year, I’m going to assign you partners.” Students immediately turn to look at each other and whisper about being partners. “Partners that I will personally assign.” Disgruntled cries erupt for a second before the teacher shoots a quick glare onto their pupils.

The teacher lists of names, and students shuffle around to sit next to each other. With every passing pair, [Y/N] feels her heart race.

“Akaashi Keiji and L/n [Y/N].” [Y/N] looks around for a moment, wondering about this ‘Akaashi’ guy before her throat goes dry. Sitting down next to her is the same guy she bumped into on the train. Akaashi recognizes [Y/N] from the train.

For the first week the two don’t talk. Merely passing homework between themselves to correct or when [Y/N] forgot a pencil that one time so Akaashi lent one of his to her. They were resigned to this emotional withdrawal from each other. Until they were assigned a project.

“I think it should be on the history of the modern developing process for film and such.” [Y/N] throws out. Tapping her pen against her notebook, accidentally causing ink spots to freckle across the page. Akaashi takes the pen away from her, in order to stop the incessant tapping sound that was beginning to distract him from coming up with an idea for the project.

“Well, the project should be something simple and straightforward. So, how about the history of volleyball? It can be traced back clearly through the Olympics and all of the data is already there.” Akaashi titles her page with VOLLEYBALL HISTORY. [Y/N] rolls her eyes before crossing it out and writing Camera Film Development History. Akaashi pulls out another piece of paper and titles it with the volleyball one. To which [Y/N] wrinkles her nose, before crossing it out and putting her idea down on the paper.

“Stop it.” Akaashi grumbles.

“Never.” [Y/N] writes her idea down and rushes up to the teacher. Akaashi shoots up and grabs her by the hand, pulling her into his chest.

Akaashi promised he would never use the trick Bokuto taught him, but considering the dire situation he was in, he decided that he had no choice. Leaning his head close to hers, [Y/N]’s eyes widened as she moved her head. “Let’s use my idea, Princess.”

[Y/N] fake a gag before slipping out of his grasp. “Ew, no. Never do that again.” When she tries to go to the teacher again, Akaashi groans before pulling her away again. “Let go of me!” She states, trying not to raise her voice.

“Never.” Akaashi mimics her tone from earlier. And [Y/N] turns her face into an image of disgust.

“I said to let go of me!” [Y/N] kicks Akaashi’s shin, making him yelp out in pain. The teacher, having been aware of their argument from the beginning, just sighs and sends them off to the principal’s office.

Akaashi isn’t angry, he’s just upset. But because of a wild and reckless first year, he is the one being punished. Even though [Y/N] is also going to the office, he feels like he’s the one being criticized. He wants to protest and say that she was the one who kicked him, and she was the one who refused to do a compromise with him.

[Y/N] bites down on her tongue as she sits outside the Principal’s office. It's only the second Monday of the year and she is already in trouble, so much for making a good impression on others.

Regardless, through the months that pass, Akaashi and [Y/N] still argue. They don’t physically fight; they just bicker incessantly. The seats in front of them and behind them were vacated once the students had realized their fighting wasn’t going to stop.

[Y/N] tried her best to fit in. But when she was informed that there wasn’t going to be a Photography club, she felt deflated. But when a pair of girls stood around the entrance of the school trying to hand out fliers, [Y/N] too the opportunity to say hi.

The girls, that [Y/N] was now informed of as Yukie and Kaori, asked her if she would be willing to be a manager for the volleyball team which [Y/N] happened to be familiar with, so she agreed. The two girls invited [Y/N] to start training as a manager during a training camp, to which [Y/N] happily agreed to as well.

The training camp had started off well enough. All the third years had started off introducing themselves and had politely begun to ask about [Y/N] and her likes as well as her dislikes. Akaashi spotted her before she spotted him. He groaned and pulled Bokuto aside. “You have got to be messing with me, right?” Akaashi ran a hand through his hair before toying with his hands.

“What do you mean Akaashi?” Bokuto folded his arms while he tilted his head to the side.

“She’s insufferable.” Akaashi stated, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I dunno, [L/n]-kun seems really nice.” Bokuto tapped his chin while shrugging.

“I had to go to the principal's office because of her, remember.” Akaashi leaves out the finer details of the reason why he went to the office though, figuring that Bokuto didn’t need to know all of the information.

Bokuto walks back towards [Y/N] before calling out Akaashi, “She might be different outside of school, you never know ‘Kaashi.”

Akaashi leans his back against the brick wall. Exhaling deeply and closing his eyes. He doesn’t even notice when [Y/N] walks up to him and inspects his jersey. When she taps his shoulder, Akaashi flinched a bit before sighing deeply to calm his nerves. He tries to walk away and [Y/N] immediately grabbed hold of his hand.

“I'm sorry it feels like I'm invading on your life. But the third years are all really nice to me.” [Y/N] holds her hands behind her back as she digs the tip of her shoe into the ground. “And I was wondering if we could actually have a civil conversation about our project. I'm willing to compromise now, if you are.” She looks at him with puppy dog eyes.

How can Akaashi have it in his heart to deny her? When her tone got ever so soft when she talked about the third years being kind to her? Akaashi doesn’t like the way his heart bubbles up at her actions.

“[Y/N]?”

Tsukishima drops his duffel bag, his arms going limp at the sight of her with a second year from Fukurodani and wearing its uniform. And he didn’t like the sight of her smiling since the last memories of her he had were of her with wet eyes and rage. Tsukishima rushes to pick up his bag. Yamaguchi, who had seen the whole scene unfurl, ran after Tsukishima.

Once Tsukishima had stopped, now hiding in the bus, Yamaguchi had finally caught up with his friend. Yamaguchi grew tired of the way he could dance around the topic of [Y/N]. She was their friend, the three of them grew up together. “Tsukishima. What are your feelings for [Y/N]? Tell me the truth.” Yamaguchi crossed his arms and Tsukishima looked up at him with a blank stare, his mouth opening and closing like a fish.

[Y/N] only saw Tsukishima for a moment before he rushed away. She looked back to Akaashi, whose face was slightly red but he still had a blank look plastered on. She had a choice to make. Go after her broken friendship with a childhood friend, or stay with the new and intriguing project partner.

Either way, she knew that there would be trouble ahead.

Routes: Wit’s End || Partner in Crime

[sunshines-and-tatertots]

Y/N’s affair (Part 1?)

By: The 4 payasos.

This was a little something where you write something and one of your friends continue it, so it’s kind of weird lmao. Horribly edited and it’s just embarrassing, quite frankly.  My friends irl don’t know I posted this. 

God, the things cheese could do to you. Feta, Brie, Gouda, the sheer variety of cheeses drove you to the brink of madness. In fact, the very thought of cheese caused a surge of warmth through your body and clouded all sense of reason. "I should call him...." you thought.  

Reaching out to your phone, you called the person you were daydreaming about, Dominos. The things he could do to you- oh god. You call him, and after three rings he answers. "Hello?' he said tentatively, his voice clear yet inquisitive. 

You clear your throat. "Hello, Dominos? Yeah, remember when you said you'd give me 20% off my garlic bread? Well, I wanna cash the offer. I like bread"

The man on the other end replies slowly but carefully. "Y-Y-Yes. I'm sorry to ask but is this (Y/N)?" You look at the phone surprised he noticed your voice. As you think more deeply you realize it is none other than Levi. As you still desire bread you hang up and call your local Papa John.

Surprisingly, Papa Johns picked up the phone immediately. "(Y/N), I've been waiting for you call for quite some time now, why did you keep me waiting?" The man on the other line said, lust lacing his every word as his deep register evoked unknown emotions deep within you. 

"Papa..........please....give me the breadsticks....I'm begging you... Please Papa," you replied.

 The man on the other side of the phone went silent for a few moments before saying, "Yes I know, (Y/N), I know how much you like our breadsticks." You could feel his breath fan over your body, turning you hot, "Do you want anything else that's not on the menu?" 

"Yeah," you said, your breathing getting more rapid by the second. "I would really..." 

"Go on, don't be shy," Papa John said slyly. 

"I would really love some potato corner French fries. specifically, tater tots that are bbq flavored and curly fries that are sour cream and onion."

Papa being caught off guard looked at the phone "Yes, the fries but anything else more breadstick like?" You start to gasp at the thought of it as your cheeks turn a rosy pink.

"Papa...please...I can't wait for any longer..." you managed to gasp. 

"Oh (Y/N)," his long, veiny fingers trailed down his bulging adam's apple and down to his sharp collarbones. "The things I would do if you were right here, in the pizza-making shop. The flour sticking onto those rosy cheeks of yours, the sticky dough attached to your clear skin, and the saucy tomato paste hanging out of the corners of your mouth..." Papa John's replied.

You could feel your body getting hot over the sinful things he was telling you, "You know we can't go on like this, you and me. We aren't fated to be together." You could hear a sigh from the other end of the phone, "You will always come back to me for more, I know you will.”

Your blush deepens, cheeks red as the tomato sauce papa so lustfully described. your mind was racing, the thoughts coming too fast to count. You take a few deep breaths before you continue, knowing full well that he heard them. you could almost feel his grin through the receiver. "Yes papa, I will always come back to you. you know how much I love a medium pizza with mushrooms on top and a side of cherry coke"

You knew deep inside that wasn't the only thing you wanted but you stopped yourself there because you knew things weren't going to end up the way you wanted to. 

All of a sudden, the wooden door burst open, revealing your husband: Pizza Hut. "(Y/N)! I knew it! I knew you were having an affair with my worst enemy!" he exclaimed. 

"Fine, you were right. I only married you in order to get closer to Papa John's. You were never able to get my order right or provide the perfect thickness of the crust to me! Your breadsticks are stale and soft, while his is rock hard and juicy. Why would I ever devote myself to a man that fails to satisfy my needs?!" You screamed. 

However, while both of you were lost in the midst of your argument, you failed to realize that Papa's Johns was smirking all while listening on the other side of the phone.  

This is what he was planning all along. He knew how fragile their relationship was and this was the perfect opportunity for him to grab the dream woman for him. To beat Pizza Hut once and for all, by stealing his woman. It was worth it too. He knew that he had her all over him. The things he could do once he had her was too much for him to think about. He knew their relationship was about to end, and he would be able to snatch her up.

It somewhat irked you. you wonder if he liked you at all, as the person you are. you wonder if he saw you as nothing but a prize, as a way to get back at his fiercest rival. you wonder if you had been nothing but a pawn to him this entire time. alas, these are not pleasant thoughts, and they leave your head almost as soon as they showed up. he had his benefits: the coupons, the free drinks, and sides. it’s not like you felt anything for either of them, after all. you, too, sought a prize. The prize being the things he gave you at night. Every morning waking up you thought just one more chance. Even when you felt used, you pushed through for that prize.

His garlic parmesan scent lingered around your bedroom, further angering your husband. "I have always known of your true intentions, but some part of me wished that you would look at me the way I looked at you. I truly loved you (Y/N), no matter how many times you may use me, no matter how much I want to hate you, my heart still yearns for you." Pizza hut pleaded. The room was silent, the once lustful atmosphere dissipated and time seemed to have stopped. Where did you go wrong in life? Why must the cheeses above curse you?

 You could feel your heart stop. You were torn between 2 men, one of them who truly loved you and one who was using you. You had no idea who to choose. The silence was terrifying and you could hear your own heartbeat growing louder. Did you even know who you wanted? Did it even matter? You didn't care for either of them, you just wanted the snacks. Papa John can hook you up with fire ramen at three in the morning and that's what matters. 

You look at pizza hut, whose bright green eyes were lined with silver tears. They pleaded with you wordlessly, begging you to stay. How could you resist? You lean in close and you see hope spark in them. Distantly, you hear Papa John let out an annoyed huff on the phone. You brush the hair back from pizza hut's face. "Hmm, you're kind of ugly and you only stock regular coke, not the cherry kind. Bye-bye" turns out, resisting those eyes was very easy.

You turn to walk away and from a distance, you hear Papa john chuckle. Just as you think that you can resist you run back into his arms grasping pizza hut's face. Just as his green eyes lit up with hope, a sharp sound sliced through the tense air. A crimson red hand-print replaced his pale, crusty skin. Your hand was throbbing, but that did not stop the grin that spread across your face. 

"You are a fool to think that I would return to a man like you. I will admit, you were fun, but the two of us were never meant to be. Get your head out of the clouds and realize that there is someone else out in the world that is waiting for you. Did you think that I did not know that I was a mere rebound at the beginning of our relationship? I know that time has passed, but your foolishness has left you blind to the world around you." you exclaimed as the wind in your hair soared. "Now, this is goodbye, Pizza Hut, this was fun while it lasted." 

Tags: @tiger1719 @fullmetalfangirl21

[thisgirl-writes]

Professor’s Assistant - Part 2

Summary: College Junior, Sophie starts to develop a crush on her Political Science professor. Will it drive a wedge between her boyfriend Cody and her? Will it stay just a silly admiration?

Word Count: 1,700

Warnings: Swearing

Part One

~~~~~~~~~~

The first assignment wasn’t anything too difficult, at least not for you. Cody thought it was hard, and of course waited until the last minute to even start it. He had made a habit of procrastinating and then asking you for help. You usually would help bail him out, but this time you felt different about helping him.

“Cody I told you not to wait to the last minute to write this” you scolded him

“I know you did sweets, but can’t you just help me out? I mean aren’t you done with yours?” he asked

“I’m not done with mine. I am still working on it” you lied a little bit. You were technically done with it, you were just editing it. You had never lied to Cody before and you don’t know why you just did.

“But you always help me out sweets” he whined

“I know Cody, but I help you IF I am already done with mine, unfortunately for you, I am not done yet, and I don’t know if I will be done in time to help you out on this assignment this time around, I’m sorry baby” you apologized to him, you looked up just in time to see him roll his eyes

“Yeah, whatever. I guess I will just do it myself. I will just start the semester off bad”

“Cody, I said I was sorry, but I am still working on mine too! What do you want me to do, stop working on mine and do your assignment for you?” You said sarcastically, which Cody did not pick up.

“Well I mean, I’m not anywhere close to finishing mine…” he said as he stared at you.

“Unbelievable Cody, unbelievable” You say as you get up and head to the bedroom of your apartment. “Maybe if you put half as much effort into your work as you did putting it off to the last minute, maybe you would have to try and convince your girlfriend, who by the way is here on a fucking academic scholarship, to do you work for you!” You yell as you shut the door, knowing that he was too lazy to get up off the couch and follow you.

You had finished your paper, but you were still pissed at Cody for trying to convince you stop from finishing your paper to do his for him. The assignment wasn’t even hard, it was the first assignment of the year. You heard Cody moving around in the living room, so you decided to let him think you were asleep, before you know it you had actually fallen asleep. The sound of the door clicking shut woke you up, you didn’t open your eyes.

“Sweets? You still awake?” you heard him ask. You could have answered him, but you just kept silent and kept your eyes closed. You felt him get into bed and you could hear his phone going off every so often. He had probably told his buddies how big of a bitch you were being for not doing his homework for him, and they were all probably agreeing with him about you.

His friends never really accepted you, you always felt that they just tolerate you, which did wonders for your self-esteem. Sure you all would hang out together, but you always felt like they didn’t want you there, you had nothing in common with them. When you would bring it up to Cody, he would just say that you were overreacting and he would then change the subject, so you just stopped bringing it up. You shook the thoughts out of your head and you felt yourself drifting back to sleep.

After what felt like a restless night, your alarm went off. You groggily dragged yourself out of bed to get ready for the day. You made sure that you printed your assignment off. You briefly thought about being a ‘good girlfriend’ and printing off Cody’s assignment too, afterall you knew the passcode to his laptop. Cody was still sound asleep, he would only take about 20 minutes tops to get ready for the day.

As you typed in what you thought his password was, you are greeted by a “Wrong password” error message. You were confused, but just thought that just maybe typed it wrong and blamed it on the fact that you haven’t had your second cup of yet. You were useless until you had at least 2 cups of coffee. As you went to try again, you heard Cody’s alarm go off, so you just give up and leave it up to him to print it off.

“What are you doing?” Cody asked you as you go to close his laptop.

“Oh hey, morning hun. I was just going to print off your assignment for you, but I typed the password wrong.” You open your mouth to make the joke about how you are useless before your second cup of coffee when Cody starts speaking.

“Let me guess, you’ve only had one cup of coffee” he said sarcastically.

“You know me so well” you smile as you walk over to hug him, but he brushes you off.

“You gotta stop with the lame ass predictable jokes. That is not even funny. Did you ever think that maybe I just changed the password?” 

“Oh, I didn’t know you changed your password” is all you could think of as a response.

“Well maybe you don’t always need to know what's going on in my life Sophie.” He snapped.

“I was just trying to be a good girlfriend and get it printed off for you, sorry for trying” you mumbled under your breath. Cody just ignored you and proceeded to pour himself a cup of coffee.

Not too many more words are exchanged between the two of you that morning. Your class schedules did vary a little, but you did have the majority of your classes together. Before you knew it, it was time for 307. You hadn’t talked to Cody since you two left your apartment that morning. You pushed it aside because you needed to focus on this class instead of fighting with your boyfriend.

“Good afternoon class! I hope we are already to get some learning today!” Professor Evans greeted the class as he clapped his hands together. Almost like he was excited to teach the lesson today. You saw Cody roll his eyes. You were shocked when he leaned over to whisper to you.

“Do you see all these girls drooling over him. C’mon he isn’t even attractive” Cody said

“I don’t know, I mean he is kinda cute” You didn’t realize what you were saying or who you were saying it to. You felt your body temperature rise as you looked over at Cody as he had raised an eyebrow at you. “I mean in like a weird old guy way, if you are into that kind of thing” You backtracked.

“Oh my fucking gosh, not my own girl!” Cody huffed out.

“Class, please pass your assignments to the left to the end of the row. I will collect them that way” Professor Evans announced to the class. Saving you from your own humiliation from you accidentally telling your boyfriend that you  found your political science professor attractive. As he made his way around the room collecting the assignments you saw all of the other girls in the class doing exactly what Cody had pointed out, they were drooling over him, and you couldn’t blame them, because you were too. 

“Oh before I forget again. I am in need of a teaching assistant. Your grade on this first assignment will also play a factor in my decision making process. For those of you that are interested, please either see me after class or email me. You can find my email on the syllabus that I gave you last week.” You sat up in your seat a little bit straighter when he mentioned he needed an assistant. “I know TA positions are typically given to graduate students, however, since this will just be help with my 102 and 104 classes, I am bending the rules”.

“What the fuck? Are you really going to go for it?” Cody asked you quietly

“Why wouldn’t I? He might have connections that can help me out with internships and after graduation” You told Cody.

“Yeah okay, He probably just wants a TA so he can get it on with them in his office” Was Cody’s response as he rolled his eyes.

“Cody!” you smacked him hard on the arm. Since he wasn’t wearing his coat, and everyone had gotten quite, the faint sound of the smack echoed slightly through the class room. You felt you chest and your cheeks get red as everyone, including Professor Evans, turned and looked at you and your idiot of a boyfriend.

“Excuse me. Is there a problem here?” Professor Evans asked as he focused in on you and Cody. Cody just sat there and shrugged his shoulders.

“N-no sir. No problem here”  you somehow managed to get out.

“Okay good, now please focus. This will probably be on a test or something” he said as he smirked, earning a mixture of giggles and sighs from the class. You just glared at Cody as you sunk down in your chair for the remainder of class.

You could tell class was almost over when he put the chalk down and stopped writing what he was saying. You started putting your notebook and textbook away.

“Alright guys, I will have this back for you probably next week. I will also be a super cool guy and not give you any assignments until you get these back. That way you can get a sense of my grading style. And that’s all I got for today guys. Have a fun weekend!” 

As you stand up to put your coat on, you started to try and say something to Cody. As you open your mouth, he just looks at you.

“Not right now Sophie. You’ve already caused one scene in class, we don’t need another one.” is all he said as he starts to walk out of class.

You are at a loss of what to do, but you know it won’t be pretty or fun when you get back to the apartment. As you walk out of class you have to walk right past Professor Evans. You know he said to call him Chris, but you felt that was just a formality for outside of class, you were still in class, technically. When you got to his desk, he gave you a small smile. Almost as if he saw what just happened between you and Cody. It wasn’t the same smile that he gave when he greeted the class, or when he saw you and Cody in the coffee shop. This one was different, it was almost like he had sympathy or pity for you and what just happened. You mustered a small smile back, and hurried out of class. You knew an argument was going to happen as soon as you and Cody got home, you just wanted it to be done and over with as soon as possible.

~~~~ Next

[wevegottogetaway]

A Meaning of Love

It’s been barely two months since Harry and y/n moved in together, and yet, they feel like they’ve never seen less of each other before. The past few busy weeks have forced their routine into a high tempo of quick morning encounters, even quicker lunch break phone calls and countless half-asleep take-out dinners (few nights ago, y/n had been that close to face-plant in her soup had Harry not tenderly rubbed her back and urged her to ‘finish your soup, love, befo’ I take yeh to bed’). 

By the time Friday finally rolls around, they are still both swamped in unfinished projects and boring paperwork that nobody really wants to sort out but that has reached its procrastination limit expiry date. And the worst is, even in the midst of this perpetual race against time, they still find some to miss each other and yearn for a quiet and relaxing evening.

Looking at the fancy clock in her office, y/n realizes it’s 7:26pm and she’s the only remaining worker on her floor (or probably all of them for that matter). Her head is throbbing and she has to read every sentence of the manuscript in her hands at least 3 times in order to get even the most remote idea of its meaning. 

Exhausted, she dejectedly throws the document back on her desk before leaning back in her chair and harshly rubbing her face with her hands. She finds herself thinking of Harry, counting how long it has been since they last shared a couple-y moment. She just misses it. The intimacy. The idle talk, the deep conversations, the laughter, the cooking sessions, the movie marathons, the other kind of marathons…just the time to share and simply be together. Recently, it’s been all about coordinating their schedule to the best time-efficiency possible and she absolutely loathes it. 

‘Fuck that’ she thinks as she starts gathering her stuff. When she’s done saving her work and turning off the computer, she makes her way to the elevator while pulling out her cellphone. In a matter of minutes she’s ordered food from Harry’s favorite place and is already on her way to pick it up. The frown previously etched on her face is finally morphing into a soft smile. She just wants to spend a casual evening with him, make him feel better after the hectic week they’ve had and maybe convince him to prolong said plan throughout the week-end too. 

Still at the studio, Harry thinks he’s gonna lose his last hanging nerve if he doesn’t figure out what in hell is missing in the bridge of his new song. It’s 7:35pm and he’s been playing the damn thing since 8 this morning but nothing’s working. The pressure and the fatigue have rendered him inspiration-less and simply left him in a slump. His head feels fuzzy, his thoughts are jumbled and no matter how much he puts his all in it, he knows nothing creative can spring out from stress and sleep deprivation. So he pauses the audio and turns to his fellow songwriters/musicians with a sigh. "Sorry guys, think we should call it a day. My brain’s fried anyway."

They all nod and make their way outside of the studio after sorting everything out. "Don’t worry, man, we’re gonna figure this out. It’s probably best we stopped now anyway, it’ll give us a fresh perspective coming Monday." Mitch tries to reassure his friend. 

"Hope so, yeah. I don’t know, I just…Righ' now, I just wanna go home an’ clear my head of everythin’."

"You’re right, it’s getting obsessive in there, and that’s never a good way to make music. ’S gotta be more natural than whatever that was" he says pointing his thumb back towards the building they just left.

"’S not just that though. Things are a bit crazy at the moment, an’ it’s like…I miss y/n in a weird way, yeh know?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, we just moved in together a few weeks back, right? But we barely see or have time fo’ each other. Her work’s keepin’ her busy as well...” It seems like he’s gonna add something so Mitch doesn’t interrupt his thoughts. “It’s like missing someone that is right next to you" Harry finally confides and it feels like some weight is being lifted off his shoulders with the confession. He’s been nurturing these longing feelings for a while now but had yet to express them out loud. 

"Tell ya what, Harry. It’s the week-end, take advantage of it, man.”

"Yeah, think ‘m gonna go get some food an’ maybe flowers. She’s been workin’ so hard lately, just wanna give ‘er a nice evening." It’s his turn to pick up dinner anyway Harry thinks, and there’s a flower shop right across from her favorite place. Maybe they could just take off for the week-end too. Go someplace tranquil and far away from the city’s hassle. 

That’s how half an hour later he’s finally pulling up on their street, take-away and sunflowers buckled in the passenger seat. Taking a long breath along with the rest of his purchases, Harry makes his way to the front door. When he finally enters their home, he’s immediately met with one of the most precious sight he could have hoped for: y/n in her sweats, humming to Here Comes the Sun as she gathers plates and cutleries to set the table. Harry feels already better and makes a bee line to his love with a wide smile adorning his lips. 

"‘lo, love. Missed yeh today."

She looks up at the sound of his voice. "Hey, you. How was your day?" But as she’s about to melt in his embrace, she realizes he’s carrying items of his own. "Wait, did you get dinner?" she asks somewhat worriedly. 

"Yep, I got yeh your favorite and these-" he hands her the bouquet, "are for you as well."

Now. When Harry imagined her reaction, he didn’t exactly picture y/n’s current expression. He’d thought maybe he’d be greeted with a ‘aww that’s so sweet’ hopefully followed by a kiss and the biggest hug in history. Or perhaps a blush creeping on her cheeks since y/n isn’t the best at receiving compliments and sweet gestures (getting her all flustered has become Harry’s favorite hobby ever since he realized that).

What he didn’t anticipate however, is the mystical look in y/n’s shiny eyes right now, like she was processing a hundred thoughts per second. She isn’t saying anything either. Just staring at him with love and wonder painting her irises. 

"Love?" Harry tilted his head slightly on the side in sign of inquiry. Then y/n just chuckled and took his cheeks between her small hands, completely bypassing the bouquet and take-out still hanging from his fingers.

"Thought it was my turn to get dinner," she smiled at the qui pro quo. "I got you your favorite too. And some poppies." That’s when Harry noticed the bag with his favorite restaurant logo printed on it, seating on the kitchen counter besides a vase full of freshly cut poppies (his favorite as well). 

Aligning his gaze back with hers, Harry awkwardly shifts around to place the food and the flowers on the counter by their side before engulfing y/n in a tight hug. His smile has grown tenfold and as he presses his forehead against hers, he thinks he couldn’t possibly fall deeper in love with her. So without further ado, he traps her lips between his and brings one hand to her neck. The kiss starts slow, eyes shut and hearts on the edge of imploding, savoring the moment. But then a small whine leaves y/n’s throat and it’s teeth colliding, breathed interweaving in-between, nose smudged against each other, and fingers kneading into heated skin. 

The break is sudden and filled with their erratic breathing. It’s the ridicule of the situation that sends them laughing: both of them buying dinner, the result of a simple miscommunication. It’s an honest mistake really, they’ll just reheat the second take-out tomorrow. But it’s also both of them going out of their way, out of their exhaustion to get something special for the other. The desire to make a little gesture because days are rough and as a team they get through that by uniting moral support forces. It’s the intimacy y/n was craving so much. The small details Harry knows about her and she about him, and the fact that even through the madness of it all, they always seem to go back in sync.

"I miss you so much Harry" y/n finally says while tucking her nose in the crook of his neck. She just wants to feel as close to him as possible, breathe him in, and never let go. And really, Harry’s not complaining. He just squeezes her tighter against him and presses his lips on her forehead for a moment.

"I love you, y/n. How ‘bout no work this week-end, hum? Just yeh an’ me, wherever you wanna be" his lips are still brushing against her skin.

"Please," is what she answers before leaning back to stare at his pretty face with a soft smile. "I love you too." 

➪ Masterlist

Hey guys, hope you liked that little piece. It is actually inspired by a true story; a so highly stereotypically French one, that I had to edit it for narrative’s sake. If you care to hear about it (no offense taken if you don’t!), prepare yourself cause I’m about to drop some serious French cultural knowledge on you. 

There exists two ways one French fellow can eat a baguette: there’s the well-cooked team who likes it golden and crusty (like my Mum), and then there’s the not-so-cooked team who likes it soft all over (like my Dad). The basics being now established, we may proceed with the real story.

One time, both my Mum and Dad were having such a busy day that they forgot to agree on who would buy bread for dinner (I did warn you it would be awfully French). They ended up both buying some, laughing at the situation once they met at home. But see, now when my Dad recalls this — in appearance — insignificant moment of their lives, he says that in that moment they’d made love to each other. Because when they got ready to eat, they realized that my dad had bought a well-cooked baguette for my mum while she had bought a not-so-cooked one for my Dad. And yeah, my Dad can be a hopeless romantic sometimes but he’s kinda right, isn’t he? Love is about putting the other above ourselves and making them feel special with the little things like giving up your favorite type of something just so your significant other can have it their favorite way. 

Anyhow, sorry if I bored you with my story (it is 3:52am as I’m writing, if you need some kind of explanation), I just thought it was something sweet to share. Please tell me what you think, I’d love to hear from you!

Take care xx

[spaceiplier]

SPACEIPLIER: Black Rain

“Well, this should be exciting,” Mark said, taking a seat in the cockpit and patting his pockets for the keys.

“What do you think it’ll be like?” Ethan asked, leaning on the back of Mark’s seat.

“Probably exactly like what we’ve heard,” Tyler answered, tossing the keys to Mark, who barely caught them. “It’s covered in radiation patches, it’s always raining, and it’s super dark because of all the smog.”

“But there’s the nice parts too, right?” Ethan frowned, sitting down as the Barrel began to lift off the ground.

“We’re not going to the nice parts,” Mark replied, setting the coordinates. “Thraxal said the plant we’re looking for only grew in the old cities. We’ll have to be super careful while we’re there, so no running off and exploring, okay?”

“Says the least careful person on this ship,” Tyler teased.

“Oh, shut up,” Mark shot back, pretending to be offended. The coordinates finally loaded, and soon the Barrel was speeding towards one of the most dangerous planets in the galaxy.

Earth.

Mark readjusted the gas mask so it fit more snugly over his face, looking over at his crew who were all doing the same, minus Ethan. The windows of the Barrel were finally clearing up after flying through the thick cloud of smog covering the layer of atmosphere over the planet. The city outside was overgrown with plants, and a flock of dark-colored birds cawed loudly before taking off towards the east. Tyler was right. It was hardly bright enough to see outside, and light rain drizzled down from the filthy clouds above.

As soon as the door opened, Mark was hit with a stench he was sure he’d never be able to get out of his mouth. He gagged and forced himself to take a step outside. The rest of the crew followed; the only one seemingly unbothered by the stench was Ethan.

Ethan looked up at the sky, holding out his hand. Black water collected in his palm. “The rain is black.”

“Pollution,” Tyler responded, his voice muffled through the gas mask. “I imagine fresh water’s probably pretty hard to come by.”

Amy pulled her arms around her, shivering. “This place feels wrong.”

Mark took her hand and held it tight. “It’s kind of weird to think that this is where everything started for humans.” Thunder boomed in the distance, and Mark jumped in surprise. “We should get this over with as quickly as possible. I don’t want to be caught in a downpour.”

Tyler pulled up his map, letting the terrain fill it. The map wavered and collapsed a few times. Tyler frowned, tapping at the projector. “It’s bugging out.”

“Probably the radiation,” Mark said, grateful for the protective clothing they all had on. “It’s gotta be messing with your tech.”

Ethan pointed at the city where they needed to go, “It’s only going to get worse that way. There is more radiation coming from there. I doubt any of our tech is going to work in there.”

“Do we have any other maps?” Mark asked, turning to look at Tyler.

“No. We’ll just have to guess,” Tyler answered with a shrug. “We at least know it’s in that general direction. Thraxal said it would be about a day’s walk from the landing site.”

Kathryn began handing out backpacks. “Don’t lose these,” she warned, lingering at Mark. “We don’t know how long we are going to be out here, and I don’t think that fresh water or food will be easy to find.”

Mark took his, slinging it over his shoulder. “Let’s move out.”

The ground was uneven. No clear paths, and earthquakes frequently shifted the terrain underneath their feet. The trees moved with the earth. Landmarks changed as they walked. The only true reference point they had was the Barrel behind them.

“How does anyone ever find their way around here?” Mark muttered, watching an entire building collapse in the distance.

“Nobody lives here,” Kathryn answered. “Only Earth Elitists, and they’re in the bubble cities.”

A dull roar in the distance reminded them of the incoming storm.

“Are any of the nearby structures safe?” Mark asked anxiously as another peel of thunder shook the sky. “We might have to take shelter if the storm comes today.”

Amy looked at her own map of the terrain. “There are some stable spots near the edges of the city. Also, it looks like the only buildings collapsing are the weaker, taller ones. The ones lower to the ground should be safe.”

“Let’s find a place to stay the night once we get that far,” Mark said. “We don’t know how long this is going to take, and I don’t want to get caught outside in a storm like that.”

The polluted clouds flashed with lighting.

They moved closer to the city. All of them were feeling the effects of the planet. The earthquakes, the storms, and the dilapidated buildings filled them with a sense of dread. They managed to reach the outskirts of the city, staring into them and looking for suitable shelter.

Ethan shook his head as they walked along. Kathryn came up beside him.  “Are you okay?”

“The radiation is messing with my head, I think,” Ethan said. “Everything feels weird, and it's making it hard to think.” Ethan’s eyes flickered white for a second, before returning to normal. “I turned off some of my functions that would be most affected by the radiation, but I don’t think I’m going to be much use. Whoa!”

Ethan staggered, barely being caught by Kathryn. He blinked, movements sluggish.

“Is this what being drunk feels like? ‘Cause whoa,” he slurred.

“Do you think you’ll be able to manage? Nothing’s getting damaged?” Mark asked, looking worried as Kathryn helped Ethan lean against her.

“I should be fine once I get used to it, I think.”

“I hope so.”

As they grew closer to the city, the sky began growing darker, faster than Mark would have liked. Pulling up his map, though, everything was glitchy. At one point they attempted to retrace their steps back to the ship, but they only ended up going in circles. Their only landmark were the crumbling towers in the distance.

They might as well find shelter for the night.

Something growled from the darkness. Mark turned, stepping protectively in front of his crew. Kathryn helped Ethan stagger back, while Tyler and Amy widened their stances. Mark pulled out his blaster, ready for whatever creature emerged from the dark corner.

A large dog-like creature with distorted features and disgusting-looking wounds dragged itself out of the darkness. Foamy saliva dripped from its gaping maw. Blood seeped from its multiple eyes, and it walked with a severe limp. It growled at the crew, but didn’t seem intent on attacking. Its back right leg was twisted and mangled.

“Don’t move,” Mark breathed.

The dog sniffed at them before baring its broken teeth. It let out a short bark and limped off in the other direction, letting out a few more yelps as it left. A chorus of unnatural howls rang out from the buildings closer to the Barrel. The crew didn’t stick around to see what followed.

“What was that?” Mark asked, a chill running down his spine as he pictured the hideous beast in his mind.

“It looked almost like a dog,” Amy pointed out, shuddering. “The radiation must have affected the animals here.”

“Something hurt it, though,” Tyler added. “Something probably bigger and worse.”

“Thanks, Tyler,” Mark said, shivering. “I definitely wanted to think about how there are most likely bigger, uglier, more murderous animals on this trash planet.”

Tyler just rolled his eyes, looking into another house.

“What about that one?” Ethan pointed at one of the few structurally sound buildings. An older edition of the GAAP’s logo was printed along the side in faded and scratched-out letters. “Looks safe.”

“Let’s check it out,” Amy said.

They moved towards it, navigating through several patches where trees and underbrush had taken over the streets. The closer they came to it, the more they saw that the building was only standing because a tree had taken up residence in the center of it. Roots stretched across the walls, holding them upright. Hanging branches reached down, moss covering much of their surface area.

“Looks good to— whoa!” Mark stumbled as the ground dipped beneath him and then rose up again. “What was that?”

Tyler crouched, looking at the ground as it rose and fell a few more times. “Maybe an earthquake?”

“Weird earthquake,” Amy said. The ground trembled once more before settling back down, the cracks in the pavement falling into place.

“Let’s just get inside,” Ethan cast a worried look at the sky. “That storm is picking up speed.”

Mark pushed the door open, clicking on a flashlight. The whole building seemed to shiver as the crew stepped inside, Ethan still leaning heavily on Kathryn. Just as the door closed behind them all, another crack of thunder sounded over head, quickly followed by the drumming of hard rain against the roof. Black water ran in streaks down the windows, making it difficult to see anything outside through the glass.

The rain echoed in the gutted interior. When Mark spoke, he almost wanted to whisper so he wouldn’t break the tension.

“Let’s split up and look for rooms we can spend the night in. Don’t go out of earshot, though. Stay in touch. We don’t know if anything else is in here with us.”

The crew nodded solemnly. Ethan and Kathryn started off in one direction, while Tyler took another path not too far off. Amy and Mark took the stairs, which started right beside where the tree had broken through the floor. Rain ran in black rivulets down the trunk, turning the moss an even duller, darker shade of green.

“How long has Earth been like this?” Amy wondered, reaching out to run her hand along a root.

“Centuries,” Mark guessed.  He looked up to see if he could tell how tall the tree was. “Longer. The nuclear wars wiped out most of Earth’s population, and whoever was left went into space, if they could. We all just kind of… left it behind. Just forgot about it. Too many bad things happened here.”

Amy sighed. “Doesn’t it make you sad? This is technically our home, and it’s a floating ball of trash.”

“Not really,” Mark said, looking down the hall both ways as they reached the next floor. “I like Ventos Beta. I like space. I have no real connection to this place, and I definitely wouldn’t think of it as home.”

“Neither do I,” Amy said, “but still. This is where we came from, and it’s destroyed because of those who came before us. It just makes you think about how we really are, you know? Our base nature of taking over and using up everything in our paths.”

Mark didn’t know how to respond, but he didn't need to; Amy kept going.

“We're still good, though.  We help each other up when we fall.  We've gotten better.  Humans take care of each other now.  It's a bitter reminder, still, coming here and seeing how far we can fall.”

“I guess,” Mark said, kicking at a rock. He looked into a room, motioning Amy to follow him in. It seemed clear enough to shelter in. “I just don’t like thinking about this place. The future is what matters, not the past.”

“‘Those who do not learn their history are doomed to repeat it,’” Amy quoted, setting down her backpack. “Even if there’s nothing we can do to change it, we can still learn something from what was left behind.”

“You’re right. As usual,” Mark said, smiling.

“Of course I am,” Amy huffed, nudging Mark playfully.

Mark jogged down the stairs to tell the others they had found a room. The rest of the crew had also found rooms, near the base of the stairs. After agreeing on a time to wake up the following day, Mark returned to Amy.

They laid their sleeping bags down side by side and slithered inside. The temperature had dropped suddenly while they set up camp. The sky grew darker as night fell, and against the featureless black sky,it was hard to even see the rain streaming down the windows. Mark and Amy snuggled close, falling asleep to the dull pitter patter of rain on the roof.

“... do not look like the Hoosiwan nomads. Maybe stragglers? Bandits?”

Mark froze as he slowly regained consciousness. Someone was talking above him. Several someones. And not anyone he knew. Moving slowly, he felt Amy next to him. She muttered in her sleep.

“What do we do with them?” someone else said, sounding anxious.

Mark slowly reached down to his pants, grabbing the switchblade from his pocket. In one motion, he threw the sleeping bag off, springing to his feet and flipping open the knife. Amy let out a shriek as she was flipped over.

There were two people standing before him. They were dressed head to foot in thick, dark clothing, nearly all their skin covered. Their faces were hidden behind headwraps. Both carried long staffs, intricately carved from bone with similar looking designs. They flinched back as Mark brandished the knife at them, breathing heavily.

“Who are you? Where did you come from?” Mark demanded.

“We are humans, like you!” the taller of the two said, her voice wavering and uncertain. “We do not mean you any harm!”

Amy got to her feet, getting between Mark and the two people. “Why are you here? What are you doing?”

“We were just looking,” the shorter one said, her voice tinged with suspicion as she took her companion’s hand. “We heard of breathing earth near here, and came to see if it was true. We did not expect to find others.”

“Breathing what?” Mark asked.

Amy gestured to him behind her back, letting him know she was going to do the talking. “We don’t understand what you mean. We didn’t even know there were other humans outside of the bubble cities,” she said, motioning for Mark to put the knife away.

The tall woman’s shoulders tensed and the shorter one spat at the ground. “Bubble cities are worse than down here,” the shorter woman said tersely. “Always claim they are better. They refuse to provide any help. Sometimes they take our children. Say life will be better for them in city. Life would be better down here if they would just help us!” The taller woman’s shoulders began to quiver as her companion spoke, and the shorter one squeezed her hand, whispering something soothing.

Amy nodded sympathetically. “There are more of you?”

Her voice still shaking, the taller woman answered, “Of course. Tribes range nearly all the way to the burning lands. There are thousands of us.” The shorter girl tensed slightly.

“I thought all the humans left,” Mark said, peeking around Amy.

“Some of us were too poor to get on ships out, or were unable to reach them in time,” the tall woman explained. “Our ancestors were left behind.”

“What are your names?” Amy asked. “We are looking for something. Could you help us?”

The two girls looked at each other, then back at Mark and Amy. “We need to speak with our tribe first. We aren’t supposed to talk with outsiders,” the shorter woman said stiffly.

“At least take us with you,” Mark said. “Our equipment is broken down here, and we’re completely lost.”

The short woman hesitated, but nodded when her companion gave her hand a tight squeeze. “Alright,” she said, gently knocking her staff on the ground.

“Let us find the rest of our crew,” Amy said. “We’ll meet you outside.”

The two girls rushed outside. Mark and Amy quickly found the others and explained the situation. As they walked outside, the taller girl screamed, pointing her staff at Tyler.

“It’s a moving rock!” she cried.

Tyler looked offended. “I’m not really a rock. It’s more of a hard outer shell—”

“It’s talking!” she screamed louder.

The short one crept up to Kathryn and Ethan. “Uh, what’s wrong with your skin? Are you two painted?”

Ethan shuddered, his eyes flickering. He sagged against Kathryn.

“What’s wrong with him? Is he dying?” the taller girl yelped.

“I’m an android. I’m made of wires and metal, and the radiation is really fucking with my head. Oh, why does everything look yellow?”

“You mean he isn’t a person? He’s not real?” the tall girl poked at his cheek, surprised when it didn’t give.

“I’m fucking real,” Ethan snapped. “I’m just not human. Why do I smell carrots? Kathryn, you smell like carrots.”

“Have you never seen any other species?” Mark asked, frowning at the two girls. “Tyler’s not a rock, he’s a Graeldur. Kathryn’s a Ninkain. And Ethan’s perfectly real. He just isn’t made of any biological parts.”

“We don’t get any visitors,” the taller woman explained sheepishly. “Most of us go our whole lives never meeting anyone outside of our tribes.”

“That’s…” Mark refrained from saying ‘depressing.’ It was their culture, and he didn’t want to offend their only guide.

The shorter girl cautiously stepped back, taking her partner’s hand. “We’ll lead you back. But your rock and your… uh… cat lady cannot enter. The robot man can.”

“I AM NOT A ROBOT,” Ethan shouted, his voice glitching wildly. Kathryn clapped her hand over his mouth, preventing a fountain of nasty words from spilling out. She smiled tensely.

“Sounds good,” Kathryn said, kicking Tyler who nodded as well.

“This way,” the girls said, sprinting off farther into the city.

Mark took Ethan from Kathryn and followed the two women as quickly as he could, checking behind him to make sure Amy was still with him. Their guides didn’t make the journey easy for them, taking winding paths through crumbling streets and under half-fallen arches. Eventually Mark spotted a collection of tents with a large fire in the middle.

The girls stopped just short of the entrance, “They cannot come any farther.”

Kathryn and Tyler shared worried looks with Mark and Amy, but sat down on the crumbled wreckage. “We’ll be here when you get back,” Tyler reassured them.

They entered the settlement. The moment they stepped into the clearing, all eyes were on them. Mark felt his skin crawl under their collective watchful gaze. Nobody moved or spoke. They all wore the same attire as the girls; no skin showing, faces covered with wraps.

The girls led them to the center, where the fire burned. An older, hunched over woman sat near the fire. Unlike the rest of the gathering, her face was uncovered. As she looked up, she frowned, her wrinkles gaining more wrinkles.

“Why have you brought me outsiders?” she asked the girls, her tone impatient, but curious.

“They’re from space,” the taller one said confidently. “They are just looking for something. No harm meant or done.”

The older woman stood, helped by the shorter girl. She walked up to Mark, hitting his knees with her cane. Mark stifled a yelp. “Hmm, sturdy man.” She walked up to Amy, looking her up and down. Her eyes came to rest on her arm, which Amy self-consciously attempted to hide. The elderly woman tutted, “Do not hide your scars, my dear. Wear them proudly. You have survived terrible things, and became stronger.”

Amy let her arm hang by her side.

The elderly woman knocked her cane against Ethan’s side, causing a resounding clank. She pulled the android down towards her and looked him dead in the eyes. Ethan blinked lazily. They were so far into the radiation zones now that he was almost completely out of it.

“My great-grandmother told me stories of metal men, but I never quite believed her,” the old woman chuckled. “What’s your name, son?”

“Believe it, lady.” Ethan popped out the finger guns. His words were slurred and shaky, making it almost sound like he had hiccups. “I’m Ethan.”

“Why did you come here?” she asked, tottering around them.

“We’re looking for something,” Mark answered, shifting Ethan in his arms. “A plant.”

“A plant?” she repeated slowly, still looking over them. The others in the gathering watched her. They seemed to be waiting for her approval. She must have been the leader, or at least someone important to these people.

“We had a map,” Amy said, “but the radiation is messing with our equipment. You can see” —she gestured toward Ethan— “it’s messing with all of our technology. The land also seems to be moving around us, and we’re super lost. We need guidance.”

The woman tapped her cane against the ground a few times, and the entire campsite stood at attention.

“Nym. Arden,” she said. The two girls who had found them scampered forwards. “We leave in one cycle. Help them find their plant, then return to us. You,” she pointed at Ethan. “We will keep your metal man with us until you return. He will only become worse the farther in you travel, and I would like reassurance that you will bring my granddaughter back.”

The taller girl stepped forward. “What about their companions, Grandma? They look strange, and I fear them.”

The elderly woman huffed. “Nym, you should know full well how little appearances matter. If these humans trust them, I am sure they are trustworthy as well, despite how they may look.”

Nym nodded and stepped back, taking Arden’s hand again.

“How do we know we can trust you?” Mark said, drawing the attention of the entire community. “No offense, but we didn’t even expect to find other people here. Ethan is my friend, and I am not going to leave him behind with strangers.”

“It is a fair exchange for you to take two of our best with you and leave one of yours behind,” the old woman said patiently. “So long as you do us no harm, no harm will befall your friend.”

Mark opened his mouth again, but Amy stopped him. “Thank you,” she said, giving Mark a look. “We’re extremely grateful for your help.”

Ethan reached up; for what exactly Mark didn’t know, but he ended up patting the bridge of Mark’s nose. “I’m okay. Super okay. I’m going to stay with the nice old lady.”

Mark gave in. “Fine,” he mumbled, “but if anything happens to Ethan…” His threat trailed off. He gave the old lady a warning glance, and she smiled kindly.

“No harm shall come to him,” she assured him. “Now, the daylight goes fast this season. Follow my Keluene. They know these parts better than anyone.”

Mark handed Ethan off to one of the other tribesmen, who held the android out and away from his own body, like he thought Ethan might bite him.

The taller girl -- Nym, they now knew -- gestured for them to follow. She and Arden led them out of the camp, back to where they had entered. Mark cast one last glance at Ethan, who waved goodbye slowly.

Kathryn and Tyler jumped up when they saw Mark and Amy. They had apparently resorted to playing tic-tac-toe with sticks in the mud out of boredom.

“Where’s Ethan?” Kathryn asked, dropping her stick.

“They’re holding onto him while we go and get the plant,” Mark said, still unhappy with the arrangement. He gave Nym and Arden a frustrated look. “In exchange, we’ve got Nym and Arden as our guides.”

“I’m not excited to be stuck with you all day, either,” Arden said. “But Grandma asked us to, and this gets you off our planet faster.”

Nym attempted to calm her partner by touching her arm, but Arden stalked off.

“Sorry,” Nym said. “She does not like strangers. Nor does she like spending her time outside of protecting our people.”

“That makes two of us,” Mark grumbled.

“What exact plant are you looking for?” Nym asked. Arden had stopped a short ways away, spinning her bone staff impatiently. “There are many plants here. Several are unique to this area.”

“Xanthidium,” Amy said.

Nym went still with surprise. They couldn’t see her face, but Mark was sure she was shocked. “That… that’s incredibly rare. They only grow in the center city. We can take you there, but--” Nym hesitated and glanced over at Arden, who was starting to whack small rocks into the distance with her staff. “It’s dangerous. Many changed animals live there.”

“Let’s go then. No use wasting time,” Mark said. He started walking away from Arden.

“It’s the other way,” Nym said.

Mark turned on his heel. “Right.”

Arden and Nym spoke quietly in a broken form of Common that Mark could hardly understand, not to mention hear. They moved quickly and nimbly over the rough terrain, often having to stop to let the Barrel crew catch up. Kathryn seemed to be doing fine, but Mark, Amy, and Tyler were struggling.

“How much farther?” Mark asked, dropping down from a large cement block.

“Keep asking like spoiled child, and it will take longer,” Arden snapped, tapping her staff on the ground as they finally caught up.

“We should stop soon to eat,” Nym said, mostly to Arden, but casting a sympathetic glance at Mark. “We’ll travel short distance after that and then set up camp.”

Arden stamped her bone staff on the ground and kept walking without another word. She watched the trees now, apparently looking for something.

“Animal signs,” Nym told Amy as the two fell in side by side. “Arden is one of the best hunters we have. She will replace her mother as head huntress when she retires.”

“How does that work?” Tyler asked, ever the diplomat and curious about other cultures.

“Our tribe is led by our best,” Nym said. “Grandmother is the eldest of us, and she has the final say. She is also our healer, but will soon be passing on her title to Fawke. Our head hunter and caretaker also lead with grandmother. Ultimately, though, we are a community. We take care of our own.”

They traveled for a few hours longer. Mark felt almost dead on his feet, and the rough terrain combined with the girls’ speed wasn’t helping anything. Mark yawned, and before he realized, he was sprawled out on the ground. He stood up quickly, face red with embarrassment.

“Do we need to stop?” Nym asked, shooting Arden a glance as she snorted. “I am sorry, we should have stopped sooner.”

“I’m fine, we can keep going,” Mark said, feeling the need to stick it to Arden.

Arden huffed, “I’m going to hunt. If you’re fine, why don’t you come with me? Nym, can you help the others find water?”

Nym nodded, glancing over at Mark. “Are you sure you want to take him?”

“He might as well make himself useful. Besides, I’ll need someone to carry the kill back.”

He couldn’t see her face, but Mark was certain Nym was frowning. “Okay. Just don’t… don’t scare him.”

“Scare me? What you are doing to do?” Mark asked.

Arden huffed. “Try to keep up, space man.”

Arden took off into the forest without another word. Mark stumbled after her, Tyler shouting some encouragement. She was fast, darting through trees and over rocks like she had travelled this unworn path a thousand times.

Mark tried to keep up, but Arden grew farther and farther away. Panting and staggering, he caught up with her as she crouched behind a rock.

“Shh,” she said, holding up a finger to the wrappings covering her face.

Mark tried to calm his breathing, but sprinting while wearing a mask had been hard. Eventually his panting slowed. Arden reached for her headwrap, starting to take it off.

“There is a deer over there,” she whispered. Mark glanced up and over the rock and spotted a small black and gray deer with three tails wandering through the trees. “I’m going to go get it. Stay here.”

“Wait, how are you—” he started to ask, but she was already gone.

Her headwrap was left behind, and Mark stared with an open mouth as she dove onto the deer. Her mouth was full of fangs, and her jaw looked unhinged. It had opened farther than any normal human’s could. She latched onto the deer’s neck, tearing at its throat. In an instant, she was kneeling a small distance away from it as the deer thrashed in its death throes; she was muttering something under her breath that Mark could only assume was a prayer.

Mark walked towards her, trying his best to stay quiet. She didn’t turn as he came up behind her, just waited until the deer finally stopped moving. Arden then pulled a long knife out of her sheath and stabbed it through its ribs, ensuring that it was dead.

Arden stood, glaring at him, daring him to comment on the blood dripping from her fanged mouth. Her eyes were dark, with flecks of gold. Her equally dark hair hung around her face in short curls, framing a face that was thin with hunger.

“Are you all like… uh…” Mark gestured with uncertainty.

“No. Just some of us. The ones whose ancestors changed.”

“Is Nym changed?”

Arden nodded. “Many of our tribe are changed, my partner included. Now help me bring this back, space man.”

Mark sat quietly at their makeshift campsite, watching Arden and Nym roast the deer. Arden had wiped her mouth off with a spare cloth and put her head wrap back on before they got back, but Mark couldn’t get the image out of his mind. Out of all the species he’d seen, seeing that had felt the most alien to him.

He was half alien himself. He’d met plenty of other humans who had some alien DNA in them that changed them. But Arden wasn’t half anything. She was just human.

Mark was shaken out of his thoughts by Amy taking his hand.

“Are you okay? You haven’t said anything since you got back.”

“Yeah, I’m just thinking,” Mark said, glancing at Arden again. She was handing Tyler a large piece of venison. “There are people here. People that nobody else in the universe knows about, because they got left behind. I can’t even imagine what they had to go through. This place is horrible, and they’re stuck here.”

“They seem happy,” Amy pointed out.

Mark shrugged. “It just feels odd to see people that not even the GAAP know about.” He decided not to tell Amy about what he had seen. It felt wrong to say anything about it without Arden and Nym’s permission. Still, he couldn’t get it out of his head. These people had been mutated by being stuck here, and they had to fight every day just to survive.

And nobody knew about them.

Mark’s back was stiff from sleeping on the cold, hard earth. He sat up and stretched, and, upon looking around, realized that he was the last one awake. Everyone else sat around the fire pit, chatting idly.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” Amy teased as Mark approached the rest of the group.

“Morning. I think,” Mark said, looking at the dark, smog-covered sky.

“If you are ready, we should head out now,” Nym said. “We are close to where the Xanthidium should be.”

Mark packed up his bedroll and the group started off. It had begun raining again, but not as hard as before. The rain covered everything in a thin, translucent grey layer.

Nym took the lead as Arden fell back. She ended up next to Mark, bringing up the rear of their group. For a moment they didn’t speak.

Then Mark asked, “Why did you show me?”

Arden snorted. “I don’t know. It’s considered either a sign of openness, or respect, or hatred to show off a changed jaw.”

“Which one was it?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

They fell back into silence.

It was a while longer before they reached a new section of the city. The ground disappeared underwater. Dark, algae covered water.

“That’s it.” Nym pointed at the algae. “It only grows here. Gather what you need, and then we can head back.”

Tyler pulled a medium sized container out of his backpack and began scooping the plant into it. Mark and Amy followed suit; each ended up with a container full of the waterlogged plant.

The trip back was relatively uneventful. Mark went with Arden on another hunting trip, which ended just as violently and uncomfortably as the first. After that evening hunt, he tried to talk with Arden again, but she ignored him. They made it back to the main camp early the next day.

As they walked back into the settlement, Mark spotted Ethan sitting next to the old lady. A few children were playing around him, sticking flowers and sticks into his hair. A few were painting his face. Ethan still looked out of it, but he was laughing and smiling along with them.

“You have returned,” the elder lady said, standing up with her cane. “Did you find your plant?”

Mark held up his container filled with Xanthidium. “Thanks for the help,” he said, sounding somewhat apologetic.

Arden took Nym’s hand, leading her to stand at the edge of the crowd. Arden folded her arms and glared at Mark. Nym waved apologetically at him.

“Now you can leave?” the elder woman asked.

“We have what we came for.”

“In that case, I shall have someone guide you back to your ship. We found it near some breathing earth.”

Mark still didn’t know what ‘breathing earth’ was, but as long as they were getting a guide, he didn’t really care. A young man stepped forward out of the crowd at the old woman’s gesture, and stood a few feet in front of Mark.

“Yulnar will be your guide,” the old woman said. The man waved.

“Thank you again,” Mark said, waving back at Yulnar. “Is there anything we can do for you before we go?”

The old woman started to shake her head, but stopped when Mark began digging inside his backpack. He pulled out a large canteen and handed it to her.

“This is a filter. It can clean water,” Mark said. “I know it’s not much, but—”

The woman interrupted him by pulling him down to her level and planting a kiss on his cheek.

“May you travel safely,” she said, tears in her eyes. “You have given us an incredible gift.”

Mark smiled proudly, resisting the urge to wipe off his cheek. “No problem,” he said, retreating backward toward Amy. “Our pleasure.”

They all waved goodbye to the tribe as Yulnar led them out of camp. As soon as they were out of sight, Mark wiped his cheek off, shooting Tyler a warning look. Tyler chuckled quietly and shook his head.

They had almost made it back to their ship. It was within view when Mark started checking his bag to make sure he still had everything. He patted his back pocket where he usually kept the keys for the Barrel, and his heart dropped to his knees. He quickly patted his other pockets, and then swung his backpack off shoulders to dig through it.

“What’s wrong?” Tyler asked, the group slowing to a stop.

Mark held back tears as he looked up at his friend. “I lost the keys.”

“Where was the last place you had them?” Amy asked, glaring at Tyler, who was torn between crying and laughing. He ended up spasming with tears in his eyes.

Mark stood up and pulled his backpack back on. He tried to remember every detail of the past few days. Where could he have lost them?

“The GAAP building,” he said finally. “I must have dropped them when Arden and Nym found us. I was so concerned about them, I must have left them behind.”

Amy nodded and elbowed Tyler who was practically doubled over. “We’ll check there first then.”

Mark continued to check his pockets as they returned to the GAAP building. Tyler kept snickering behind him, and Ethan had joined in as well. Yulnar only looked confused.

“What are keys?” he asked Ethan.

“Keys are the keys to the keys.”

Yulnar frowned.

“Wait out here,” Mark said, holding out a hand to stop Amy from entering the building. “It’ll be easier for me to find them if there aren’t a thousand people stomping around.”

“Hurry,” she said, squeezing his arm and glancing up at the sky. “We don’t want to get caught in any storms here.”

Mark nodded and dashed into the building, up the stairs, around the tree, and into the room where he and Amy had slept. With daylight streaming through the cracks, it made the whole place look worse.

“Now where are they?” Mark muttered to himself. He crouched over, scanning the ground for his keys. Finally, he spotted something shining on the ground. He scooped his keys up and tucked them carefully inside his pocket. He was grateful that nothing had come in the building and picked them up.

Happily, he started running down the stairs. One misstep, however, sent him flying down the stairs. He collided against a jagged piece of debris. A piece of metal sticking out of the concrete wall snagged his arm. Mark let out a short scream as the metal tore into the limb.

“Mark!” Amy rushed into the building. “Mark, what happened—”

She stopped short as she saw him clutching his arm, blood running through his fingers. He gritted his teeth in a smile, breathing heavily as he tried not to scream again. Amy tossed her backpack off and pulled out a roll of bandages.

“Stay still,” she commanded. She tore the bandage from the roll in strips, wrapping his arm carefully and quickly. “Let’s get you back on the ship so we can clean that. Did you find the keys?”

Mark held them up in his uninjured hand.

“Okay, good.” Amy took them, then placed his good arm across her shoulders. “Let’s get back to the Barrel.”

Mark grimaced at the sizable puddle of blood that had dripped onto the rubble.

Just his luck to go an entire mission without getting hurt, then fucking up his arm just as they were about to leave.

Tyler was still snickering, but stopped as soon as he realized Mark was injured.

“What happened?” he asked, taking Mark from Amy.

“I can fix this!” Ethan exclaimed.  He attempted to take a step forward, and immediately nearly fell on his face. “Never mind. I can fix this when I’m not completely useless.”

They all hurried back to the Barrel, hardly taking time to thank Yulnar before rushing Mark to the infirmary.

Ethan sat down, taking a plug from the wall and attaching it to himself. “Okay, I’m going to try and clear all the fuzz out of my head. If I hurt you, I’m saying sorry now.”

“Just get it clean and stitched up,” Mark hissed as Ethan wiped the wound off with a healing solution.

A few minutes later, Mark’s arm was wrapped up again and tucked inside a sling. Mark couldn’t move it much as the nanobots worked to stitch the skin back together.

“This pay better be good,” Mark said, sliding into his seat and plugging the coordinates Thraxal had given them into the Barrel. He set the ship on autopilot and leaned back.

The trip back felt like it took ages, and Mark’s arm was completely healed by the time they stepped off the Barrel onto Artia.

It took them a few hours to find Thraxal’s shop. It was buried deep in the rows upon rows of stalls and storefronts. He greeted them from the back of the shop as they stepped inside.

“Welcome back!” he exclaimed, stepping into the main part of his shop. “I assume you have my things?”

Mark handed the container over to Tyler, letting him do the negotiations. He started wandering around the shop, looking at all the knicknacks stacked on the shelves. There were things here from all over the galaxy, including a few that weren’t supposed to be here, and many that seemed common. Mark leaned over one of the displays, looking at shelf of Ruk’ur jewelry.

“We agreed on 500 credits, per container,” Tyler raised his voice, glaring down at Thraxal. Mark winced. Tyler was born to do this kind of stuff. He knew exactly what tactics to use, and how to get the best solution for everyone.

“I only see one container!” Thraxal said, grinning smugly. His face fell when Tyler produced the other two containers from his backpack.

“I don’t know why you’re so upset. This will sell for more than enough to make up for what you agreed to,” Tyler said, setting the containers down with a resolute thump. “Now, about payment…”

Amy walked over to Mark. “It’s always weird seeing Tyler work out negotiations. He gets so into it.”

“That’s Graeldurs for you,” Mark sighed, examining a colorful ring.

“Let’s go,” Tyler said from behind them, tucking the credits into his jackets inside pocket. He pulled Ethan away from a shelf of snowglobes, and the crew left the store.

Something felt wrong. Chica didn’t greet Mark as soon as he stepped onto the ship, and that made him extremely nervous. A moment later, he spotted her bounding down the hall leading from the cargo hold.

“Where have you been?” Mark asked, laughing as Chica covered him in her goopy body. She barked, bounced off, and ran back down the hall, then back to Mark. “You want me to follow, bub?” Chica barked again, and Mark let her lead him to the cargo hold’s hatch.

“What is it, girl? Something in here? We didn’t pick up any changed rats, did we?”

Chica only whined at the door.

Mark opened it, just in time to see a large green tail slip behind one of the crates.

“Hey, Amy?” Mark called. “I think there’s someone in storage.”

[blurry-fics]

Chapter Six

Pairing: None

Warnings: None

Word Count: 1650

Author’s Note: I don’t have all that much say, aside from thank you again for all the support. Also the Chlorine music video? Legendary.

“You’re leaving?” Matthew asked as you packed another shirt into your already stuffed suitcase.

“Yep.”

“Where are you going?” he asked.

You stood up and brushed a bit of dust off your knees, “I already told you where I’m going. I got a job as a touring photographer for a local band.”

“Are you sure this is safe? I mean you met these guys… when did you meet them?”

You rolled your eyes, “Matt, would you stop acting like you suddenly care about me? You’ve done absolutely nothing but make my life miserable for the last three weeks and now that I’m actually doing something to make myself happy, you’re acting like I’m going insane.”

“You’re going on tour with two guys that you barely know. Doesn’t that seem a bit, I don’t know, weird?”

He followed you as you walked into the office and grabbed a couple cables for your camera and laptop. It was the same thing that he had been doing since he got home from work and saw you packing.

“Just stop, Matt. My life doesn’t affect you anymore, so stop acting like it does.”

“Yeah, but your parents would kill me if I let something happen to you.”

You finally stopped what you were doing and turned to face him, “Would you stop treating me like a child? I can make my own decisions. Besides, anything is better than having to spend another day here with you.”

This finally got him to shut up. He sulked off to the bedroom, finally allowing you to finish packing in peace. Since you wouldn’t be coming back to this apartment, you had to find a way to get every last one of your belongings into three suitcases. It was proving to be a bit of a challenge, but you didn’t mind. You were just happy to be leaving.

Tyler and Josh arrived right at six. You opened the door and invited them inside while you finished tying up your shoes and packing up the last few things that you had almost forgotten. Matthew appeared out of the bedroom to see what was going on. His eyes went wide as he spotted Tyler and Josh just inside the door.

“You must be Matthew,” Josh smiled.

Matthew nodded slowly and turned to look at you. You smiled innocently.

“So, this is who you’re going on tour with?” Matthew asked.

“Yep, this is Tyler and Josh,” you said, gesturing to each of them.

“Nice to meet you,” Matthew smiled.

“I wish I could say the same,” Tyler said, causing you to quickly shoot him a look. Beside him, Josh was trying his hardest not to laugh.

“Do you need help with your stuff?” Josh asked.

“Yeah, actually. If you could each take a suitcase, that would help a lot.”

The boys walked over and each took a suitcase before walking out into the hall. Matthew stood frozen in place, watching as everything unfolded. You stood up and grabbed the final suitcase.

“This is it,” you said to him.

“Bye, I guess,” he shrugged.

You walked over to the door, resting one hand on the knob, “Oh yeah, one more thing.”

“What?”

“Please never contact me again,” you said before closing the door and walking out into the hall.

Tyler and Josh were waiting for you in the hall, so you fell into step with them.

The tour bus was parked on the street outside, taking up more space than was legal, you were pretty sure. Josh walked up and put in the code on the door.

“4579, remember that,” he said, pointing to you.

You nodded, repeating the number in your head a couple times. It would probably be a good idea to write that down somewhere. Josh opened the door and walked inside. Tyler gestured for you to follow, which you gladly did.

The inside of the tour bus was much nicer than you expected. There would be plenty of space for you to comfortably edit photos, which had been one of your main concerns. Plus the couch looked much comfier than the one in Matthew’s apartment, which would be a nice added bonus.

“Alright, time for the tour,” Josh smiled, setting your suitcase off to the side.

“Welcome to the main part of the tour bus,” Tyler said, holding his arms out for added effect. “This is where we hang out, play games, and eat.”

“It’s really nice,” you said, taking a moment to look around.

“Don’t tell anybody else, but this is the super secret snack cupboard,” Josh said.

He stood up on the couch and pulled open one of the cabinets. It was packed with various chips, cookies, and sugary drinks. Knowing the boys, they had probably gone to the grocery store last night and picked out tons of snacks on a whim, not that you were complaining.

“Shouldn’t that be a bit more hidden?” you asked. “I feel like you can’t really sneak any snacks without the whole tour bus knowing.”

“Look around you,” Tyler laughed. “Where else is it supposed to go?”

You turned, looking for any other more secretive spot that could possibly host all of their snacks. It seemed that every open space was already crammed full of supplies and other people’s stuff.

“Yeah,” you sighed. “I guess that is the only spot.”

“Exactly,” Josh said, closing the cabinet. “You’ll get used to not having space soon enough.”

You nodded. Tyler was already moving along, obviously eager to continue the tour.

“Here’s our bathroom,” Tyler said, smacking the door. “I advise using this as few times as you possibly can. It’s a pain.”

“Noted,” you said.

“And back here are all the bunks,” Josh said, pulling back a curtain.

“It’s where we sleep when we aren’t lucky enough to score a hotel room. Or if you need a little mid-day nap.”

“I take a lot of those,” Josh laughed.

“And this one here is yours!” Tyler grinned, pulling back the curtain on one of the middle bunks.

The boys had taken the liberty of covering the little walls of your bunk with dozens of printed out pictures of the two of them. They both started cracking up as soon as they saw the disappointed look on your face.

“Another thing to be aware of, there are lots of pranks on the tour bus,” Josh grinned.

“I should have expected that,” you sighed.

“Plus you get to deal with Josh below you and me above you,” Tyler explained. “And then that’s it! That’s our tour bus.”

“It’s really nice,” you nodded. “I won’t mind spending the next few months here.”

Josh laughed, “You’ll get tired of it pretty quickly. Hotel beds will start to feel like heaven.”

“That’s hard to believe, but I’ll take your word for it.”

Tyler’s phone began to ring, so he stepped off the tour bus. You and Josh walked over to the couch and sat down.

“Are you excited?” he asked.

“Oh yeah,” you smiled. “This is going to be amazing. The only concern I have is that I haven’t really done photography at a concert before.”

“We can run some lights and stuff for you at soundcheck tomorrow. That way you can get the hang of it before the actual show.”

“That’s perfect! Thank you so much.”

“It’s no problem,” Josh shrugged. “I’m excited to see the shots that you get.”

You could feel yourself blushing a little bit at his compliment, “Thank you. I really hope that I don’t let you guys down.”

Josh shook his head, “You aren’t going to let us down, Y/N. You have obvious talent.”

You wanted to argue, but figured it was no use. Instead, you settled for a, “Thanks.”

Tyler walked back onto the tour bus, phone still in hand.

“That was the tour manager. They want us to get going soon, so we should pack up.”

Josh nodded and turned to you, “Time to learn how to lock up the bus.”

You spent the next twenty minutes alternating between following Tyler and Josh. They showed you all the things that needed to be done before you left: securing the cabinets, packing up everybody’s suitcases, and locking doors, among other things. It seemed like there was a million little things that needed to be done, but they explained that it wasn’t as stressful when there were more people to help out.

“Now what?” you asked.

“We’re waiting on a couple more people, and then it’s time to leave,” Josh smiled.

Your stomach twisted a bit when Josh said that, although you were pretty sure it was more excitement than nerves. There was so much of the country that you had yet to see, and now you were going to hit some of the biggest cities in a matter of months. It was hard for you to believe that just last week you had been on your ex’s couch thinking that you would never even be able to get out of Ohio.

Ten minutes later, a whole crowd of new people arrived on the bus. Tyler and Josh introduced each of them to you, explaining exactly what it was that each of them was in charge of. You shook each of their hands and tried your best to put names to faces.

“Are we ready?” the bus driver called.

Tyler looked around at everyone, who nodded or put their thumbs up.

“We’re ready!” he answered.

The engine roared to life, and before you knew it you were pulling away from the curb. You sat on the couch and looked out the window up at the apartment building that you had called home. Now you would never have to see it again.

“This is it,” Josh said, taking a seat on the couch next to you. He leaned down to see what you were looking at.

“Yeah,” you smiled. “This is it.”

Taglist (Let me know if you would like to be added!)

@svintsandghosts @a-stumpsexuals-world @ohprettyweeper @jigglypuff1999

[comicteaparty]

October 4th, 2018 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party chat that occurred on October 4th, 2018, from 5PM - 7PM PDT.  The chat focused on Finding Home by Hari.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- THURSDAY BOOK CLUB START!

Good evening, everyone~! This week’s Thursday Book Club is officially beginning! Today we are discussing Finding Home by Hari~! (https://tapas.io/series/FindingHome)

Remember that Thursday discussions are completely freeform! However, every 30 minutes I will drop in OPTIONAL discussion questions in case you’d like a bit of a prompt. If you miss out on one of these prompts, you can find them pinned for the chat’s duration. Additionally, remember that while constructive criticism is allowed, our focus is fun and respectfully appreciating the comic. All that said, let’s begin!

QUESTION 1. What is your favorite scene in the comic so far and why?

keii4ii

I don't know if this counts as a "scene," but I really liked seeing the flowers bloom on Chepi from his emotions.

Superjustinbros

Aww~

Also hello there!

RebelVampire

yeah i thought that was a really interesting and unique detail. but also felt kind of sorry for chepi cause i mean, thats a dead give away youre feeling an emotion. cannot hide anything. cannot be a tsundere that says its not like i like you or anything

hi SJ~!

Superjustinbros

Thanks for the welcome, Rebel~

keii4ii

I wonder if it's possible to lie with the flowers, like how some people are able to fake tears/ blushing/ etc when they're an exceptionally good actor/liar? Probably not the case with Chepi, though

Superjustinbros

Maybe, or each mood gets represented by different kinds of flowers

RebelVampire

yeah i dont forsee chepi being the best liar persay. but maybe. and tbf have we seen any other dryad do it? this may be a unique feature of chepi because chepi has a unique situation

Superjustinbros

Maybe

RebelVampire

my favorite scene is the one where chepi speads to a bug and janek is like what. but chepi doesnt register that its not the language thing but the fact hes talking to a bug.

i also like in that scene how real the convo was. where janek sounds unintentionally ignorant and kind of racist, but not out of malicious intent. just out of the fact janek never really thought about it before.

keii4ii

Yeah, there's been quite a few examples of non-malicious ignorance

as well as other kinds of misunderstandings

I'm really curious about how they met. This seems to be a relatively new relationship, as in they weren't like... longtime friends or anything, so the beginning of it may still have a lot of relevance

mathtans

Made it. That was a real interesting way to get across some of the language stuff for the universe too, I thought.

RebelVampire

yeah ive been wondering that myself. how the two even met up in the first place. although it seems like they had some form of acquaintanceship

mathtans

A lot of their conversations are pretty realistic.

Seems like they just met because the chef was trying to get home?

RebelVampire

yeah it could be as simple as they were in the same town. chepi was like "i like helping ppl i will help this person"

cause chepi is a good dude

who does good dude things

except for the part where he jeapordizes his own health

thats a bad dude thing

mathtans

Yeah, he's had a rough go of it.

keii4ii

There's probably a little more to that, or at least that's the impression I get

I mean, it seemed like he wanted Janek's company for personal reasons too, even if they weren't Compelling Super Important Goals

Superjustinbros

Christ, definitely not a good thing

The jeopardizing your health part

mathtans

One of the scenes I particularly liked was early on. Where the one guy was "filling the silence" by talking a lot. It was an interesting visual in how it was laid out, and I've been on both sides of that... wanting to fill what I feel is an awkward silence as well as just wanting to enjoy stillness.

There might be a little more to it, but I'm not certain either of them are keen to acknowledge it.

keii4ii

Weird. I started reading this comic when it was still pretty new, and this scene I remember reading isn't there anymore. O_o

I wonder if it was deleted because of not fitting with the creator's vision anymore, because the impression I got from that scene was rather different

RebelVampire

that could be. i think a print volume was kickstartered and that is generally the time when heavy editing occurs

mathtans

Oh? You mean the flower blooming one? Because I remember seeing that...

I also looked at the holiday bonus that was linked away, incidentally. The mistletoe one. That was amusing and touching.

RebelVampire

i also liked that scene too, math. the one with the silence filling. but more than that i really appreciate the understanding that happened between the two. in that chepi didnt mind janek was busy rambling on and on and on. cause i understood how janek felt in feeling awkward about filling the silence too

keii4ii

No, I remember this scene where one of them is talking to some soldiers?

mathtans

Rebel: Right, that aspect of it helped it to stand out for me, I think. One of those times they had an understanding, almost unspoken.

keii4ii

(I could be remembering it wrong )

mathtans

In a flashback, I guess...?

RebelVampire

yeah i dont remember any scene with soldiers. it couldve been an extra of some sort? cause i generally dont look at extras

keii4ii

Yeah, it's not there. I might be mixing things up, unless the comic was rebooted at some point

RebelVampire

thats okay. i like to think its opportunity to speculate

cause there probably is something more

cause despite saying it, even i find it more believable there was something else going on besides chepi is a good dude

QUESTION 2. Throughout the comic, Chepi is shown to be a somewhat anxious person due to past experiences. How do you think Chepi came to be born in the first place? Do you think it has anything to do with why Chepi was encouraged to not like humans? What do you think happened exactly between Chepi and Ishaan that made the relationship have such a traumatic impact on Chepi? Do you think it was a bad relationship from the start, or do you think there were genuine, mutual feelings at the beginning? Do you think the person helping Chepi to publish his works is really altruistic, or is said person just out for their own gain? Lastly, do you think Chepi will be able to overcome all his trauma (and will Janek help or hurt these personal issues)?

keii4ii

TBH I've seen zero reasons to trust that dude

mathtans

Which one?

Superjustinbros

The publisher?

RebelVampire

idk how i feel about ishaan. i wanna give ishaan the benefit of the doubt at least for the beginning of the relationship. but even when ishaan was being all impressed by chepi i got sleezy impressions.

mathtans

As far as Chepi being born... fun fact, in the prologue, at first I thought maybe we were seeing Chepi's father. And, like, he was born of two guys or something, like that's the only way to get a mixed race type.

RebelVampire

LOL. well i mean, not impossible. we are dealing with fae and such.

mathtans

Ishaan's that smoking guy in the flashbacks...? (I'm so bad with names.) I figure there had to be something initially other than "here's an easy mark". But it morphed into something else. Also, profound effect due to his first romantic rejection, that's gotta hurt more than being rejected from the university (and even being shunned in the library).

RebelVampire

yes smoking guy who chepi dated is ishaan

i wanna say that maybe ishaan didnt start with bad intentions. but i also think he might have been attracted to chepi for the novelty of it. cause then he could brag to all his friends about his cool significant other

granted not sure if that logic matches up with the fact ishaan wanted chepi to look more human

so it could be the exact opposite in that ishaan genuinely liked chepi but did not like chepi was half dryad. and ishaan dealt with that in the most toxic way possible

mathtans

Except I don't think he could brag either, as his friends would say he was hanging around with a weirdo freak.

That last theory possibly works.

keii4ii

I get the impression that even if he was genuinely attracted to Chepi, he was always the type of a guy who manipulates and gaslights people whenever given the opportunity

mathtans

keii: There is that. Guy should just get his own oranges.

RebelVampire

i get the impression that ishaan is used to just getting what he wants and is some spoiled rich guy or something. so yeah, manipulation and gaslighting very probable

although i also dont trust the person chepi is using as a cover to publish his papers

that person rubs be the wrong way

cause the convo just seemed really manipulative

mathtans

That's kind of funny though, because Chepi is also a rich guy who prefers to do his own thing. Maybe that's partly why they ended up together.

I'm okay with her (I think it was a her). True that they might be getting more out of the arrangement, but I think it comes from a good place. Also, Chepi has access to the basement books, which seems like a decent thing to do.

Also, I want a backpack like that. O.o

RebelVampire

yeah at the end they havent done anything evil yet. so i could be be overly suspicious. but chepi sure is getting the short end of the stick and it makes me sad and hurts my poor heart

mathtans

He does, yeah. I think he's kind of closed himself off in order to deal with it.

Superjustinbros

That seems reasonable

RebelVampire

i do think chepi is gonna learn to deal with his trauma better. cause i mean hes already taking those critical first steps of talking about the problem a bit. not all the way, but hes said more than he probably would have previously

keii4ii

Yes

mathtans

I wonder if he'll manage to deal with his crowds situation too. (I know that feeling, though not to the extent of being triggered or anything.)

RebelVampire

the crowds one may take more time ironically imo. just because the issue behind that is harder to fix. since even if chepi was like "lets go cold turkey into a crowd," it is more likely his fears will get reaffirmed

Superjustinbros

Perhaps.

Seems like a fear that’s hard to remove anyways

mathtans

Yes, though he's got the travelling companion now, so small steps.

RebelVampire

yeah although that may forever be his comfort level. and i dont blame him for that cause he may just be an introvert who prefers setups like that. cause even with the dryads he seemed very much a soloist

mathtans

True.

Superjustinbros

Same.

mathtans

Also means less making demands on him.

RebelVampire

QUESTION 3. Janek and Chepi grow ever closer throughout their journey, though some issues seem to get between the two. Do you think the relationship between the two will ever become something more, or will trauma and other issues continue to get in the way? Even if they do become romantically involved, do you think it would work out? What about when the two reach Erkesh? Will their relationship last (whether romantically or as friends) even then? Or, will Chepi simply move on to his next destination? For that matter, do you think the two will even make it to Erkesh? Additionally, given the title of the comic is “Finding Home,” what do you think that means for each character and their personal journeys? In other words, what is “home?”

Superjustinbros

There's people that struggle lots with groups

mathtans

(Ones he'd be inclined to help with.)

I feel like they're building towards a relationship, a healing one, so I'd be a bit surprised if that doesn't happen. There'll still be bumps along the way though, for sure.

Like, they keep finding out things about each other that alter their perceptions.

Superjustinbros

Yea

mathtans

Also, home is where the heart is?

RebelVampire

part of me would be surprised if they dont cross that threshold from friends to something more. cause they keep bonding and the chemistry is super strong. but on the otherhand, this comic feels a lot like a journey wherein i feel the destination is gonna throw me a bit. so i could also see them not being able to. or ya know, there being a dramatic fakeout where chepi leaves janek in erkesh but then comes back being like "what was i thinking"

keii4ii

I feel that it's not about forming a relationship (though that's a strong possibility). It's about finding "home" and if both of them grow and reach a point where they simply become more comfortable with the self, separately, I can see them going separate ways too...

mathtans

I suppose that could happen (the fakeout), but really rooting for Chepi to have a happy ending. Versus, saying, dying in Janek's arms while saying "I'm finally happy".

keii4ii

omg

mathtans

I can see them going separate ways, but somehow not before being intimate. Could be the shipper in me.

RebelVampire

well tbf the comic is genred romance so...

mathtans

Chepi might totally sacrifice himself to deal Janek though.

RebelVampire

theres kind of high expectations here for some romance

mathtans

(Speaking of, I like his dry sense of humour... "come down from there, it would be a pain to heal every bone in your body" or words to that effect.)

RebelVampire

im gonna hope this comic doesnt go chepi death route. mostly cause despite its serious issues, its a pretty light-hearted comic.

keii4ii

It's got very gentle, soft vibes

Superjustinbros

Ye

Not every comic needs death

mathtans

I don't know if I'd say light-hearted? It has chuckle moments to be sure.

My opinion, anyway. Yes, vibes.

RebelVampire

imo the sense of home in this comic's case is a place where you feel comfortable and can be yourself. and if that place happens to be wherever another person is, well then...

yeah light-hearted might not be the right word but on 3 hours of sleep its the word i got O_O

mathtans

Home is where the wisps aren't.

I feel you, I only got about 4 hours sleep.

RebelVampire

i will also accept that answer. home is where the wisps arent

cause those wisps are creepy

now if there is tragedy in this comic, the thing i could see happening is they get to erkesh....but erkesh isnt there anymore

and janek has nowhere to go

home is gone

very sad

ah i forgot to say i do like chepi's dry sense of humor. partly cause i like that he has a sense of humor despite seeming so serious all the time

Superjustinbros

r.i.p. home

mathtans

Ooooh. I could see that too, that the wisps have destroyed the old home. That might be bittersweet.

His sense of humour sometimes flies a bit under the radar for me. Like, when he talked about studying since he was a baby I was like, 'dryads do that?' then I realized I was a species-ist.

RebelVampire

yeah i have to agree that sometimes it takes a moment for chepi's jokes to register as jokes. but then i have a good laugh.

mathtans

Because there's times when he's not, like when he's just going for a swim and all.

The hair discussion was pretty interesting though. It's funny, in a way growing the hair out long seemed like an emotional, human thing to do, and the guy had been trying to get Chepi to be more human.

RebelVampire

yeah i liked this little act of rebellion for chepi. cause i mean it feels really realistic too. because lots of ppl getting out of bad relationships do trivial things like this, even though for them the emotional impact is significant

i really liked the swimming scene in general though

cause i think something about it really illustrated the individual diffs between janek and chepi

and how both their selves and upbringings brought about different attitudes

QUESTION 4. Though not the focus, the comic’s world has a lot of interesting aspects that affect the characters. Do you think things will improve for Fae within the world, or will Chepi always suffer from negative policies and views from both sides? Do you think spending time with Janek will give Chepi new insight into how he can better help people? Alternatively, will spending time with Janek show Chepi a way to convince more Fae to help mortals? Speaking of the supernatural, do you think the Wisps will continue to be a danger to Janek and Chepi? Do you think the amount of Wisps about is normal, or do you feel it’s foreshadowing something sinister is about? Finally, Chepi at one point mentions a magical surge that has been growing. How might this affect the world in general, and do you think Chepi will be the one to figure out what’s going on?

mathtans

Yeah, definitely from two different worlds.

Oh yeah, the magical surge... maybe that does explain the wisps too? And if that map he found is really old, maybe it's all happened before, like decades ago, and it stopped surging after the Imperials lost or something.

Superjustinbros

I'd say maybe a mixture of both? Things will improve, but our protagonists will slowly encounter new problems.(edited)

RebelVampire

true, the world is rarely ever perma fixed.

the magical surge really has me interested because something about it was so ominous

mostly the abandoned house

and cause it made me suspicious that besides the destroyed village they really havent come across any form of civilization

or other ppl

what if theyre in some time paradox in the future and the world is destroyed

mathtans

So it becomes about fleeing to another realm, which was foreshadowed in that talk about whether Chepi even could.(edited)

RebelVampire

i dont remember this convo but im gonna gasp anyway

Superjustinbros

Paradoxes why must you exist

RebelVampire

idk. it just felt like something suspicious was going on. and i do feel the wisp situation has an abnormal quality to it. at the very least i dont think they go around village destroying on the regular

mathtans

He said they were old too, right? Could be relevant... Chopi's mom was over 200 or something...

It's interesting how we're gradually learning more about the world, including the urban centres, while we're pretty far removed from them. Incidentally, I think Janek would be dead a few times over if not for his friend, what with wisps and poison mushrooms and no map.

RebelVampire

yeah. like i wonder what janek intended to do if chepi hadnt offered to guide the way. would janek just be stuck at wherever theyre traveling from?

but yeah i really like how the world is being told in the story

because its never in a way thats separate from teh characters

if its being told, its somehow relavent to how the world has effected them

mathtans

Maybe he'd have to have taken public transit.

Yeah, it's all connected. But the characters have their own families and backstories thought out, like Janek's sister.

RebelVampire

LOL chepi and janek take forest route, but then the whole time theres like an express train system that couldve had janek to erkesh in an hour

that would be hilarious

very unfitting

but hilarious

Superjustinbros

lol

mathtans

"We built it a couple days after you left."

RebelVampire

back to the question, i dont think anything chepi or janek will do will actually improve relationships between humans and fae. because theyre just kind of two people...wandering a forest. so for the moment they cant make that big a world impact.

unless theyre the last two ppl in the world

mathtans

There were imperial forces and everything though, I wonder what sort of technology level their warfare was.

RebelVampire

then relations improved

mathtans

Yeah, prejudice like that is pretty deep seated. Can only change individuals on the travels, I think.

Unless the magic surge helps others to feel the emotions Chepi has.

Like, "oh crud, that's what we've driven you to?"

RebelVampire

yeah. cause at the end magical surge is pretty vague. although imo a magical surge could be detrimental to humans and actually shrink their territory. because the magical surge could be why the wisps be destroying villages

mathtans

Shrink their "territory".

Magical surge is like cold water.

RebelVampire

oh dear

since there are only some moments, i want to take this chance to talk about the illustrations. because its a sad thing they havent been mentioned because the illustrations are really gorgeous. like nature is a hard thing to draw, but here this comic just puts it everywhere O_O

Superjustinbros

Can I have some of that surge? It's super warm here lol(edited)

RebelVampire

everywhere

mathtans

Yes, that's a great point. One of those things that would stand out if it was done wrong, the comic gets it very right.

Also, that whole thing with the flowers connecting to moods, that's kind of amazing. I didn't know that was a thing.

Superjustinbros

I'd love to see more of that

RebelVampire

yeah. like the flora in general is used in a very interesting way in the comic. because usually whats shown helps emphasis the tone and atmosphere of the scenes.

and honestly i give points to any comic that doesnt shy from the backgrounds

mathtans

That's a good point. I'm not great at noticing those sorts of details.

Superjustinbros

^

mathtans

The output's been pretty consistent for that too... like, 100 pages in less than two years?

I couldn't manage that.

Superjustinbros

Anyways, good luck with the comic, Hari, you're putting together something really magical here.(edited)

RebelVampireToday at 6:59 PM

yeah. although even if the pages took longer i wouldnt mind it. the backgrounds are honestly worth it because i feel theyre integral to showcasing the world at this point

mathtans

Yup, best with it!

Also the romance.

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- THURSDAY BOOK CLUB END!

Sadly, this wraps up this week’s Thursday Book Club chat for now. Thank you so much to everyone for reading and joining us! We want to give a special thank you to Hari, as well, for making Finding Home. If you liked the comic, make sure to support Hari’s efforts however you’re able to~!

Read and Comment: https://tapas.io/series/FindingHome

Hari’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/haridraws

Hari’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/haridraws

Comic Tea Party- Thursday Book Club

Next week’s Thursday Book Club will be about Four Corners by Boniae. For participants, you have the next week to read as much of the comic as you would like~! We hope to see you on Thursday, October 11th, from 5PM to 7PM PDT for the chat in #thursday_bookclub!

Comic’s Main Site: http://fourcorners.smackjeeves.com/

Comic’s Tapas Mirror: https://tapas.io/series/four-corners

Comic’s LINE Webtoon Mirror: https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/four-corners/list?title_no=28768

[dablesretrospective]

2010 - Dables - Pretty Ugly

Time to get back to what I created this tumblr for, which was blogging liner notes for the CDs I have released as Dables in order. This is Pretty Ugly, my 4th album and definitely the first Dables album most people heard because shortly after it came out is when I started performing regularly. During this era, 2009-2010, I was still performing solo, but instead of just playing improvised noise or electronic music, I started playing songs more songs from my albums using a set up similar to Ween or Big Black. I played electric guitar and sang while my Tascam Portastudio was plugged straight into the PA, playing the pre-recorded bass and drum machine parts. I played my first “electric” show this way in December 2009 in Fountain Inn, SC at a house party with Coma Cinema and it went over extremely well. I played mostly songs from the “14 Songs” album, and a few from this disc.

Released on February 3 2010, this album was conceived as a concept album to mix pretty pop songs with ugly noise songs. The idea was to go back and forth, first track being a pretty pop song, the next being an experimental or weird/off-putting/ugly noise song. The cover illustrates this concept with combining the beauty of a sunflower, placed in an ugly toilet. That is also actually my real toilet, from my parent’s house, with plastic flowers inside of it. I took the picture and sent it to my friend Victoria Ferrer, who runs The Black Lodge, a subculture get together at various local clubs. She edited it for me, writing the text on it and coloring the background around the toilet black, and turning the flowers red instead of yellow, and I think she did an absolutely fabulous job and I love her for it. My friend/occasional-partner-in-crime with Slacker Pop Records Micheal Keller, of the band Satan in Bondage, helped me put together the inner artwork including the lyrics, and he paid to help me print and make over 50 physical copies, and he helped distribute it so I also owe a huge thanks to him. Listening back to this album reminds me of what was going on in my life at the time. I was working at a Kangaroo Express gas station, and came in one day to find out my store manager and good friend Russell Folk had committed suicide the night before. I was extremely shocked and upset by this and I ended up walking out on my shift, and quitting the job on the spot. It was my first day back from a two week vacation and I couldn’t handle the responsibility of having to be the one to tell customers who came into the store who were asking me, “Where’s Russell?" all day so after about an hour of my shift, I just up and left. I went home and wrote "Song For Russell”, which didn’t make it onto this disc but ended up on a future one called “Stuff Volume 2”. I spent the next two weeks frantically recording songs to help escape from the depression caused by the death of such a close friend. I had known Russell for over 2 years, and saw him about 5 times a week and we had become very close. This disc is most definitely dedicated to his memory, and I recorded it as therapy to help cope with my first experience of death. Besides my great-grandmother, who I wasn’t very close to, Russell was the first person I knew well to die. I still miss him very much, and this disc will always remind me of him. Anyways, on to the songs themselves.

‘Boredumb’ is one of the most popular Dables songs. It has been performed at every single show since that first electric show December 2009. Funny that this one is such a fan favorite because it took me less than hour to write and record it to completion. However this song is sort of a loose rip-off musically of Flies on My Dick by Ween. It has minimal guitar, slow, plodding drum machine, monotone vocals, and quirky lead guitar breakdown just like that song does. Although I like to think I did my own thing with that formula and I wouldn’t say this song an out-right rip-off, just inspired by the formula of Ween.

'Sober and Bored’ was the first track recorded for this album and the title and music itself was inspired by The Boredoms.

'Hang Around’ came out extra poppy because The Beatles remasters had just came out and I was listening to them non-stop and wanted to do a song with “doo-wahs” vocals on it. Besides a short, sloppy, semi-solo on the song “Who Are You?” from Slacker Pop, this track was the first “real” guitar solo I ever put on a song and I’m still pretty proud of it and I think I nailed it on the second take. Prior to this, I was pretty opposed to doing guitar solos.  Never performed an electric version of this song live before, but I’ve played it at acoustic shows several times.

'Live Forever’ was my attempt to emulate The Melvins, although it sounds little like them. The odd lyric “I want to lick your knees” was inspired by a porno I saw where a girl was blowing a guy and said “I wanna lick your knees” and proceeded to lick his kneecaps for a few minutes. I thought that was odd and hilarious so I put it in this song. The lyric “I want to see the end cause you know it will start again” means that if a person were to live forever, they would witness the collapse of civilizations and empires, only to see them get rebuilt and start again.

Along with a fellow local band Hollow Body, 'An Exercise in Isolation’ as well as portions of 'Boredumb’ was later put on the soundtrack to local independent film, “WTF?”, a horror/comedy film made by Firefly Ink Productions about a group of people on a road trip who’s car breaks down and the person who picks them up off the side of the road who proceeds to slaughter them. Clips of the movie are available on youtube.

'This is Nothing’ was a bit of a jab at the poor work ethics of my fellow bandmates in my side-project DAN, about how they wanted to play shows really badly, but weren’t dedicated enough to practice regularly. Needless to say, DAN broke up about 6 months after Pretty Ugly came out after only playing 3 shows together, all but 1 were a disaster. Although we eventually made up and became friends again, after another year or two we fell back into the same drama and I haven’t spoken to either of them in about 7 years now and don’t plan on it either...but if either of them happen to read this, I have no hard feelings toward Sid and Clayton (there’s been too much drama and we can’t get along with each other anymore but I’m not mad at either of them) and I think the music we made together in DAN was some of the most creative and fun songs I’ve ever been a part of, and I’m proud of the recordings we made together and I wish them luck with their recent project, People of Mars.

'Loop 3’ is the third installment of tracks I create using my Boss Loop Station. The first one was on '14 Songs’, and the second was on 'Stuff Volume 1’. This is probably my least favorite and is definitely the laziest one and in hindsight should’ve been left off this album entirely. Loop 4 appears on the most recent self-titled album.

“She Don’t Dig Me” was the last song recorded for this album. This song was lyrics written probably 2 years prior that I never put music to. I lifted the vocal melody of this song from Get Me by Dinosaur Jr, although in the end it turned out  Listening back to it, the audio quality on this track is embarrassing, and I remember being very frustrated with mixing it, and eventually giving up and just releasing it as-is, with several glaring technical mistakes, that hopefully nobody can notice but me.

'108’ was an older recording, recorded shortly after finished 14 Songs, but was saved for this release. At 9 minutes and 32 seconds it is the longest track I have ever recorded.

------------------------------------

one pretty song, one ugly song. back and forth. that is the concept of Pretty Ugly. love and cringe as much as you can.                                                            

Released February 1, 2010                         All music written, performed, and recorded by David Walker Track 15 is a Daniel Johnston cover

1.Pretty Ugly 2.Boredumb 3.Did You See? 4.Sober and Bored 5.Hang Around 6.Live Forever 7.An Exercise in Isolation 8.An Exercise in Stupidity 9.This is Nothing 10.Loop 3 11.Mind’s Gone Blank 12.An Exercise in Laziness 13.Afterglow 14.She Don’t Dig Me 15.True Love Will Find You in The End 16.108

Download this album for free at:

https://dables.bandcamp.com/album/pretty-ugly

[miniwolfsbane]

Copied from @andalite-angel post. Edited slightly.

A - Ships that you currently like a lot. (They don’t have to be OTPs because not everyone has OTPs.) Friendships, pairings, etc. are allowed.

Biospecialist, Marco/Rachel, Sam/Rahne, all cannon Disney Princess pairings, the two young kids Pacific Rim Uprising,  Lancitty, Evo Kurt/ Amanda,  Jott in Evo. Skyward??

B - A pairing–platonic, romantic or ***** that you initially didn’t consider, but someone changed your mind.

Fanfic writers and Evo romy, adult Jubilee x Gambit, others.

C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will.

Never gonna be big on Evo Romy ever again, will forever hate Rahne x Roberto, Sam and Rahne with anyone but each other!!

D - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t.

Evo Romy...somtimes. Because it does sorta make sense IN FANNON, but not in cannon. And Jean x Scott, because it’s so iconic, but I only like them in Evo, so...yah.

E - Have you added anything cracky crazy/hilarious to your fandom? If so, what? 

See my fan fiction.

F - What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom?

The Little Mermaid and Star Trek have been there for 95% of my life.

G - Have you ever had an OTP? If so, do you remember your first one? Who was in it?

Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask, Sam/Rahne, Ariel and Eric (first when I was 5, even though I wanted to be Ariel), Rachel Tobias (first when I was actually gettin into fandom), Jake/Cassie (Animorphs), Clark/Lana, Clark/Lois (I think??) and Chloe/Ollie, Romy (even in Evo at a point!), and now Eliza and Goliath in Gargoyles. I keep saying I’m not a shipper, but I think I’m just a subtle one that pines and doesn’t read a lot of fanfic, but my heart swells over seeing my OTP on screen

H - What is your favorite source text for fandom stuff (e.g., TV shows, movies, books, anime, Western animation, etc.)?

TV Shows and Western (superhero) Animation mostly, but also a few animes.

I - Has Tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?

I was annoyed by the Agents Of Shield fandoms behavior for a while, but I’ve never stopped liking any fandoms because of Tumblr. 

J - Name a fandom you didn’t think about until you saw it all over Tumblr. (You don’t have to care about it or follow it; it just has to be something that Tumblr made you aware of.)

SuperWhoLock, Riverdale...some other popular teen shows.

K - What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?

Tie between Sailor Moon and Gambit I guess, but I’m sure there are lots of others. Sailor Jupiter has a good arc as well, even though she doesn’t have a lot of character development TBH.

L - Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves. (Characters you’re neutral about are fair game, as are characters you merely dislike. Characters that you absolutely loathe with the fire of ten thousand suns are exempt, as there is no point in giving yourself an aneurysm over a character that you hate.)

Roberto Dacosta’s super strength power is pretty cool and he’s a chill guy. And rich. (I just realized that a lot of X-Men characters are rich, actually. Gambit, Xavier, Warren and him. Holy crap.)

M - Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.

Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Moon. TAS Rogue too, because she seems fun to hang with, and who wouldn’t like to be called “Sugah” all the time?

N - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).

MORE GAMBIT (and comic Nightcrawler) IMAGINES!! And just more love and less fan wars across all fandoms, really.

O - Choose a song at random. Which ship or character does it remind you of?

Hero by Chad Kroger. Ship: Romy or Mollyx Remy. Character: Gambit or Angel.

P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas).

For any fandom? A mad scientist and a famous baker get together after the scientist contacts aliens, resulting in a warring invasion on earth.

Q - A fandom you’ve abandoned and why.

To be perfectly honest, The Smurfs because we’re a Christain household and we found it had stuff in it we didn’t agree with. I was three.  Other than that, I’ve only given up one other fandom permenantly that wasn’t what I thought it was and chosen at a bad time. 

R - Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?

Kurt and Kitty in Evo, and Logan and Kurt is cool, but I don’t actually pay much attention to it.

S - Show us an example of your personal headcanon (prompts optional but encouraged)

Hmmm. One that isn’t too boring? Remy isn’t (wasn’t? He is married now) particular about a woman’s height and is comfortable enough with himself to date a woman much taller or shorter than he is. (Remember, Frenzy was freaking 6′7 before she got rebooted to a normal height and it was implied they had history.) For a while it was a wish of mine they’d pair him with a short gal, because all X-women are physically clones of each other, minus Rahne, Kitty and Jubilee. Blargh. Oooh, just had an idea for a new art project to make the girls look individual! ^_^

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?

Besides the above? Uh...headcannon that Remy smells good and his hair is silky to the touch and yes I’m a sick, weird little person, I know. Haha, not really. I’m not much of a headcannon person. 

U - Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.

* Gambit: Hot, suave, lit, accent, good cook, romantic, my fictional ideal man (told you, I’m sick and weird). * Sailor Jupiter: Sweet, loyal, living on her own at bloody 14 years old, strong physically and emotionally, had trouble believing/finding her feminity like me, tall (not like me!), brunette character, thunder powers. * Tuvok (Star Trek): My second crush ever, calm, reflective, hot grandpa, sarcasm galore, strong, suffers emotionally and physically, POC and like the only black vulcan that I know of, cute little boy chest, that butt (XD), frakin’ hot.

V - Which character do you relate to most?

Surprisingly, one I haven’t talked about yet and that I’m not really fandom-y about. Rapunzel from Tangled. When I saw the movie, I was attached to her immediately. I’d grown up homeschooled and at that point I’d been caregiving for one of my parents for six years at that point, unable to move out and get married and have much of a life, so I was always metaphorically in a tower too. I have childish interests, am artistic and creative, have done LOTS of self-insert art like her, and am a generally happy person (even if I don’t always show it and don’t smile enough). So, out of every character in my many fandoms, I relate to Rapunzel the most. Also, I have only 2 things of Tangled merch-the movie, the soundtrack, and a gorgeous bedspread that’s actually based on the show, but doesn’t look like it. (I don’t like it’s animation/character designs, so it’s been hard to get into it.)

W - A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.

OMG, do we have to go here? Anything over-sexualized or kinky or just plain gross/weird. (v***, gore, ect.) There’s this one X-Men:Evo artist on DA that would be brilliant, but I can’t stomach their gallery because they feel the need to do a few  v*** and bondage pics amongst otherwise G-rated pictures. *throws up* IT’S A SHOW FOR 7-YEAR OLDS!! 

X - A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.

Huge guy, Tiny girl! (but it looks...weird...in live action. *Good Luck Charlie flashbacks*.) Also age differences. Some people are put off by Usagi and Mamo’s age difference in Classic, but I think it’s cute and they were really chaste about it. Specifically, I liked the part where he told her to do well in school for some reason. 

Y - What are your secondhand fandoms (i.e., fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)? Holy crap, Pride and Prejudice and Anne of Green Gables. No one on my dash is into them though, it’s a real life thing. Long story.

Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go! (Prompts optional but encouraged.)

I have written more self-inserts than is probably healthy, but at least I’ve mostly gotten past my teenage phase of thinking anime guys are hot and it’s extended to Gambit as well. I’d much rather see him be portrayed by a living, breathing actor semi-bringing my fantasies to life than as a drawn character. Well, not that I’m not happy seeing him animated and his voice in Evo is still super hot, but that’s another thing. Anyway, on that note, I wish XM:E weren’t a dead fandom and I could get more reviews instead of just faves/follows. I get so frustrated, because I’m not writing my fics for myself, I’m writing them to finish the story and for the fans. I know OCs/SI aren’t everyones bread and butter, but when you work hard on something, you want people to enjoy and appreciate it on it’s own merits. My regulars dropped off the planet and the fandom is just not that active online. (It’s still kind of active though, otherwise the Gambit and other prints on Steven Gordon’s online store wouldn’t have sold out so fast.) I wish it had been as creative as the MLP fandom, but even that wouldn’t have saved it. Thankfully, there are a few people “keeping the faith”, like Coldfusion180 and some others. They haven’t abandoned it and people have made AMVs for it in recent years, long after the shows cancellation. I know we’ve all moved on in one way or another, but it’s still nice to see the love for the show and it’s characters going strong, even if we’re now a niche fandom, tiny, but there. And even if I don’t get another single review up until the last in the series, at least I can say I finished it, if nothing else. Even if your fandom is dead, keep supporting it. If we don’t keep the characters alive, they die and are forgotten. They need us.

https://fanfiction.net/~miniwolfsbane

[teawithnobiscuits]

La La overrated Land??

Film: La La Land

Genre: Musical comedy-drama

Directer: Damien Chazelle

Starring: Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling and John Legend

Nominated for: Best Picture, Best Director (for Chazelle), Best Actor (for Gosling), Best Actress (for Stone), Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Costume Design, Best Original Score, two nominations for Best Original Song (“City of Stars” and “Audition (The Fools Who Dream)”), Best Production Design, Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing. Jeeeez, now that’s a long list!

Okay!

So I saw the big hit, the favourite, the best and the greatest: La La Land. That everybody has been talking about. And I have to say I’m impressed. When I saw the beginning, I thought this is definitely a love/hate kind of film, and I’m most definitely going to love this! The first scene with the song “Another Day Of Sun“ is truly spectacular. The precision of the dance routine is perfect. People are jumping around on cars, a dude is on a skateboard on a car! And everyone is in-sync! The whole scene is taken in one take, it’s impossible not to smile. Everything is great. But then we meet Mia (Emma Stone) and she’s preparing for an audition. My first impression is that she seems like a very likable and fun person to hang out with. Mia is passionate about her dream of becoming an actress. She meets Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) and their chemistry is really good and flirty. Seb wants to start his own jazz bar, he’s a pianist himself, and he loves jazz. Naturally they both fall in love (shocker), and the film is all about the two of them fighting for their dreams.  

Now let’s look at the nominations this film has received: Best picture, best cinematography, costume design, original score, song, sound mixing, directing and a bunch of others. Also, both Gosling and Stone has been nominated for best actor and actress. hmmm… So, both Seb and Mia are kind of bland characters. Is this because of Gosling’s and Stone’s interpretation of the roles? Maybe! And this is where my worries begin. I thought I would absolutely love this film, and that it would be life-changing as many people has said. But! Again! Stereotypical characters acted out by good but not great actors. Now, don’t get me wrong. I really like Emma Stone as a person, and she’s actually a really talented actress. Her timing, her chemistry with other people, she is convincing with every single line she says. But I still just don’t believe it… I have to admit that I have not seen Ryan Gosling in more than maybe one or two other films. So I don't have much of his earlier work to compare with. However there is something I do miss in both of them. They do everything right, but there’s something missing! I feel like it is some sort of vulnerability in both of them that is left out. I just want them both to have a breakdown and cry when things don’t work out for them. Like a good long quality session with ugly-crying! “La La Land” is about, love, passion for art and broken dreams! Mia do show us some I’m giving up on life type of thing. However she’s always so calm… Again I feel like I’m looking at two perfect people. They’re funny, flirty, cool and confident. And their chemistry is perfection! I mean wtf! Chemistry is so important. And, I think that’s the reason why Stone keep choosing the same kind of dorky, fun manic pixie dream girl roles. She’s really good at it. But in the long term it becomes so boring. I can’t tell all her earlier roles apart from this one. It’s a shame really. Cause I think acting is all about taking chances. Have some self irony, do something different, take a risk (read: Eddie Redmayne in “Jupiter’s ascending”, the film is the most hideous, ridic thing I’ve ever seen, but hey! Kudos for trying out something that could go horribly wrong!)  Anyways, back to La La Land, I’m rambling!

Another thing about the characters. They could’ve made it a bit more now if the Jazz dude was black… I mean… It’s jazz, and Seb wants to save it… It feels a liiiittle awkward. I was very happy that there is a lot of poc extras. I keep seeing poc in every crowded scene. And John Legend is an important supporting-character. But why not as one of the main characters? I mean, jazz is for everyone, but it had been refreshing with a multi-cultured couple. This is a good opportunity to do that! I’m kind of sick of all the straight white couples. And it would’ve been excused if Gosling and Stone were like unreal, absolutely amazing. But they’re kinda bland so… blah

It sounds like I really hate this film now dosen’t it? Hahah

Guys, there is a lot of great stuff in it. Let’s take a look at the other nominations. Best music, cinematography and directing. Now this is truly something. I’ve been listing to the soundtrack so many times since I saw the film, there is some really classic, jet catchy songs in there! I can imagine in a month or so, there will be many videos of people covering the songs that’s going viral. Also the cinematography is amazing. You can just pause the film, print it out and put it on the freaking wall. There you go, art! The bright colours are beautiful. I haven’t seen such a colourful film in a long time. When it comes to the directing of the film, I think it is very Oscar worthy. It’s sharp and precise, just like in Damien Chazelle’s previous work Whiplash. I really loved Whiplash and it’s one of my favourite film. I have to say the directing is one of the reasons why. The good directing continues in La La Land, Chazelle keeps making such smart chioces. And as I said, all the musical number are so precise and in-sync! It’s insane! There’s so much going on, on the screen, but it’s never chaos. I think Baz Lurhman would’ve loved this film lol, but maybe he’s more on my side? Thinking that it needs way more heartrending and emotional feelings?

Overall, to quote Nina Garcia (I’m such a Project Runway nerd ;) “It’s clever!” the film is really clever! It has everything to become a classic and it’s probably gonna take home many awards from the Oscars. The music, cinematography and directing is so good! I really love that scene when Seb is on this photoshoot, and the photographer tells him to do these weird things. It’s hilarious! However, the characters could’ve done so much more to me emotionally. I missed the look up in each others eyes, look down, smile and blush moment! I didn’t get that fuzzy, warm, adorable feeling that I wished it had. Plus point for the ending tho, it actually did tear me up. It was a little surprise that I actually didn’t see coming since it’s such a traditional film.

Well... That’s it! 

-Angelica

[kitchenwitchsuperwhovian]

Get to Know Me...the oddball edition.

So, I was scrolling through my dash, (and had a little time on my hands), when I saw this posting. I changed it up a little from the original and I forgot who posted it first so I’m saying sorry for not tagging you in advance. I put my spin on it since most of us out in Tumblr-land have answered this or similar questions in the past. 

I have only two rules: You are to tag one person and you must answer these questions honestly, sort of... 

Just a warning though, there are 100 questions below the keep reading so if you don’t want to do that many, you won’t be wasting your time scrolling through the questionnaire forever.

@tardisspeedsterfanfiction ....I choose you!

1. What is your middle name? Something I am embarrassed about when said with my first name. Makes me sound like a hillbilly from the sticks.

2. How old are you? How dare you ask a lady such a question?! And the answer is older than I care to admit.

3. What is your birthday? In the first month of the year...and every year after that...on the same day.

4. What is your zodiac sign? A stupid song….EVERYONE SINGS when they find out my star sign.

5. What is your favorite color? Mostly dark colors. Heaven forbid you get me something pastel pink!

6. What’s your lucky number? Anything printed on money in my wallet works for me...

7. Do you have any pets? Does family count?....then no.

8. Where are you from? My parents.

9. How tall are you? Average for a person of my age.

10. What shoe size are you? Too big to find a decent pair of fancy shoes.

11. How many pairs of shoes do you own? Five-ish. Slippers count, right?

12. What was your last dream about? Making enough money to take an actual vacation instead of two days off in a row.

13. What talents do you have? I try not to kill stupid people at work and so far…..SUCCESS!

14. Are you psychic in any way? I knew you were gonna ask that….

15. Favorite song? Whatever is currently an earworm from the radio that plays continuously in my head most days.

16. Favorite movie? Do I have to pick just one? FINE! It’s….none right now cause I have no time to watch anything since picking up a second job. Adulting is hard.

17. Who would be your ideal partner? One who pays their own way instead of putting the weight of their emotional and monetary issues onto me.

18. Do you want children? Most days...YES! Those with little to no sleep…..I don’t even want to take care of myself let alone a child.

19. Do you want a church wedding? EMPHATICALLY NO!

20. Are you religious? I’m more of a spiritualist. I believe that everyone had the right to their own beliefs and practices but don’t try to force me to conform to your ideals because “My deity” believes you should be like me.

21. Have you ever been to the hospital? Unfortunately.

22. Have you ever got in trouble with the law? Not so much.

23. Have you ever met any celebrities? Met personally, yes cause of convention OPS.

24. Baths or showers? Why not both? Start in one and finish in another...

25. What color socks are you wearing? Flesh colored because they invisible for my sandals...

26. Have you ever been famous? Not something I wish for so no….

27. Would you like to be a big celebrity? Pay-grade...yes. Notoriety, paparazzi, stalkers, taxes, fake friends and family….no thanks.

28. What type of music do you like? Not much.

29. Have you ever been skinny dipping? Does taking a bath in a giant Jacuzzi count? Then no….

30. How many pillows do you sleep with? Three..so far but I am always willing to add more!

31. What position do you usually sleep in? I’m a roller so no one solid position for long.

32. How big is your house? No house, just apartment.

33. What do you typically have for breakfast? A nice big bowl of air.

34. Have you ever fired a gun? No and don’t wanna start either.

35. Have you ever tried archery? For shits and giggles at the Renaissance Fair.

36. Favorite clean word? Balls.

37. Favorite swear word? Shit.

38. What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without sleep? 39 hours.

39. Do you have any scars? Too many for such a young life.

40. Have you ever had a secret admirer? Nope and it feels stalker-ish if I did have one...or was one.

41. Are you a good liar? Most days, with enough sleep...people believe I’m a kind and caring person every day.

42. Are you a good judge of character? Eh...could go either way most days.

43. Can you do any other accents other than your own? Yea and it annoys the fuck out of my friends when I refuse to use my “normal” voice.

44. Do you have a strong accent? Not so much.

45. What is your favorite accent? Irish/Scottish but I can do Jersey in a heartbeat if you cross me.

46. What is your personality type? My own unique style.

47. What is your most expensive piece of clothing? Forty dollar shoes count, right?

48. Can you curl your tongue? No. Why would I want to?

49. Are you an innie or an outie? I like to stay indoors. I burn easily.

50. Left or right handed? Both if I’m super hungry.

51. Are you scared of spiders? FUCK YEA! I’ve been chased by the little bastards.

52. Favorite food? Anything involving cheese is a good start.

53. Favorite foreign food? Thai noodles. Hands down, you have a bowl for me...I’m yours for life.

54. Are you a clean or messy person? Clean at work (OCD kicks in HARD) and an organized mess at home.

55. Most used phrase? Son of a biscuit eater! (I usually hang around my 5-year old nephew).

56. Most used word? Fuck.

57. How long does it take for you to get ready? Most days, about 30 minutes. Special occasion...I start getting ready the night before.

58. Do you have much of an ego? Only in one aspect of my life. The rest, I’m a timid mouse with no voice.

59. Do you suck or bite lollipops? Neither. They kind suck. (ha ha ha...suck)

60. Do you talk to yourself? Most days, yes. When I answer back….RUN!

61. Do you sing to yourself? Always when at home or in the car. Shower’s a good place too.

62. Are you a good singer? No idea but no complaints from my car yet so YEA!

63. Biggest Fear? Fears are something I try not to think about cause I will likely overload and break down….in the middle of work...during rush hour.

64. Are you a gossip? I try not to be. Or so multiple people tell me.

65. Best dramatic movie you’ve seen? Beetlejuice. What?! You die in the eighties and try having a weird family with a goth kid re-decorate your house and see how you like it!

66. Do you like long or short hair? Depends on the activity? You nasty people! I mean work or chilling at home...weirdos.

67. Can you name all 50 states of America? Yep and thanks to the song from elementary school, it’s in alphabetical order too!

68. Favorite school subject? Recess cause food and friends man.

69. Extrovert or Introvert? A little of both, depends on the group I’m in at the time.

70. Have you ever been scuba diving? Not for me man.

71. What makes you nervous? Stupid decisions. Most of the time, I back out of fully committing them.

72. Are you scared of the dark? No...are you?

73. Do you correct people when they make mistakes? At work, yes. I ain’t got time for that shit. Off the clock...hell no. It’s entertaining as fuck.

74. Are you ticklish? Come here and find out. Just kidding. Don’t cause then I’ll have to punch you.

75. Have you ever started a rumor? Hasn’t everyone?

76. Have you ever been in a position of authority? Multiple times and let me tell you...adulting is hard.

77. Have you ever drank underage? Once on accident. I was 9. Thanks for the learning experience Grandpa.

78. Have you ever done drugs? Prescribed...yes. Other...HELL NO!

79. Who was your first real crush? A celebrity probably. I was young...heartache to heartache. Sorry, got off topic for a sec.

80. How many piercings do you have? Too many according to my mother.

81. Can you roll your Rs? Yea and it pisses my mom off when I do it randomly in a conversation.

82. How fast can you type? Faster than most, slower than the speedsters of literature.

83. How fast can you run? I only run for the ice cream truck.

84. What color is your hair? Currently...too many to count. I need to fix it soon.

85. What color is your eyes? Depends on my wardrobe but not black or violet.

86. What are you allergic to? Stupid people and their unending belief that they are doing just fine as they are.

87. Do you keep a journal? Does Tumblr count...then no.

88. What do your parents do? Be parents. What kind of question is that?

89. Do you like your age? No cause age is just the odometer of your life span.

90. What makes you angry? *See the above allergy answer*

91. Do you like your own name? Mostly unless someone is yelling it in my face.

92. Have you already thought of baby names, and if so what are they? Cute ones but not weird like Apple or North. Why people!? Why?!

93. Do you want a boy a girl for a child? One of each mostly so they can be raised as equals in the game of life.

94. What are your strengths? Bad judgement calls and poor money handling skills.

95. What are your weaknesses? Peanut butter...thy mortal nemesis of my thighs.

96. How did you get your name? Parents named me it cause you know….reasons.

97. Were your ancestors royalty? Stubborn, thinks they are always right no matter what, lords power over everyone in family, SO MUCH DRAMA…..maybe.

98. Do you have any scars? Already answered this my dude.#39. Look it up.

99. Color of your bedspread? Dark...like my soul!

100. Color of your room? Like every other apartment...white as hell.

[empoweredbythehumanerror]

Ch. “Girls” American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

My appearances in the office the last month or so have been sporadic to say the least. All I seem to want to do now is work out, lifting weights, mostly, and secure reservations at new restaurants I’ve already been to, then cancel them. My apartment reeks of rotten fruit, though actually the smell is caused by what I scooped out of Christie’s head and poured into a Marco glass bowl that sits on a counter near the entranceway. The head itself lies covered with brain pulp, hollow and eyeless, in the corner of the living room beneath the piano and I plan to use it as a jack-o’-lantern on Halloween. Because of the stench I decide to use Paul Owen’s apartment for a little tryst I have planned for tonight. I’ve had the premises scanned for surveillance devices; disappointingly, there were none. Someone I talk to through my lawyer tells me that Donald Kimball, the private investigator, has heard that Owen really is in London, that someone spotted him twice in the lobby of Claridge’s, once each at a tailor on Savile Row and at a trendy new restaurant in Chelsea. Kimball flew over two nights ago, which means no one is keeping watch over the apartment anymore, and the keys I stole from Owen still function so I was able to bring the tools (a power drill, a bottle of acid, the nail gun, knives, a Bic lighter) over there after lunch. I hire two escort girls from a reputable if somewhat sleazy private establishment I’ve never used before, charging them on Owen’s gold American Express card which, I suppose because everyone thinks Owen is now in London, no one has put a trace on, though there is one on his platinum AmEx. The Patty Winters Show today was—ironically, I thought—about Princess Di’s beauty tips.

Midnight. The conversation I have with the two girls, both very young, blond hardbodies with big tits, is brief, since I’m having a difficult time containing my disordered self.

“You live in a palace, mister,” one of the girls, Torri, says in a baby’s voice, awed by Owen’s ridiculous-looking condo. “It’s a real palace.”

Annoyed, I shoot her a glance. “It’s not that nice.”

While making drinks from Owen’s well-stocked bar, I mention to both of them that I work on Wall Street, at Pierce & Pierce. Neither seems particularly interested. Again, I find myself hearing a voice—one of theirs—asking if that’s a shoe store. Tiffany flips through an issue of GQ that’s three months old, sitting on the black leather couch beneath the strip of faux-cowhide paneling, and she’s looking confused, like she doesn’t understand something, anything. I’m thinking, Pray, you bitch, just pray, and then I have to admit to myself what a turn-on it is encouraging these girls to debase themselves in front of me for what amounts to pocket change. I also mention, after pouring them another drink, that I went to Harvard, and then I ask, after a pause, “Ever hear of it?”

I’m shocked when Torri answers, “I had a business acquaintance who said he went there.” She shrugs dumbly.

“A client?” I ask, interested.

“Well,” she starts nervously. “Let’s just say a business acquaintance.”

“Was this a pimp?” I ask—then the weird part happens.

“Well”—she stalls again before continuing—“let’s just call him a business acquaintance.” She sips from her glass. “He said he went to Harvard, but… I didn’t believe him.” She looks over at Tiffany, then back at me. Our mutual silence encourages her to keep talking and she continues haltingly. “He had, like, this monkey. And I would have to watch this monkey in… his apartment.” She stops, starts, continues in monotone, occasionally gulping. “I’d want to watch TV all day, ‘cause there was nothing else to do while the guy was out… and while I tried to keep an eye on the monkey. But there was… something wrong with this monkey.” She stops and takes a deep breath. “The monkey would only watch…” Again she stops, takes in the room, a quizzical expression creasing her face as if she’s not sure she should be telling us this story; if we, me and the other bitch, should be privy to this information. And I brace myself for something shocking, something revelatory, a connection. “It would only watch…” She sighs, then in a sudden rush admits, “The Opnah Winfrey Show and that’s all it would watch. The guy had tapes and tapes of it and he had made all of them for this monkey”—now she looks over at me, imploringly, as if she’s losing her mind here, right now, in Owen’s apartment and wants me to, what, verify it?—“with the commercials edited out. One time I tried to… turn the channel, turn one of the tapes off… if I wanted to watch a soap instead or something… but”—she finishes her drink and rolling her eyes, obviously upset by this story, continues bravely—“the monkey would s-s-screech at me and it would only calm down when Oprah was on.” She swallows, clears her throat, looks like she’s going to cry but doesn’t. “And you know, you try to turn the channel and that d-damn monkey would try to scratch you,” she concludes bitterly and hugs herself, shivering, uselessly trying to warm herself.

Silence. Arctic, frigid, utter silence. The light burning over us in the apartment is cold and electric. Standing there, I look at Torri then at the other girl, Tiffany, who looks queasy.

I finally say something, stumbling over my own words. “I don’t care… whether you’ve led a… decent life… or not.”

Sex happens—a hard-core montage. After I shave Torri’s pussy she lies on her back on Paul’s futon and spreads her legs while I finger her and suck it off, sometimes licking her asshole. Then Tiffany sucks my cock—her tongue is hot and wet and she keeps flicking it over the head, irritating me—while I call her a nasty whore, a bitch. Fucking one of them with a condom while the other sucks my balls, lapping at them, I stare at the Angelic silk-screen print hanging over the bed and I’m thinking about pools of blood, geysers of the stuff. Sometimes it’s very quiet in the room except for the wet sounds my cock makes slipping in and out of one of the girls’ vaginas. Tiffany and I take turns eating Torri’s hairless cunt and asshole. The two of them come, yelling simultaneously, in a sixty-nine position. Once their cunts are wet enough I bring out a dildo and let the two of them play with it. Torri spreads her legs and fingers her own slit while Tiffany fucks her with the huge, greased dildo, Torri urging Tiffany to fuck her cunt harder with it, until finally, gasping, she comes.

Again I make the two of them eat each other out but it starts failing to turn me on—all I can think about is blood and what their blood will look like and though Torri knows what to do, how to eat pussy, it doesn’t subdue me and I push her away from Tiffany’s cunt and start licking and biting at the pink, soft, wet cuntness while Torri spreads her ass and sits on Tiffany’s face while fingering her own slit. Tiffany hungrily tongues her pussy, wet and glistening, and Torri reaches down and squeezes Tiffany’s big, firm tits. I’m biting hard, gnawing at Tiffany’s cunt, and she starts tensing up. “Relax,” I say soothingly. She starts squealing, trying to pull away, and finally she screams as my teeth rip into her flesh. Torri thinks Tiffany is coming and grinds her own cunt harder onto Tiffany’s mouth, smothering her screams, but when I look up at Torri, blood covering my face, meat and pubic hair hanging from my mouth, blood pumping from Tiffany’s torn cunt onto the comforter, I can feel her sudden rush of horror. I use Mace to blind both of them momentarily and then I knock them unconscious with the butt of the nail gun.

Torri awakens to find herself tied up, bent over the side of the bed, on her back, her face covered with blood because I’ve cut her lips off with a pair of nail scissors. Tiffany is tied up with six pairs of Paul’s suspenders on the other side of the bed, moaning with fear, totally immobilized by the monster of reality. I want her to watch what I’m going to do to Torri and she’s propped up in a way that makes this unavoidable. As usual, in an attempt to understand these girls I’m filming their deaths. With Torri and Tiffany I use a Minox LX ultra-miniature camera that takes 9.5mm film, has a 15mm f/3.5 lens, an exposure meter and a built-in neutral density filter and sits on a tripod. I’ve put a CD of the Traveling Wilburys into a portable CD player that sits on the headboard above the bed, to mute any screams.

I start by skinning Torri a little, making incisions with a steak knife and ripping bits of flesh from her legs and stomach while she screams in vain, begging for mercy in a high thin voice, and I’m hoping that she realizes her punishment will end up being relatively light compared to what I’ve planned for the other one. I keep spraying Torri with Mace and then I try to cut off her fingers with nail scissors and finally I pour acid onto her belly and genitals, but none of this comes close to killing her, so I resort to stabbing her in the throat and eventually the blade of the knife breaks off in what’s left of her neck, stuck on bone, and I stop. While Tiffany watches, finally I saw the entire head off—torrents of blood splash against the walls, even the ceiling—and holding the head up, like a prize, I take my cock, purple with stiffness, and lowering Torri’s head to my lap I push it into her bloodied mouth and start fucking it, until I come, exploding into it. Afterwards I’m so hard I can even walk around the blood-soaked room carrying the head, which feels warm and weightless, on my dick. This is amusing for a while but I need to rest so I remove the head, placing it in Paul’s oak and teak armoire, and then I’m sitting in a chair, naked, covered with blood, watching HBO on Owen’s TV, drinking a Corona, complaining out loud, wondering why Owen doesn’t have Cinemax.

Later—now—I’m telling Tiffany, “I’ll let you go, shhh…,” and I’m stroking her face, which is slick, owing to tears and Mace, gently, and it burns me that she actually looks up hopefully for a moment before she sees the lit match I’m holding in my hand that I’ve torn from a matchbook I picked up in the bar at Palio’s where I was having drinks with Robert Farrell and Robert Prechter last Friday, and I lower it to her eyes, which she instinctively closes, singeing both eyelashes and brows, then I finally use a Bic lighter and hold it up to both sockets, making sure they stay open with my fingers, burning my thumb and pinkie in the process, until the eyeballs burst. While she’s still conscious I roll her over, and spreading her ass cheeks, I nail a dildo that I’ve tied to a board deep into her rectum, using the nail gun. Then, turning her over again, her body weak with fear, I cut all the flesh off around her mouth and using the power drill with a detachable, massive head I widen that hole while she shakes, protesting, and once I’m satisfied with the size of the hole I’ve created, her mouth open as wide as possible, a reddish-black tunnel of twisted tongue and loosened teeth, I force my hand down, deep into her throat, until it disappears up to my wrist—all the while her head shakes uncontrollably, but she can’t bite down since the power drill ripped her teeth out of her gums—and grab at the veins lodged there like tubes and I loosen them with my fingers and when I’ve gotten a good grip on them violently yank them out through her open mouth, pulling until the neck caves in, disappears, the skin tightens and splits though there’s little blood. Most of the neck’s innards, including the jugular, hang out of her mouth and her whole body starts twitching, like a roach on its back, shaking spasmodically, her melted eyes running down her face mixing with the tears and Mace, and then quickly, not wanting to waste time, I turn off the lights and in the dark before she dies I rip open her stomach with my bare hands. I can’t tell what I’m doing with them but it’s making wet snapping sounds and my hands are hot and covered with something.

The aftermath. No fear, no confusion. Unable to linger since there are things to be done today: return videotapes, work out at the gym, a new British musical on Broadway I promised Jeanette I’d take her to, a dinner reservation to be made somewhere. What’s left of both bodies is in early rigor mortis. Part of Tiffany’s body—I think it’s her even though I’m having a hard time telling the two apart—has sunken in and her ribs jut out, most broken in half, from what’s left of her stomach, both breasts having been pierced by them. A head has been nailed to the wall, fingers lie scattered or arranged in some kind of circle around the CD player. One of the bodies, the one on the floor, has been defecated on and seems to be covered with teeth marks where I had bitten into it, savagely. With the blood from one of the corpses’ stomachs that I dip my hand into, I scrawl, in dripping red letters above the faux-cowhide paneling in the living room, the words I AM BACK and below it a scary drawing which looks like this