#if some pictures look quite similar but with pan facing a different direction it's because we got lost!

[hedgehog-moss]

In the fir woods

#crawling along #if some pictures look quite similar but with pan facing a different direction it's because we got lost! #we ended up back in the same spot near this rivulet 3 times the woods really wanted us to stay #pandolf was delighted. like yay i thought we were going home but you decided to bring us back here again!! good choice! <3 #he is very supportive (if not very useful)

[quazartranslates]

Welcome to the Nightmare Game - CH108

**This is an edited machine translation. For more information, please [click here]**

[<<< Previous Chapter | Table of Contents | Next Chapter >>>]

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Chapter 108: Slaughter Secret Society (X)

"Good, good evening..." Qi Leren, who came out of the basement after completing today's training task, glanced over and saw Ning Zhou sitting on the sofa. The uninvited guest sat straight on the soft sofa, who knows how long he’d been waiting.

Qi Leren, who was covered in sweat, subconsciously looked down at his clothes. This time he was fine, wearing a sports vest, and finally he was not curious-looking: "I’ll take a shower and be right back!"

With that said, Qi Leren ran upstairs to first wash himself quickly.

Perched on the coat rack, the big black bird let out a strange laugh and seemed to laugh at Ning Zhou, this master of its that had been left on the sofa. The latter gave it a blank look, and under the deterrent of its master's eyes, it made a whistling sound and looked in all directions casually.

After a quick shower, Qi Leren ran down the stairs with a boiling hot water kettle, and poured Ning Zhou and himself a glass of water. The big black bird that was not entertained rattled discontentedly, and Qi Leren had no choice but to pour it a cup. Unexpectedly, the bird was brazen and pushed its luck: "I'm hungry, I want something delicious!"

It also coveted the few rations Qi Leren had left!

Qi Leren was distressed. There weren’t many "pleasing rations". By now, they had all been fed to this bird... But this was Ning Zhou's bird. Right now, he had to count on Ning Zhou for help. Alright, let's feed…

"Ignore it." Before Qi Leren took out the food, Ning Zhou made a noise to stop him.

Qi Leren retracted the hand he’d been about to feed it with in good faith.

The big black bird looked at its master resentfully, pecked his ear discontentedly, and flapped its wings to fly away.

"Your bird has character... but its very smart. What's its name and breed?" Qi Leren asked.

Even outside of the mission, where Ning Zhou was no longer equipped with the Closed Meditation skill, he was still quiet, rarely saying anything: "It has no name, the species is an eagle, and its habitat is in the Jinghai Desert."

Qi Leren's regional understanding of the Nightmare World basically comes from his playing Nightmare Game, and he vaguely remembered that the Jinghai Desert was the location of the Underground Ant City, hiding the nest-like underground world under its scorching and horrible desert, as well as the scorching Purgatory deep underground, which was a place where demons ran rampant.

There were really too few topics between the two. They’d hardly talked during the Witchcraft Sacrifice. After that, every time they met, the unique circumstances hadn’t allowed them to sit down and chat, but now they were a little embarrassed.

"If it’s an eagle, then doessn’t it speak eagle (English)?" Qi Leren told a pun.*

*{E/N: Ning Zhou says his bird is an eagle (语鹰 yu ying), and Qi Leren tries to joke by saying oh, then wont it speak the language of the eagles (ying yu 鹰语; the same characters but switched), which is a homonym for english (英语 ying yu) } 

Ning Zhou gave him a calm, blank look, giving no indication of laughing.

Qi Leren froze, forgetting that Ning Zhou was not a person from the real world. He didn't know what English was!

"Ahem, in the outside world, there is a common language called English. We sometimes use it when we talk. What is Hello, Happy, Hani... Ahem, it’s nothing special, pretend I didn’t say anything." Qi Leren felt that he had suddenly become an emperor of silence, and his heart was in tears. Why was it that he could easily talk to sinister killers when he was acting as Red? Yet now, in the face of his own kind, he often made stupid mistakes?

In fact, he didn’t know what to say to the other party. Why did he say such a thing? Ning Zhou: "...Oh."

For some reason, this silent scene reminded Qi Leren of a long time ago. At that time, he had not yet entered the Nightmare Game, and he was still an unemployed youth who was looking for a job everywhere shortly after graduation. His parents introduced him to a friend's daughter. This sister was dignified and beautiful, that is, she was a little cold. After the exchange of "um, ah, oh, ok, thank you, you're welcome", there was no more…

At this moment, the scene was similar to the picture of that blind date, except the one on the opposite sofa wasn’t quite the right gender.

"I..." Qi Leren was ready to talk about the Slaughter Secret Society.

"You..." Ning Zhou also happened to speak.

The two voices collided.

"You go first."

"You go first."

Two voices collided again, and they went silent at the same time.

Qi Leren began to sweat again. It won't work! This communication is totally impossible! It's embarrassing to sit and talk!

"Are you hungry? I'll make some fried rice." Qi Leren was really a little hungry. It would be better to communicate at the dinner table.

"I don't..." "I'm hungry! I’m so hungry! I'm starving!" Ning Zhou had just said two words when his bird screamed at the top of its lungs, startling Qi Leren.

After being interrupted by it, the atmosphere in the room was finally better. Qi Leren showed a big smile and looked at it gratefully: "If it can eat, I’ll make three servings. Cooking at home is much cheaper than eating outside. Paying the bill when you eat out hurts."

Seeing Qi Leren’s offer, Ning Zhou didn't refuse and silently followed him into the kitchen... A win.

Qi Leren’s mood became complicated when he saw Ning Zhou cutting tomatoes with a kitchen knife. It felt like seeing Dr. Lu approach him; he always felt that the skill points were a little biased.

A pan of fried rice and a pot of soup were finished quickly, and Qi Leren's craftsmanship was OK. After all, he lived alone all the year round, and he would have to eat instant noodles every day if he couldn't cook with his own hands. Ning Zhou, though, seemed almost like a chef, and Qi Leren felt distressed when he thought of his own life experience.

But there was a feeling of friendliness with this chef, and the atmosphere was much better when the two people sat at the dinner table. Qi Leren told Ning Zhou about the Slaughter Secret Society while eating, and how when he saw Ning Zhou listed as the mission goal for the selection ceremony to decide the holder, he’d almost fallen into the trap. Ning Zhou gave him a deep look.

Qi Leren choked for a moment, and he found it was easy to misunderstand, but the explanation made it worse and worse, so he had to bury his head in his food, burping from the anxiety. He was ridiculed by the eagle, who was tasting its unfamiliar fried rice.

After eating, Qi Leren revived his spirits and began to tell Ning Zhou about his plan: "The Slaughter Secret Society’s internal struggle is fierce. The Court always suspected that they could catch Kunagshan because the present keeper agent Lie Yang (Luo Yishan) had secretly leaked his whereabouts, because once the keeper dies, the memento ring will fall into the hands of the keeper agent. Right now, the ring has lost its binding. No matter whose hands it falls into, anyone can use it, but the functions of the half-field are incomplete. The acting ring holder also has the right to hold a selection ceremony to elect the next ring holder, and the new ring holder binds the ring to restore all functions in the half-field. But my presence broke his calculations. He must be worried that I’ll find you before him and sacrifice you to the Lord of Slaughter to become the new holder, so he needs to find a way to get rid of me and hold another selection ceremony. There are too many variables now. So I guess he’ll get rid of me before I finish the task. When there’s only one competitor left, whether the task is completed or not, he’ll become the ring holder. "

Qi Leren's situation at this time was undoubtedly dangerous, but he felt quite safe in this house. After all, the Court’s people shadowed him all the time. It was very difficult for Yang to kill him here. If Yang was being careful, he wouldn’t assassinate him here. The place was too unfamiliar, and his likelihood of failing would be very high. Once he failed, Red would be more vigilant.

In order to assassinate the demonized Red, it was necessary to kill him with one swift and resolute blow and end the battle before he awakened his demonization. The best way was to carry it out in the field. When you entered the field with full confidence and wanted to complete the sacrifice and seize the memento ring…

"There’s a good chance that he’ll rally his men to attack me suddenly and get rid of me after I enter the field. I’ve heard that in many selection ceremonies, it was quite common for candidates to kill each other. The Devil of Slaughter is indifferent to this group of believers, looking at them as no different from beggars. He just likes to watch them kill indiscriminately," Qi Leren said with a frown.

"What are you going to do?" Ning Zhou asked.

Qi Leren glanced at Ning Zhou with trepidation: "This... requires you to be sacrificed..."

Ning Zhou: "..." He had a bad feeling.

Qi Leren was really becoming more and more skilled at convincing his teammates.

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Editor’s Notes: A thank you as always to Miko for explaining untranslatable stuff ^_^”

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#Welcome to the Nightmare Game #欢迎来到噩梦游戏 #danmei

[imaginedigimon]

u got any lgbtq+ hcs for any of the main 12 adventure and 02 kids?

🤔 Hmm...

Now Anon, I’m warning you: I’m probably not going to give you what you want for this. But I’m going to try.

I REALLY HOPE I DON’T FUCK THIS UP, FRIENDS *stressing out a bit I will not lie*

LGBTQ+ Headcanons for 01 + 02 Gang

Tai [Taichi]

Doesn’t know the meaning of the word “straight” except in terms of line segments in math (but even then, he’s a little lost)

He probably saw the pride flag for the first time when he was 14 and because it reminded him of the Crests thought, “I CAN GET BEHIND THAT”

When he learned the real meaning of pride and the LGBTQ+ community, he was even more ecstatic

Has definitely beaten up some homophobes before

And transphobes

He’s beaten up a lot of people in general

Realized after a while that he’s pansexual himself and started painting his face with the pan flag everyday

Will not deny that he has a thing for Matt and Sora at the same time and is happy if they’re happy but would really like to kiss them both pls

Matt [Yamato]

He most certainly questioned his own gender for a while, though he can’t pinpoint when it started

Gabumon told him it didn’t matter what he identified as, they’d always be partners anyway, so that really helped him a lot

It also helped that Tai was willing to beat people’s asses for him

Has also beaten up some homophobes and transphobes (Tai has been the one to drag him away from some fights)

Wears pins of all the pride flags at all times because fuck you haters

Also would like to kiss Tai, just like once or twice or a million times

Identifies as bisexual most likely

Sora

Doesn’t mention it a lot, but Mimi was probably her first kiss (by accident...OR WAS IT?)

She was the type of person who, because she grew up in a very hetero-normative world, wasn’t sure what it meant to like a girl

Probably asked Tai when she was 15 and still thinking about Mimi’s hair and lips when he explained to her that it was perfectly normal

She never forgot that conversation

Has continuously questioned her identity and orientation throughout the years, though only Biyomon has been privy to this struggle

Finally settled on saying she’s queer because she’s not much for labels (especially when she’s in a constant state of questioning)

Definitely asked Mimi to kiss her again just so it wouldn’t be an accident

Izzy [Koshiro]

Always a kid before his time, knew how to explain all aspects of pride to everyone else before they even knew what the LGBTQ+ community was

Has PowerPoints to make things clearer

Around age 17 or 18, he started asking that everyone use he/him or they/them pronouns, and this hasn’t changed since

Everyone said “a’ight” because they love him no matter what

Has always had some kind of romantic feelings for just about everyone in the group, but nothing beyond that

This poor sweetie pie cried the night he realized he was asexual and called Joe, who said in the most intense voice he’d ever heard, “You think that matters to us? We love you, Izzy, and don’t you ever forget that”

Has decided Joe is the coolest guy ever

Started some social media account where it’s nothing but pictures of Tai with various pride symbols painted on his face and it’s blown up

Mimi

Unlike Sora, she didn’t think much about the kiss

She had already accepted that she liked girls by that point

Definitely had a crush on Yolei too, though she played it cool

YOU CANNOT TELL ME SHE DIDN’T CONSIDER MEIKO HER TRUE LOVE

Teases Izzy a lot because she has a bit of a crush on him too, though this confused her because she thought she liked girls

The day she learned the term homoflexible she thought she was dreaming

But she wasn’t

Still, Sora and Yolei and Meiko are her girls and she loves them very dearly

Has the same enthusiasm as Tai and paints the various flags on her face as well (became part of that social media account Izzy started)

You can catch her and Tai at a pride parade screaming at the top of their lungs

Joe [Jou/Jyou]

I’ll admit, he’s probably the token straight? But he’s also one of those guys who’s not afraid to tell Matt he looks handsome today

Has needed to ask Izzy a lot of questions because he’s like me and wants to know and not offend anyone because he’s ignorant or doesn’t know something

Had a moment similar to me where he wondered if he really was straight

Decided he still was, but would support anyone and everyone because that’s just the guy he is

You know how he becomes a doctor? He most CERTAINLY helps with transitioning whenever he can because he’s a GOOD. DOCTOR.

Doesn’t beat up haters, but gives them a death glare that’s just as effective

Wore around a rainbow doctor’s coat because he COULD and no one tried to stop him because they knew he’d quit on the spot

Takeru [T.K.]

Been the guy to say “respect LGBTQ+ rights or die by my sword” or something like that

Lowkey had a crush on Angemon and Angewomon simulanteously and could NOT for the life of him explain why that was

Never told either of them this though

Or Kari

Definitely didn’t tell Kari

Okay yes, Tai is his big brother, but he definitely had a crush on the guy for about 2 weeks before he met Kari and everything changed

Hasn’t told either of them this

Like Sora, has only said he identifies as queer - he’d like to figure it out/delve deeper but is too busy flirting with everyone to care

Brings 5 different dates to his brother’s concerts at the same time and they all have to vie for his attention - it’s usually whoever says the most positive things about his brother

Has done at least 6 drag shows so far and let me tell you - KILLS IT every time

Kari is his forever girl but keeps winking at Ken just to make him blush

Kari [Hikari]

Also had a crush on Angewomon like how could she NOT

Also had crushes on Matt, Izzy, Mimi, and Sora (but not Joe for some reason)

When she realized her feelings for T.K. she got really really nervous (because of all his dates, you see)

Was also confused because she was pretty confused about her range of crushes over the years

Tai came out as pan to her first and she realized that sounded a lot like her

She’s a pan baby and she’s proud of it (and thanks her brother for supporting her)

Gave a rainbow pin to T.K. for his birthday and in return he kissed her

They go to ALL the pride events and nothing can stop them

Occasionally uses they/them pronouns on days she’s questioning

Davis [Daisuke]

Tai was his first love and you cannot change my mind about this

Meeting Kari was like meeting a Tai Who Would Notice Him and that was pretty rad

But he also likes her because of her, too

The world kinda stopped when he met Ken, though

Like damn, look at those soccer skills

I’m gonna be real, I think Davis is soccersexual (or footballsexual for non-Muricans)

Them soccer players be really hot though

Always has questions about the community, but never retains the answers

The PowerPoints, unfortunately, do not help

Eventually gave up and said, “I’M A DUMBASS BUT I SUPPORT YOU ALL”

They tried to tell him he should at least know what he’s talking about

(We’re still working on that)

Wears rainbow shirts with rainbow pants and it’s very atrocious but very appreciated

He is gay. He sometimes does crimes. We accept him anyway.

[T.K. asked him if he wanted to go to a drag show, he said “okay?” and really really loved it now he goes all the time]

Yolei [Miyako]

Mimi is hot, Ken is hot, Kari is hot, Matt’s kinda hot, everyone’s hot

She’s never been able to fully accept this because how is everyone so hot

Mimi was her first love, and Ken was her first boyfriend

She never forgot the firsts

Attracted to any and everyone it seems

She likes to call herself a frying pan and it makes everyone facepalm a little bit

Constantly dresses in the colors on the pan flag because she looks GOOD in them and it’s a way to remind everyone not to mess with her or her community

Tries to pretend she doesn’t know Mimi and Tai when she’s at a pride event and they’re out here acting like fools

But she also loves how unerringly supportive they are

Cody [Iori]

He was the first one everyone came out to, like for some reason he’s that guy

Literally the first person to offer you support

One day he told everyone he was transgender, and while they were surprised, they also didn’t react the way he was expecting

They actually hugged him immediately and said, “But don’t worry we love love love you” and Tai started painting the trans flag on Cody’s face until Cody said, “Guys please fuck off for a sec”

When he becomes a lawyer, he becomes the type of lawyer to defend anyone who was arrested on basis of race/identity/orientation/gender like the boss he is

Suspects he might be ace but hasn’t really delved into it much

He’s too busy scolding Davis for doing dumb things

Ken

Can everyone stop being hot for a sec? -direct quote from Ken himself

He’s in love with all the 02 kids and he’s accepted this

Yolei somehow stole his heart, but T.K.’s winks send it aflutter

He wants them both to stop (but they won’t)

Was completely unaware that Davis also liked him (even though it was really obvious?)

He identifies as bi and, like Izzy, uses they/them pronouns interchangeably with he/him

One of the good detectives on the force. Will bust your ass if you say any offensive slurs about anyone. [Has gotten suspended a few times for doing this BUT IT WAS FUCKING WORTH IT.]

Always the one on duty when Davis gets arrested for his crimes and it’s hecka exhausting

---------

Uhm... did I do good? I’ll admit, I was a little nervous since I myself am straight and cisgender (or cishet, as I’ve learned is the term)  😥  😥

Anon, I really do hope I did a good job!

And if I didn’t you can roast me in the flames of Meramon Hell

#did...did i do good? #i hope so cuz these were fun #these kids are all great #i wanna see that social media account now izzy #the digidestined say lgbtq+ rights #digimon #taichi yagami #tai kamiya #yamato ishida #matt ishida #sore takenouchi #mimi tachikawa #koshiro izumi #izzy izumi #joe kido #davis motomiya #daisuke motomiya #ken ichijouji #takeru takaishi #t.k. takaishi #tk takaishi #hikari yagami #kari kamiya #yolei inoue #miyako inoue #iori hida #cody hida #i am an ally and proud of it #friends i love you all no matter what i hope you know that #unless you say you hate digimon we might have to talk then

[barryallenis]

My People

Was thinking again about how odd it was for the arrowverse to never have had a moment addressing that BOTH Oliver and Barry had their daughters come back from the future. Other than that they didn’t want to bring attention to the recycled storyline, of course. But while my mind initially went to a conversation between Barry and Oliver, a much clearer picture of a conversation between Barry and Mia cropped up. Which I think is in part due to the story arch they got to lead together in crisis. 

Anyway, enjoy uncle Barry.

She was standing farther back now, taking in the scene around her. Overwhelmed by the moment and by seeing all these people she knew, or had at the very least heard of, throughout her life. Like a history book of legends come to life. 

It struck her now how much she stuck out in this moment. How she, in this time, was supposed to be burrowed somewhere in the woods, napping behind a baby monitor. 

Well, not supposed to be, she was. 

Yet, she had lived in this moment, with these people, with her father, for several weeks, as she is right now. Something that wasn’t her life. Wasn’t her timeline. 

Or, had it also, somehow, become it? 

Her eyes caught the back of her blonde haired mother as she conversed with her two aunts and grandmother. So much of this life, this moment, felt so strange. The two realities she was faced with twisted in her brain, making it all hard to make sense of. 

She heard a voice ring out, breaking her from her thoughts. 

“Mia.” The voice said. 

It was the scarlet speedster himself. Barry Allen. 

He was, at least, not as much a part of her contradicting timelines. The Flash she read about in the same stories she had about her father matched up quite well with what she’d come to see in crisis. 

There was something else that came up when she saw him, however. Though she couldn’t quite place it. 

His voice, his eyes, his expression, were all soft as he spoke.

“I know what it feels like - to lose a parent because of this life. And I know … the kind of impact having a superhero parent can have on a kid -“ 

“How can you possibly know all that?” 

Her words weren’t angry. More-so coated in disbelief. The idea that anyone could really ‘relate’ to all that was swirling around her head seemed laughable. 

“When I was a kid, the Reverse Flash, my oldest enemy, went back in time and killed my mother in front of me. And another enemy of mine, years later, did the same to my dad.

“And last year I met my daughter, as an adult, just like you. From the future.” He said plainly. 

Not that laughable, she thought.

“Our story …. it ended a lot different than yours …” his voice trailed off, as his eyes panned the graveyard. He shook his head to clear it.

“I know that we put so much effort into bringing your dad back. And I know it wasn’t in the way you wanted. But … you being here, you and your brother, and Felicity … alive … that’s enough for him. That’s enough for it all to have been worth it.” 

“He saved an entire universe. I know what he did. I know he’s a hero.” She stated. 

“I know that. But he wasn’t thinking about that at the end. He wasn’t …” he rubbed the back of his neck. And it was here she noticed the redness in his eyes. The same she had in hers.

“I just want you to know that living your life, being happy, that’s all your dad wants for you. For you to live a long and happy life.” 

And then it hit her. The memories formed and the pieces began to click. She didn’t just trust his words because they sounded sincere, nor because she knew of his super-heroic title. She trusted it because she knew him. And not because she’d read about him, but because he was a part of her life. The life she had before Sara had woken her up. And he always had been.

Memories flooded her all at once. There were walks along the central city coastline with a couple that wasn’t her parents. Quick moments of being zoomed away from a falling vase after carelessly tumbling into a cabin bookshelf. Of a sheepish explanation by the zooming figure behind the broken item to her mother. Of ice cream at the pier. Of trying to tough-love teach two incredibly fast little kids how to wrestle while he, and ever other adult, had their backs turned. 

These people. She thought, looking around at the rain drenched crowd surrounding her fathers headstone. These people were all her father's people. And they were hers too. 

Suddenly, much to both of their surprise, she was hugging him. The girl who strikingly resembled Oliver in demeanor, showing her Felicity-sided core. 

Or perhaps, it was still her Oliver side. Knowing what having these people in her life meant to her and being vastly surprised in herself to show it outright.

Barry returned with equal force. If there was something to unexpectedly have gained from the past year, it was the knowledge of a parental hug. It felt almost innate within him now. And he hadn’t experienced anything like it since Nora had disappeared within it. 

He had gotten to the point in his super-heroic career where he has mentored many people through this lifestyle’s trials and tribulations. But most of those had been of a similar age. Peers. And while the girl with her arms wrapped around him was not really many years younger than him, and fully capable of kicking his ass if she wanted to, what she really was, more than anything in his eyes, was Oliver’s kid. 

She was a kid. Just like Nora. Even as an adult, she was a kid. She wasn’t his kid, it wasn’t as though it were exactly the same. But there was still that feeling of paternal protection that washed over him. Because while she wasn’t his kid, she was Oliver’s - and Felicity’s - and that made her family. The family that Oliver had asked him to look out for in some of his last dying breath. A request he didn’t plan to heed lightly. 

The hug released. They returned meek smiles. Barry placed a supportive hand to her shoulder, trying to convey his sincerity. 

“If you need anything … I’m just as good as the Legends at traveling through time. I could be there in a -“ 

“Flash?” She completed. 

He smirked “Yeah. You get it.” 

And with another pat on the shoulder, they parted ways. As she walked across the grass towards the Queen hours, it was then that Barry felt a set of eyes on him in his peripheral. 

A good thing he was headed in that direction for goodbyes anyway.

When he reached her, she was standing there anticipatory. 

“Felicity …” 

He fumbled for words at the sight of the soft smile she was sending him. 

“If you ever need a babysitter … give Iris and I a call.” 

Her smile widened, her glossy eyes caught in the peaking sunlight.

“I’ll add you to the rotation.” She said with a quick glance around. 

Oliver’s people. Her people. And yes, soon, her children’s people too. 

#idk why this came to me the other night but here ya go!!! #the flash #arrow #arrowverse #barry allen #mia queen #mia smoak #Felicity Smoak #oliver queen #mywriting

[scripttorture]

Medieval world, fantasy elements. Imprisoned elf character, forge setting. A hammer and nail are used to pierce the elf's ear against an anvil, then a heated piece of metal is wound in as an earring, bent closed, and sealed. Then it is "cooled" by dumping a bucket of water on the elf. What kinds of injuries would the elf likely sustain? Would there be long term scaring outside of the piercing? Risk of infection? Or would heated metal cauterize it too quickly? Estimate on initial recovery time?

I’mnot 100% sure how damaging this would be- essentially because thatmetal is going to be extremely hot and in contact with the characterfor quite a long time. We’re in best-guess territory here.

Theestimate I got from other members of the Script Family is anywherebetween 700-1500oC.Brands can be this hot but the amount of time in contact with theskin is pretty low. This is much more in keeping with EuropeanMedieval torture (good job there) but that means that it’s harderto work out what the injury pattern is likely to be. Because therecords of things like survival rates and injuries from the timearen’t very good.

I’mgoing to assume a lower temperature. I’m going to assume that themetal is hot for less then ten minutes. I’m going to assume elvesin this setting have ears around 3-4 inches long and that thecharacter’s ear has been bent away from their face with the attackfocused on an area as far away from the head as possible.

Oneof the things I’m worried about is steam.

Thatbucket of water is going to produce a lot of it and the result isthat the character is going to have a lot of facial burns from steamas well as the hot metal. I think it’s possible this could blindthe character or at least permanently damage an eye.

Nowum- we don’t really steameyeballs where I’m from when we’re cooking them. So I’m unsureif the time frame here would be more likely to result in disablinginjury or another source of pain that would heal with time.

Atthe very least they’d get scalding injuries on their eyelids. Thiswould make it difficult to blink or keep the eye fully closed and theresult of that is eye infections are more likely.

Infectionaround the ‘piercing’ seems unlikely to me because well- it’scooked. It’s over done. It’s charcoal. On Masterchef they wouldsend it back for being grey rather than pink.

Butthis kind of heat effects more than the immediate area it’s incontact with, especially when the contact is so long and the tissuewe’re talking about is so thin.

Imaginecooking meat in a frying pan. The hot surface can be small inrelation to the meat but if you watch the sides of a steak you cansee the burn gradually creeping up the sides of the flesh even withno direct contact.

Asimilar transfer of heat is taking place over the character’s earand face. Which means that while the area immediately around thepiercing is- Well it’s dead tissue and honestly it’s probablygoing to need to be cut out to prevent serious health problems. Butthe tissue further out from the immediate piercing is also going tobe burnt. Because heat will have radiated from the metal through theentire ear.

Andsince the metal is so hot I think you’d see a sort of radiatingburn pattern with third degree burns nearer the piercing giving wayto second and first degree burns further out.

Itried to look up the effects of cooking cartilage on the structure ofthe ear and foundthis paper with a variety of injury photographs.The photos show a lot of different outcomes and depths of burns. Yourcharacter has pretty much the worst case scenario so it isn’t acase of whether the ear will be deformed but rather how.

Myinstinct is that in a human character they’d lose the whole ear.But we’re assuming a much bigger ear in this character and as aresult some of it might remain.

Yourcharacter has what the paper calls a ‘full thickness injury’. Thecartilage is damaged as well as the skin. Judging by this paper itseems a likely result is that areas of skin will slough off, exposingthe cartilage. This commonly results in infection which can lead tothe loss of the ear or obvious deformity.

Ithink this part will be easiest if you look at/hold your ear for aminute. So the very top fold is called the ‘helix’ and the entireouter structure is called ‘pinna’. The big indent at the bottom,near the ear canal and above the soft part people often pierce, isthe ‘concha’.

I’mpicturing a much bigger outer ear structure and an injury that’s inthe middle somewhere below the helix.

Atthe very least I think there’d be a large hole around where thepiercing was in the ear. But I think from the sound of thingsinfection of the underlying cartilage is likely and in this case-

Well,the ear cartilage doesn’t have it’s own blood supply exactly. Itrelies on the blood going through the skin that surrounds it. In thiscase I think a lot of the helix would be effectively cut off fromthat blood supply because a chunk of the ear below has been removedand there are burns to the skin surrounding it. So I think thecharacter would probably lose the top of their ear over a period ofdays-weeks.

Ithink the concha would also be burnt, but not as severely. And Ithink the chances of some remaining blood supply there are higher. Sothe lower part of the ear might be saved.

Thecharacter mighthave burns on the side of their face from the hot metal as well, buteven if they didn’t I think scalding injuries in that area areextremely likely. I think the direct burns would probably extend overthe whole ear, possibly reaching the point where the ear joins theface. I think the scald/steam burns would affect the side of the faceup to the closest eye.

Thecharacter might also get some of their hair cooked depending on howlong it is and how likely it is to get in the way. This doesn’thurt but it stinks and it leaves hair with a dry, brittle, twistedtexture that snaps when held too tightly.

I’mhonestly not sure about recovery time. The physical side of that isvery much outside my area. I’d suggest checking up on @scriptmedic’sold posts about burns and any posts she had on infectionspre-antibiotic treatment.

Forlong term traumatic effects I’d suggest picking some symptoms fromthelist of common ones.

Ithink the character would probably have some scar tissue on the sideof their face, possibly the closest eyelid as well. And burns in thatarea would also run the risk of infection. I think the chance ofinfection there is lower then for the ear cartilage ifthe character receives decent medical care and bandages are clean andchanged regularly. Whereas my understanding from the article on earreconstruction is that infection of the cartilage is virtuallyinevitable in this setting (ie it’s a really high percentageinfection now with antibiotics, clean bandages and good sterilisationtechniques).

Ihope that helps. :)

Availableon Wordpress.

Disclaimer

#tw torture #tw scars #historical torture #burning torture #fantasy ask #mutilation #ears #Anonymous

[yourcoolfriendwithallthecandy]

Magic and Miracles Chapter 2

Woohoo! Since Tumblr keeps being awesome and keeping this under a cut, I’m gonna keep going. I would like to first, apologize to Toni Mahfud for using his likeness for Andrew Izunia, Ardyn’s son. I wanted a guy who was so RIDICULOUSLY GOOD LOOKING, the kind of hot everyone questions their sexuality when faced with that because they’re so ridiculously hot and good looking, people suddenly don’t care that you’ve turned into a monster. Not saying Toni is, I’m sure he’s awesome in person, this is just for a fanfic. I just felt the need to say that. 

So as always here’s the AO3 link, chapter 1 here and chapter 2 below. 

Magic and Miracles

Chapter 2

The Ulric siblings had gotten up earlier than they normally would have. Their parents had left for work and it was up to them to get the house as clean as possible for their company. Nyx spent a considerable amount of time on his own room. Just in case Luna should venture in it. He practically displayed his art supplies. Luna had adored the little picture Nyx had drawn her earlier in the week. Nyx had wanted to draw her something else but wasn’t quite sure what to draw her.

Unknown to Nyx, Selena had seen Luna write poetry on the back of the little drawing. What the picture itself had inspired from her. Luna had taped it into her journal and would often turn to it and smile appreciatively at it. Luna had wanted to reciprocate but had little idea of how.

Luna spared a glance to the back seat where a crock pot was bundled along with a container of sandwiches. She had requested to bring lunch, because she did love to cook after all. She had worried about what to make them. So she went safe with a beef stew she had made from scratch, and brownies, chewy fudgy ones that had caramel swirls in them and were always a favorite whenever she had made them before. The weather was still quite chilly so she imagined that they would stay indoors. Selena had said something about playing video games. Ravus liked to play video games but they were always single player and he wasn’t too keen on showing her how to play them himself so Luna’s familiarity with them was a bit limited.

Luna called Selena to tell her she was only a few minutes away and Nyx and Selena got their shoes on to help bring in the food.

“You made it!” Selena cheered as she opened the front door.

“Finally, I may have taken two wrong turns, I suck at directions,” Luna admitted as she got out and gave Selena a hug since she was the first one out to greet her. Luna then opened her back seat and handed Selena the pan of brownies.

“These smell so good!” Selena praised as she held them closer to her face and breathed in deeply.

“Thank you,” Luna smiled before Nyx came over himself. “What can I bring in?” Nyx asked before Luna turned to him, she was wearing makeup again, goodness gracious were her eyes the most stunning ice blue. Nyx tried not to stare at her but then she walked in front of him and he could smell her perfume on the breeze, it was similar to the one she had worn earlier in the week but not the same, still smelled divine though. She had her hair braided in the front so that it looked like she was wearing a head band while the rest of her hair was pulled into a clip in the back. It was a good look.

“The crock pot,” Luna suggested as she went around the car to unbuckle the crock pot, finding the handles from underneath the towel she had used to swaddle it. “Please, please don’t drop it.” Luna pleaded like the crock pot was a baby.

“I won’t,” Nyx assured her as he walked back to the house with it securely in his arms. Luna smiled and went back around and gathered her other container of sandwiches and a small cloth grocery bag that had her sandwich sauces before she locked the car and followed Nyx into the house.  

“Thank you so much for inviting me,” Luna thanked them as she wiped her feet on the mat inside the door and handed her things to Selena, who had already put the brownies into the kitchen, to hold while Luna took her shoes off. “Thank you for bringing lunch,” Selena mirrored.

“I just hope you like it,” Luna laughed nervously as she took her coat off and hung it on the coat hooks along the wall by the front door, not really realizing she had hung her coat over Nyx’s. But Nyx was not about to tell her that, he hoped that some of her perfume would permeate his coat.

“Oh I’m sure it’s fine, the way Luche went on, you would think you were a gourmet chef.” Selena flattered.

“Yeah that’s what I’m afraid of, not meeting such high expectations.” Luna muttered as she set everything out as Selena and Nyx got dishes and silverware out and set the table. There was a whine at the back door that made Luna’s head snap toward the sound.

“Do you guys have a dog?” Luna asked excitedly.

“Yeah, he’s a rescue,” Selena explained.

“But we are keeping him in the backyard because he is a shameless beggar and jumps up on people.” Nyx explained.

“Oh, I don’t mind, I have two dogs myself, and Ravus has a cat. What kind of dog is it?” Luna asked.

“Pit bull mix,” Selena informed her, half expecting Luna’s eyes to widen. Pit bulls didn’t have the greatest of reputations.

“Aww, I love pit bulls! They are just really big muscle-y marshmallow babies! I know lots of pit bulls and they are the sweetest dogs,” Luna gushed.

“Well after lunch, we’ll let him in.” Nyx grinned.

They sat and ate and Luna could tell that Nyx didn’t love the sandwich, he ate all of it though so as to not offend her. He loved the stew though and was already on his second bowl of it.

“Not your cup of tea?” Luna guessed.

“What?” Nyx asked, his spoon almost to his lips.

“The sandwich,” Luna specified. “It’s ok, I’m not offended or hurt or anything if you didn’t like it.” Luna assured him.

“No, it was fine,” Nyx tried to smooth over. “It wasn’t my favorite sandwich, but it wasn’t bad.” Nyx insisted.

“Ok,” Luna nodded before Selena and Luna broke into the pan of brownies.

“What piece do you want?” Luna asked as she got Selena an edge piece.

“Don’t care,” Nyx shook his head.

“Corner,” Selena specified.

“More or less caramel?” Luna asked as she pointed to different corners.

“More,” Nyx answered sheepishly and watched with eager eyes as the caramel stretched from piece of brownie that was lifted from the pan to a plate. His stomach suddenly found an empty pocket to stow it away into.

“Thank you,” Nyx smiled as Luna handed the plate to him. He moved his bowl of stew over slightly to center the plate in front of him, picking up the strand of caramel and putting it into his mouth. It was sublime and decadent. He picked up the brownie and took a bite. It was just...so damn good. Luna could tell by the expression on his face that he loved it. Nyx tried his hardest not to moan, he tried, and failed.

Thankfully Selena moaned louder than he did to help mask the sound.

“OH. MY. GOD.” Selena said over her mouthful of the treat. “How?! How did you make this? What kind of dark forbidden magic did you practice to make this?” Selena asked as she tried to slowly enjoy and savor it. “It’s so good,” Selena made a show of pretending to cry that made Luna laugh as she ate it.

“I just want to inhale the pan, inject this into my veins, like between my toes, I would walk across broken glass,” Selena went on. “Lord have mercy,” Selena shook her head as she finished the rest of her piece in one bite before getting another.

“I second all of that,” Nyx agreed.

“Yay! I’m so happy you guys like it,” Luna cheered.

“No, not like, love,” Nyx quickly insisted while his brain added ‘you’ in his head as he got up another paper towel to wipe his face before he poured himself the largest cup of milk he could find, gulping it down to help cut the richness of it. Luna couldn’t help but stare at his throat, watching his Adams apple bob with every swallow while not so innocent thoughts suddenly popped into her head. Selena saw this and simply smiled wider as she took another bite of her second brownie before getting Nyx to get her and Luna their own cups of milk too.

Nyx got them their cups of milk, his fingers grazing Luna’s as he did so, before he got himself another piece of brownie. “I need the recipe, if you’re ok with sharing it,” Nyx insisted as he took his seat back at the table.

“I would be more than happy to share it,” Luna agreed before going to her purse to get her journal, flipping toward the back to find an empty page before pulling up the recipe on her phone to copy it down for him. Nyx noticed his picture that he had drawn for her in her notebook and couldn’t help but smile when he saw it. She liked it enough to keep it in her journal, now he really had to draw her something else.

Luna carefully ripped the page out and handed it Nyx.

“Did you want a copy too?” Luna asked Selena.

“No, that’s ok, I love to eat food, not really into making it though, Nyx, however, he is all about that, everything he cooks is good.” Selena praised.

“Not this good,” Nyx argued as he took another bite of brownie.

“Practice and the proper tools.” Luna countered as she finished her own piece of brownie.

“So what kind of dogs do you have?” Selena asked, changing the subject.  

“Oh I have a husky/Spitz mix named Pryna and an Alaskan Malamute mix named Umbra and even through they are both fixed/neutered, they are madly in love. Both of them are rescues too.” Luna answered as she pulled up pictures on her phone of her dogs to show them. “And then Ravus has a Persian long haired Siamese cat named Duchess. She is beautiful, she knows it too,” Luna laughed as she swiped through her photo gallery to find a picture of the cat too.

“Aww, they do look madly in love,” Selena fawned when she saw pictures of the dogs. “Wow she is pretty,” Selena complimented when she saw the picture of Ravus’ cat.

“I’ll let Charlie in,” Nyx said as he got up and opened the back door.

“Hi Charlie!” Luna greeted excitedly to the large dog that came barreling into the house. Charlie’s tail wagged so hard his whole body shook as he greeted Luna, he jumped up to put his front legs on her lap and licked her face as she pet him. “Oh it’s so nice to meet you too! Who’s been a good boy? Huh? Who’s been a boy?” Luna cooed to the dog as she scratched behind his ears and gave him a hug.

“Charlie, down,” Selena laughed.

“Oh it’s fine,” Luna waved off as she continued to pet Charlie enthusiastically as Charlie began to sniff Luna. “You smell my babies? Huh?” Luna laughed as she began to give Charlie butt scratches.

“So what were the plans for today?” Luna asked as she continued to pet Charlie who had calmed down considerably under Luna’s affection. Instantly falling in love with her.  

“Well we have a Wii,” Selena offered. “Awesome,” Luna smiled as they got up and put their dishes in the sink before going back to the living room.

“You know how to play?” Selena asked.

“Yeah, well sort of, I don’t have one but my friend Rachel does,” Luna answered as she was given a Wii remote and made her little avatar before they chose Mario Cart.

“Oh you bastard,” Selena laughed when Nyx chose rainbow road and chose Yoshi.

“I get Toad,” Selena chose.

“Princess Peach please and thank you,” Luna giggled before they started the race.

“Cheater!” Selena accused as Nyx cut her off and sent a turtle her way, causing her to crash.

“I got you girl.” Luna soothed as she got a blue spiked turtle and sent it Nyx’s way.

Nyx however slowed down and let himself be passed by one of the other racers so that the blue spiked turtle hit it instead.

“Oh, you tricky...” Luna trailed off as she bumped him with her hip in retaliation since they were all standing in front of the TV.  

“Hey! Personal fowl.” Nyx laughed as he sped off into the lead with the help of a star.

“Unsportsmanlike like conduct!” Luna countered with a hearty laugh of her own.

“Hey all is fair in love and war and racing sweetheart.” Nyx crooned. “Maybe if you guys weren’t such sore...” Nyx started before Luna passed him in a corner and placed a banana in his path which he slipped on.

“Losers!” Nyx yelled before he growled in frustration as he tried to catch up with everyone with Selena and Luna cackling evilly.

“Get it, get it!” Luna cheered as Selena almost crossed the finish line before Nyx fired a turtle at Selena. But Luna, making the self sacrificing play, swerved behind Selena to intercept so Selena could win. “Yes! In your face bro!” Selena cheered as she did a victory dance with Luna. “Thank you for saving me back there,” Selena thanked Luna.

“You’re welcome,” Luna smiled victoriously.

“Best two out of three,” Nyx requested.

“Now who’s a sore looser?” Selena stuck her tongue out at her brother.

They continued to play, loosing count of who won or lost until Nyx’s phone rang.

“Yeah,” Nyx answered as he tried to talk on the phone and play at the same time.

Selena and Luna paused the game so Nyx could concentrate on his conversation. “Yeah man, let me make sure it’s ok, call you back.” Nyx said before ending the conversation.

“You guys ok if the gang comes over?” Nyx asked Selena and Luna.

“Um, who’s all in the gang?” Luna asked cautiously.

“Oh it’s just Libertus, Crowe and Pelna,” Nyx answered and mirrored her smile of relief when he didn’t say Luche’s name.

“Oh, yeah, that’s fine with me.” Luna nodded her agreement with that.

“The more the merrier, ooh, Luna have you ever played Cards Against Humanity?” Selena asked.

“No,” Luna shook her head.

“Ever played Apples to Apples?” Selena asked Luna.

“Yes,” Luna nodded.

“Same thing, only for the morally ambiguous person, like Apples to Apples- South Park and Family Guy edition,” Selena tried to explain.

“Ooh, yeah sounds fun,” Luna nodded.

“Ok, but just to warn you, there’s a bunch of swearing.” Selena warned.

“Ok,” Luna nodded in understanding.

“Tell Libertus to bring Cards Against Humanity.” Selena told Nyx.

“Well mom and dad haven’t signed off yet,” Nyx reminded her as he called his dad. “Hey Dad? Is it ok if my friends come over? They said they would chip in for pizza.” Nyx asked and waited for a reply. “Ok, yeah, uh huh, ok, bye.” Nyx finished before he hung up and called his mom. “Hi Mom, how’s your day going?” Nyx asked sweetly. “So, Libertus called and him and Crowe and Pelna wanted to come over and we would get pizza, is that ok?” Nyx asked. “Thanks mom, love you, bye.”

“I better call my mom and tell her I’ll be staying longer,” Luna said as she retreated to the kitchen to call her mom, still being relieved that she didn’t hear Luche’s name. Because if she had she may have bolted.

“Hi Mom,” Luna chirped. “Yes, everything is going great, um so I’m having a really great time, could I stay longer? They’re talking about getting a pizza for dinner,” Luna requested. “Yes I promise to be safe, ten o’clock, got it.” Luna assured her mom. “Thank you thank you thank you, love you bye.” Luna bid her mom goodbye before coming back into the living room.

“I have to be home by ten,” Luna informed them.

“Sweet!” Selena cheered.

Nyx grinned as he called Libertus back. “Hey man, yeah, it’s ok, come on over, Selena requests you bring Cards Against Humanity again.” Nyx grinned, chancing a look at his sister before looking away as Libertus continued to talk. “We’ll talk about it when you get here,” Nyx suggested before he hung up.

Nyx and Selena sat on the couch with Luna between them with Charlie sprawled out across all of their laps as they watched TV waiting for everyone else to join them. While Nyx inwardly debated if he should make a move or not. Now that they were alone save for Selena, it was ideally the perfect time but he was feeling so insecure again and his insecurity zapped his courage.

“So what’s Ravus up to?” Selena asked casually, recalling how Ravus seemed particularly nice to her last night, nicer to her than he was to his own sister and was almost charming, but that didn’t sit well with her. The way he treated his sister bothered her deeply and she found she had no respect for him because while he looked handsome, his personality was hideous so far.

“Ravus invited his own friends over today so it really worked out that I could come here.” Luna answered.

“Do you not like his friends?” Selena inquired.

“Um, most of them are ok, a few of them, make me feel very uneasy, like I don’t think they would try and pull anything just...” Luna trailed off.

“So your brother still hangs out with them even though they give you the heebie jeebies?” Selena asked with another disgusted frown.

“Yup because ‘they are his friends and he’s not going to stop hanging out with them just because I’m overly sensitive and misconstrue everything’,” Luna recounted as she rolled her eyes and sighed.

Nyx frowned at that and leaned forward to look at Selena. “Selena, if any of my friends ever, in the slightest, make you feel uncomfortable in any way, tell me and I will stop being their friend for one and two make sure they never come near you.” Nyx insisted.

“I know,” Selena smiled appreciatively. “I’m sorry you don’t have a brother like mine,” Selena said to Luna as she rested her head on Luna’s shoulder. Luna smiled and rested her head on Selena’s.

“Me too, could I borrow him from time to time?” Luna joked.

“Anytime,” Nyx answered. “I’m serious, if you ever find yourself in that situation or whatever, call me,” Nyx insisted.

“Thank you,” Luna smiled appreciatively in turn as she almost asked him out already because she was trying to give him time to ask her out but she felt like their window of opportunity was starting to close.

But just then- Libertus, Crowe and Pelna came through the door.  After eating pizza and devouring the rest of the brownies, they decided to play the notorious game.

“So you’ve never played this?” Crowe asked of Luna as Nyx dealt out the white cards and Luna shook her head ‘no’.  

“No, I have never even heard of it until this afternoon but Selena gave me the run down.” Luna answered as she picked up her cards that were dealt her. “Oh. My. God. What?!” Luna stared at her cards as she tried not to burst out laughing. “Oh Jesus,” Luna snickered as she looked through her cards. “What the hell?” Luna laughed, finally succumbing to her laughter.

“We haven’t even started to play,” Libertous laughed along with her.

“I know, it’s just, wow,” Luna replied before looking at Selena. “You were not kidding,” Luna said, trying to stifle her laughter and try to regain her composure.

“Ok the first card is, drum roll please,” Nyx announced as he picked up a black card as they drum rolled on the empty pizza boxes. “Why won’t you make love to me anymore? Is it- blank?” Nyx asked as he laid the card down face up so everyone could see it.

Luna bit her bottom lip as she looked from one card to the other before picking one and laying it face down on top of the other cards that the others had tossed in.

Nyx smiled as he leaned forward and shuffled the cards before reading them out loud. “Is it...Sudden penis loss?” Nyx read as everyone started laughing. “Is it..Unsheathing my massive horse cock. Hey man, it can’t be helped.” Nyx remarked wryly as everyone continued to laugh.

“A My Little Pony toy horse kind of cock,” Libertous teased which only earned more laughter.

“Fuck you dude,” Nyx teased with a laugh back before he continued to read on. “Is it...setting my balls on fire and cartwheeling to Ohio? That’s just painful,” Nyx remarked. “Is it rabies?” Nyx laughed. “Yeah man I would think so. Or lastly, Crying and shitting and eating spaghetti?” Nyx and everyone roared with laughter. “Wow, ugh, it’s a tie between- Crying and shitting and eating spaghetti and my massive horse cock, I’m going to go with horse cock.” Nyx decided.

“Thank you,” Luna laughed as she took the black card from the middle and placed it in front of her crossed legs.

“That was your card?” Pelna asked, astonished.

“Yeah,” Luna giggled before it was her turn since she was sitting right next to him and they were going clock wise.

“Ok, so- Come to Dubai, where you can relax in our world famous spas, experience the nightlife or simply enjoy- blank-by the poolside.” Luna read off as she laid the card down and eagerly awaited the group’s answers.

“Everyone put in a card?” Luna asked as she took the cards and haphazardly tried to shuffle them before she cleared her throat. “Ah, hem. Come to Dubai where you can relax in our world famous spas, experience the nightlife, or simply enjoy..throwing stones at a man until he dies.” Luna read off with a light chuckle. “Well you’re not wrong,” Luna grimaced. “Enjoy..breast feeding a ten year old.” Luna laughed, scrunching her nose up in such a cute way as she heartily laughed. “Oh dear god, ok, enjoy...cute boys, yeah, I do like to people watch, next, enjoy...peeing into a girl’s butt to make a baby.” Luna squealed with laughter, as she leaned back but lost her balance and fell back, continuing to hold herself as she rocked with laughter as Nyx and Selena tried to help her sit up again as everyone laughed too. “Shit, that was good.” Luna wiped a tear from her eyes. “Or, enjoy...two whales fucking the shit out of each other.” Luna roared with laughter, laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe, she just convulsed, her mouth open wide as tiny squeaks and huffs of air managed to escape her before she squealed and snorted causing everyone to erupt in harder laughter as Luna went into a full blown giggle fit as she fell over again. “The last one,” Luna managed to get out as managed to try to regain a normal breathing rhythm but was having a really hard time doing so. She crawled over to her purse and got out her inhaler.

“You ok?” Selena asked, worried once she saw the inhaler. Luna nodded yes as she took a puff from it and tried to hold her breath to let the medicine get into her lungs before exhaling out of her nose and crawled back to the group, inhaler in hand.

“I haven’t laughed this hard in years,” Luna admitted as she wiped the tears from her eyes, in an effort to keep her mascara and eyeliner from running as she settled down.

“You have asthma?” Nyx asked, concerned for her despite laughing along with her. “Sort of, not bad, just enough to be inconvenienced.” Luna waived off before she sniffed and wiped at her nose, blood appearing on her hand. “Damn it,” Luna groaned as more blood started to come out of her nose.

“Come on,” Selena urged as she got up and helped Luna get to her feet as the two girls made it to the bathroom only to have laughter spring forth from their location a few moments later.

“I dare you to go out like that,” Selena joked.

Selena came out with Luna following her with twisted toilet paper coming out of her nose.

“Look I’m a walrus!” Luna joked as she clapped her hands together like they were flippers which only got the group to laugh more.

Luna sat back down next to Nyx crossing he legs again but sticking her tongue out to move one of her ‘tusks’ with the tip of her tongue. “Hell of an oral fixation right?” Luna joked, looking toward Nyx who blushed crimson as she did it again as everyone continued to laugh.

The group of them continued to play until Luna hit 10 black cards, Nyx was in second with 9 with the rest of them having various numbers of them.

“Beginners luck,” Libertus gently teased.

“How about a round of truth or dare?” Crowe instigated, wanting to get to know Luna better herself.

“You mean interrogation or humiliation?” Luna rephrased with a smile. “Yeah sure,” Luna shrugged from her spot.

“Ok, Luna, truth or dare,” Crowe posed.

“Truth,” Luna chose.

“How flexible are you?” Crowe asked. “Cause I’ve seen you do the splits in gym and good night nurse, I wish I was that limber.” Crowe explained.

“Me too,” Libertus agreed with a shit eating grin as his arm hung around Crowe’s shoulders.  

“You jerk,” Crowe swatted playfully at his chest.

“You love me anyway,” Libertus pointed out.

“Besides the point.” Crowe rolled her eyes but a smile still placed firmly on her own lips.

“This feels more like a dare.” Luna grinned. “But ok, so,” Luna stood and stood next to the couch, holding onto it for balance as she leaned over to the side and lifted her leg until her toes were pointing at the ceiling before stretching further. Everyone’s eyes went wide as their jaws dropped.

“That’s just unnatural,” Selena grimaced in pain as she brought her knees to her chest before Luna returned to a standing position.

“Yeah most ballerina’s can do that though,” Luna shrugged as she sat back down in the circle.

Luna enjoyed herself as she sat and listened and watched as the others were dared or had to tell the truth before it was her turn again.

“Truth.” Luna chose.

“What is the pettiest thing you’ve ever done.” Selena asked.  

Luna laughed at the question. “I paid $100 to a doorman to not let my ex into a club he had waited for four hours to try and get into.” Luna answered.

“This sounds like a hell of a story,” Selena prodded.

“Oh it is.” Luna grinned victoriously.

“I dare you to tell the story,” Crowe challenged.

“Ok, fine. If I tell this, you all have to swear on your lives that you will not breathe a word of this to anyone, it does not leave this room got it? Pinky promise? Ok, so my ex was really into all things French, which I am French on my father’s side of the family and so for like the two months we dated, I made only French food, got a beret which I don’t look good in hats but whatever. So for his birthday I decided I was going to give him the time of his life, so I made plans for us to go to a really upscale French restaurant and a club that he had been dying to go to and then give him his real present on the way home if you know what I mean. And so I got hooker heels, like five inch stiletto leather boots, black fish nets, a black leather mini skirt, the whole nine yards, because for one night, I’ll be his edgy French dominatrix, because that was his fantasy. I got tips and tricks from a Dom I know and strip tease lessons and lap dance lessons choreographed to Partition by Beyonce from a dance instructor who used to be an exotic dancer, which to this day I can’t listen to that song without getting...emotional...so anyway. So I did all of this work and I have this whole night planned as a big surprise and he dumps me, the day before, for a French runway model. So I, instead of canceling everything like a sane person, I decide, fuck it, I’m just going to have dinner and go to the club with my best friend Noctis because Andrew was always so jealous and super possessive and Noctis would never make things romantic or uncomfortable and we would just hang out for the night and go dancing and it would be great. Now I did not wear the outfit I was going to wear for my ex but I did wear this red silk number that had everyone staring, including my ex because he tried to get into the club that night but because he didn’t have reservations or me to get him in- he was having trouble getting in. So I paid the door man $100 to not let him in either because I’m petty.” Luna explained. “But on the plus side I became really good friends with the girl who gave me the lessons.” Luna shrugged.

Everyone had to pick up their jaws from the floor. Nyx having to do so the most because HOLY SHIT that blew his mind, she came off as this sweet innocent ‘pure’ girl and he...he loved this about her? And was delighted by it. Like it was thrilling, truly, and his brain gave him image after image of her in this notorious outfit and he instantly had a boner which wasn’t noticeable thanks to his baggy jeans that were currently pulled taught because he was sitting cross legged too.

“Damn girl,” Crowe said as she raised a hand to give Luna a high five. “Go big or go home,” Crowe congratulated.

“I’ll bet he was sorry he dumped you.” Selena concluded.

Luna shook her head no. “Not that I’ve seen, well, when he’s sober, he acts like it was no big deal and that he’s better off without me and has said...as much…” Luna delicately explained with a very pained expression as she recalled how brutal he had been, that had everyone looking at her with sympathy. “When he’s drunk, which, is often, it’s the opposite. Although I’m quite happy and relieved that he did dump me and I do my best to stay as far away from him as I can be.” Luna professed.

“How long ago was this?” Nyx asked as he realized that must have done a real number on her and that he realized he would need to be careful with her and around her. She would need him to be if he was going to be in her life.

“Only like, a couple of months ago, closer to three months. We only dated for the beginning of summer just May and June.” Luna answered. “So, I guess fairly recently.” Luna shrugged as she tried to stamp down and push out of her mind all the memories of the horrific experience before Selena quickly changed the subject and they continued to play for a little bit before Luna had to go home.  

“Thank you for inviting me over today.” Luna said as Selena and Nyx helped her put her things back into her car.

“Thanks for coming and bringing lunch, we need to hang out again soon.” Selena smiled.

“Agreed, I have a performance next Saturday though,” Luna sighed.

“Ooh, could I come?” Selena asked.

“Sure, it’s at the Performing Arts Center, it’s at 4pm,” Luna explained.

“Can I come too?” Nyx asked hopefully.  

“Of course,” Luna smiled excitedly.

“How much is it to go?” Selena inquired.

“Oh, don’t worry about it, you’ll be coming as my guests, it’ll be free.” Luna assured them. “Just um, kind of dress up? Not like formal formal, not like tuxes but just nice dress clothes?” Luna shrugged.

“I think we can manage that.” Selena smiled.

“Ok, I gotta go before I break curfew.” Luna said as she gave Selena a parting hug before giving Nyx one as well even though part of her was screaming at her to just kiss him already. “Thanks again for tonight, it was awesome.” Luna repeated before she got in her car. Both Selena and Nyx waited outside to make sure Luna’s car started and waived as she drove away, Luna waiving happily as she left.

“She’s so nice,” Selena smiled as she turned and walked back into the house. “And hot,” Selena added giving Nyx a look over her shoulder. “Go ahead, disagree with me, I dare you.” Selena winked as she laughed as the two walked back into the house where Libertus, Crowe and Pelna had stayed behind with giddy smiles since they had watched the interaction from behind the blinds.  

“Dude!” The trio cheered.

“Shh,” Nyx shushed as he pointed to ceiling where his parents had already gone to bed with one hand while he gestured at his own throat making a cutting motion.

“She likes you!” Libertus insisted but Nyx gave him an unsure look.

“She shoved you every time you won a black card, she kept touching your arm, and your knee and when she laughed she leaned your way.” Crowe pointed out as she counted on her fingers.

“She likes you, I’ve been trying all week to gently nudge her your way.” Selena revealed.

“So what’s holding you back from pulling the trigger?” Pelna asked.

“We just met! This is the first time we’ve hung out, I want to give her a chance to get to know me and maybe I want to get to know her more too?” Nyx reasoned.

“If you don’t pull the trigger, Luche will,” Pelna pointed out. “He’s been trying to buddy up to her and her brother all week, I mean, he’s hanging with her brother, as we speak.” Pelna explained.

“How do you know that?” Libertus asked.

Pelna gave him an unimpressed look as he pulled out his phone and showed all the pictures Luche had been sending him.

“Wow, they have a really nice house.” Crowe assessed.

“Luche says that they have a game room/den, that’s where they are spending the evening. That game room has a bar too.” Pelna informed them.

“Great,” Crowe droll-ed sarcastically as she rolled her eyes.

“He says the place is a palace, they have an indoor and outdoor pools and hot tubs and tennis courts and shit.” Pelna went on.

Nyx hung his head, feeling completely out of her league. There was no way he could ever give her any of that if they had a romantic relationship with a realistic future.  

Luna came home and saw the cars parked along the sides of her driveway, mentally putting names and faces to the cars as she put together who was in her home. She saw two cars she didn’t recognize but one looked oddly familiar but she couldn’t place where she had seen it. Luna shrugged it off as she parked in the garage and came into the house, Pryna and Umbra eagerly waiting by the door for her.

“I’m home,” Luna called out to Ravus, knowing her mother had mostly likely already gone to bed before stopping to let Pryna and Umbra sniff at her legs and her hands and every surface Charlie had touched. “Oh I know, I pet another dog other than you,” Luna cooed as she knelt down to pet them and give them forehead kisses.  

“Den!” Ravus called back as he noted the time on the phone.

“K!” Luna called back as she put her purse down before she went back out and got her things from the car, Pryna and Umbra on her heels.

“Need some help?” Craig asked as the portly fellow suddenly appeared in the door way, taking up most of it with his towering frame.

“Yes, thank you,” Luna smiled as she waved him over. Being relieved it was him. Craig was the only friend Ravus had that Luna was friends with too. Because he was practically a big teddy bear and was a general sweetheart and had always been nice and sweet and respectful to her.

“How have you been?” Craig asked as he took the now empty but clean crock pot from Luna, nearly tripping over her dogs as he did so.

“Good, you?” Luna asked as she got the rest of her things.

“Fine, I got a new car,” Craig smiled.

“Oh yeah? Was it the black BMW or the black Mercedes?” Luna smiled as she followed him into the house, shutting the garage door and door to the garage as they stepped inside.

“The black BMW,” Craig grinned.

“Nice, moving up in the world.” Luna appraised as they made their way to the kitchen.

“So who have you spent the evening with?” Craig asked curiously, having thought she would have hung out with them but was relieved she wasn’t home because of Ravus’ other ‘company’.

“Oh, new friends I’ve made at Lucis High, Selena, who’s a junior like me, her big brother Nyx who’s a senior and his friends, Libertus, his girlfriend Crowe, isn’t that a cool name for a girl? And Pelna.” Luna listed off.

“Cool,” Craig nodded in approval.

“We actually played Cards Against Humanity, it was so funny, I laughed so hard I went into an asthmatic attack, thankfully I had my inhaler, but after I used it, I got a bloody nose so then I did the ‘walrus’ and they thought that was funny, so yeah I had a great time.” Luna smiled fondly.

“It’s great to hear that.” Craig smiled, genuinely happy to hear she was happy and doing better. “So what can you tell me about Luche?” Craig asked as he folded his arms and leaned against the counter next to her. Luna mirrored his actions as she racked her brain to think of what she could answer with.

“Oh, um, Luche and Ravus are in the same AP courses, I think they bonded, might have a bromance going. He’s nice, he’s on the same football team that Nyx- Nyx is the quarterback, Libertus is a linebacker/guard, Luche is a running..back? No, he’s a wide receiver, I think that’s the term oh and get this, Crowe, Libertus’ girlfriend, is a running back, Lucis has three girls on the football team, it’s awesome. You remember my friend Noctis and his friend Gladio right? Gladio is a linebacker/guard too so they all play sports. Luche’s really good, I saw him play last night.” Luna informed him.

“Awesome.” Craig nodded.

“So you both have football in common.” Luna shrugged. “He’s been “pursuing” me awfully hard.” Luna muttered lowly under her breath with an eye roll and a huff and that got Craig to bark a laugh.

“What?” Luna asked as she turned to look at him curiously.  

“I’m just really happy you can see that. He’s been asking me about you for most of the night. He’s really interested in you.”  Craig informed her.

“Well it’s not mutual.” Luna assured him with an adamant shake of her head.

“Good,” Craig nodded as he felt his own hopes soar. Having had a crush on Luna himself for years but always being too timid to say anything or make a move. Hoping that if he just befriended her that their friendship would someday grow into something more one day.  

“Luna! Grab me another two liter of Coke!” Ravus requested from the den.

Luna and Craig both rolled their eyes.

“Like he can’t get up and get it himself.” Luna muttered as she went to the pantry to grab another 2 liter of the beverage.

“Let me take it to him,” Craig said as he moved away from the counter.

“Nah, it’s fine,” Luna waived off.

“But-” Craig tried to argue but Luna was already walking quickly toward the den. Craig hung his head in defeat as he walked behind her.  

Luna walked down the hall to the den and saw Andrew among Ravus’ friends and froze, her eyes going wide as she found herself barely breathing. Having avoided him for the last few months after the last ‘incident’.

“Ravus?” Luna called out, only halfway down the hall.

“What?” Ravus answered from his spot on the couch.

“You have two hands and two feet, you come get this,” Luna requested. But when Ravus got close she could smell the booze on him as she watched him stagger a little. Which meant he was drunk.  

“You’ve been drinking,” Luna remarked as she handed the bottle to him in the middle of the hall.

“And you’re judgmental,” Ravus countered irritably as Craig passed them to sit with the rest of the group.  

“I didn’t mean it like that, it’s just...” Luna began to stutter before lowering her voice. “Why is Andrew here?” Luna whispered angrily.

“You need to get over it,” Ravus reprimanded her. “Seriously, you guys broke up like months ago, he’s still my friend, so stop over reacting and treating him like he has the plague every time he just happens to look in your direction. Everyone is staying over, but we’ll all be on this end of the house, so you’ll be fine.” Ravus defended before turning away from her and rejoining his friends.

Luna clenched her jaw and tried to take a cleansing breath but when she opened her eyes. She saw Andrew staring at her, looking her up and down like he used to, like he was undressing her with his eyes and that same smug half cocked smirk he always had when he drank and Luna felt her stomach churn. She turned on her heel and marched back to the kitchen. She paced a little as she tried to come to grips with the situation and the possible variables as Pryna and Umbra laid down on the mat in front of the sink.

“Hey Luche,” Luna called out again, remembering that she saw his car in her driveway.

“Yes?” Luche answered.

“Could you help me open this jar?” Luna asked, figuring that was a safe way to get Luche away from the rest of them so as not to cause suspicion as she went to the fridge and got a jar of jelly out.

“Sure,” Luche agreed as he joined her in the kitchen.

“Thank you,” Luna thanked him before re-tightening the lid herself and put the jar back in the fridge.

“Why...” Luche began before Luna cut him off.

“Listen, Luche, I’m going to ask you a question and I need you to tell me the truth, has Andrew been drinking tonight?” Luna whispered.

“Yeah, we all have,” Luche answered slowly.

“Ok, I need you to keep an eye on Andrew for me and keep him away from me, ok? Andrew is my ex and he can become a very...dangerous person when he drinks and he’s vindictive and spiteful even when he doesn’t drink, I just, make sure he doesn’t sneak away, especially in my direction, run interference for me, please Luche, please,” Luna pleaded quietly as she took his hands into her own and squeezed them anxiously, hoping the physical contact would induce Luche to do as she asked.

“Absolutely, I won’t let him out of my sight.” Luche agreed instantly as he realized how genuinely scared, not scared, terrified, she was and started to worry about her as he realized the golden opportunity he had just been given, he could be the hero and save her from her ex. Something he could definitely do for her. This would prove to her once and for all how much he liked her and if he could do this for her, she would give him a chance and he would win her over.

“Thank you,” Luna smiled feeling some relief in that but the anxiousness still wouldn’t leave her.

She went back into her room, Pryna and Umbra joining her, laying down on their shared bed and watched as she paced.

‘Shit, shit shit’, Luna thought to herself as tried to think of anything else she could do before a thought dawned on her. She got her phone from her pocket and called Selena.

“You make it home ok?” Selena asked from her bed when she saw it was Luna calling. The rest of their friends had already left so that the Ulric siblings could get to bed at a decent hour.

“Yeah, um, it’s just that,” Luna stuttered as she fought to control the anxiety whirling in her chest.

“Luna, are you ok?” Selena asked, sensing something was very wrong.

“No,” Luna shook her head as she continued to pace her room.

“What’s going on, talk to me,” Selena urged.

“I’m scared, my ex, Andrew is here and I’m freaking out,” Luna blurted.

“Ok, how can I help?” Selena asked.

“I need to ask a favor of Nyx but I wanted to run it by you and tell me if it’s crazy.” Luna suggested.

“I’m all ears.” Selena told her.

“Ok, so Andrew has been drinking and he’s...he can be really dangerous when he does. Luche is here also and he said he would run interference but I don’t know if it’s going to be enough. Do you think it would be ok to ask if Nyx could come and spend the night, with me, in my room, pretend to be my boyfriend because Andrew will leave me alone because he’s a douche who won’t respect my boundaries but might respect another guy’s’.” Luna requested.

“Absolutely,” Selena nodded as she jumped out of bed and marched to Nyx’s room, knocking quickly and forcefully as she did so.

“Yeah?” Nyx answered from his bed, taking his hand from his cock, having been trying to jack off to a fantasy of Luna, irritated by the interruption.

“I need to come in, Luna is in trouble,” Selena said through the door.

“It’s open,” Nyx said as he instantly sat up in bed and wiped his hand off on his bedding and pulled his pajama bottoms up to further conceal it.

“Here, she’s on the phone, she’s freaking out, like almost panic attack, you need to go spend the night at her house,” Selena said as she turned on the light and thrust her phone into Nyx’s hands as she went to his closet and began packing an overnight bag for him.

“Luna?” Nyx asked as put the phone to his ear as he swung his legs to the side to set his feet on the floor.

“Nyx, oh thank God, I know it’s late, I’m really sorry to bother you but I need the biggest of favors. My ex, Andrew is here, he’s at my house and he’s staying the night apparently with the rest of Ravus’ friends, and he’s been drinking and I don’t have the safest of locks on my door and I don’t trust him to stay away from me and my brother keeps telling me not to worry and Luche is here and he said he would run interference but I am still scared, I’m scared it won’t be enough. Will you please come over, please, normally I would call Noctis but the last time Andrew was like this and saw Noctis it got ugly. Please Nyx, please,” Luna pleaded, tears escaping her eyes.

“What’s your address?” Nyx asked as he went to his desk and got a pen and paper as Luna gave him the address and directions to her house.

“I have one more favor to ask you,” Luna requested, biting her nails nervously. “Name it,” Nyx answered.

“When you get here, I’m going to kiss you, I need you to kiss me back and make it look real and authentic, I need you to act like you’re my very steady boyfriend ok? Andrew might respect that kind of boundary.” Luna asked, her features blushing hard.

“Yup, got it, understood,” Nyx agreed with a gulp as he tripped over himself again and wanted to face palm himself. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Nyx assured her.

“Thank you, I owe you, see you soon, bye.” Luna breathed before she hung up and breathed out slow and measured as the anxiety finally started to leave her. She would be ok, Nyx would be here soon and she would be safe. She got dressed in her pajamas before she put her clothes back on over them and put a robe on over those as well and got her room and bathroom ready for a guest. She sprayed Febreeze on most of the carpet and furniture as she picked up her room, making sure it was clean and orderly before her own company came.

She left her room to see Andrew coming down the hall but Luche was only a few strides behind him. Luna still froze at the sight of Andrew.

“Mon Cherie,” Andrew greeted smoothly as he strode over to her purposefully caging her with his body as he put a hand on her door behind her.

“Hi,” Luna greeted back with a forced calmness before looking up over Andrew’s shoulder at Luche as she grasped the door handle to her room, ready to open it and unleash Pryna and Umbra on Andrew if he touched her again.

“You lost?” Luche asked Andrew as Luche came up behind him with his arms crossed over his chest and a determined stare.

“Just looking for another bathroom.” Andrew answered, his nerve temporarily faltering as he stepped away from Luna.  

“Right back here,” Luche directed as he pointed to the door behind him. Andrew glowered but turned and went to the bathroom.

‘Thank you,’ Luna mouthed to Luche once Andrew turned away from her. Luche winked at her once Andrew passed him.

Once the bathroom door shut Luna blew out a breath of relief and opened her bedroom door to let Umbra and Pryna out again. “Bed time guys,” Luna urged them before they trotted back to their food and water bowls in the kitchen.

“See what I mean?” Luna whispered to Luche as they walked back out of the hallway.

“You weren’t kidding,” Luche shook his head, sad that he hadn’t been just a few seconds quicker coming to her rescue. He had wanted to make sure Andrew had come nowhere near her and he didn’t quite succeed and he inwardly berated himself for it.  

“So I called Selena and Nyx is coming over and posing as my boyfriend, so just, go along with it ok?” Luna requested softly as they walked to the front door.

“...ok...I could have done that, posed as your boyfriend I mean,” Luche offered.

“Aww, thank you, that’s so sweet, but it’s ok, so keep doing what you’re doing, you’re doing great, thank you so much I owe you big.” Luna smiled appreciatively before Luche’s cell phone rang.

“Speak of the devil,” Luche said into his phone.

“Is Luna with you?” Nyx asked as he drove over to Luna’s house.

“Yep, she’s right next to me, we’re hanging out by her front door, waiting for you apparently.” Luche answered as he spared a glance at Luna who was looking at him curiously.

“So she told you?” Nyx concluded.

“Dude, I caught the guy cornering her outside her own room which is like on the other end of the house that everyone else is hanging out in, real creeper,” Luche informed Nyx.

Nyx’s features flashed rage as his foot dug into the gas pedal. “I’ll be there as fast as I can. GPS says 10 more minutes, I’ll see if I can make it in 5.” Nyx said as he passed a car.

“Tell him to be careful and don’t get a ticket.” Luna cautioned softly as she went and sat down at the bench by the door.

“Luna said to be careful and don’t get a ticket.” Luche repeated as he took a seat next to her on the bench.

“I will do my best,” Nyx grinned. “Don’t leave her side.” Nyx urged Luche.

“I won’t.” Luche assured him. “See ya when you get here,” Luche said before he hung up.

“Thank you,” Luna said, squeezing Luche’s other hand that wasn’t around his phone.

“No problem,” Luche grinned as he squeezed back, opting to hold her hand.

“What are you two doing?” Andrew asked as he walked past them and stopped once he saw the two. Luna instantly pulled her hand out of Luche’s to fold them in her lap as she sat up straighter and more rigidly. Her whole body becoming tense.  

“Waiting on her boyfriend.” Luche answered evenly before Pryna and Umbra came back, both sitting in front of Luna and keeping their eyes on Andrew, the way they had been doing all night.

“You got a new boyfriend?” Andrew asked Luna, his eyes narrowing a bit.

“Yeah, he’s a good friend of mine, captain and quarterback of the same football team I’m on, hell of a guy,” Luche answered for Luna so she didn’t have to, keeping his focus on Andrew even though, in his peripheral vision, could see Luna smiling proudly at him which only made him smirk.

“Huh, I’m going to have to meet him then,” Andrew said as he came forward and sat in a chair opposite of them. Luche and Andrew had a stare off as Luna found refuge in her phone, going through her social media feeds as they waited in awkward silence.

True to Nyx’s best estimate, he was there within 6 minutes. Luna practically jumped up and went to the door, staring out of the glass on the side of the door as she eagerly awaited for him to walk up to the front door. Pryna and Umbra mirroring her as they cautiously wagged their tails. “Excited to see Nyx too?” Luna cooed to her dogs. “Nyx is awesome isn’t he, we like Nyx, yes we do.” Luna continued to baby talk to her dogs before their tails began to wag more.

“There’s my knight in shining armor!” Luna greeted excitedly as she opened the door wide, revealing Luche right behind her and Andrew right behind him as Pryna and Umbra went out to greet Nyx.

“Hey Pryna, Umbra,” Nyx greeted, thankful he had remembered their names. Pryna and Umbra wagged their tails some more, giving him a few curious sniffs before sniffing at the grass to relieve themselves.

“Sorry it took so long Princess,” Nyx smiled as he carried a duffle bag in one hand as he walked up the steps to her front door. Luna couldn’t wait for him to cross the threshold, she took the few steps that separated Nyx from herself and met him halfway there. She stood on her tip toes and kissed him firmly. Nyx dropped his duffle bag and framed her face with his hands as he kissed her back as she held onto him desperately. Something they both had been dreaming about all week but now that it was happening, they found themselves wishing it was for completely different reasons.

“My hero,” Luna grinned up at him as she sighed partly in happiness, partly in relief.  

Nyx smiled in turn, giving her another quick kiss before leaning over and picking up his dis-guarded bag as Luna stole into his side and placed his arm securely over her shoulders.

“Andrew, meet my boyfriend Nyx,” Luna introduced proudly as Pryna and Umbra passed them to go back into the house and back to her room.

Andrew tried and failed to keep his disdain out of his expression as he gave Nyx a once over. “Hey man,” Andrew finally greeted as he held out a hand for Nyx to shake.

“Hey,” Nyx nodded as Luna took his duffle bag from him so he could shake Andrew’s hand so Nyx didn’t have to take his arm off her shoulders.

The two shared a forceful handshake, both partly trying to break the other’s hand in the hand shake.

Andrew turned his attention and said something to Luna in French that had Luna staring at him in outraged shock as her cheeks flushed even more than they were.

Luche didn’t know much French but he got the gist of what Andrew had said and glared at Andrew who only smirked in response.

Luche fished his wallet out of his pocket, pulling out two condoms and handing them to Nyx. “I only have two, they might be too tight a fit though.” Luche said as he passed them to Nyx who had to take his arm from around Luna’s shoulders to take them.

“Thanks, I brought plenty,” Nyx replied with a grin, catching onto Luche’s heavy hint as he put them into his pocket.

Luna smiled victoriously and handed Nyx his bag back before she led him to her room.  

Once inside her room Luna locked the door and hugged Nyx as tight as she could. “Thank you, thank you so much for coming,” Luna murmured into his chest. Nyx hugged her back, just as tightly. This poor girl, the lengths she just went through to keep distance from her ex. He must have been a real asshole. But he was happy to have her in his arms again. A place he felt keenly that Luna should always be.

Luna smiled before she pulled away and took her robe off and carefully let it pile up on the floor.  “Oh and Pryna is the white beauty and Umbra is the mostly black handsome man,” Luna clarified as she continued to arrange her robe on the floor.

“What are you doing?” Nyx asked as she then took her shirt off, revealing her pajama top underneath as she carefully placed the shirt on the floor.

“Making it look like you’ve been undressing me,” Luna answered as she stood in front of him and took off her jeans, making them pool at her ankles before stepping out of them. She went over to her dresser and pulled out a black lace thong and a matching black lace bra and strategically placed them on the floor as well.

“If you wouldn’t mind, could you do the same to your clothes, you can change into pajamas in my bathroom.” Luna suggested as she motioned to the door to her bathroom.

“Wait, why are you doing all this?” Nyx asked as he gestured to her clothes on the floor.

“Because, the last time this happened, I had Noctis come and Andrew broke into my room in the middle of the night in a drunken rage and when he saw that Noctis and I had no sign of being intimate he accused me of...just really horrible things and it just got ugly.” Luna explained, pained by the memory as she pulled out one of the hideaway bed underneath her own, on the other side of her bed that couldn’t be seen from the door that she had used for sleepovers and went to the other closet in her room where extra bedding was stored as she made the bed for Nyx.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Nyx countered as he dropped his bag to the floor, holding his hands out in a stopping motion. “This is your house, this is your room. It should be the one place you feel safe and secure and no one should have access to this space without your permission and consent. If he so much as touches that door I will kick his ass into next year and he will need an ambulance by the time I’m done with him. This is ridiculous! Your brother needs to step up and never let this guy within two thousand yards of the house, you should get a restraining order, you should not, under any circumstances feel like you need to do any of this just to keep him away!” Nyx protested as he gathered her clothes off the floor and handed them back to her. “I’ll still stay in here with you and I’ll play along out there but it has to stop somewhere.” Nyx insisted.

Luna blinked at him in surprise before dropping her clothes and hugging him fiercely again, crying into his chest. Nyx held onto her again, even though he wanted to kick Ravus’ and Andrew’s asses. He felt so sorry for this girl in his arms, crying into his chest and holding onto him so tightly, that it was getting a little hard to breathe. Nyx wrapped one arm securely around her and stroked her hair with the other. Soothing her the best way he knew how.

“You’re right, you’re absolutely right, but I can’t...” Luna sniffled into his chest. “I can’t make Ravus see that. It’s like he can’t look at anything outside of himself anymore.” Luna revealed.

“Well I’m going to have to make him see it then,” Nyx replied.

“No, not tonight, he’s been drinking and it’ll just make things worse,” Luna pulled back so she could look into his eyes as she shook her head adamantly and clung to his shirt, tears welling up and streaming from her eyes. “Tomorrow when he’s sober and Andrew has already left,” Luna suggested. “I just don’t want another confrontation. Not right now,” Luna pleaded.

“Ok,” Nyx allowed. Luna tucked her head back down into his chest and they held onto each other as Luna slowly regained her composure and she basked in the feeling that because he was here, she would be safe, he would keep her safe. It was going to be ok.

“Not exactly how you planned on spending your Saturday night huh?” Luna mumbled into his shirt, a small smirk on her lips.

“No, but I’m glad I’m here.” Nyx allowed a small, gentle smile to grace his lips, his head still to top of hers as he started to worry about what Andrew must have done to her to make her this way and instantly knew he had a mortal enemy in Andrew and while Nyx and Luche had been discretely competing for Luna, at least Luche was still cool enough to have his back and come through for Luna.

“Me too.” Luna whispered softly before she was able to pull herself back together and regain her composure.

Nyx unpacked his things from his bag that his sister had packed as Luna continued to get ready for bed in her bathroom. He looked around at the room, looking at the white walls, white carpet with all kinds of art, mostly watercolor paintings all over the walls before he saw that she had an art corner by her bay window in her room that also had a bench and several cushions and pillows that Nyx imagined she read in and the thought made him smile softly. She also had giant windows that currently had the shades drawn on and several skylights in the room as well. She had a regular desk that he assumed was for homework with a closed laptop on the surface against one of the other walls and her own mini living room in her room. She also had a vanity by the bathroom, half of which was covered with perfumes and lotions and a few makeup bags. He saw the keyboard with a bench on the other side of the bay window. Her room was freaking huge, it felt like three times the size of his living room. He then noticed her book shelf that took up the corner on the other side of her art corner by the bay window and walked over to it curiously. He turned his head to the side to read the spines of the books. A lot of them were about psychology, which would explain how she had managed to win at Cards Against Humanity, a book about reading people’s handwriting, medicine, sports medicine, massage, physical therapy, holistic medicine, essential oils. Then an entire shelf dedicated to cook books then a whole shelf dedicated romance novels, the science of sex and attraction and poetry. Nyx shook his head at the romance novels but tried to take a note of the other books. But then a whole shelf dedicated to art books. He looked closer, smiling appreciatively at the different ones.

“You can you look at any of those if you want.” Luna offered from the doorway to her bathroom, still rubbing in her nightly moisturizer as she walked over and took her favorite one off the shelf and handed it to him. He could see from the paint stained fingerprints on the cover and on most of the pages she must have used this as a reference.

“Did you remember a charger?” Luna asked as she went to her bed and plugged her phone in. “I don’t think I did.” Nyx shook his head as he looked up and noticed when she had turned around that her hair was down, the hair towards her face was in waves while the hair in the back was slightly curled from being twisted into the clip. Goodness was it pretty.

“That’s ok, I have extras, I-phone or Android?” Luna asked as she opened her bedside dresser drawer.

“Android.” Nyx answered.

“My kind of guy,” Luna grinned as she pulled out a spare charger and plugged it into the wall for him. “I should probably warn you, I do talk in my sleep so if that freaks you out, I’m sorry.” Luna informed him as she got into bed.  

“I snore,” Nyx shrugged as he closed the book and put it back on the shelf and walked over to the light switch to turn the lights off.

“I won’t notice, I listen to music as I fall asleep, helps me have lucid dreams,” Luna smiled softly as she put one earbud into her ear.

“Does that really work?” Nyx asked curiously as he plugged in his phone and got into the hideaway bed that was next to hers and noticed that it was way more comfortable than even his own bed at home.

“Sometimes, I have really, really intense dreams so when they are good, they are spectacular, when they are bad, they are...brutal and horrific and make me never want to sleep again.” Luna revealed lowly.  

“I’m sorry about the latter.” Nyx grimaced.

“Well, you’re here, so I should be just fine,” Luna assured him as she settled into her bed further.

“Nice nightlights,” Nyx smiled as he saw a few of them in her room, one by the bedroom door and one by her bathroom door which was on the side of the room he was on, his bed coming between her bed and the bathroom and then another on the side of the room where the mini living room was, along with the moonlight coming in from the skylights.

“Thank you,” Luna smiled in the darkness, at least he didn’t tease her or make fun of her for being afraid of the dark. “Although, if you prefer to have less light I have a sleeping mask you could borrow.” Luna added.

“Nah, I’m good, good night Luna,” Nyx bid her as he rolled away from her and tried to fall asleep, even though his body begged for rest but his brain told him to stay awake to stand watch over her.

“Goodnight Nyx, thank you again for coming.” Luna replied softly as she rolled away from him in turn and selected her sleep music playlist.

It had to be the middle of the night when he woke up to the sound of her moaning and suddenly his dick sprang to life. ‘Go. Away.’ He inwardly told it and rolled onto his stomach, hoping that with sad thoughts he could make his erection go away. Luna gasped softly in her sleep as she rolled onto her back as she sighed happily. Nyx buried his face into his pillow as he ground his pelvis into the bed, halfheartedly hoping she would stop soon while his imagination was set to record any sound that escaped her to fuel future fantasies.

Her breathing changed, got more labored as little cries of ecstasy escaped her lips as her hands clawed at the bedding as she writhed, fisting them before letting out a silent scream as her whole body tensed. Soon however her body slacked and her breathing soon returned to normal.

Nyx, for all of his self control, couldn’t help but watch, lifting his head and looking at her face, grateful for the soft light that had been emitted from those blessed night lights and skylights. His eyes had adjusted and witnessed the tortured bliss on her face, had seen her hands squeeze the bedding and had watched her writhe in bliss. God help him.

Nyx huffed in defeat and carefully and silently got out of bed and found refuge in her bathroom, carefully shutting the door and being ever so relieved to see she had a night light in there too so he didn’t have to turn a light on and risk waking her up. He took a seat on her toilet seat and pulled out his aching shaft from his pajama bottoms and boxers.

He closed his eyes as his imagination went into overdrive. He imagined Luna in that outfit she had described earlier in the night, imagining the sharp contrast of black leather and fishnets against the paleness of her skin. Her bright, ice blue eyes staring into him as he would put his hands on her thighs, feel the fishnets snag just a tad on the calluses of his hands as he felt the heat of her skin beneath his palms as he would slide his hands up those scorching hot legs of hers. He fantasized that those fishnets would only go thigh high. His hands would go to her ass squeezing the bare flesh he found there as Luna would strip for him. What he would give to tease her, to see that pretty mouth of hers hang open as she panted and moaned as she would spread her legs wide on his lap, revealing everything to him. He fantasized what shade of peachy pink her feminine lips would be, if past experience had taught him anything it was that a girls lips on her face tended to be the same shade as her nipples and her clitoris, nature was funny like that sometimes. He would delve into those folds with his hands as he made out with her. Then when he had her on the brink of release he would pull his hand away, watch her lips pout as she begged for more. Then he would ease her down onto his shaft and watch as he filled her. Watch her head lull back and her mouth open wide as another moan came from her throat. She would ride him, as hard as she wanted to as he held her close, capturing her pulse points on that regal column of her neck with his mouth, biting and sucking until she was bruised all over, claiming her as his for everyone to see. She would start to pant as she got closer. She would start calling out his name as a prayer as she clung to him. His hands would roam her, squeezing her breasts, giving her amazing cleavage before pulling at them and rolling her nipples between his fingertips, what a beautiful contrast they would be to the rest of her flower petal soft skin, a real feast for the eyes. He would try to suck on them as she continued to ride him. She would be so wet because he would make god damn sure she was good and aroused. His hands would go to her hips, helping her, guiding her as she would rock back and forth against him, feeling slick walls start to constrict around him as her cries grew louder as she got closer. She would hang onto his shoulders and the back of his neck for balance, her fingertips digging into the flesh there as her face would wear that beautiful tortured bliss expression again. He had almost forgotten how amazing it was to watch a girl orgasm, to come apart and back together again, to be given the highest of joys and ecstasies. And the satisfaction of knowing that he was the one to give that to her, to make her feel that way if she wanted it was the best kind of natural high. He wanted her, in every way she would have him.

He blew out a shaky breath as he finally came himself. His semen rocketed out of cock and splashed all over the marble floors of her bathroom. He cleaned himself and the floor up, chancing a flush of the toilet with the soiled toilet paper and washed his hands of any evidence of his actions. He was drying his hands when he heard her gasp again, but this one, while soft, was not like her gasps before, there was an edge to it, a hiss to it, like she was in pain.

He opened the door to see her facing the bathroom, her face twisted into a pained expression.

“No,” Luna muttered.

Nyx took one step toward her and she curled in on herself. “Andrew, no!” Luna whispered harshly. Nyx froze in position as his eyes left her to scan the room, making sure Andrew was not in fact there. His eyes quickly traveled to her door and made sure it had stayed locked. His ears strained in the silence, listening for breathing, for movement of any kind other than Luna’s.

Luna’s wrists came together and went above her head, like they had been tied together before she started to silently scream again. She was having a nightmare. She kicked the covers off as she kicked wildly as she continued to silently scream.

Nyx’s heart twisted painfully as he crossed the room in an instant and fell to his knees on the hideaway bed as he knelt next to her bed and grabbed her by the arms, bringing them back down from above her head as he tried to gently shake her awake.

“Luna,” Nyx whispered softly. “Luna wake up,” Nyx urged.

Luna tried to fight him off before her eyes snapped open as she sat up in bed, gasping for air as she clawed at her wrists, scratching them in the process before she realized she was awake and safe and sound in her own room.

“You ok there?” Nyx asked softly, still on his knees on the side of her bed as he gently rubbed soothing soft circles into her back as she caught her breath.

Luna turned to him and flung herself at him and clung to him before practically dragging him back down to the hideaway bed.

“Oh-ok,” Nyx muttered as he laid there awkwardly, not quite sure what to do. Luna, for her part had already mostly fallen back asleep.

Nyx took a deep breath and squirmed to bring his arm up and lifted her head slightly to push his arm through the space under her neck and adjust their now shared pillow before reaching up with his foot and hooked her blanket with it to bring it down since they were laying on top of his and managed to cover them both with it before resting his other arm in the crook of her waist. He couldn’t help but gaze down at her beautiful face and smiled bittersweet-ly as she seemed to be at peace now. His eyes drew heavier and heavier as he slowly blinked at her, placing a gentle kiss on her forehead, his lips lingering there before finally succumbing to sleep himself.

Luna awoke in the morning, feeling at peace as she could feel a pair of strong arms around her as one of her own arms wrapped around someone in turn. Luna frowned as she realized that there should not have been a pair of arms around her and she shouldn’t be holding onto anyone. She opened her eyes and saw Nyx’s chest and recognized that it was the same shirt he had worn to bed last night, and then looked up curiously to see Nyx’s neck, then that glorious jaw of his, then finally his handsome, peaceful, restful face and could not stop the smile that played on her lips as memories of the night before began to wash into her mind. She had dreamed of him, dreamed of Nyx making love to her and it had been AWESOME. Oh god then she had a nightmare, of Andrew, he had managed to tie her up and was torturing Nyx before coming back to her and she was fighting him off then she remembered that she had woken up from said nightmare, gasping in a cold sweat, and...and Nyx had been there, he had been awake, he...had he tried to wake her up? Bless his soul if he had. She remembered practically gluing herself to him and feeling so much relief, comfort, peace and a deep sense of safety when she did. She must have fallen asleep that way. She noted her blanket laying over them and figured she must have dragged it down with her. For Nyx to make such a big deal about consent and personal space, she sure did invade his personal space a lot, with or without his consent. She would have to apologize for that when he woke up. She should be withdrawing from him, she should...but she couldn’t. She just couldn’t bring herself to pull away from him. Heaven help her.

Soon however she could sense him wake up. But still, she did not move. Instead she stayed still and let him wake up.

“Good morning,” She greeted in a voice so small she couldn’t quite believe her own ears.

“Morning,” Nyx groaned sleepily as he pulled his arm away, that had had been resting on her waist, his hand splayed possessively and protectively on her back, to roll onto his back and stretch out. Luna could feel the arm beneath her neck tense as it stretched in unison with the rest of him before it relaxed again.

“Thank you, for helping me through last night.” Luna thanked him softly.  

Nyx smiled sleepily as he rolled back over to face her but he folded his arm in front of him, trying to respect her personal boundaries, even though she had made no move to get off his arm, or move away from him. “No problem,” Nyx told her, shaking his head a little as he did so as he slowly blinked his eyes open in the bright sunshine streaming into the room.

“So how bad did I talk in my sleep?” Luna inquired, grimacing as she did so.

“You didn’t, I mean you said ‘no Andrew’ in your sleep but you didn’t say much of anything else, or at least if you did, I didn’t hear it.” Nyx shook his head, choosing to keep part of the truth to himself to save her any embarrassment.

“So hardly at all, good, good,” Luna nodded. “Sorry I invaded your bed.” Luna apologized.

“Don’t worry about it, I’m not going to complain,” Nyx shook his head again, as he could feel the corner of his mouth tug into a smile.

“I just..I mean..I just...” Luna started to stutter and trip over herself as she fought to collect her thoughts again. She grimaced again as if waiting for Nyx to sigh exasperatingly but when she opened her eyes, all she saw was patience tempered with curiosity. “I feel safe with you.” Luna blurted as her cheeks stained rose.

“Good,” Nyx nodded in agreement. “I hope I never make you feel unsafe,” Nyx added.

Luna’s heart melted at that, all she could think of was how bad she wanted to kiss him again as she nodded with him. But she tried to exercise self control. She had to try.

“So...um...so have you...” Luna struggled with forming a coherent sentence.

“Have I...?” Nyx asked after a beat, careful to keep his tone gentle. He had to be gentle.  

“Favors, have you thought of how you wanted to be repaid for this favor?” Luna blurted super quickly before she hid her face into the pillow, embarrassed by her stuttering. “Me and English are not getting along this morning,” Luna muffled into the pillow with a self depreciating laugh.

“Sorry,” Luna apologized as she pulled her face from the pillow to face him again.

Nyx was shaking his head again. “Don’t worry about it, you don’t owe me anything,” Nyx insisted.

“I can’t accept that answer.” Luna shook her head in friendly argument.

“No, I’m serious, you don’t owe me anything,” Nyx repeated emphatically but Luna still shook her head no.

Nyx rolled his eyes before placing his hand on her face and gently grabbed it and shook her head yes for her which earned laughter from both of them.

“Yes Nyx, I don’t owe you anything,” Nyx repeated in a girly voice, a gentle teasing sarcastic imitation of Luna’s voice which only got Luna to laugh harder.

“Ok, I give up,” Luna laughed before Nyx pulled his hand away from her face. “Here, how about this,” Luna suggested as she reached around him and began scratching his back through the fabric of his t-shirt.

Nyx couldn’t help the gravely moan that escaped his throat as he rolled back over to his stomach to give her more access to his back.  

“May I?” Luna giggled as she dipped her fingers under his shirt to scratch at the skin there.

“By all means,” Nyx invited, taking the shirt off and fully laying on his stomach. Luna smiled as she sat up next to him and began to scratch his back.

“Lighter? Harder?” Luna asked as she scratched softly.

“You could scratch a little harder.” Nyx told her before she put more pressure into her scratching.

“Oh yeah, just right,” Nyx groaned in pleasure as he enjoyed her attention. Soon her scratches alternated into rubs and massage. The moans that escaped his throat had Luna biting her bottom lip because damn was his voice sexy. It was extra deep because of sleep and lord have mercy, it was turning her on.

“Could I try something?” Luna felt embolden to ask.

“Absolutely,” Nyx agreed. She could have her way with him and he would happily comply.

“But I would probably have to sit on you, like your lower back or your butt.” Luna clarified as she withdrew her hands from him to get a book on her headboard and flipped through the pages to find the diagram she was thinking of. She straddled and sat on his ass and suddenly Nyx was very aware of her hot core against him and he was so grateful she couldn’t see his erection that was hard enough to fuck through steel at the moment that was pinned between his body and the mattress. And then she was running her knuckles up either side of his spine and his eyes nearly rolled back into his head. Oh god, she was massaging up and down his back and then her hands went to his shoulders and then his neck and all over again. This was heavenly.

“You can keep going...for like hours if you want, I won’t stop you,” Nyx gently teased her.

“Can I now?” Luna all but purred as she continued to massage him.

Holy shit she was flirting with him and Nyx’s cock was in desperate need of relief again. It was taking every ounce, every molecule of self control not to give into his desires.

She continued to massage his back until her stomach started to growl.

“I didn’t ask you,” Luna laughed as she talked to her stomach. But the scent of breakfast that was wafting through the house.

“It does smell good.” Nyx had to admit.

“Pause on this for now?” Luna asked as she gently caressed up and down his back, giving him goosebumps everywhere.

“Sure,” Nyx agreed, he couldn’t bring himself to even disagree.

“Ok, I’m gonna go to the bathroom and get dressed and stuff, feel free to shower or whatever when I’m done ok?” Luna suggested as she lowered herself to lay on his back, giving his cheek a quick kiss before getting off of him and going to her closet to get some clothes to change into. Nyx stayed put until Luna had gone into the bathroom. When she had retreated to the bathroom and shut the door, he rolled over to his back, he rubbed his face as his erection tented his boxers and his pajama pants, precum soaking through both layers of material but thankfully not really spotting the sheets. Thank god.

Nyx tried to ignore it as he got up and put Luna’s blanket back on her bed and folded up the bedding from the hideaway bed, putting it back into the closet where he saw her take it from before he pushed the hideaway bed back under hers, appreciating the cool design of her bed frame, how it had looked like just a bed long drawer underneath her bed.

He dug through his bag and got the outfit Selena had packed for him and grabbed the stick of deodorant Selena had thrown in and went ahead and got dressed quickly before Luna came back out, thankfully his boner had gone down some and he could hide the remainder of it in his jeans without it being too noticeable.

Luna came out not long after that and stopped when she saw that not only was the hideaway bed put up but that his bedding had been folded and put away. None of her friends ever thought to be so damn thoughtful or considerate.

“Aren’t you just amazing?” Luna cooed smiling appreciatively at him as he passed her to use the bathroom himself.

“I try,” Nyx smiled.

Luna quickly made her bed and waited for him because there was no way she, a princess, was going to leave her tower without her knight in shining armor.

It only took a moment for Nyx to reappear.

“Ready?” Luna asked as she stood from her seat on her bed.

“Yup,” Nyx nodded.

“Follow me,” Luna gestured as she stood up and made her way to her bedroom door, unlocking it and opening it for them before Pryna and Umbra weaved between them to walk out of the room as well.

Nyx politely closed the door behind them. However when they turned toward the hallway again. They found they were not alone.

“Mother,” Luna greeted a bit louder than she should have, as panic seeped into her chest once again at the sight of her mother coming down the hall toward her room. Shit, she forgot about the dragon.

#Magic and Miracles #Magic and Miracles chapter 2 #Lunyx #Lunafreya Nox Fleuret #Nyx Ulric #FFXV #Final Fantasy 15 #RaeLena #Ravus Nox Fleuret #Selena Ulric #Pelna Khara #Crowe Altius #libertus ostium #Crowe and Libertus #Luche Lazarus #Andrew Izunia #Sylva and Regis #Sylva Nox Fleuret #Regis Lucis Caelum #Ignoct #ignis scientia #noctis lucis caelum #gladiolus amicitia #prompto argentum #I think that's everyone

[themarchblessing]

ACERCA DE TU MADRE

COREY

Beating on Brian’s door I continuously made my presence known waiting to see how annoyed he would get.

“Yo come the fuck on man! It’s early in the fucking morning!” He bitched. The door swung back and so did his fist. I caught it before he could get too close to my face laughing at how tired he looks. “Fuck is so funny?” He groaned nodding me inside.

“Yo ugly ass face and that childish ass temper. It’s going on one in the afternoon mother fucker, what’s got you so dead?” I asked going straight to his kitchen. I grabbed an apple throwing it at him knowing he wouldn’t see it coming. I also grabbed one to eat.

“What kind of magic pussy got you glowing like a fucking rainbow?” He chuckled staring at me across the counter.

Shrugging like I don’t know what he’s talking about I ate the apple in silence.

“Nigga I know you. You’ve been getting some ass on the regular from somebody and you’re not telling me. You’re a good liar but you used to be better.” Brian and I had a stare down only to share a laugh toward the end.

“Leave me alone B. Don’t worry about the pussy I’m getting. Are you getting any?” I eyed him with an arched brow.

He nodded to his room and that’s when I heard movement and a girl talking. He silently told me to wait as he dipped off and shut the door behind him. I made myself comfortable with his food and his home. So to sum to all that’s been going on Lori and I have been fucking every other day for the past month or so. The sex hasn’t changed from the morning after we went out and neither has anything else. I think she’s got my head in the clouds. Brian was onto something about magic pussy. That exactly what Sabrina has. Magic, beautiful, mind blowing pussy. It’s so crazy because I never thought that my wildest dream could become true.

I’m not sure what it is that we’re doing. But selfishly I like it for what it is. She’s still my friend. But she’s also how I get my rocks off. Sex with her takes my mind off of everything else. The only thing I seem to comprehend is that I get to revel in the company of my family a lot more these days. It’s like that night at the club pushed us in the direction we’re in now. As happy as I am to have what we have now I still feel guilty that I haven’t been truthful with her.

Opening the message she sent me this morning after she left I scanned over it smiling at how corny she is.

Lori: I miss u and we were just up there not even five minutes ago, what have u done to me Corey Howard????

To Lori: dick got your mind running in circles don’t it? when you coming back to me?

“Well this is a nice surprise.” A voice said from behind me. I turned around seeing an old face.

“Wow. It’s good to see you again. What are you doing around these parts? How you been though girl?” Standing up to give Carli a proper hug I saw Brian coming out of the room pulling a shirt over his head.

“I've been good. Med school is kicking my ass but I’m making it.” She smiled proudly.

Holding my chest in shock I took my seat back on the couch. “Med school huh?”

Carli sat down in the single seater couch, crossing her legs and buttoning her sweater down. “Yep. By this time in May of next year I’ll officially be a licensed cardiologist. The workload is a bitch but I’ve come too far to quit. How have you been Corey? I see you haven’t let go of my dumbs ass of a boyfriend.” She snickered.

“Living the dream. Wait..did you say boyfriend? Don’t tell me he’s hitting it raw? You need to make him work it Carli.” Kicking my feet up on the table I opened my messages back up.

“Oh I make his ass work for it don’t you worry. Excuse me for a second.” She left the room just as Bri was calling.

“You are a real comedian.” She giggled off the bat.

“But I’m right thought. What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Crossing my arm over my chest I listened to her move around.

“No nothing is wrong. I’m just so swamped with clients. I’m tired and I need a vacation. I can’t take Zay out of school but I need time to recoup, destress..” she sighed deeply.

“I don’t help you destress enough? I’m your personal physical therapist, psychiatrist and whatever the fuck else you need me to be aren’t I?” Sabrina laughed at my idiotic comment.

“Yes you’re all of those things Corey. I just need a change in scenery that’s all. I’ve got some vacation time I want to use. Can you getaway for a few days? If you don’t want-” Shutting her up I went to step out on the fire escape.

“I’ll take you anywhere you want to go. When do you want to leave? Tomorrow?” I asked.

“Thursday. I need to get some things in order for Zay and arrange for him to stay with Ray’s mom. I don’t even know where I want go. I haven’t been on my traveling status like you big boy so I’m kind of rusty.” Making a mental note in my head I leaned on the railing welcoming the breeze.

“Come over tonight. Or better yet let me come over. We’ve been busting up my mattress a lot lately. I need a change in scenery too, we’ll figure out where to go then. Is that ok with you?” Looking behind me I saw Carli and Brian telling me to come inside.

“Okay, you can come home with me tonight. I’d love to have you in my bed. Oh baby I miss you so much.” I detected a smile over the phone that made me do the same.

“It’s a date then. Look I gotta go but call me if you need anything and I’ll see you later.” Stepping back inside I shut and locked the door.

“I’ll keep that mind.” We ended our call. Sliding my phone in my pocket, I followed these two out in the hall. I have no idea what we’re about to get into but I hope I get free food.

“Another round?” The waitress asked.

“Yes please, thank you.” Brian smiled handing her some money. Brian and I have been giving Carli a tour of our home since she’s not from these parts. I’ve been keeping close track of the time so I can make sure to pick little man up from school on time. I volunteered for this responsibility and I like it. It gives me the chance to spend time with my son and embrace that fatherly role head on. Izaiah having my middle name as his first is beyond heartwarming. When Bri confessed to me what Zay’s name is and the root of it I couldn’t believe what she said. Even with miles between us and a two different time zones, she never forgot about me. And to my knowledge Zay doesn’t know that little piece of information yet. Maybe Bri and I can tell him together when she’s ready.

The waitress came back to the table with three drinks, setting them down easily. “There you guys are.” She left with Carli and Brian downing their shots in seconds.

“What’s wrong bro?” Brian asked taking me of my thoughts.

“What?” I sighed checking my watch again.

“I’m gonna step out. I gotta check on my mom.” Carli left the table leaving us be.

“Corey? What’s the matter man? You’ve been in your head for a minute now. What’s up with you? Who’s fucking with your head?” The concern in my nigga’s voice reassured me that he still cares about my well being.

Running my hands down my face I set my phone on the table and decided it’s time to come clean. “Sabrina. And she’s not fucking with my head, she’s just fucking me. Real good too. I figured out a little while ago that that Izaiah is my son but I haven’t told Bri told yet and I’m scared to. She’s not a spiteful woman so I doubt she’d take my son away from me. But me coming forward about what I did seven years ago might really upset her. The last thing I want her to do is be mad at me but I gotta expect the worst.” Taking a breath I watched Brian flip through emotions while staring at me dead pan.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let me get this straight. You have a son with Sabrina but she doesn’t know it? You have a kid? You two are fucking but you’re still just friends? What the fuck man?! Why haven’t you told me any of this my nigga? We tell eachother everything..I’m your brother..” Brian tapped his fist angrily on the table staring at me with curious eyes.

“You don’t think I know that? It’s all confusing even for me. But yes that’s all of it. I’ve been trying to wrap my head around all this ever since I met up with Eva to confirm what I’ve been hearing. You, my dad, the woman on the train and every stranger that’s commented on the similarities between that little boy and I were right. I know for a fact Sabrina hasn’t picked up on anything. My life has changed Brian. A lot.” I explained seeing Carli come back in.

“Damn. You have a kid? This shit is crazy. Am I gonna get to meet him?” Brian pulled out Carli’s chair for her.

Nodding surely I messed around with the liquor still not interested in drinking it. “Yeah you’re gonna meet him. I just need to get some things in order first. It’s just crazy man. I completely forgot about that night at her birthday. If Eva had never met up with me I would’ve never got the answers I wanted. I was drunk off my ass at Bri’s party, I found the place she was holding onto that nigga sperm and ended up replacing it with mine. Why? Because my stupid ass spilled everything and called Eva to help me out so I could switch his..you know with mine. That’s how it happened. It’s the craziest fucking story but it’s the truth.”

The look on Carli’s face when she sat down humored me. She came back at the wrong time.

“Can I ask what you guys are talking about?” She asked shyly.

“Um..how I unknowingly became a dad at a party seven years ago that I had no recollection of until recently.” I summed up in a nutshell.

“You’re a dad? Aw that is so cute. What’s he like? Does he look like you?” Carli cooed with her hands folded under her face.

Opening up my pictures I pulled one up showing it to her. She scrolled for a minute with a sappy ass smile on her face.

“He’s so beautiful Corey and I definitely see him in you. Congratulations, daddy.” She chuckled making us all do it too.

“Thanks Carli. He makes happy in a way I can’t even explain. And don’t get started his mother. Man..” I can’t wait to see Sabrina tonight. I can’t wait to kiss her, I can’t wait to hug her, I can’t wait to see her smile, and I definitely can’t wait to blow her back out.

“Is that a fucking smile at the mention of her name? Are you blushing? You said y’all were just fucking but you’re in love brother. You love her and don’t lie to me.” Brian leaned across the table staring me down intensely.

Pushing his face back jokingly I checked the time again. “Leave me alone. Hey I gotta go but y’all be safe and enjoy the rest of your day ok? I’ll holla at you later B.” Leaving money on the table I stood up and put my jacket on. “See you later Carli, good to have you back and take care of this fool when I’m not around.” I left the bar and caught a cab back to Brian’s to retrieve my car. I got in quickly heading towards the school thinking about the day I got arrested and Zay taken from me. That was not only embarrassing but it scared me shitless. I don’t ever want to see my kid taken from me ever again for as long as I’m living.  When I put two and two together that Nikole planted that coke on me I felt my soul yearn to make sure she gets hers. But just having Izaiah back with Sabrina and that whole incident put behind us made me think. I’m too old now and I’ve got way too much to lose over some heartbroken, bitter ex of mine.

The anticipation of seeing Zay tempted me to speed but I controlled myself so I don’t get caught up again but with a real charge this time. When I got to his school I parked close so he’d see my car. I stood outside hoping not to attract too much attention to myself. After that day I’ve been keeping a low profile from these nut ass teachers. I don’t want to hear shit they have to say unless it’s about my son’s safety, education, and well-being. Spotting Izaiah in a crowd of kids I waited until they cleared out to walk closer so he didn’t have to come this far alone.

“Hey! You made it!” He grinned throwing himself into me.

I hugged him back turning to bring him over to the car. “How was school kid? Anybody mess with you?” Opening the door I helped him inside to get settled for this drive. Before we go to his moms I want to stop somewhere first.

“School was okay and no. Nobody bothered me. How was your day?” He rebutted buckling himself in. Checking to make sure he was all straight I closed the door and jogged around to the drivers side, hopping in fast. I put the car in drive and took off towards the city to do a little shopping.

“My day was okay. I went to see a friend of mine and that was about it. Let me ask you something Zay..” looking in the mirror I was glad to see him fully focused on me. “Does your mom talk to Julian a lot? Does he ever come by the house at all?” I asked.

“No. I never see him that much. I don’t really like him. He makes me uncomfortable.” Zay scrunched his face up in disgust.

Trying not to laugh I jumped on the highway to avoid the street lights. Zay and I bugged out the entire ride. We talked about a lot too. I swear spending time with him is like a blast from my own past. He’s so much like me and doesn’t even know it. We touched down on 5th Avenue and once I found a parking spot I exited the car and went to get Zay out from the back seat.

“Where are we going Corey?” He asked holding onto my hand as we walked towards the other side of the street.

“Well little man I need to do what I call early Christmas shopping.” Stopping by a trashcan I bent down to secure the switchblade strapped to my ankle. I also had to make sure the strap in the back of my pants was covered. Keeping a firm hold on Zay’s hand I stood to my feet, guiding him to our first stop.

“Are we shopping for mom?” He assumed.

“Yes. Do you pay attention to your mom and what she likes?” I want to pick his brain to see what he’s picked up on with his mother. I want to know what she’s like when I’m not around. Based on my own history with her I know the types of material things she likes most. But does our son pick up on anything?

“She loves shoes and jewelry and purses too. She really likes clothes but I don’t know much about that. I help her pick out her new clothes sometimes when she takes me the store with her.” He said as we reached Saks. I opened the door and walked in behind him with my hand to the back of his head.

Going over to the counter I grabbed a woman’s attention who just got off the phone. “Hi there, how can I help you?” She asked.

“Yeah I called a few hours ago about some items I wanted put on hold for my wife.” I began. I looked down to see Izaiah looking around the store with curiosity radiating off of him as to what’s all here.

“Oh yes that’s right. What we’re calling about? I want to make sure we get you everything you need.” I went through the list of shoes and handbags I requested watching her head off to the back afterward. I also asked her to gift wrap each item too so Sabrina can’t see what everything is right off the bat.

“This is all for mommy? Why buy her so much?” Izaiah asked sitting next to me on the chair.

“I do this all the time for your mom Zay. She’s not the type of girl to ask for anything, she just works hard for what she wants and buys everything herself. She probably will never tell you this but we have a weird relationship. She doesn’t have to do anything, I just spoil her because I want to. I love taking care of her and getting whatever she needs and wants.” Seeing the woman come over to me with five boxes and two bags I met her halfway and took them off her hands.

“Your wife is a very lucky woman. Thank you so much for choosing us to bless her with these gifts, I know she will love them. And I’m so glad we could help you Mr. Howard.” She smiled.

“I don’t doubt that she will and thank you.” Turning around I saw Izaiah going over to the door to hold it open for me. “Thanks kid.” We walked back to my car so I could put these bags inside and afterward we went right back to another store. If there’s one lesson I can hopefully teach my kid it’s to treat the woman you care about with the highest level of respect. My dad taught me the values of being a man and how treat women. He told me to never let my woman forget how special she is to me. I’m always good with my words and actions but I like spoiling the women in my life if they’re worthy of it.

Sabrina and every other girl from my past got close to the same amount of treatment. If I’m treated how I’m supposed to be then I give it right back. If not, well fuck you. But for Sabrina, I’ll do anything for her. I always have. Her past boyfriends have all been jealous of me because of how close we were. We never fucked around back then. When she was seeing somebody I didn’t blow up her phone, stop by unannounced, or make it obvious that I took care of her in ways her niggas didn’t. I never made a pass at her. I came to her when she asked me to and respected every relationship she ever had before ours. The respect we’ve carried for one another while in and out relationships over the years has been equal. That’s never changed. She treats me nice so I return the courtesy back to her.

By the time Zay and I finished up going in and out stores it was after eight o’clock. I took him out to eat to take a weight off Bri’s shoulders. I do all that I can because I genuinely care about him. Nobody but my father, Eva, Carli and Brian know of his relation to me. No matter how long it takes me to come clean I’m going to own up to my responsibility as a father. I don’t need guidance on how to take care of him when it’s just us two. He tells me everything that I could possibly need to know about him as far as the basics go. Anything else I learn through Sabrina.

“That pizza was so good! I like mushroom on pizza now, thanks for the advice. Mom hates mushrooms so much so I don’t ever have to share that pizza with her..” Izaiah laughed as I pulled into Sabrina’s driveway.

“Oh yeah? I’m glad you liked it. You ate four slices of pizza boy how the hell did you manage that?” Shutting my car down I went around to the other side to get Zay out of the back.

“I had a lot of room for the food. What can I say?” He refuted, closing the door on his side. I took out all of the bags and handed some of the lighter ones to him.

“And I bet you’ll eat again if your mama asks you if you’re hungry won’t you?” Teasing him is so much fun.

“I just might. Did you call mom to tell her we’re here?” He asked as walked up to the front door.

“Yeah I called her. I hope she’s still up.” Pulling out my phone I told Zay to knock on the door while I waited to see if Bri would pick up the phone.

“I’m coming!” We heard her yell getting closer to the door. Sliding my phone in my pocket I looked at the sky seeing that it’s pitch black out. The door opened up and we were face to face with Sabrina wearing a bathrobe. Clearly we interrupted her. “Come on, I’m freezing.” She hid behind the door so we could walk inside. Zay sat down the bags he was holding by the door and shut the door behind us. “Where have you guys been? What is all of this?” She shivered closing her robe tighter.

“We went shopping. I missed you mama.” Zay ran to her, hugging her with a death grip.

“Aw baby I missed you too. I missed both of you. How was school?” She looked up at me and mouthed a ‘thank you’. Nodding, I walked to her room placing the bags on the floor by her bed. The scent coming from the bathroom peaked my interest. I went in to see that she was in the middle of setting a bath for herself. She’s got candles and incense burning. Even the oil burner is going to.

“Same old Sabrina.” I mumbled going back to her room. I took the blade out of my shoe, the gun from out the back of my pants and set them in the top drawer of her dresser out of Izaiah’s reach. Next I stripped down until I was comfortable placing my clothes on an empty chair.

Sabrina has a lot to open so to make this process easier I separated the boxes from the bags and lined them up across her bed.

“Thank you once again for picking him up.” She said from behind me. Looking over my shoulder I turned around to see her robe slipping from her shoulders.

Taking a seat on her bed I tiredly waved her over. She immediately hugged me, her robe fanning open. “Tired?” She slid her hands in the back of my shirt, rubbing my back and shoulders without me having to tell her I’m in pain.

Lazily I wrapped my arms around her waist, closing my eyes to block out any source of light. “Physically. How was the rest of your day?” I questioned, groaning at how amazing she is with her hands.

“Kind of hectic. I don’t want to talk about work ok?” She picked up my head and caressed the side of my face with care. “You’re staying tonight right? Like we discussed earlier on the phone?” The inquisitiveness in her face and voice clarified where Izaiah gets that trait from. Straight from the source.

Nodding yes I picked her up off the floor and onto my lap. Brushing some loose strands of hair from her face I silently counted my blessings for this woman in front of me.

“What’s wrong? Why are you looking at me like that? Is there something you want to tell me?” She searched my eyes back and forth tickling my sense of humor at how curious and concerned she is. Forever in her mommy role.

“No baby I’m fine. I just like looking at you. Sometimes it doesn’t feel real.” I admitted, kissing her exposed chest and neck.

“Mmm..” she moaned running her fingers through my hair. “Esto es real. Tú y yo. Entiendes?” She exhaled sinking further into my lap.

“I hear you. Where’s Izaiah?” Backing up to see her face again I removed the clip from her hair, placing it on the bed behind me.

“He’s in the bathtub. I told him I’d be back. Did you guys eat already? I wasn’t sure if either of you had.” She kissed my forehead saving my lips for last.

“Yeah we did. Did you?” I returned the concern and stood up to place her on her feet.

“Yeah I’m fine. Do you want to help Izaiah get ready for bed for me? It’d mean a lot to me.” She stared at me with pleading eyes knowing she didn’t really have to ask that.

“I don’t mind. Go finish getting your bath ready, I’ll come back when I’m done.” Ushering her off to the bathroom I left the room to see what Zay was up to. I found him sitting on the edge of the bathtub with his towel wrapped around his body. Knocking on the door he looked up at me hugging himself tighter. “You ok?” Going in I picked him up off the rim and carried him down to his room.

“Yeah I’m all done. Is mom taking her bath now?” He shivered laying his head on my shoulder. Cutting on the light to his room I went to his closet to find him something to wear to bed.

“Yeah she’s in there right now. What you want to wear to bed?” I helped him pick out something to wear and got him dressed. He’s now sitting in my lap messing with and examining my watch. I adore that he’s fascinated with the littlest things. Since I’ve only got one free arm I used my available hand to sort the his curls like Bri continues to tell me after he gets his baths. I don’t complain or argue with her I just take heed to the advice and follow through.

“Has she opened her presents?” Zay asked setting my arm down and holding still so I could finish sorting through his hair. I picked up the towel, being gentle with taking out some of the water so he doesn’t soak his pillows.

“Not yet. I’ll have her open them once she’s in bed. She needs to get off her feet first. Go find you some socks to put on.” Setting him on his feet I watched him open the third drawer from the top and pull out a blue pair of socks. I saw the words ‘San Diego Zoo’ written on the sole of each halve.

Zay climbed up on the bed and rushed to slide his feet into the socks with no second thought.

“Wait..” pushing the lotion in his direction I laughed at his frown as he removed the socks and put lotion on both feet. When he put the socks back on I heard Sabrina talking. I’m not able to make out what she’s saying but I know she’s talking to someone or herself. “I’ma go check on your mom ight? Do whatever you want but stay in here or else she’s gonna be nagging us at the same time about how you aren’t in bed. You understand?” Kissing the crown of his head stood up and stretched my limbs.

“Corey..”

Turning around I dropped my arms and shoved my hands in my pockets. “What’s up?”

“Thanks for taking care of me and my mom.” Izaiah stood at the edge of his bed outstretching his arms to pull me into him. “I love you.” He mumbled turning his head to the side so he didn’t suffocate in my chest.

“I love you too man. I always will.” We hugged for another minute separating to do our own thing. Leaving his room I walked down the hall thinking about what he just told me. I wonder how my parents felt the first time I told them ‘I love you’. I didn’t put any thought into wanting to hear Zay tell me how he feels about me. But now that he has I feel really good about the growth of our relationship. “Lori?” Pushing her bathroom door open I went to disturb her knowing she would just get freaked out.

“You’re not scaring me this time. I heard you come in. Izaiah’s in bed?” She asked curling her legs up to her chest tipping her head back to get a good look at me. I stood behind her looking at her face upside down.

“Yeah he’s in bed. I told him he can do whatever as long as he doesn’t leave the room. I hope that’s okay. Sometimes I don’t know what to tell him when he’s here because I don’t want go around whatever routine you usually stick with.” Getting down to her level I kissed her, holding the sides of her face.

“Don’t worry about that. We don’t have any established routine.” Sabrina ended her bath and took a shower with me where we got in one round since the water would help drown out any noise coming from her.  Once we were done I gave her specific instructions not to put any clothes on. I bought something from earlier that I want to see her in.

The bathroom door opened up and out came Bri wearing a different robe.

“Ok, what’s with the no clothes rule?” She instantly asked walking over to the bed, not bothering to sit down. I slid the smallest box over to her watching her open it and take everything out. This first box contains four different color lingerie pieces. I didn’t need any help picking these out from the associates at the store. I went around Bri to found out what size she is and found the perfect what they call ‘teddy’s’ for her. “Babe..why did you get me four? And how did you know what colors to get?” She looked in awe over everything.

“I just went with what I think would look good with your skin tone. Go put the black one on.” I suggested, reaching across the bed and separating the piece I want to see her in tonight. Sabrina hid out in the bathroom while I waited for her reveal herself. The door opened back up and I swear just seeing her in this is making my mind go to some dark places. “You like it or no? You can be honest Sabrina.” I advised standing up and walking over to her.

Grabbing her hand I spun her around in a slow twirl to get a good look at her. Damn she is one fine piece of ass. I mean that respectfully.

“I love it. It’s prefect and it’s surprisingly very comfortable for lace. You did good.” Sabrina patted my back, walking to the bed, going to open more boxes. I stood behind her just admiring the view. “Oh my goodness..look at this..” She exclaimed.

Breaking my stare of her ass I came to realize she was holding one of the purses up in the air . I never moved from this spot just so I can watch her open her gifts like it’s Christmas morning. When she had everything lined up across the bed she turned around to face me.

“Come here..” She hummed reaching for my hands. I closed our distance glancing at all that I bought her. “I love you so much you know that right?” She smirked toying with the hem of my shirt.

“I know you do.” I replied just to be a smart ass.

”Listen to me and listen to me good, I love you not because you buy me things, expensive things at that. It’s because you really know how to treat women Corey. Thank you for everything. I love the bags, I really love the shoes and this..” She touched the outfit she had on. “These are so beautiful. I just have one question though..” She yawned, taking my shirt up and over my head.

Dropping my arms I pushed her back to the point she was laying on top of her things. “What’s that?” I mumbled, lowering my body to trap her in place. I went straight for her neck attacking her warm skin with kisses. Sabrina has really sensitive skin so she can only use one kind of soap. I don’t know where she gets it from but I love that it smells like strawberries. And when she uses it, she smells like strawberries and vanilla. It never fails to turn on me now that I get to enjoy her on a more intimate level.

“How much?” She moaned, slipping her hands in between us to unbutton my pants.

“It doesn't matter. Hold that thought..” I groaned wishing I didn’t have to stop. Standing up on my feet I held onto my pants to run down the hall to check on Zay. Sabrina and I are still figuring out what we’re doing and that means Izaiah can’t see me pushing up on his mom. Let alone fucking her so we have to be careful at all costs. At least until we can figure out what to tell him. He was lying on his stomach sound asleep, snoring lightly. “Just like your old man.” I mumbled to myself. I cut his tv off, his light and left his door open a little so he’s not completely in the dark.

Quietly I went back to Sabrina’s room shutting her door behind me.

“I really really like this one..” She said closing a box. I turned to see her wearing a different outfit that made my dick jump. She chose the pink one that has no sleeves, all lace.

Locking the door I dropped my pants and threw them on the chair with my other clothes. “But pink isn’t your color though right? Tell another lie.” Laughing with her at the memory I closed in on her picking her up off the floor before she could do or say anything.

“Certain shades of pink don’t look good on me, that’s what I said.” She corrected herself as I laid her down with ease. Izaiah telling me that he loved got me thinking. About everything and what the future holds. “Hey..” Bri cupped my face in her hand with a serious look of concern on her face. “What is it now?” She sat up from underneath me, tucking her hair behind her ear.

“He told me he loved me. And I don’t know why but it kind of scared me.” Laying down next to her I tucked my hands behind my head watching Bri lean on me.

“Why?” She whispered.

“I have no idea. I know I probably shouldn’t care much but I feel like I’m lying to him about what we are. And I know that we haven’t figured out much but I think for his sake we should.” Lifting Bri onto my lap I relaxed and let her take charge doing whatever she wants.

Reaching over to her bedside table, Lori picked up a rubber band, tying her hair into a high ponytail. “We will figure this out ok, you and me. But in order for that to happen you need a clear head and that’s where I come in. So just relax, I don’t want to hear another word out of your mouth unless you’re doing what I tell you. Entiendes mi amor?” She advised sternly.

I tried sitting up but she slapped both hands on my chest making me lay back. “Yes ma’am.” I groaned.

“That’s what I thought.” She smirked, stripping me of my clothes, throwing everything to the floor. She took her time warming me up for what’s coming my way. I never took my eyes off of her. I barely flinched at the feel of her nails tickling my inner thigh. My dick in the comfort of her mouth is the perfect start to a wonderful night.

#the march blessing #short story

[thekoshertribble]

“Oh, the sound of male ego. You travel halfway across the galaxy and it’s still the same song.” Women of Star Trek Blog Entry #3 “Mudd’s Women”: Eve McHuron

Hi everyone! I’m back. I’ve been looking forward to writing about this episode. Eve McHuron is a great character, and I have a lot to say about her. With that in mind, I’ve broken this blog into 4 parts. It might end up being the longest entry I make so please bear with me.

Part One: Hologram Brides

Ever heard of Picture Brides?

If you haven’t, here’s a quick history lesson: back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, men from China, Korea and Japan immigrated to Hawaii and California in search of work opportunities. Most engaged in hard manual labor, and couldn’t make enough money to go back home. Many of them wanted to marry women from their home countries, so they would have their photograph taken and sent to a matchmaker there. Local families would, with the matchmaker’s help, choose a man they liked and send one of their female relatives over as that man’s bride. These future brides, like their to-be husbands, often made the long journey to seek opportunities they could not find at home.

I know what you’re thinking: okay, great history lesson, but what does this have to do with Star Trek? Well, I’ll tell you. 

When Harry Mudd and his three female passengers are apprehended and taken aboard the Enterprise, Mudd explains they is bound for Ophiuchus III, and that he he “recruits wives for settlers.” Kirk is concerned the women did not come voluntarily, but Eve explains that they are personally motivated : “it’s the same story for all of us, Captain: no men! [My planet] was a farm planet with automated machines for company and two brothers to cook for, mend their clothes...we’ve got men willing to be our husbands waiting for us, and you’re taking us in the opposite direction!” Criminal background aside, Mudd granted these young women with an opportunity they could not turn up - the chance to have a husband, a home, a family of their own, to live a “Little House on the Planetoid” kind of life. Harry Mudd’s passengers, Eve, Ruth and Magda, are essentially like the picture brides of old, (albeit not ethnically.) Although, it might be more accurate to call them “hologram brides” instead.

Part 2: Magda, Ruth and Eve, the Daughters of Lear

English lesson time! Ever read/watched King Lear? Shakespeare’s classic play tells of a elderly mad King Lear and his 3 daughters, Goneril, Regan and Cordelia. The first two sisters are greedy, corrupt and power hungry, while Cordelia is kind, forgiving and loyal to her father. Her most notable trait is her honesty - she refuses to over exaggerate her love for her father, as her sisters do.

Now let’s look at Ruth, Magda and Eve. Ruth and Magda, while not necessarily bad people, are more willing to go along with Mudd’s schemes. At his instructions, they seduce various crew members to get information. They also take the Venus drug, which transforms them into beautiful women from their original “ugly” appearances. They are tempted by Mudd’s offers that he will marry them off to rich husbands: “Maggie, I’ll make you a countess. Ruth, I’ll make you a duchess.”

And then, there’s Eve. She immediately stands out for the audience because she is the first to speak. When Mudd and his passengers are escorted from the transporter room to Kirk by Spock, Mudd says some rude things to Spock in the turbolift. Spock, of course ignores it but Eve turns to him and says: “I apologize for what he said, sir. He’s so used to buying and selling people-“ but Mudd cuts her off before she can continue. 

Later, during Mudd’s hearing, Eve explains where she came from (see quote from part one) and why she wanted to leave. Mudd tries to patronizingly calm her down, saying, “fine, Evie, fine” but she cuts him off: “No, it’s NOT fine!” These moments tell us she is not afraid to speak her mind, and she does not accept being pushed aside.

Even more notable is her later (seduction?) scene with Kirk. Mudd sent her to Kirk’s quarters to get information from him. She does a fair job of charming him, and the two share some interesting dialogue too, reflecting some similarities in their characters. But just as Eve tries to kiss him (with Kirk seemingly reluctant to do so) she pulls away and the whole mood changes. She sighs: “Oh, no! Oh, I just can't do it. I don't care what Harry Mudd says. I do like you, but I just can't go through with it. I hate this whole thing!” And with that, she runs from the room, leaving a very confused Kirk behind her.

There’s a lot going on in this scene. (You should go back and watch it, I’m not going to get into it for sake of brevity). But what it tells us is this: Eve has a very strong moral compass. Yes, she likes Kirk, but she won’t seduce him because Mudd told her to.

After leaving Kirk’s quarters she goes to Mudd’s. She finds him there plotting with the Ruth and Magda. She glares at him: “I don’t like you! And I’m not very happy with myself either.” She hates the situation, Mudd for trying to manipulate her, and the part of herself that complied. You have to feel for her - she’s a young woman alone on the frontier, traveling with corrupt strangers to marry another stranger. Like the Picture Brides of old, she’s lonely, desperate, and trying to hold onto her identity. And she has yet to reach her lowest point.

When Kirk is forced to hand the women over to the miners in exchange for dilithium, Eve is the one who can’t adapt. Magda and Ruth practically throw themselves to the men, and are amused when they brawl over their attentions. Eve however, breaks down. Having nothing left to lose, she runs outside into a magnetic storm, practically a death sentence: “why don’t you just run a raffle and the loser gets me?”

Fortunately, Ben Childress, the head miner, finds her passed out and brings her back to his quarters. He puts her on his bed and goes to sleep on a bench. When he wakes he finds her up and about, cooking on his stove. “I ate some of your food so I paid with some chores,” she explains. Childress doesn’t like her food, or her working around the house and complains, but she calmly brushes it off. “Oh the sound of male ego. You travel halfway across the galaxy and it’s still the same song.”

DAMN she didn’t just serve him food, she served him too!

And she proves to be the smarter of the two as well. When Childress says he can’t properly clean the cooking pans without a decent water source, she suggests hanging the pans in the wind to let the sand blast them.

All of these scene snippets tell us what kind of person Eve is: honest, loyal, kind, and clever. Despite her trials she perseveres and refuses to be defeated.

Part 3: Drugs or confidence? (Or...Aliens)

This episode is a bit unusual in that it gives us an ambiguous ending regarding Mudd’s hologram brides, particularly Eve. The Enterprise crew is confused by how intriguing Mudd’s women are. (Seriously, some crew members act like they’ve never seen a woman before - it’s really funny. Spock is super amused.) We get a partial answer through the Venus drug, as we see Magda and Ruth take it and transform from ugly to beautiful.

But with Eve it’s a different story. Mudd gives her the drug, telling her to take it: “it’s not a cheat. It’s a miracle!” But we never actually see her take it. Later, on the mining colony when she is confronted by Kirk, Childress and Mudd, we see her take the drug and transform, but Kirk reveals it wasn’t the drug at all. It was just colored gelatin! Eve is confused, and Kirk simply explains: “there is only one kind of woman. You either believe in yourself or you don’t.”

Okay, so two things:

1. Nice little motivational speech, Kirk

2. But seriously, what just happened?

Right before she takes the “drug” Eve yells at Childress, challenging his idealistic expectations of women: “You don’t want wives! You want this!” She shows him the drug. “I hope you remember it and dream about it, because you can't have it. It's not real!” Then she takes the pill and transforms.

It’s implied that her sudden boost of confidence causes her transformation. Otherwise, she took the colored gelatin pill and experienced the greatest placebo effect in the history of placebo effects...

...but I just can’t quite buy it. Since when has feeling more confident in yourself made you look fantastic in less than 5 seconds? Have you ever woken up, gone to the bathroom and looked at your gross morning face in the mirror saying, “I feel great about myself today,” and BAM you’re all made up for the day? No, of course not! Because that’s not how life works!

The only other explanation I can come up with to explain this phenomenon within the bounds of Star Trek logic is this: Eve is not a human. This is totally possible, considering how many aliens in Star Trek look exactly like humans. So consider this: what if Eve is a humanoid who can control her appearance, consciously or unconsciously? We never actually get a confirmation that she is human, and when McCoy attempts to give her a medical exam, she refuses. So the question of Eve’s transformation still seems open to me. Is it just magical realism or aliens? I really don’t know. Let’s just move on.

Part 4: Final Thoughts

Its implied at the episode’s end that Eve will stay with Childress, or that he wants her to stay, despite his earlier rudeness. I hope that’s not what happened to her. I’ve never cared for Ben Childress, and he certainly doesn’t deserve someone like Eve. I want to imagine that she somehow got off planet and found a husband elsewhere, but with Mudd arrested I think that would be more difficult.

Eve’s character stands out to me because, unlike most of the characters I’ll be writing about in this series, she’s actually rather ordinary. She’s not an officer, a doctor or diplomat. She’s just frontier settler looking for a husband. She’s not trying to explore the final frontier, she’s just trying to live in it. And as this episode demonstrates, that’s not as easy as it sounds.

Thank you for reading! It took several days for me to gather my thoughts and write this so please like and share if you enjoyed it. I hope it provided some new perspective on this old episode and I look forward to doing this again.

Next entry: What are Little Girls Made Of?

-ftd

#star trek #spock #star trek tos #star trek quotes #captain kirk #kirk #james kirk #Eve McHuron #harry mudd #mudds women #mr spock #king lear #shakespeare #star trek original series #women of star trek #james t. kirk #star trek women #picture brides

[aion-rsa]

Behind the Scenes on Inside No. 9’s Most Terrifying Episode

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Warning: contains spoilers for Inside No. 9 ‘The Harrowing’

“It was ‘WTF!? Oh my God! I’m not going to sleep! Why did you do that to me?!’” The moment the credits rolled on Inside No. 9’s series one finale ‘The Harrowing’, director David Kerr was deluged with messages. “People were very responsive,” he laughs. “We’d gone for something bold that was properly horrible and would haunt them. There’s not much out there that scares a horror fan because they’ve seen it all so many times. That’s the challenge. You want to hit people with a visceral, palpable gut punch that they didn’t see coming.”

Job done. The final shot of 2014’s ‘The Harrowing’ is truly deserving of the episode’s title. A schoolgirl, stripped, bound to a chair, gagged and anesthetised, whimpers in terror as the filthy curtains surrounding a four-poster bed begin to part. One necrotised cloven foot touches the floor, followed by another. A contorted, emaciated figure emerges, naked but for a soiled nappy, with curling fingernails and clouded eyes in a grey pock-marked face. It staggers towards the helpless girl, hissing a single world with demonic glee: “Mischief”

Kerr describes the image as “pretty strong meat” and few would disagree, especially considering that the meat in question was paid for by a comedy budget. Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton’s anthology Inside No. 9 has never fitted neatly inside either the stall of comedy or drama. It’s one, the other and both at the same time. “Unfortunately, there isn’t a channel that has a horror department in the same way as comedy,” says Kerr. “That’s what we need to get going!”

Helen McCrory and Reece Shearsmith (BBC)

Kerr directed every episode of Inside No. 9’s first series: six half-hour films, each with a different setting, cast of characters, and tone. ‘The Harrowing’ is Shearsmith and Pemberton’s tribute to horror cinema classics, a specialist subject. Before starting work on the series, Kerr anticipated being schooled by the pair in obscure 1970s horror and rare Giallo movies they wanted to reference, but that wasn’t how it went. “’The Harrowing’ was very much a full-on genre film, and indebted to the Hammer tradition and the Amicus tradition of portmanteau horror, and though they have a tremendously deep knowledge of all that material – more so than me – Reece and Steve were actually very non-prescriptive.”

The script came to Kerr in a perfect state with plenty of detail, he remembers, but aside from some specific Vincent Price nods in costume and make-up, the creators were open to visual ideas – as far as the cash would stretch. “Always with Inside No. 9, budgetary challenges rear their head. You’re trying to make something that feels like a film, but you’re trying to do that on the budget of an episode of Mrs Brown’s Boys”.

It was clear there wouldn’t be the money for a full-body VFX transformation for the demonically possessed Andras who makes such an impression in the final scene. Like most limitations in Inside No. 9 though, it turned out to be a creative blessing, says Kerr. 

Andras is the eldest of the three Moloch siblings, brother to the vampiric-looking Tabitha (Helen McCrory) and Hector (Reece Shearsmith). He lives in an upstairs room of their freezing Gothic mansion, kept tied to the bed and fed like a baby on milk formula and Rusks. Fifty years earlier, we’re told, Andras was possessed by mischief demon Castiel, an infernal spirit now in search of a new home – hence the anesthetised babysitter, Katy (Aimee-Ffion Edwards). 

“You’re always wary of showing the monster, but we knew that we did want people to see Andras. A lot of the conversations ahead of the shoot were about what we could do with our limited pocket of money to make him properly scary, but in a way that you could still feel that he’s human. He’s right on the border between a poor, neglected sibling who’s just been left to stagnate in this room with a dirty nappy and untrimmed toenails. We wanted him to be just at the outer limit of the neglected human, but not to push him into a totally risible demon caricature state.”

Director David Kerr and actor Sean Buckley (David Kerr)

Casting Sean Buckley in the role was key to keeping a grip on the character’s pathos, says Kerr. He describes Buckley, who sadly passed away in 2016, as a hugely gifted physical performer. “He had a great physique and an amazing face, and he really understood the kind of contortions that would be useful for Andras when he was writhing and for his walk. The main thing was the physical tautness that he was going to be feeling when he’s writhing in the bed in chains. Sean just got it.”

As reference material for Andras’ look, Kerr and the team went to a range of sources: The Pale Man from Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, Dickensian ghosts and the Pee Pee Demon from Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt’s Angel. The character’s make-up was the work of Lisa Cavalli-Green, who brought in skilled prosthetics designer Kristyan Mallett to create Andras’ horrific set of teeth. “We went for details,” says Kerr. “Planning a shot, it was very much about half seeing him through that veil. As ever with horror and comedy, you’re just holding back the reveal. Again – testament to Reece and Steve – they didn’t give Andras tons of dialogue. Less was definitely more.” 

The opposite applied to the episode’s Gothic location; in that case, more was definitely more. Kerr remembers his first look at the 19th century Highgate mansion that served as the Moloch house exterior (16 Broadlands Road, N6, if you’re planning a visit). “It was a real ‘we’ve got to use this’ moment. Reece would like to live there, incidentally, that’s going to be his home one day.”

For the interiors, it all came down to the staircase. Inspired by the grand staircases in films like The Others, The Orphanage and The Woman in Black, Kerr’s team went looking for similar. Another reference was more comic-horror. “For Reece and Steve, the characters of Tabitha and Hector felt a little bit like Addams Family characters. I found one of the original Charles Addams cartoons with a staircase in it and then found Langleybury and the staircase was almost identical. That was a real Eureka moment.” 

Charles Addams cartoon and Langleybury (David Kerr)

The interiors were filmed in Langleybury, near Watford, which has also been used in the filming of Harlots, a 2011 Great Expectations and feature film The Little Stranger. The atmospheric, dilapidated interior with a galleried area and a series of ante-rooms was perfect for Shearsmith and Pemberton’s script. “You just felt – what could be behind those closed doors?”

Taking viewers up to those closed doors were Steadicam shots by specialist operator Alf Tramontin, whose previous work includes the Harry Potter films and Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity. Kerr aimed to achieve “a prowling point of view” and designed shots very specifically to draw the eye through the house and give the impression there were whole rooms and wings that were rarely used. John Carpenter’s Halloween was an inspiration for the choreography of those shots. “It’s all about the girls, Katy and Shell (Poppy Rush) creeping up the stairs and just not being able to quite see past the corner, putting the audience in their point of view in terms of what might be behind a door, or a covered piece of furniture beneath a dust sheet.” The dusts sheets covering the furniture fed into the unsettling idea that you’re not quite sure what lurks beneath, says Kerr, before adding with a laugh, “that was also so that we could just put any old crap underneath without having to rent a lot of expensive props!” 

Custom props were made for the hellish pictures on display in the Moloch hall. Production designer Brian Sykes had reproductions made of 15th and 16th century paintings depicting the Harrowing of Hell. “That was tricky, because really you wanted a whole gallery of these things, just to feel they were everywhere, but the flip side of that is if Tabitha and Hector had this stunning art collection, maybe they wouldn’t live in such a ratty house. The fact they only have a few of those paintings makes you think ‘are they for real? Is this all a bit of a con?’ And that’s what you want the audience to be asking themselves.”

A crucial part of directing the audience’s feelings in the episode is the work of Inside No. 9 composer Christian Henson. “He’s so inventive and brilliant,” says Kerr. “None of those films sound alike from a score point of view.” For ‘The Harrowing,’ Henson drew inspiration from the Giallo vintage synthesizer used in the Goblin score for Dario Argento’s Suspiria, and once again, from Carpenter’s famous Halloween theme.

Poppy Rush and Aimee Ffion-Edwards (BBC)

That’s a lot of horror talk for 30 minutes of television commissioned under a comedy banner. The comedy though, is very much there in ‘The Harrowing’, which begins as a fond pastiche of the kind of lurid characters found in Hammer Horror films such as Roger Corman’s Vincent Price-starring House of Usher. Kerr knew that guest star Helen McCrory had the colours to make Tabitha something special. “Helen just took to it and had that voice and poise. The character’s this sort of grande dame, larger than life.” McCrory and Shearsmith’s performances are expertly pitched to riff on the theatricality of those stars of vintage horror. 

“So much of the film plays in a fairly camp register. You meet Hector and he’s Vincent Price-ish, a slightly campy eccentric. Tabitha is almost like a sort of Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard, shuttered in the chateau. They’re oddballs, and they’re funny and bicker like an old couple. By the time Hector pulls out the guitar and is singing Lord of the Dance, you’re thinking ‘this is bordering on ludicrous!’, and then it’s about how far can we push that comedy and turn the corner to something properly dark. The Lord of the Dance silliness takes your guard down, I hope, so that by the time Aimee-Ffion Edwards’ character is sitting there and Castiel in Andras’ body is advancing towards her, it’s properly horrifying, and you’re thinking ‘I didn’t see this coming’.

“They are twins, comedy and horror. They’re both the cinema of sensation, you’re trying to create a visceral reaction from people. Fear and laughter are proper physical reactions in people, rather than intellectual ponderings. You want to incite those reactions and you do that by getting ahead of the audience and not letting them get ahead of you. And that’s always been the genius of a script by Reece and Steve. That’s what they do.”

David Kerr’s festive film Roald & Beatrix: The Tail of the Curious Mouse will air this Christmas on Sky One and NOWTV.

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Inside No. 9 is available to stream now on BBC iPlayer.

The post Behind the Scenes on Inside No. 9’s Most Terrifying Episode appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

[yokikanas]

Katsugeki/Touken Ranbu ED

I absolutely love this anime, like really. It’s amazing, because Katsugeki ultimately redefines the historical genre in anime, by pushing onto us the relationship of a samurai and his sword from a different standpoint. Of course a samurai depends on his sword ALOT because it’s a ‘kill or get killed’ world for him, but for swords, it’s a different case and that’s what Katsugeki derives it’s concept on.

Initially, I wanted to start dissecting the OP but as I was doing the screen shots, I realized that the ED is actually a direct “prequel” to our OP and here you can see why!

First, we are introduced to the ED with a full moon. We later find out it’s a reflection on the water because ripples dissolve the image and the camera then pans out.

On the water with the moon’s reflection are a dozen of lanterns. In Japan, this custom is known as “Toro Nagashi” and it’s done on the last day of the “Bon Festival” which is celebrated to honor the dead. Making paper lanterns float on water is a way of sending the departed back to the spirit world. Originally, it started as a Buddhist custom but now Japan commemorates big events like the Hiroshima bombing with the Toro Nagashi as well.

A sword comes into focus and it seems to be wet because water is dripping from the hilt. However, since we are handling with sword boys and departed people, you could say it’s symbolic of the swords saying farewell to their previous masters.

Next we see their former masters in order of Izuminokami+Horikawa, Mutsunokami, Tonbokiri, Tsurumaru, Yagen. Firstly, we have the Shinsengumi as recognized by their flag and their iconic haoris. The person nearest to the camera seems to be Hijikata Toshizo, the owner of Horikawa and Izuminokami. If you look at his waist, you can spot two hilts with blades of different lengths - Izuminokami is the longer one, Horikawa is the shorter one. The Shinsengumi is most famously known for their raid on Ikeda Inn, which is carried out at night in an urban area.

Next we have Sakamoto Ryoma and his wife, Narasaki Ryo, watching western ships depart from Japan. Sakamoto is known to welcome the ideas of western lands and liked technological advancement and thus, had guns as part of his weaponry, even though he wielded Mutsunokami. I like how they depict the ships as a silhouette against the sunset because the Japanese people used to call foreign ships as “black ships” or Kuro Fune.

Next we have a silhouette wielding a spear, which is clearly Tonbokiri since he's the only spear in the team. The silhouette is enough to recognise Tadakatsu Honda by because he is commonly associated with either Tonbokiri or an antler-like Kabuto/helmet. I can’t recognize what specific event this appears to be but Honda is mostly known for the Komaki Castle incident. Since there’s no river or castle in this picture, I can’t really tell if it was the Komaki Castle Incident or the Battle of Sekigahara.

This was the hardest scene for me to type and to identify who is the guy wielding Tsurumaru - possibly made vague because of his long list of masters - but my intelligent guess is that this was the last Hojo clansman, Hojo Tokiyuki, who tried to re-establish the Hojo clan by rebelling against the shogunate. Since the man was up against the shogun, he would be fighting against the military hence probably more necessary to be on horse-mount in order to get a one-up. That’s just my guess, but I’d like to point out that Ufotable might have deliberately left the former master as vague as possible (like it literally could be anyone from the Hojo clan) because in game, Tsurumaru’s quite rather different from the other swords since he is more based off the tales and rumors about him, rather than his sword school or lineage of masters.

This one is yet another hard scene to explain, since Yagen was a beloved sword of Nobunaga, but I can confidently say that this is Yagen because of his white hilt. As to why, he’s left on a stand as Nobunaga walks away, I’m only left to speculations so if you know the reason, do message me! Anyways, I’m guessing that Yagen was left on display because you can clearly see two swords poking out from Nobunaga’s holster. One of it is shorter and seems to be a size of a tantou as well, and the only other Nobunaga tantou the game has introduced is Fudou, although Ufotable hasn’t announced any cameo/minor role other than the Mikazuki team. Again, this is speculation but the confirmation of Yagen’s hilt is good enough to show us that this is his former master, Oda Nobunaga.

Then, we have Ufotable making good use of their graphics team with my favorite part of the ED. Sakura petals, a seemingly significant thing when it comes to samurais, swirl in a storm (just like when the Saniwa summoned the rest of the second unit) to show us a sword is manifesting and in different angles as the camera circles around it, the sword gives us the illusion that it’s an Uchi, then a Waki, then a tantou. (fucking fave scene cus of that, thank you ufotable)

Then we have Horikawa walking into a garden as sakura petals blow in his face, assuming he was the sword that had just manifested since Izuminokami explained in ep 2 that he’s a newbie. (And I didn’t screenshot this part but Horikawa friggin smiles when he notices his partner is Izuminokami. SO CUTEEEEE. I really like their partnership, and I just hope people appreciate them more)

And as usual, Izuminokami looking hella handsome. He’s possibly standing there in wait for Horikawa before they start their mission since they’re both in their battle uniforms, so assuming that, Horikawa could have been just assigned his first mission as soon as he was crafted and this was how they met before the first ep of Katsugeki.

The camera zooms out to show a bare but blooming garden. It seems quite similar to how Hanamaru depicts the garden as well, the only difference is that there are wisteria trees (the purple/violet trees) amongst the sakuras and I find that this is quite a foreshadow because you actually see wisteria trees in the OP as well. (More will be explained in the OP analysis post)

But yet again, the camera zooms out again to show us a beautiful citadel background with an even more brightly-lit room than the backgrounds they offer in game. They should totally make this background available in the game LOL it’s just too gorgeous and I can totes imagine putting Ichigo in the middle of this, he’d look too perfect!!!!!!!

Anyways, this was such a beautiful ED. Slow, yet majestic. Kalafina’s voices really suit the slow buildup of this anime (and the ED), especially when you realize that the ED is a tribute to their former masters and the new beginning of their new life with the Saniwa. 

Ufotable seems to like to chuck a lot of symbolism into the OP. For example, a wisteria tree has a lot of symbolism that relates to the swords:

The tree has quite the long life, so it symbolizes ‘immortality’ and probably refers to our swords having to deal with an equally long, if not immortal life.

In terms of love - from the exterior, the wisteria expresses sorrow, because of it’s hanging vines. However because it’s incredibly durable, it also symbolizes the heart to endure in spite of rejection. For our swords, this seems to be the case because they do mention their former masters in the anime and some of them seem unable to move on from their past dreams, but there are other swords like Izuminokami (and eventually Mutsunokami) who endure and carry on with their new life as swords for their new Saniwa.

I could go on about the sakura trees being a representation of ‘life and death’ and the black ships being a representation of a ‘new era/new life’ but it’s almost 3am and I want to sleep. LMAO. 

Personally, I love how Ufotable purposefully leave all the master’s faces vague and make the swords very prominent in their respective frames since it’s an anime about them. It also could mean that we’re seeing the scenes from the sword’s perspective (as seen in Yagen’s scene, where the camera setup makes it seems like we’re looking longingly at Nobunaga’s back, as if from Yagen’s perspective). Looking forward for the future episodes now!!!

#touken ranbu #katsugeki touken ranbu #text posts #izuminokami kanesada #kunihiro horikawa #mutsunokami yoshiyuki #tonbokiri #yagen toushirou #tsurumaru kuninaga

[baadfabrykittyadv170]

.13.10.18

ILLUSTRATOR PROCESS // Ford Figo Ad ‘Re-do’ // Assignment  1

In the brain-storm the main ideas that I was excited to pursue were, a room inside of the Ford Figo trunk to portray (how it is so big while travelling you can practically carry all of your belongings for convenient use with you). As well as this another idea was more of a collection of items to display how these could also neatly hit inside the trunk. They would be referencing hoilday items, mainly useless ones (suggesting how it has so much space that there is no longer a need to decifer whats nessacary and what is not).  

I definetly think that my ideas are subject to change and development for this Ford ad. I am not as clear on what I want to do as much as I was for The Co-op and the Reebok ‘re-do’s’. There are quite a few techincal challenges I am facing for this one, the original was illustrated in a caricature style which pushes me towards a hand-drawn, cartoon style. It will take longer to do this as I am not the most skilled artist. I am motivated however to mould the process into something I can handle and maybe even learn a few more software skills on the way.

I used the site Pinterest to find inspiration for the room inside of the trunk. I wanted it to be messy, possibly a childrens room (would make relatable context for adults who also desire more trunk space for kid’s items as busy parents) as to almost suggest the overwhelming nature of choosing what to take with you and what not, and therefore imply how the large trunk space feature makes this and similar situations much more effortless. Because ultimately that is what we search for in a product, one that makes life easier to manage so we can focus on ‘going further’ as Ford says. 

I spent a long time mocking up, drawing and even colouring these worlds I was creating inside of the Figo trunk. I would agree that the imagery does tell the audience that yes the space is big, but this idea generally was just feeling quite weak to me, probably because my drawings were not up to the standards I wanted them to be. 

What was slightly frustrating is that I had/still have the idea so clearly pictured in my mind, and even when experimenting with found images of the same style I wanted it showed potential. *(Above you can see one of the most accurate mock-ups/representations I made by mashing-up two images I felt inspired by).

I decided what would be the most postive action to take would be to attempt another idea I had in mind for the re-do in the meantime. It played with the collection of items, showing actual luggage/packed bags and less abstractly referrng to the convenient travel using the Figo’s trunk allows the consumer (upselling the U.S.P).

I littered my Pinterest inspiration boards with images of collected objects in a illustrated style, one that I hoped would bring-about this homey sense of family vacation nostalgia (simlar to how I intended to utilize a hand-drawn style for my ‘trunk world’ concept, targetting travellers with/or large families and busy parents). There was an added touch of humour when I went on to read an article on ‘What NOT to pack when travelling’. It did not include some of the more obscure and silly items I listed (on the outer rim of my Illustrator document for quick and easy access), but that was something I thought would bring people in more with contrasting imagery (e.g fridge, tv aerial, bookshelf). But still I think it quite effectively portrays that the U.S.P relieves the trouble of having to decide what to take and what not, because of its convenient size.

From the ‘What NOT to pack when travelling’ article there was a direct link to another on  ‘The world's greatest road trips’. This lead me into thinking about destinations and travel locations again (from my City of Troy and Paris comics), and ultimately reminding the audience of Ford’s wider vision to “Go Further”. Quite quickly I jumped into developing an interest into involving European hotspots and areas you could actually drive in/around on the ad. I don’t know if this was honestly the best idea to skip ahead, but these types of visual shapes and images stimulated my creative process. Also, quite importantly I knew a way of involving destinations, such a London, Paris, Berlin and Amsterdam in a sleek and moderatly fashionable way using flat vector art (which I was confident in drawing versus an embellished illustrated style). This is not to say I was’nt and won’t still go back to my previous potentials, but I was simply enjoying not having to look at art styles and going along with my own interpretations.

Black and white, minimalist linework. From what I have read the classic aesthetic of advertising “is an exercise in techniques of compression and composition” and “to convey a large amount of information in a short period of time” (McStay 2013). So maybe this idea is more applicable to the short attention spans of the consumers, and argues that this is a more effective portrayl in comparison to the previous more detailed idea of ‘collections’. 

I continued working on the different elements and layout coming closer to what I was happy with.

MAPS AND BAGS *click the link to see part of my process

PAN & ZOOM *click the link to see part of my process

GRADIENTS *click the link to see part of my process

The choice of a gradient was to experiment with adding more depth and dimension to the ads visuals. I thought it may make the imagery more interesting, and with the of map and luggage I thought it gave the impression that your problems of planning and packing were ‘fading away’. It was thought to bring focus back to the most important feature of travelling, the experience of the destination (which remained in a solid black stroke).

This same solid black icon(s) of the destinations changed dramatically as I had the idea of merging them all together for the convenience of creating one main adshell or 6-sheet. I wanted to bring it all back the the Figo in this horizontal formation I was constructing, map (planning the getaway), packing (preperation before the getaway), the destination (the getaway), and then the vehicle, which makes it all possible. The colours were of course also inspired by the Figo, and I think the convergence of all the locations mixes well with the complimenting colours and states that this car can “Go Further” and take you anywhere you want to go. Actually one of my favourite aspects here is how the eyes pan down to the realistic car, the contrast in imagery is quite exciting and gives a nice shift, just at the right moment from the flat elements.  

References:

STURGIS, I. (2015). What NOT to pack when travelling. [online] Dailymail.co.uk. Available at: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3057556/Items-not-pack-holiday.html [Accessed 13 Oct. 2018].

Rough Guides. (2013). The world's greatest road trips - Rough Guides. [online] Available at: https://www.roughguides.com/gallery/worlds-greatest-road-trips/ [Accessed 13 Oct. 2018].

McStay, A. (2013). Creativity and Advertising : Affect, Events and Process. Taylor & Francis Ltd.

#advertising

[musicsig]

Louder .cn Interview  March 07, 2011

Louder.cn Articles SIG: Sad Mirror March 07, 2011 SIG: By Chacha, sad mirror  SIG and I often meet each other, either in my house or in a bar. He sometimes comes to listen to music, smoking one by one like a chimney, but seldom speaks. Until now I can’t say that I know him. He and his music are fascinated by the halo, like a pedestrian gradually diving into the thick fog, swaying the flashlight in his hand. Before and after, I can only see the hazy beam I don't know where he is. SIG is about to release an album in April this year. I called him to talk about it. He said calmly: It’s time to pick it! I originally planned to write a large description of SIG and his music, but later found this idea ridiculous and terrifying. I don’t want to give you any preconceived impressions, so maybe you can get closer and look more closely at his music world. CHA: What kind of city is Shanghai to you? SIG: The rule in Shanghai is money. Everyone is active under this rule. The name "Magic City" is appropriate. It makes you hard to get close but you don't want to go. CHA: What do you think is pulling you? SIG: I think it is desire. In this city, I can obviously feel that my desires start to expand, and the activities start to be intense, and gradually I can't control it. CHA: How has such a city changed you? SIG: Basically, my heart changes every day, and my appearance changes with it. There is a vortex here, there will be a feeling of lost. That is, you will forget who you are. CHA: What kind of state do you think you should keep in to be your satisfied state? SIG: A sense of security, unaffected by external and internal desires, remain sensitive and calm at the same time. At first, it was in a good state for half a year, and then slowly entered the vortex, it will become more and more chaotic, and then it will be better in half a year. CHA: So which mental state is more likely to inspire your creative inspiration? SIG: I think the best state of making music should be a calm state. I wouldn’t feel lonely without anger, unhappy or even without desire. It’s the state that came naturally. This is the best for me. This album was made in this state. My music composition always tells me something before I can perceive it. But now, when I make this music, I can't understand it at all, and maybe it will be slowly understood after a few years. So I can't say whether he is good or bad, only an experiment. CHA: What about your upcoming album under the PAUSE MUSIC label? SIG: This record is called "Sad Mirror" and will be released in April this year, but it was completed in 2006-2008. It was the third year after I left the band and started writing my own music. This period I have already started New directions and ways of creating music. Starting from the blank, start with one tone or two tones, or make a drum first, and then add a tone, like building a house, some random unexpected reactions occur, which is my happiest, and then press your own technology It is enough to control the completion. When I finished a work, I didn't actually know what I was going to express. I would listen to it and modify it repeatedly. Slowly, when those pictures appeared, I would give it a name. When I gave them a sequence, it was already 3 years later, and this is how the album basically came out. CHA: This album "Sad Mirror" basically contains some of your previous works, so what does this album mean to you? SIG: It's a summary for me, because I think I'm a little better now, and I might go to the next stage. So this should be a summary of a stage, and I might return to this type in the future. All current works belong to the experimental stage. Here I thank my parents for their support, they gave me money I can buy a lot of time to complete this record, thank them. When I was in junior high school, I heard some foreign tapes. At that time, it was a style called rap or RAP. I was fascinated. At that time, I had such an idea. If I could improve this kind of music and turn it into my own style of music How cool it should be. But the overall environment made me not to do it right away, so I left it there. Until later, I started to form a band to play music and quit the band to make music by myself. I have some unclear pictures in my mind that I want to describe, but I don’t know what it is. I tried to describe this music to my friends. My friends gave me some The record says: Listen to this: DJ Krush. At first I thought this person didn't seem to make music. Until one day, on a quiet night, I heard some sounds that I had never heard. At that moment, some clues in my brain seemed to be connected in an instant. Suddenly I felt the world turned upside down, and my ears seemed to be open. Recalling those ideas when I was a kid, I think it’s still not too late to try it out. At that time, I was at home, started to make music, eat, make music, went out for a walk in the early morning, then made music, and then went to bed. During that time, it was very calm, and naturally there was no desire to torture people. Time is still. Like heaven.  CHA: Can you explain why the album title is called "SAD MIRROR"? What is it related to? SIG: Chinese means a mirror in sadness. I see some sadness in the mirror, or the mirror itself is sad. The name is instantly obtained. I can't give any explanation. I just think it is beautiful. I like that. You have me, I have your feelings. Most song titles in the album are similar combinations of four words. The earliest idea was to want a poetic feeling. From the earliest start of making music to the making of this music, it has changed a lot to myself, and it has completely changed. This music is something I have never thought of before, and there may be some clues before, But after listening to a lot of music, I suddenly had some connections, and all the clues were suddenly connected. For me, there will be an earth-shaking, black and white upside down change. The entire album should be like a suspenseful movie about myself, family, We are educated and humane. CHA: What kind of self do you see in front of "sad mirror"? SIG: What I saw should be a victim, a person who sacrificed himself. Many internal conflicts lead to someone who looks sad outside. I want to take out the contents and show it to others. I hope that I am the mirror. CHA: This album sounds completely different from your new music. The previous music was affected by many krush and shadow. Which musicians influenced your new music? Whose music do you listen to now? Which musicians have a qualitative influence on your creation? SIG: When I was five years old, I watched a Chinese movie about break dance. It was performed by gold panning. I really like that kind of dance and rhythm. It always gives me a feeling that the rhythm should be internal. Let your Every cell is active, beating according to its own specific law, but it should not be at a constant speed, something that is not clear, but I always think that is the root. A lot of music influenced me to make this kind of thing clear gradually. The enlightenment was Krush. Later on, it was Babatunde Olatunji called Circle of Drum. There were also some dubstep artists, burial, and coordinates9. Pinch, Detroit techno, deep house, old hip hop and some people who have only heard but don't know the name, and their music has what I want. There are also many good djs around me. I will listen to them and play music, and I will learn something. I am always more sensitive in this regard. Basically, the qualitative change is from making music and then pursuing the sense of picture in music to the recent attempts to draw directly with sound. CHA: In China, there is neither sales nor attention to the release of albums. In this case, what kind of people are you doing to release this album? Or what kind of people would you like to listen to your album? SIG: For myself, I will have some moments of loss or melancholy, a fall that you cannot control, as if attracted to a certain black hole, you will come to the labyrinth in your heart, you will feel confused and Helpless, but usually at this time, some of the books you have read, or the movies you have seen, or the concerts you have heard appear, they seem to have been waiting in the dark, they will tell you with a smile, go here, Do not be afraid. I think they are great. I want this too. I also hope to meet the audience in the dark through music. At first I didn't think about who would listen, but one day, my mother came and asked me if I made the song in her mp3? Very nice. I remembered that I used her mp3. So I especially hope to fill those generation gaps or gaps. I hope to listen to your parents, but also hope that parents listen to their children. I hope that parents can understand that children are instincts. Every child is different and will have something good at. Parents should protect these things. CHA: Music should be entertaining, cultivating the public? Or is it aimed at the heart and facing the self? SIG: To me, music is like a way out of my soul, and I am faced with your own gods, or yourself, subconscious, and the like that you don’t know. Music is not a joy for me. It is a way for me to resolve my internal conflicts. Like writing a diary, I have to write something every day to record some of my unspeakable feelings. I feel that the world of music enters from the top, and then goes deeper and wider, and it looks like a pyramid. Many music focuses on the conflict between physical and reality, I prefer to focus on the conflict between self and non-self. However, I personally feel that all people have some common feelings at a certain level. Some music reaches this level and people should like it. Although I don’t know why I like it, I think this is good music. Can't say entertainment or edification, because everyone has this feeling, and everyone can't tell. Since you make your own things when you make music, do things that no one can make anymore.  CHA: Do you think you are the kind of person who has a serious internal struggle? Is this a kind of torture? SIG: Every day, it should be considered a kind of torture. But without such conflicts and struggles I might not make music. CHA: Have you ever experienced a very dark period in life? If so, how does it feel? SIG: Yes, twice. The first one or two months, the second two or three months. To use ordinary words to describe it is "collapse". Basically, during that time, I woke up from a nightmare every day, I woke up from a terrible dream, and then you wanted to go to a place, but you don’t know where that place is. You will go out no matter what time is 4:5 or what time, put on some clothes, and keep walking. You can’t see anything around. In that case, you can only go home and make music. There is no other way. Think of many messy things. If you want to bask in the sun, the sunlight is also very good, but you can’t sit there and you want to go to a place. Then I went home and made a concert and slowly forgot about it. When I went to bed, I lost sleep and sweated all over, and then repeated this. But slowly it was better again. CHA: Did you ever think you would get better during that time? Or think you might be crazy. SIG: I didn't think it would get better. I thought it was crazy, it was terrible. After the first time, I feel that I have experienced it once, and the second time I should have immunity or experience to solve this problem, but when the second crash comes, the darkness is already beyond imagination. Too. At that time, I was already conquered. In this darkness, I can no longer tell the difference. CHA: What kind of people are you in contact with now? How do they affect you? SIG: Now I have few friends. I came to Shanghai just to experience the feeling of loneliness by myself, a kind of loneliness. There used to be a lot of friends who would make trouble, but now I feel a little tired. It's a test of yourself. Most of them are friends who talk about music, and some friends, they basically will not take the initiative to find me, when I have time, I go back to find them, at this point I am more selfish, but when I go to find them, they Still smiling, as if playing together yesterday, they gave me a sense of security. CHA: What is the next plan? SIG: To accumulate and make some new music, the progress may be slow. If you do some singles, you will not release this album form, and you may release two or two songs. CHA: Through what channels can you buy your album and follow your trends? SIG: It may be sold on Taobao. I will tell you when it is set up. In addition, on Douban, soundcloud can also hear my music. SIG "Sad Mirror" album debut: April 8 at The Shelter Start at 10pm

[thisdaynews]

How the Cool Kids of the Left Turned on Elizabeth Warren

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/how-the-cool-kids-of-the-left-turned-on-elizabeth-warren/

How the Cool Kids of the Left Turned on Elizabeth Warren

No more. A selection ofJacobinheadlines from November:“Elizabeth Warren’s Head Tax Is Indefensible,” “Elizabeth Warren’s Plan to Finance Medicare for All Is a Disaster” and “Elizabeth Warren Is Jeopardizing Our Fight for Medicare for All.” In October, a story warned that a vote for Warren would be “an unconditional surrender to class dealignment.” Even a recent piece titled ���Michael Bloomberg? Now They’re Just Fucking with Us”went out of its way to say that Warren is insufficiently confrontational to billionaires.

At some level, the picks and pans of an activist magazine with only a fraction of the readership of, say, pre-2016Breitbartmight not seem of much consequence as America heads into its next presidential election. But as the Democratic Party faces its intramural battle over how best to respond to the Trump presidency—with measured centrism, or an opportunistic and disruptive lurch to the left—Jacobinhas emerged as a hard-to-ignore voice in defining what the latter should look like.

And in many ways, it’s winning its corner of the battle. Six years ago, theNew York Timescalled the niche, neo-Marxist publication with a mere 2,000 subscribers at the time “an improbable hit.” Three years later, Vox dubbed it “the leading intellectual voice of the American left.” At that time, Sanders was still seen as a gadfly in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary; since then, his style of socialism has become its own kind of improbable hit in American politics, andJacobinhas grown to a paid circulation of more than 40,000 and draws more than 2 million unique visitors to its website every month. It has found fans not just in Bernie Sanders, who has shared almost a dozen ofJacobinarticles on social media over the past couple of years, but also in liberal celebrities like John Cusack and even right-wing commentators like Tucker Carlson—who said he readsJacobinbecause he appreciates that it isn’t fixated on Trump but rather on “ideas and principles.”

As the 2020 campaign has unfolded, Warren has, if anything, tacked toward Bernie, embracing “Medicare for All” and free college, and making a wealth tax the centerpiece of her platform. Still, in the pages ofJacobin,Warren has gone from seeming like a close second to Sanders to being a member of the neoliberal opposition, perhaps made even worse by her desire to claim the mantle of the party’s left. The magazine’s newest quarterly print cover makes this point explicit in illustration: Sanders and his new democratic socialist comrades in the House are pictured cycling on Team Red in a race against Joe Biden and Warren on Team Blue.

So why the sudden turn against a candidate whose soak-the-rich politics would have thrilled the anti-establishment, anti-capitalist left not long ago?

***

One easy theoryis thatJacobin, beneath the clever historical name and the hip graphics, is essentially a house organ for the Democratic Socialists of America, the grassroots political organization that grew out of the now-defunct Socialist Party of America and has expanded from around 5,000 members before 2016 to more than 50,000 now. Bhaskar Sunkara, the magazine’s 30-year-old founding editor and publisher, has been a member of DSA since he was a teenager, and he was recently vice chair of the organization. DSA endorsed Sanders in 2016 and did so again this past March.

Sunkara rejects that theory—as do other DSA members. Technically, he points out,Jacobinand DSA are separate, neither taking its marching orders from the other, even if many writers are members. More broadly, where DSA focuses on supporting campaigns across the country that align with its socialist mission, Sunkara considersJacobin’s role as more “abstract.” The magazine is still figuring out how, and if, it wants to be involved in electoral politics at all, he said.

“We can’t directly convert people,” he said. “What we can do is try to cohere together—from all these different strands and threads—some sort of left opposition to liberalism, give it a name and call it democratic socialism, and create a debating grounds for these broad sets of ideas.”

That broad set of ideas has included everything from the proposals now commonly referred to as Medicare for All and a Green New Deal to more radical concepts like prison abolition—all of which are also components of the Democratic Socialists of America platform.

The change in the publication’s treatment of Warren, Sunkara told me, was not a conscious decision or directive from higher-ups like himself. The publication, as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, cannot formally endorse political candidates.

But it does reflect, he said, whatJacobin’s mostly young left-wing writers and contributors, many of whom are open Sanders supporters and even campaign volunteers, are thinking. Where a previous generation might have been more than satisfied with a candidacy that would have been a socialist dream a mere decade ago, a younger generation tired of tempering its hopes is hungry for what it thinks could be a more revolutionary outcome.

Warren’s ginger concessions to the center—be it her proclamations of “ faith in markets” or her refusal to say she’d raise middle class taxes to pay for single-payer health care—thus seem like a betrayal of necessary convictions.

“There probably has been, among certain writers, a disillusioning with certain parts of the Warren approach to things, and also it’s probably an attempt to push her to be more resolute,” Sunkara said. There’s a reason, after all, why the candidate who said she is a “capitalist to her bones” was not the socialists’ favorite to begin with. (POLITICO reached out to Meagan Day and otherJacobinwriters for this story, but they declined to comment.)

Observers should be careful, he said, not to place the blame for theJacobin-Warren divide only on the magazine’s writers, and not also on Warren and her team.

Maybe, Sunkara suggested, as Warren has refined her policy platform, she’s changed her stripes to try to “accommodate all wings of the Democratic party.”

“I mean, her record is quite admirable, and I think her personality is quite charming and whatever else, but she needs to be palatable to the establishment. She needs to not scare donors. She’s needs to not scare the markets, while at the same time she wants to maintain credentials as a left-wing policy person,” he said.

***

SomeJacobinsympathizerswho might be considered old leftists to this new generation are happy to see socialism surge into the mainstream. But they’re also nervous that the magazine’s dismissal of Warren is dangerously overzealous, especially as it discounts a candidate who seriously worries Wall Street, moderates and billionaires.

“It reflects a particular sensibility of a particular generation,” said Robert Kuttner, a co-founder and co-editor of the liberal magazineThe American Prospect.

“I think theJacobinpeople represent the left wing of Sanders’ support,” he said. “They think it’s really important to self-describe as a socialist.”

Jacobin isn’t the only young lefty publication to turn on Warren. Nathan Robinson, the 31-year-old editor of the smaller but similarCurrent Affairs, wrote last week in a column in theGuardianthat “progressives no longer need to wonder whether she’s with us or not. She’s not.” Regarding the Warren versus Sanders comparisons, he wrote: “She is not just a more wonkish and pragmatic advocate of the same politics. The politics themselves are very different.”

As Robinson’s piece suggests, the new leftist energy isn’t really a reaction to Trump—it’s a reaction to Obama and Clinton and a whole Boomer-era approach to liberalism. Summing upJacobin’s generational critique of Warren, an article by Dustin Guastella in the latest print issue argues that Warren “favors the cool language of expertise and technocracy over white-hot tirades against the ruling class.” Not meant favorably, he writes that “Warren represents a certain continuity in the Democratic Party’s approach to politics.”

This all-or-nothing approach does not sit well with the older guard of American leftist thinkers. “If the plutocrats themselves think she’s just as dangerous as Bernie, why doesJacobindoubt that?” asks Rich Yeselson, a labor historian and journalist who’s written forJacobinin the past and is a contributing editor of the leftist publicationDissent.

Yeselson admiresJacobinand its success. “Bhaskar is kind of a genius,” he says. “He’s a venture capitalist of socialism, and I mean that as a full compliment.” But he counts himself among those starting to have reservations about the magazine’s approach to the 2020 presidential election, and especially its treatment of Warren.

“If she were to be elected president, she would be the most leftist president in American history,” Yeselson said.

“If Sanders is elected, he’s going to draw from the same pool of left technocrats to people his administration as she will,” Yeselson added. “Is it liberal left? Is it socialist? Whatever. It’s to the left of Biden; it’s to the left of Obama; it’s to the left of Clinton. Neither of them is going to appoint officials from Goldman Sachs.”

Minor differences in the most ambitious legislative proposals—like Medicare for All payment schemes or different approaches to a Green New Deal—from Sanders and Warren are immaterial, Yeselson suggested, because neither will be able to get those programs through Congress. That said, there are real differences between Sanders and Warren on foreign policy, he said. “There should probably be more discussion of that.”

John Judis, author ofThe Populist Explosion, creditsJacobinas an important intellectual force, but says that the fine distinctions the magazine’s writers are drawing between Sanders and Warren are more “sectarian” than ideological. “They recall the battles among Lutherans and Baptists,” Judis said.

Michael Kazin, the co-editor ofDissentand a professor of history at Georgetown, points out thatneitherSanders nor Warren is a true socialist, at least by international standards. Bernie calls himself a “democratic socialist,” but he also likens himself to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Still, Kazin says, both Sanders and Warren are “two of the most obviously left-wing candidates in American history.” (Sunkara said he disagrees, calling it “a strange and ahistorical claim,” though he concedes that “she’d be one of the best presidents in modern time.”)

Although his party and his publication are all-in for Sanders, Sunkara, who is also the author ofThe Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality, said he doesn’t see a Sanders win in 2020 as the only barometer of the movement’s—and the magazine’s—success. “If it wasn’t bigger than Bernie, we would be really screwed,” he said. “I hope he wins, personally, but he’s a 78-year-old candidate, and we need to create something that extends far, far beyond him.”

To Sunkara, his magazine’s 2020 coverage is unremarkable—comparing and contrasting candidates is part of the primary process. “You air criticisms, you challenge people on their record, and the best politicians adapt and improve and make themselves stronger candidates as a result,” Sunkara said. They aren’t spreading falsehoods or making bad-faith critiques, he added. And they’re definitely not “getting together in a room and seeking to tank Warren.” They know there are far worse candidates, he said.Jacobinis publishing a full book about Joe Biden’s record and why he’s unfit to be the next Democratic president. “We don’t have a book on Elizabeth Warren.”

But as the 2020 election gets closer, others fear there won’tbea progressive politics after Bernie, much less a socialist future, if the rift between Democrats and democratic socialists stays this wide. Kazin, who wrote a history of the left in America and is currently writing a history of the Democratic Party, worries thatJacobin’s current strategy could hurt the cause in the short term as well as the long one. “I’m not someone who thinks that we should never criticize anyone on the left,” he said. “But right now, I think a big danger actually is a divided Democratic Party.”

Sunkara countered, “You can make an argument about holding punches for any centrists—center left or even center right if you hold that perspective.” He added, “You can take that logic to any extreme,” and “you would end up criticizing no one but fascists.”

But for some, this election is so important that it’s worth erring on the side of caution. “The final outcome is what, in the end, really matters,” Kazin said. “When Trump is president, we won’t have time to say: ‘Well, let’s fight another day. Too bad we didn’t win, but I’m glad I didn’t support Warren, because that would have been a betrayal of my principles.’”

He added, “You can’t change society unless you win elections.”

Read More

#Elizabeth #Foreign #Politics #Warren

[georgeh5399-blog]

Unit 13 - Final Major Project

Calendar

I loaded up the calendar from moodle so I can note down the days I am not able to film. So far I am busy all Saturdays and Sundays because I have work. I will continue to update it as I find out when i’m unable to film.

Ideas

After looking at some of last years final projects in Matt’s lesson, I’ve noticed that the most successful ones were simple and they took maybe two or three scenes/locations and explored them thoroughly. They also didn’t need many actors which is helpful in the long run as there isn’t as many people who will bail out on filming. Originally my group and I came up with an idea that was based around a detective trying to catch a serial killer who is actually a childhood friend of the detective. The story was going to end with the detective finding out that the cereal killer has murdered his wife. After thinking about it we realized that this story might be too long and complex to fit in a 10 minute film. So we were brainstorming ideas and we came up with this idea where there is a baby and a woman which appears to be the mother, there house gets attacked by a group of people, she kills them all accept one woman left who is crying and she says "we just wanted our baby back". This makes the audience realize that the whole time the woman who appears to be the mother has actually taken the baby and the attackers are fighting for their baby back. In terms of cinematography, I want to really push myself with the shots I'm creating. I want to use some really smooth pan shots and shots that will make the audience feel uneasy like a Dutch tilt shot.

Project Proposal

We now have the story set in stone and we know how it is going to go, so I was able to fill in my project proposal.

Rationale:

During this course I have learned lots about every aspect of filmmaking. I didn’t have any knowledge of how to use premier pro before starting the course and now I have edited plenty of projects so I can do most basic and intermediate effects with confidence. I had quite a lot of experience in camera work before starting the course as I had my own camera and I filmed a lot in my free time. However, I didn’t know anything about bigger cameras that were used on proper film sets. I have learnt how to use tripods, glide rails, Steadicams, and I’ve learnt how to do camera movements like dolly zooms. I haven’t done much directing but I did give it a go and I found that I prefer working with the director as either a camera operator or editor. I have learnt a lot about Foley and sound as well, it’s not one of my specialties but I know a lot about how it works. Taking all of this into consideration, I have chosen my specialty to be camera work/cinematography. This is because it is what I find the most enjoyable and the most rewarding. If I was to choose one area to pursue as a career it would be camera operator.

Project concept:

The concept of my project is that a woman has a baby and is caring for it, the audience are lead to believe that this woman is the mother of the baby but then the house gets attacked by 3 men and it appears that they want to kidnap the baby, the woman with the baby manages to kill the men one by one and as she is about to leave she sees another woman that was waiting outside and she is crying when she then says “we just wanted our baby back”. This tells us that the woman who was thought to be the mother is actually the one who kidnapped the baby.

some of the inspirations of this idea were the films Hush, Kidnap and Panic room. All of these films are thrillers and have really good ways of building tension. Also, most of these films have a strong female lead and this is something that played a part in the whole story as it is all about the mother protecting their baby.

  We are going to film all of it in a fairly old house with wooden floors so it will allow for more opportunities to make good Foley and create tension with creaky floorboards, doors, etc. However, there will be one establishing shot that will show the house in the middle of nowhere with a big field outside at sunset to look very visually pleasing. This projects concept has been made so it doesn’t require many actors or locations so it will be more achievable for me and I will be able to spend more time on making the cinematography and editing the best it can possibly be. I will be filming on the C100’s as they have a really nice cinematic effect. There will be some tripod shots so I will need to use one of those.

Evaluation:

A lot of how I will evaluate my work will be on my tumblr blog and constantly updating it. I will ask other people in my class and my teachers how my research and storyline is, what is good about it and how I can make it better. This will mean that I can consistently update my work and make it the best it can possibly be. By using questionnaires and pie charts it will help me evaluate my work even further. 

Bibliography:

Hush. (2016). [film] Directed by M. Flanagan. United States: Blumhouse Productions.

Kidnap. (2017). [film] Directed by L. Prieto. United Stated: Di Bonaventura Pictures.

Research

I decided to look at some films that create tension really well in a scene and one of them is Hush (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQbTzZqmlWA), It uses lots of pans and focus pulls, the camera is also mainly smooth shots which I think contrasts with the nervousness and panic of the characters. I also noticed that there are a lot of ambient, subtle sounds that you wouldn’t necessarily notice unless you were looking for them.

Here is a link to a video of cinematographers talking about lighting and shadow. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhOMCtHHN3o)

Test shoots

After completing the project proposal we started thinking about how we want it to look and what shots should be in the scenes. We filmed two test shoots, one was a choreographed fight which is going to be the same choreography in our film. The scene starts with the actor in the foreground of the shot and a blurred out figure in the background. The actor then turns around to see the figure and then gets tackled by somebody else from the side. We then improvised with the setting we had to get to the point where the main actor is on the floor being strangled by the intruder. Then the actor grabs something from the floor and smashes it into the intruders head. In the main film they will probably smash a toy into the intruders head.

The next test shoot i did was another quick fight scene which i filmed and i wanted to focus on the camera movement and following the action in the scene. I also focused on the composition in the scene as well and I tried to show depth of field as much as I could. A problem that I had to face was that in the post production I noticed that two of the shots were too similar and it should've been shot all from one angle.

Script lining

While marking my script for the sound effects, I discovered something that cinematographers use to mark scripts and its called script lining. It basically shows the cinematographer what shots are going to look like and where they are going to be. It can look very confusing as there are a lot of symbols and lines.

Inspirations

One of my recent inspirations in terms of cinematography is the film 'The autopsy of Jane Doe' and it is a thriller/horror and builds up tension really well. One thing in particular that I liked about the cinematography is that it often cuts back to the same shot or angle which makes the audience expect something different to happen like a jump scare for example. As the audience are anticipating it to happen, often times nothing different happens, this throws off the audience and they get filled with tension, then the jump scare happens and the audience aren't expecting it. Also the sound in these scenes is usually just Foley like footsteps. This adds even more tension to the scene.