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ottelis · 4 years

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"I gave you my life, Eliott," Lucas's voice shatters, splinters.

Eliott replies softly, broken, hollow, "And I gave you mine."

"No," Lucas says, low and dark. "No, you didn't."

aka: eliott and lucas grow up together, but are separated when eliott is institutionalized in paris after a severe depressive episode. they reunite two years later when eliott is released, but everything has already changed before their eyes.

epigraph. i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi. vii.

07—lead, kindly light

tw: discussions of manic and depressive episodes, electroshock therapy, suicide, and death

july 22nd, 1968

17:23

caen, france

The flash of memories subsides, and Lucas and Eliott both exhale. Lucas stands by the door anxiously, expectantly. He's trapping his hand again, his left over his right, squeezing tightly. Two years ago, Lucas would've been staring down at the floor, only looking up when Eliott says something. Now, he's holding Eliott's gaze, a vulnerable yet firm look in his eyes. He isn't leaving until Eliott gives him an answer, a reply.

Eliott considers for a moment, the weight on both his and Lucas's shoulders suddenly starting to weigh on him. This needs to happen. They need to talk. But it isn't going to be easy. Eliott can already feel a lump start to form in his throat. His stomach is already starting to tie itself in a knot. And who knows how Lucas feels in this moment? Eliott is ready, but that doesn't mean he's nervous for what might be said, what might be felt, what might happen between the two of them. He doesn't know what rewards or curses lie waiting once they run out of words to say, but he doesn't know how much longer he can hold back his own words. Maybe he'll get what he wants. Maybe everything will go back to normal. Maybe he can spend the rest of this awful day repairing things, healing. And maybe he can do it with Lucas. Maybe they can try; patiently, gently.

Eliott nods, exhaling slowly. "I'm ready, too."

Lucas smiles delicately, his hands falling to his sides. "Good."

"Um, I can make us tea if you want," Eliott offers awkwardly, a poor attempt at starting to try to make things normal again.

But Lucas's smile widens, his teeth starting to peek through. "That sounds good."

Eliott can't help but smile back, too, the slight ache it brings to his cheeks sweet and familiar. "We can sit at the dining table," he invites, gesturing towards it.

Lucas nods, following Eliott into the kitchen and sitting down in Eliott's usual seat. Eliott gets the kettle started, realizing that he's trying to buy himself time so he can figure out where to start. He's afraid to turn around as he turns on the burner, afraid to see the look on his face, afraid to hear what he says if he decides to speak first.

"How's Chloé?" he decides to ask, half-desperate. He turns around, and Lucas isn't looking him in the eye. He's staring down at his lap, his lips quivering as they try to find the right words.

"She's good," he finally responds as he looks up, half-smiling. "Maman is going to take her shopping for her dress next week, I think. She wants to find her perfect dress as soon as she can."

"And how's your maman?" Eliott asks, carefully walking over to the table. He decides to sit in his father's chair, but it doesn't feel cold and empty like it usually does. Eliott hopes his father is smiling down on him now, giving him strength and guidance like he always would when he was alive. He breathes a quiet sigh of relief as he waits for Lucas's answer.

"She's been doing a lot better," Lucas nods, his smile a little more genuine now. "I think all the wedding planning is getting her really excited and happy. She loves Chloé. She talks about how she can't wait for her to be her daughter," he chuckles lightly, then. But then his lower jaw starts to stick out like it does when he's about to cry. "I haven't seen her this happy in a long time. I think the last time was before Papa left. I can't even quite remember."

Eliott wants to reach out and place his hand on Lucas's shoulder, or on his knee, but he's afraid of crossing a line that didn't exist before; a line he's tempted to say was drawn in blood. He offers Lucas a gentle, kind smile instead, and pretends that the tears in Lucas's eyes don't slowly chip away at his heart until it's a shattered piece of marble. "I'm happy that she's doing better."

"I am, too," Lucas replies, his smile wobbling. He takes a deep breath, shakes his head slightly. "How's your maman?" he asks, sitting up in his chair a little.

"She's worried about me," Eliott replies, shrugging. "But she's patient. And she loves me more than either of us could ever understand. She knows I'll be okay, she just worries about how much I may have to suffer to get better again."

The corner of Lucas's mouth quirks up, but there's guilt in his eyes, just barely etched into the lines of his face. Eliott feels it echo and settle in his own stomach, weighing it down and wringing it out. He both wants and doesn't want Lucas to say anything else, or look him in the eye again, or to have him so close to him. He wants everything and nothing from him, and he's afraid to let it show.

Thankfully, the kettle whistles and Eliott practically jumps from his seat, quickly taking it off the heat. Neither of them says a word as Eliott gets cups from the counter and places teabags inside. The only sound is the boiling water singing as it splashes against the ceramic sides of the cups, filling them both quickly. Eliott grabs the small jar of sugar, too, out of habit, remembering Lucas always stirs an unholy amount of it into his tea.

Lucas gives Eliott a half-smile and a nod as he takes his cup, his smile widening when he sees the sugar. He starts pouring in spoonful after spoonful, and Eliott tries to bite back a smile, stifle a chuckle. But inside, his heart tightens, squeezes as it realizes this is one of the only times Eliott has felt he's recognized Lucas since he came home.

"It's nice to know something hasn't changed," Eliott decides to say, a low and quiet note of sadness in his voice he didn't intend to let escape.

Lucas looks up then, a thin, bittersweet smile on his face. But he looks back down again quickly, maintaining his smile but letting his shoulders tense, his breath shake. Lucas has always been good at that; not letting his smile fade even when the rest of his body starts to betray him. Eliott feels another twinge, another plunge of something he can only call mourning.

"We were bound to change, Eliott," Lucas begins, his smile finally but slowly fading. "We weren't going to be 17 forever. We were bound to grow up someday."

"I don't think we were meant to grow up like this," Eliott replies, shaking his head. "I thought we were meant to grow up and grow old together. Like we said that day. I never thought growing up for us would mean growing apart, too."

Lucas takes a nervous, ginger sip of his tea, his fingers curling a little too tightly around his cup. "I don't think I did either," he agrees quietly, putting his cup down on the table. He starts squeezing his hand again, massaging his knuckles. "Back then, I didn't know where I ended and you began, but I didn't mind. I thought we were immeasurable."

"We thought we were immeasurable," Eliott replies, his voice wistful yet despondent. "We could have been."

"I know," Lucas nods. But he shrugs, shakes his head. "But we ruined it."

"You especially, Lucas," Eliott reminds him, his voice a little firmer now. He didn't intend for the thought to spill out, but he doesn't back down. "I know what I did. I was hurting, and I didn't want to hurt anymore, so I made a choice. It was a permanent choice, and I knew that. It was the wrong choice, and I didn't know that then. So I chose to take my own life. But then you stopped me. I heard your voice and I saw your silhouette on the shore and I made a different choice. I chose life. I chose you. And I thought you'd chosen me, too. But you hadn't."

Stubbornness flashes across Lucas's face, darkens it, but after a moment, guilt replaces it, darkens it even more. Eliott persists, but not from anger or desperation. He's exhausted and confused and he doesn't want to be anymore. He's tired of blaming himself for everything when Lucas has so much to answer for. Eliott isn't completely innocent, but neither is Lucas. He's ready to admit that now.

"You lied to me for two years, Lucas," he says, the word "lied" feeling so right on his tongue.

"I didn't lie to you," Lucas denies weakly, his voice thin, panicked, breaking.

"You told me you didn't love me," Eliott cuts in, his voice becoming cold. "You told me you've been mad at me for two years. Why did you ever respond to my letters, then? Why did you write me telling me that you were happy that I was alive, and that you loved me so much you couldn't breathe? Aren't those lies?"

"They're not lies," Lucas persists, any shred of hope beginning to fade from his eyes.

"How could they not be?" Eliott asks helplessly, trying to hold back the frustration swelling in his chest. "Those letters saved me so many times in that institution. I could just look at your handwriting and it made me feel better than any medicine or shocks they gave me could. I had to hide all of them in my pillowcase and I hated it because I wanted to show them off to everyone there and talk about how I found my cure. You understand why it would hurt to be told that everything you told me in those letters isn't true?"

"It was all true," Lucas replies, his voice firmer, kinder.

"Look me in the eye," Eliott says, pushing down the hope beginning to spark in his chest. "And tell me the letters weren't lies."

"None of those letters were lies, Eliott," Lucas swears slowly, choking on Eliott's name. His eyes are soft, vulnerable. The blue in them seems to call out to Eliott, reach out to him. "I was mad at you at first. Angrier than I've ever been before. I thought you were selfish. I thought this was all a punishment from God and that He was telling me that I needed to let you go. I was almost ready to never say your name again. I was almost ready to throw away all your pictures and tear all the bad poems I wrote about you to pieces. I was ready. But then I got your first letter and I could tell how much you regretted what you tried to do. I could feel all your pain. And then the letters kept coming and you talked about how much you loved me and how you couldn't wait to see me and kiss me again. I felt so terrible. I felt terrible ever thinking that you were selfish or that you wanted to hurt me…" he pauses, taking a deep breath. He starts to smile, but his lips tremble. He finally declares, "And I still loved you."

There are tears in Lucas's eyes, and his hands are shaking badly. In a way, he's reminding Eliott of the Lucas that sat in his room over two years ago that finally admitted what he held in his heart. That Lucas was in a stalemate; if he didn't say something, he would implode. But he would explode if he did say something, too. This Lucas is stuck in the same rut. Choke or cough? Implode or explode? But both of these Lucases are passionate. Both would rather die loudly with no regrets than pass away quietly in darkness, in secrecy.

"Even when I was so angry I could barely feel anything else, I loved you," Lucas continues, stumbling over his words. "Even when I felt like everything was my fault, I loved you. Even when I thought that we were being punished for our sins, I couldn't help but love you still. I loved you with everything inside of me and the only way I could express it was through all the letters. Everything that I hid inside I let out on the paper. Eliott, I—" he lets out a slow, shaky sigh. He shakes his head, looking up at Eliott with fear and knowing in his eyes. "I love you."

Eliott is speechless, his heart hammering quickly yet weakly in his chest. He only has more questions now, a thousand running through his mind before it can find an answer. All he can do is watch Lucas's eyes become darker and bleaker with fear and worry. Lucas presses his lips together, a tear starting to roll down his cheek. He's completely helpless, and Eliott doesn't know if he can help him. He wants to, but he isn't ready. Not yet.

"You're not making sense, Lucas," Eliott replies fraily.

"I love you," Lucas repeats, his voice shattering, desperate. "I love you and—"

"That's not what I need to hear right now, Lucas," Eliott interrupts, shaking his head. "I need answers. We need answers."

Lucas nods, quickly wiping away his tears. "Okay. I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Eliott replies, still tempted to reach out and touch him and comfort him.

"Ask me anything," Lucas proposes, taking a deep breath. "We could try that?"

"Okay," Eliott agrees, nodding. He takes a deep breath, deciding to ask the first question that comes to his mind. The question that's always been in the back of his mind, that keeps reminding him of a horrible, horrible memory. "Why did you say all those things when I came home? Why did you say that I didn't love you because I tried to kill myself?"

Lucas immediately looks down at his lap, biting his lip. Eliott feels the slightest twinge of regret, but then he remembers his heart stopping the second those words left Lucas's mouth. He remembers that seed of guilt and how Lucas kept pouring water and sunlight over it until its bloom closed up Eliott's throat.

"You caught me completely off guard that day, Eliott," Lucas sighs, rubbing his hands together anxiously. "I hadn't seen your face in two years, or your smile for that matter. And when I saw you, I couldn't stop replaying our last two days together. All those old feelings came up, and I realized that they never went away, I just swallowed them down. I distracted myself by remembering how we used to be, and pretending that we were in some romance novel or movie as I wrote letters to you, that we were star-crossed lovers destined to meet again. But I didn't think we'd see each other so soon. Everything came bubbling up and you were pretending like nothing ever happened and you tried to kiss me… And I lost it. I couldn't control myself. I wish I could take back every single word I said that day but I can't. Especially… what you mentioned. I know you love me, Eliott. I never thought I'd doubt it but I did, and the doubt ran deeper than I thought. And I let it get to me. I let it hurt you. I hurt you."

Eliott decides not to ask any follow-up questions. He lets his mind process and digest Lucas's words before it comes up with another question.

"Why have you been ignoring me ever since?" Eliott asks. "Why haven't you tried to talk to me before?"

"I really wasn't ready, Eliott," Lucas admits, shaking his head lightly. "I felt so guilty about everything I said to you. And before, when we only talked through our letters, there was almost a disconnect there. I couldn't actually hear your voice or see your face when I read them, so I think I built up this fantasy of you. Then, suddenly you were real again. Everything that happened was real again. I couldn't handle it. The memories were too much. The memories were continuing now. Our story, ourselves were continuing. I realized that these past two years have felt like some sort of pause, like a dream. I was dreaming all this time and I saw your face and I woke up. I remembered what real life was like and I wasn't ready for it."

"Why are you talking now? Today?" Eliott asks quietly, knowing he might strike a small nerve.

Lucas sighs, starting to bite his nails. "I read your letter over and over, and I kept reliving that night over and over again. I couldn't help but remember everything I did wrong. I did do everything wrong. I reacted poorly, my thoughts were in the wrong place, I rewrote your motives to fit my own narrative, to make myself the good guy, maybe even the hero when you were the one who lost your best friend. You lost so much more than I ever did and I thought you were selfish. I thought that I wasn't enough for you, but if I was you could've just let me go. I could've stayed dead and if I wasn't enough you wouldn't have cared. But you did. You cared too much and I didn't take the time to make sure you were taken care of, too. I was the one who was selfish. There was so much during those two days that was out of my control but there was even more that I did have control over. I could've stayed awake and held you in my arms in the hospital that night until you fell asleep and I knew that you were safe. But I didn't. I could've done so much more for you but I didn't. I decided that I wasn't going to leave you in the dark anymore. I wasn't going to leave you alone anymore. I knew I needed to be there for you now, and tell you everything I knew, give you the answers you needed. I've been more than unfair to you, and I needed to make things right again. That's why I'm here. That's why I chose now. This is one of the darkest days and I wanted to be there for you for once. I wanted you to have one day where you could have a bit of light to fight against the darkness."

"You couldn't help it before, though, Lucas," Eliott reassures him with a gentle smile. He remembers this same day last year, and he has his next question, afraid of Lucas's next answer, too. "What was the anniversary like for you last year? How did you deal with it?"

"I didn't," Lucas chuckles humorlessly. He sighs, taking a moment to collect his thoughts. "Word got around fast when everything happened. And, when the anniversary came around, everyone kept asking me if I was okay, if you were doing okay. It was exhausting to lie and say that everything was fine when all I wanted was to be with you. I didn't want to feel alone while those days went by. But I was. Maman was there, but not in the way that I needed her to be. I thought about getting on a train so I could see you, but I wasn't ready then, either. I ended up visiting your papa's grave, actually. I didn't really say anything to him, just hoped that he was watching over you and making sure that you didn't feel alone. I remember going home and playing 'Lead, Kindly Light' on my piano a few times, just because seeing your papa made me remember his funeral and my hands remembered the melody. Those few days were dark, lonely. I didn't even care when the anniversary of my drowning came. I just kept dreading what would come two days later. Even now. Yesterday, the day before… Everything's reminded me of you."

A familiar weight sinks into Eliott's chest at the mention of the hymn. He hears the melody in his mind, hears both his father's voice and Lucas's, hears Lucas's piano playing. He can almost see it; Lucas's living room tainted with shadows and the bittersweet notes leaking from Lucas's memory. He can see Lucas's back hunched, his hands curled and shaking, his eyes hooded and glassy. He can hear Lucas humming along, too, but his voice is deep and quiet like a distant rumble of thunder. He doesn't know why the image is so clear, so real—familiar. He pushes the image away, focusing on Lucas again. He seems lost in thought, in memory, too. He has that faraway look he always gets, but it's darker, deeper. Eliott doesn't want Lucas getting too deep into his own mind, but he's unsure about the best way to coax him out.

Eliott carefully reaches out and places his hand on Lucas's knee, his skin warm but trembling. Lucas tenses, nearly jumps, but sighs, almost in relief. The smallest smile appears on his face, and the faintest shred of light returns to his eyes. He places his hand on top of Eliott's, and his heart swells, spills open.

"A year ago," he begins, his voice already thick with tears. "They had given me more shocks, and I couldn't get the taste of blood and metal out of my mouth but the rest of me was numb. I was locked in my room, and it was dark. Dark enough that I couldn't look at your picture or read your letters. I could tell my mind was thinking about you, but I couldn't reach my own thoughts. I couldn't pluck them down and examine them and remember you like I would when I needed comfort. It was like I was chasing your shadow, but every time I got close it disappeared or the light shifted. I was completely numb to everything. And I hated being numb because that meant I couldn't try to make myself feel better. You were my cure in there, Lucas. You were my medicine, my shocks, my locked rooms and straitjackets. You were everything I needed. But when they gave me shocks, I didn't have you anymore. They would take you away. You'd be gone, and I had no idea how to get you back."

"How many times did they give you shocks?" Lucas asks quietly, running his thumb over Eliott's knuckles.

"I couldn't ever keep count," Eliott shrugs. "It was whenever medicines didn't work. Or whenever I was having an episode and they didn't know how else to control me. Especially when I was in a mania. It meant that I was crazy and they had a reason to strap me down and put the bit in my mouth and pull the switch. They took every chance they could, really."

"Did they give everyone shocks?" Lucas asks, his body beginning to visibly shake.

Eliott nods, feeling tears roll down his cheeks. "At least once. I don't know how they found time for it, honestly. There were so many people there. Men and women. Mothers and fathers. Brothers and sisters. There… There were people like us—" Eliott notices Lucas tensing, remembers the conversation they had at Lucas's birthday party. He shakes his head quickly, stuttering. "I mean… people like me there, too."

"Queers?" Lucas asks quietly, the word strangled in his throat.

Eliott nods weakly. "A lot of them. I wanted to talk to some of them, but I didn't know what they would do to me if they found out I was queer, too. I was already considered a 'more severe' case, I didn't want to risk making things worse for myself."

Lucas has tears in his eyes now, too. "Would they have given you more shocks? That's… what they do to people like you, right?"

It takes almost every mite of Eliott's strength to pretend that hearing "people like you" didn't gut him like a fish, and Lucas seems to be none the wiser. Eliott sighs, letting his fingers dig the slightest bit deeper into Lucas's skin. "You know what they do to queers, Lucas."

Lucas bites his lip, bowing his head. Eliott sees him nod once, weakly. His lips tremble as he asks another question, "Did they really think the shocks worked?"

"Making us better was never the goal for them," Eliott shrugs, hearing his voice become hoarse. "It was about control. It was about making sure we didn't feel anything so we wouldn't lash out or think for ourselves or someone else. Of course, most of the time the fog from the shocks would fade eventually, but the more shocks they gave you, the harder it was to get back to normal. There were people there who were admitted years ago and it was like they weren't even people anymore. Their eyes were always glazed over and they never really talked. They were like ghosts. You didn't want to become like one of them, but it was out of your control. No matter how much you fought back, they had all these restraints and ways to keep you from succeeding. Every time they took me back to the shock rooms I was afraid that this time would be the time I became a ghost. I was afraid they would shock away my love for you like they did with the other queers there. I was afraid that with every jerk of my body I was losing another piece of you, another piece of myself. It was hell, Lucas. I wouldn't wish for my worst enemy to spend a day in that place."

"Why didn't you ever tell me any of that?" Lucas asks, tears streaming down his face. "In your letters?"

"I wasn't going to scare you like that," Eliott shakes his head, placing his other hand on top of Lucas's. "And the letters were sort of an escape for me, too. When I wrote to you, I imagined we were sitting on the beach or in my room and we were just talking. And I would try and hear your voice responding to what I was writing. I… At the time, I couldn't imagine telling you the smallest portion of what I was going through and seeing every day. In my mind, you were always smiling and your eyes were always sparkling, and I couldn't take that away from you because then I'd be taking it away from myself. It was more selfish than anything, just pretending that nothing was happening and keeping you in ignorance, but it was what I needed. I needed this stagnant, ever joyful Lucas in my mind to talk to, but you're not like that. You never have been. You're sensitive and temperamental and opinionated and that wasn't what I needed. I needed stability, and you were my stability. Your name always on the tip of my tongue and your voice always in the back of my mind. Just… your presence. But you weren't there. I had to fill you in somehow. I needed you so desperately I took any scrap of you that I could and nurtured it. I found scraps in your letters, and I made up this slightly alternate version of you. And it was all I had to hold onto, really. I guess when I came home I expected that dream of you to be there, not the real you. It was like what you said. I was dreaming and then suddenly I was waking up in a cold sweat. But it wasn't fair of me to expect so much of you."

"No, Eliott," Lucas sighs, his face pulled taut and his eyes squeezed shut. He exhales slowly, opening his eyes. He looks so vulnerable. "All I had to do when you came home was the bare minimum. Hug you, congratulate you on getting better, invite you inside so we can catch up. I wasn't angry because you wanted me to be this big romantic like I was in my letters. I was angry because you showed up out of nowhere and you were in my life again and I didn't know what my life was anymore. I let my anger get the best of me like I always do. I had hidden so much inside and suddenly it was bursting and spilling out and I didn't know how to deal with it. I was suddenly so afraid again and I took it out on you. You wanted so little and I couldn't even give you that, Eliott. I've been so caught up in myself. I keep thinking you deserve to spit in my face and tell me you never want to see me again. But I also keep hoping with everything inside of me that you won't. I'm wanting you to forgive me so it'll make me feel better. Not so that you can have peace. Not so you can heal. Not so you can feel like a human being again and stand in the sunlight and smile again. I'm so selfish. What kind of person thinks something like that? How can I keep hurting you like this and be okay with it? Because at least I'm not hurting myself, too? Because then maybe you'd understand the pain you put me through that night?"

"I didn't want to hurt you," Eliott chokes out, his chest tight, his stomach in a knot.

"But you did, Eliott," Lucas sobs, yanking his hand away. He starts squeezing it in his other hand, shaking his head as tears stream in rivers down my face. "You did hurt me, and I don't know if it's fair or not for me to say that, but you did. I mean, was I not allowed to be hurt when I almost lost you? Or when people started asking me about what happened to you all the time and spreading rumors about us? Or when people started whispering about you and calling you these horrible names? Was I not allowed to be hurt by all of that?"

"Lucas—" Eliott begins, his heart aching and burning in his chest.

"I wouldn't have been able to bury you," Lucas continues, not hearing Eliott say his name. "I wouldn't have been able to say goodbye to you. I'd never be able to do it. Not the way it could've happened. I wouldn't have been able to live through it, live with it. The only way I could lose you is when we're old and gray and you die peaceful and happy and I'm only steps behind you. I thank God that I didn't lose you that day, but in a way, I did. I was left to pick up both of our pieces. And I had to do it alone. And I felt like I dropped our pieces again whenever someone reminded me of what happened. Some of them would get carried away by the wind or find places to hide and I had to find all of them all over again. But I wasn't allowed to cry about any of it. I wasn't allowed to mourn. People kept saying how strong I was but all I wanted to do was scream and cry and crumble and fall apart—"

"Lucas," Eliott repeats a little louder, taking Lucas's face in his hands. Lucas's skin is warm but wet with tears. He's trembling. His tears start to dry, though, and his eyes widen, soften as they focus on Eliott. "Of course you can hurt," Eliott begins, his voice quiet and kind now. "You hurt more far than you deserve. Your shoulders bear far too much weight. Your heart is far too torn and burnt. And it loves far too much."

"Yours, too," Lucas nods weakly, smiles sadly. "I think you have the strongest heart, Eliott. Not strong in the way that it beats so hard and so fast it's powerful and can handle anything thrown at it. It's strong in the sense that it's loyal, firm. It's true. It loves because it knows that's the only way it can survive. It knows that that's the reason why it exists. You were born to love, Eliott. I should've known how lucky I was to be loved by you."

Eliott smiles back, his lower lip trembling. Carefully, he rests his forehead against Lucas's. Eliott smiles a little wider as he realizes that Lucas's skin is still the softest thing he's ever touched. It's nice, too, that Lucas doesn't tense or pull away. "We've both been through so much," Eliott whispers fondly. "We can't stop now. We can still be immeasurable."

"I think so," Lucas whispers back, his smile spreading into his voice. "We can start over."

"No," Eliott replies quietly, thoughtfully. "I think looking over our shoulder occasionally could do us some good. We just need to keep our eyes forward more often than behind, yeah?"

"Yeah," Lucas agrees, rubbing his nose lightly against Eliott's. "I've missed this. Being close to you."

Eliott is sure Lucas can feel the heat from the blush that's starting to burn in his cheeks. He tries to push it away, knowing that they can't be close like that anymore, but his heart still warms at the thought of Lucas being a breath, a blink away once again. "I've missed this, too," Eliott grins. "I've missed you."

Eliott pulls away slightly, lifting his head to press his lips against Lucas's forehead. Lucas sighs, almost chuckles, wrapping his arms around Eliott. His embrace is strong, warm, familiar. Eliott melts into it, burying his face in Lucas's shoulder. He still smells like the salty air that settles like a fog over the town, and a deluge of memories washes over Eliott. Bitter and sweet, cold and warm. The first time they kissed; when Eliott lied with Lucas in his hospital bed, waiting for him to fall asleep. The countless nights they fell asleep in each other's arms; when they kissed for the last time, the waves waiting Eliott to lose his grip on Lucas. For now, Eliott focuses on the sweet, the warm, focuses on Lucas's weight leaning against him and holding him up. For now, he focuses on this moment, and the knowledge that this is neither a first nor a last. This is somewhere in the middle, somewhere in between. This is another step forward, another minute ticking by.

"Minute by minute," Eliott whispers, holding Lucas a little tighter. "We'll take this minute by minute. Hours and days and months and years can be so long. But we can take this minute by minute."

"Lucas and Eliott," Lucas replies, wistful and sweet, tearful. "Minute by minute."

#skam france #elu #lucas lallemant #eliott demaury #ttmc #hush bailey

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amazingflyingdick · 4 years

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big wing.

WHO: Dick Grayson @amazingflyingdick & Jason Todd @thatsjasonfkntodd WHERE: The hospital WHEN: Backdated to July 4th, 2020 WHAT: Jason goes to see Dick once he’s awake

Jason: Slade had said he intended to stay with Dick until he woke up, and Jason had taken him at his word that he meant that. Besides, it was complicated for him to go in and out. Dick wasn’t a cop anymore but he had been for a long while, and even if nobody was there on official duty he didn’t want to deal with crossing paths with Jim Gordon or anyone else if they were visiting. Moreover, he just didn’t want to sit there and stare silently while Dick ‘slept,’ with only the monitors to listen to or the occasional voice in the hall. So he hadn’t gone back in the space of time between the night it all went down and the day he woke from the coma. Those had been long days.

Even after Bruce told him Dick was awake, he didn’t know what to expect from that. He hadn’t asked for any details, but had labored over the idea of going back to the hospital for a few hours before actually doing it. He didn’t want to have to navigate other people being there, but figured it was inevitable. It was with some measure of surprise, then, that he didn’t see anyone else through the sliver of window in the door when he moved to open it. Maybe Slade hadn’t stayed after all, or no one else had had the chance to arrive yet. Either way, he pushed his hand back through his hair and opened the door.

“You up?” Dick: The first day Dick spent in and out of consciousness. It wasn't until later that he was having longer conversations - first with Slade, then with Bruce and the neurologist, who'd asked him a lot of questions. He always had someone right there next to him. Eventually as he managed to stay awake for longer stretches, he tried to assure them both that he could be left on his own long enough for them to eat, or for Bruce to answer a phone call. It was a rare moment of silence when Slade left to see about more blankets and Bruce was called out by another doctor. How many were there? Dick had a hard time keeping track. He'd been introduced to three so far.

Jason's voice made his eyes open and his focus lock on the door. He hadn't asked Bruce about his brothers. There was no reason they should have to be here, standing around him and worrying about whether or not he'd wake up, even though he wanted to see them badly. Just seeing Jason made him instantly remember everything from that night, even though he only managed to recall bits and pieces of that conversation when the doctors asked after it. He'd been confused about where and when they were.

"Yup. About to run a couple laps around the nurse's station," he replied in a hoarse voice, smirking faintly. Jason: Joking was a good sign. The serious moments were the worst ones. They felt final, like a say-it-before-you-can’t thing. He didn’t want another one for a long, long time. “That’ll be pretty with your ass hanging out of the hospital gown.” Was there anything worse than those damn things?

The doctors hadn’t really been able to give them any idea of what to expect when Dick woke up. He’d sort of braced for some kind of memory loss, a shift of some kind, and maybe that was still a possibility. Dick recognized him, though, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. There were a handful of worse case scenarios they’d already avoided. “How’s the hole in your head?”

He didn’t get too close to the bed. Aside from the first time he’d gone into the room after they took Dick there, he’d sort of avoided it. Now that he was awake, Jason sort of had it in his head that Bruce would hopefully get him moved to the manor. If the life saving part was done, the recovery didn’t have to happen at the real hospital, did it? Dick: "Hey, I've been told that's one of my best features." Dick saw how much weight it seemed to take from Slade and Bruce's shoulders when he'd managed a joke. It showed he still had some grip on his facilities if he could demonstrate even a fraction of the quick wit he had before. It didn't come as easily as before, but he tried not to over-analyze why.

Even though Jason wasn't too close to the bed, he had no trouble making him out. His vision was better than it was earlier. That was a good sign, at least. "Which one?" He smiled slightly, his eyes falling closed as he took a deep breath. "Better." They'd given him something for the pain, which made it hard to stay awake. "If I fall asleep on you, it's a total accident. I swear."

He wanted to ask Jason to come closer, wanted to say other things, too, but he resisted the urge to make the moment too serious. "They said I was out for a couple days. How's Roy? Did he go back to work?" Jason: “I’d say it’s pretty overrated.” Jason knew better than most people what a head injury could do to a person. Even after he’d got better from being dead and buried, he definitely hadn’t been himself. He’d been a shell of a person, really, just running on survival instinct with odds and ends of confusing memories floating around that he couldn’t make sense of. The Lazarus Pit had fixed it, but sometimes he still wondered whether or not fixed wasn’t really the right word. In any case, he didn’t expect Dick to just bounce back. He wasn’t optimistic enough for that, anyway.

He dismissed the comment about sleep with a shake of his head. “That’s a convenient excuse. Maybe I’ll use it sometime. If I fall asleep on you it was an accident.” But if he did, Jason would take that as his cue to go. He knew that it was unlikely to just be the two of them for long.

“He was going to, but he took some extra time after...” Jason made a vague gesture toward Dick, “all this. He’s alright. We’re getting there.” Roy had made it through the worst of it, physically, without caving. Dick: "You would say that." The doctors seemed surprised that he was able to respond to questions clearly and without much confusion. It was the questions asking after detail that could get him tripped up. That made Dick feel unnerved and he would get frustrated with his own inability to recall specifics. His memory was never as good as Barbara's, but he'd learned how to retain a lot of information after so many years of practice. It scared him that he could lose that overnight. The doctor reassured him that it was a minor setback that could get better over time, brains made new pathways and all of that, but most of the assurances fell on deaf ears.

Snorting softly, his hand moved against the cool railing. When he'd first woken up his wrists had been restrained. The doctors explained that he kept trying to yank out his IVs. "Now you can't use it on me, because I'll remember you said it." Or would he? Dick didn't let himself linger on it.

Already he'd had the fear that Roy's recovery was put in jeopardy because of this. He winced. "But this didn't... this didn't set him back, did it?" There was no telling how long Jason had been away from the apartment. Roy was so freshly recovered that a relapse was very possible. Jason: “Weirder if I agreed with you.” He didn’t want to spend any amount of time thinking about Dick’s ass. Plenty of other people did that, probably, so he’d leave it to them. If he did manage to make it to the Nurse’s Station eventually, they might appreciate it too.

Jason had to wonder how much of their conversation in the alley that Dick actually remembered. For purely selfish reasons, he hoped that some of it was lost. He’d got a little desperate, a little more sentimental than he would have otherwise, and since Dick had survived...he was fine letting all of that go.

“I don’t think so.” He couldn’t guarantee it. He’d not been as attentive in the days after Dick was shot, but he’d still been there. He’d still spent that time with Roy. He had to believe he would have noticed if he’d backslid. Dick: "Point taken." It was an easy back and forth that took minimal effort on his part. Dick enjoyed the ease in conversation, because it made it easy to forget how desperate Jason had been the night he found him. He hadn't ever heard him sound like that before and he never wanted to hear it again.

But he didn't want to act like it never happened. He didn't want to shelve it, like Bruce would, and bring it out only when it was once again a possibility that they might not ever see each other again.

The news made him relax, but only a little. He wouldn't feel convinced until he saw Roy himself, but he didn't even know when that would be. Jason was the first person to show up outside of Bruce and Slade. He was glad they were here, but he wouldn't pretend there wasn't tension. "Hey," he finally said, his eyes still closed. "You promised you'd go to the circus with me. Don't think I forgot about that." Jason: So much for not remembering those parts. He’d really hoped he forgot the circus part. Jason had been sitting on the story forever. Once in awhile he thought about it, but he’d never told Dick and never really planned to. It was just the only thing that had popped into his head in that moment, and keeping him awake had been more important than protecting some dumb moment with his dad. Still, he felt...the whole thing felt raw. Everything they’d said. That he’d said.

“Must have been a hallucination. Coma dream?” He didn’t even try to sound that convincing about it. The odds of them ever getting enough of a break from the city’s bullshit to go anywhere or do anything seemed pretty small right then, and Dick had a long road ahead of him either way. Dick: Dick sighed faintly, but he didn't argue. Despite the distance between them, his vision was clear enough to take note of Jason's expression and anything else he could read on his face. Not that Jason was easy to read. He wasn't like Tim or Damian, both of them predictable in their insecurities and doubts, and he'd never been particularly receptive to Dick's offers of support.

That wasn't what this was about. Not really. His fingers dug into the bar and he tried to keep his voice light. He had the feeling that if it got too heavy Jason would dash out of the room so fast that he'd be a blur. "Come here, s'not like I'm contagious." Jason: He was right, of course. Dick wasn’t sick. There was no reason for the distance he kept putting between him and the bed. He’d had surgery, his head was properly dealt with. Still, he’d not totally managed to shake the image of what it had been like before. The sight of the gauze immediately running red with blood, Dick’s hair slick and stuck to his head, was something that that kept lingering in his mind. While Roy was in withdrawal, he hadn’t been sleeping for long stretches even when he was in his own bed. The trend continued, and he couldn’t remember the last time that he’d been plagued by such frequent fucked up dreams. So, he’d just avoided looking at very much behind the wires and the monitors.

“Stupid might be contagious,” he offered, but he did take a few steps forward just to avoid having to explain why he hadn’t been. “Hope you enjoyed your big nap.” Dick: Even though Dick had been on the other side of it, it didn't take a lot of imagining for him to think about what it was like for Jason. It wasn't something he should have been left to deal with alone. The fact that Dick had relied on him so heavily to keep it together during that time, even though he'd hardly had another choice, brought a wave of guilt. He knew it couldn't be easy for Jason to be here. Not just because it meant leaving Roy on his own during a time that was still tenuous, but because it kept everything fresh and maybe a little too real.

He had to close his eyes, but he wasn't going to let himself fall back asleep. "Hey..." Dick's throat was thick, but he pushed past the feeling. "I'm sorry." Jason: “The fuck are you sorry for? Getting shot in the head?” It was true that Jason was prone to blaming people things maybe a little unfairly. Rather than lean in to the random chaos of the universe, it was easier to find something or someone to pin it on. He preferred assigning fault and giving his anger some kind of direction. In this case, that assignment went to NOVA. It wasn’t Dick’s to apologize for.

Jason frowned as Dick closed his eyes, but the expression was only there briefly before he’d wiped it away. “It’s over and done.” Dick: Dick didn't know how to explain what he was sorry for, not without risking the possibility that Jason would feel patronized, so he said nothing. Instead he opened his eyes, watching him quietly, and tried not to give away that his vision still blurred around the edges.

There was a sinking feeling in his chest. It left him with an odd heaviness, something he tried to keep out of his voice. "Yeah," he said quietly. "I'll be out of here in no time." Jason: “No you won’t,” Jason said flatly. “I don’t know if you’re saying that for my sake, but I’m not five. You got shot in the head.” And Jason had been shot before. He knew how long it took to recover from even when the wound was somewhere much less alarming. He didn’t have much use for forced optimism. As far as he was concerned, it was a fucking miracle that he’d survived in the first place.

He finally stepped close enough to put his hand on the bar that ran alongside the bed. At least Dick wasn’t restrained anymore. He’d wanted to argue with them about it, but it wasn’t like he was a damn doctor. “You’ll be out when you’re out. But you’re not dead.” Dick: "I'm saying it for my own sake. I hate these places." Dick didn't want to think about being stuck in the hospital. He was already feeling like he wanted to crawl out of his skin. It was a bit of wishful thinking, maybe, but he had to be hopeful. The doctors were suggesting it could be weeks. There was absolutely no way he could keep Slade and Bruce from killing each other for weeks.

No, he wasn't dead, but not even he could brush aside how close he'd been. If the bullet had been a little more to the left, or the right, things could be a lot bleaker than they were right now. "I decided against it. It's like you said, no new members." Jason: “Me too. Always have.” Even though it had still sucked to need it, he’d always been grateful that Bruce had ways of dealing with most injuries at the manor. Alfred could do as much as any nurse, and he had other people on retainer for the rest. Usually. Getting shot like Dick had been...there hadn’t been another option.

“It’s a really exclusive club and we don’t want you so,” he managed a shrug and chewed at the inside of one cheek. “They said you might have some memory loss. Do you?” He wanted real answers, not projections. Dick: Dick didn't like being immobile. Waking up restrained felt like a nightmare. He was afraid to fall back asleep just in case they found it necessary to do it again. The wraps were still fastened to the side of the railings.

"I don't know. Don't think so." Then again, how was he supposed to know if he couldn't remember? "Test me." The thought made the feeling in his chest heavier and tighter all at once. He didn't really want to know the answer, but he knew he had to face it sooner or later. If there were things he'd forgotten, the only thing he could do was try to regain those memories again. Jason: What could he ask him? Dick had remembered the circus comment, so all the short term memory wasn’t gone. “What’s your dumbass nickname for me that I hate?” Of course he said that to Roy about Jaybird too, then ended up missing it when he’d broken things off. Dumb. ‘Little Wing’ was just as bad, probably worse. It had been around for years, though. “When is Alfred’s birthday?” Trick question.

He hesitated for a second, but eventually dragged one of the chairs over toward the bed so he could sit down. He was tired. No, he was past tired. He wanted to take Roy’s suggestion and let someone knock him out with a sledgehammer for awhile. Dick: "Little Wing." Dick didn't miss a beat on that one. There was a vague memory of him saying it in the alley. He'd said it once or twice before then, too, for the first time since Jason's return. The nickname slipped out before he'd thought twice about it. There was no way to take it back later. "None of us know Alfred's birthday," he began hesitantly, but then his brow furrowed. "He won't tell us. So we have to pick we want to celebrate." Oh, no. "...Right? Or did I forget it?"

He took in Jason's face and his obvious exhaustion, frowning. "You look awful." Jason: Jason rolled his eyes at both responses. “Well, the annoying parts are still in tact. And no, you didn’t forget. It’s an eternally unsolved mystery. Alfred is an ancient and immortal being with no birthday.” So he got all the birthdays instead and cake on whatever one of them they picked,

He sat up a little straighter and shrugged. “Says the guy with with a sieve for a head.” What he wasn’t going to do was listen to some lecture about self care from the dude laying in the hospital. Dick: "I passed?" Dick gave him a crooked looking grin, trying to hide the very real relief that flooded him at the realization that he hadn't forgotten half of his life and just didn't realize. "Alfred was here earlier." Alfred had acted completely unperturbed by the situation and had chided Dick for watching TV when he should be resting.

It bothered him that Jason wasn't getting enough sleep, but he knew he'd be doing the same thing if he were in Jason's shoes. Dick always had the habit of overextending himself. Calling Jason out for doing the same thing felt too hypocritical. "You're more like me than you realize. Horrible, I know." Jason: “Sure, you passed a two question test. I’ll send your diploma over tomorrow.” He could’ve come up with some other questions, but if he was being honest he was okay with just accepting the decent outcome from a couple. If Dick had memory issues, he’d find that out on his own. Jason could roll with it not being blind optimism since he’d made effort to prove otherwise.

“Gross. Take it back or I’m leaving right now.” There were worse things in the world, but he wasn’t going to tell him that. He’d done enough admitting, enough vulnerability. It felt like all he’d done was feel raw for two damn months between Dick and Roy and all the rest. Dick: "I guess we could round it up to five, if you have more," Dick offered with a smirk. In all honesty, he was wary of whether or not he'd get more questions right. Avoidance wasn't something he should let himself give into, it was a hollow victory in the end, but it was a hard habit to shake. He didn't like to admit when things might not be just fine. This was already a situation he hadn't been able to handle on his own.

That made him laugh, even though the sound was hoarse. "Where do you think I got the nickname?" Little Wing had come from his own moniker, not Bruce's, because from the beginning he'd seen a lot of himself in Jason. No one knew how it was for Dick in the early years, before he found a place to put his anger. Jason: “Maybe later.” Something might crop up, but he was alright giving him a participation award in the mean time. He hadn’t really gone to the hospital to play a game of trivia about their lives. The motivation for it was morbid even for Jason, and for once he didn’t completely have the stomach for it.

He’d never really asked. The first time Dick had called him that he’d almost liked it, though maybe he’d brushed it off at the time. Later, it had seemed patronizing. Now, it was little more than a joke. “Pulled it out of your ass, I guess. Maybe you should call me Big Wing now.” Dick: Dick nodded. Maybe that was better. Diving into the past with Jason was always risky. Sometimes it was best to leave it alone, even though there were plenty of things he actively remembered from that time. Some of them were good things, but he didn't know if Jason looked at them the same way now.

"You'd need at least another two inches on me." Jason was taller than him and calling him little anything didn't really make sense anymore, but the nickname tended to slip without him even realizing it. He'd never expected to use it again. It sneaked up on him. Jason: "I think I've got the two inches on you elsewhere," he said with a grin, unable to resist the perfect set-up that Dick had given him for the joke. "Not that I'll be asking around." He already knew way too much about private Dick than he'd ever, ever wanted to.

He leaned back a little in the seat. By the looks of him, he wouldn't be awake for long. Jason figured he'd take off when he passed out. Besides, the likelihood of him being alone in that room with him for any real length of time was small. He didn't want to deal with Bruce, and he sure as fuck didn't want to deal with Slade, even if all they had between them was silence like most of the days they'd both been in cells. Dick: "I'd say prove it, but I think I'd rather take you at your word." After the whole discovery in his file, the entire family knew way more about Dick's life than he ever wanted them to. Tim had questions and he didn't mind giving him answers, but he'd always been private about things like that. Jason living at his apartment while Slade dropped in and out had been awkward, even though Dick thought he'd been pretty discreet about it.

The television was off. He felt around for the remote and offered it to Jason. "Find something funny." The last time he woke up it had been playing some documentary on how cotton picking machines worked, which had just made him go right back to sleep. Jason: "That's what I thought." Would he have argued about it if Dick insisted otherwise? Probably. It might have been nice to be a dumbass for a little while, considering where they were and why.

If Jason kept on the TV it was usually just for noise or someone else's sake. He'd spent a lot of mindless hours watching it with Roy as they were wading through the withdrawal symptoms, and when he'd stayed with Dick they'd watched some movies that he did not altogether hate. He'd even enjoyed some. Still, left to his own devices he didn't watch much of it and it took some clicking around before he found something that he caught at the right time to hear a laugh. Some cop show set in Brooklyn. It'd work.

As he sat there, half paying attention and half just letting his mind drift, he felt a buzz in his pocket. Text from Roy. He almost put off answering it until he was ready to leave, but if something was wrong he couldn't ignore it.

hey what about dick's friend. the gold guy? Dick: The cop show reminded him of something he wasn't sure he'd told Jason about yet. "I quit the SCPD," he said quietly, his eyes half open. It was something he'd been considering for some time even before the events of the breakout. After that, he really had little choice but to go through with it. Gordon had shown up to speak to him about the events of the shooting, but he hadn't been able to tell him much, and he avoided the subject of Jason altogether. It was better to pretend that he'd been unconscious from the second the bullet entered his skull.

Jason's phone going off made his eyes open more and he glanced aside at him. "Do you know what happened to my phone?" He asked, even though he hadn't given it much thought until then. "Do you have it? Or Bruce?" Jason: “Yeah...” he wasn’t sure who had found out first, though it was probably, but they’d made the connection between the timing of Dick leaving the force and NOVA sending someone after him. It couldn’t just be a coincidence. “About time. You’ve gotta stop acting like you can be ten different people.” Jason wasn’t one to lecture, but it didn’t take a genius to know that Dick stretched himself far, far too thin.

The message distracted him and he only gave a grunt of “Bruce” in response as Roy answered again. Jason felt his heart skip as he realized who Roy was talking about. As soon as he did, he got to his feet. “Is your friend Josh still in town?”

#c: discord #dick grayson #jason todd

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comicteaparty · 4 years

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July 4th-July 10th, 2020 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble chat that occurred from July 4th, 2020 to July 10th, 2020. The chat focused on the following question:

What was an unexpected aspect of making webcomics you didn’t realize before making one yourself?

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

How much our comic and it's story we're going to change during the years of creation was the biggest and most jarring aspect for sure. There's scripts and thumbs that were all made before we ventured out to make GJS with paths completely different from what we initially thought we would take that have completely changed how we approach not only writing but reading webcomics too. Webcomics as a medium have the biggest connection to time, whether it be production or the consumption, they have this opportunity to exist and transform in the long hours it takes to enjoy and read them. It's honestly one of the biggest advantages imho. To see a story slowly unfold, listening to ur audience reactions, peer critiques, or new inspiration can make such a drastic and intense impact on a long form work- its both jaw dropping and humbling to be apart of!(edited)

Deo101 [Millennium]

For me it was the community aspect of comics. I knew a community existed on the reader side of things (comments!), but I didn't expect the creator side to be how it is! I don't know why, but for some reason I kind of always thought that all of us were sort of throwing our comics out from the void... I guess that was me looking at comics from a reader's point of view! But as soon as I started making comics, I started meeting people who made them too... and it's been incredible!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

@deo I never really understood what an internet community or internet friends were until I started making a webcomic

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah, I had been in (and quickly decided to not be in 0_0) gaming communities, but nothing really as wonderful as what I've found through comics. Closest I had gotten other than that was comments on social media

Shizamura 🌟 O Sarilho

Community definitely one of the big things, much like Deo pointed. I was kinda expecting to have get connections through readers, but it's much more with other creators, which is super satisfying in it's own way. Also gonna second Krispy's comment about how time affects how you see your story's past and future. A lot of things changed in the past four years that made my comic change as well and having so much time to think each individual scene allows them to be much more complex and interesting than they would when I first thought them through. Having the time really helps. This also kinda touches the topic of personal change too, which affects how I write and what feels most important to focus on and that's interesting to think about as well

eliushi [Keyspace]

How long things will take, the longer the story goes on! I started out being able to complete a page in 2h but then I found more I wanted to try on each page (colours, layout, composition etc) and even wanted to extend certain scenes. With 500 pages planned, I definitely thought I’d be farther along by now, heading into AWT’s first year anniversary in a month. That being said, I’m also enjoying the ride and it’s all thanks to the great community here and making connections with other comics folks/readers. I never expected to get comments and so each one has been a treasure to read.

Desnik

An unexpected aspect of making webcomics is how much people respond to them. I figured I'd be creating into a void but I met so many people as a result of publishing my dinosaur comic

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

Ditto on the webcomic community. I didn't realize how far reaching it was to have a community that supports each other. And I've enjoyed meeting so many wonderful and creative people who raised each other up. Another thing I didn't expect, however, was how invested I got into my comic.(edited)

At first I was doing it mostly for fun. But the more I delved into it, the easier it was to get sucked into my story and want to draw it out. And as a result taking it a lot more seriously.

Desnik

yeah sometimes I miss my dinosaur comic even though I had some pretty good reasons for moving on. It was created out of desperation and evolved into something that made me feel good about myself

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

How much work and time it takes to keep a weekly update going with no backlog

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah same

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

For me, I didn't realize how much it would affect my life to make comics, and vice versa. In a weird way, I didn't know how interrelated the two were, or how easily life could interfere with my comic, or the inverse.

eliushi [Keyspace]

Making comics became a lifestyle for me

@Haruh2 (Colony Life) When I had no backlog I was updating every two weeks with 7 pages per update; so about 14h of work. But this is with a finished script. I am also told I work fast.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

omg

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

That's soooo much, Eli!

That's at least twice as much as I do (edited)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I hadn't realized how much I put myself into my comic! My friends who read it have all said that it's incredibly in my voice and reflects my opinions and worldviews Before I shared it with people I hadn't thought of it in that way at all

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

As an artist, I didn't expect how my comic production and mindset will change. Once I started comics, it brought out my ideas from thoughts to a physical form. I start to invest more time into it. Each project evolved through each chapter. How to balance script writing to a polished piece. I put alot of time and research in my works. It makes me glad to hear other creators do the same. I'm not the crazy artist who's wasting her time. One of the positive change was meeting other creators, how we give advice and receive praise.(edited)

eliushi [Keyspace]

The support has been amazing. It makes the work less lonely

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Fish, oh for sure! I didn't realize until recently how much my characters are all just facets of myself!

eliushi [Keyspace]

(I don’t work that quickly anymore and I’m making big changes to the format soon so it’s going to be a Transition)

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

I've been in school with art students who never made comics, so when I came to CTP discord, reading comic discussions. It was comforting and fun. I enjoy the cooperation our group has, helping each other.

eliushi [Keyspace]

I like to commiserate about the unique challenges comics have

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Hahaha, yeahhhhh

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

I agree, it's different from illustrations. Different approach(edited)

eliushi [Keyspace]

I am perpetually balancing time spent on a panel vs how much time the reader will spend on it

Vs illustration: lemme make all the details

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

Oh I agree, each panel takes longer than it takes to read it. Hence I dislike when readers call manga creators 'lazy'

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

how much time does it take to read one of my pages?

20 seconds?(edited)

haha

e.e

wait is that emoji supposed to be someone rolling their eyes??

i jsut looked it up

i might've been using it wrong this whole time

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Pacing

It's way different than in novels, and definitely came as a shock at the start

eliushi [Keyspace]

Yeah have to play to the strength of the medium. Still imagining AWT as an animated movie written from a novel, in the format of a comic

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Haha, same kinda

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

@eliushi [Keyspace] ah haha, that makes me feel better about my update habits, but thats a good goal for me to shoot for now that im learning a new way to make long comics specifically

cAPSLOCK (Tailslide)

I completely underestimated the amount of effort that would have to go into formatting, website design and maintenance, etc. If I got to do it again, a little more research beforehand probably would’ve saved me a lot of time and hassle.

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

I really overestimated the "if you build it they will come" aspect of webcomics lol. Like, you actually have to work to advertise your comic in order for people to read it. Nobody ever got hundreds of readers just from posting their comic onto some hosting site without doing major marketing work.(edited)

dako

yeah, I feel that

I've never really been an advertising type before my comic, im learning to just get used to it

Deo101 [Millennium]

I've not really done much advertising tbh, it makes me uncomfortable

dako

it feels kinda...embarrassing? might be too harsh of a word

i dunno

Deo101 [Millennium]

its just uncomfortable idk! i feel awkward doing it

dako

yeah, same ive done it a few times on reddit but i have to force myself

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

it does feel, odd..hell most of the time it just feels like i open the door to my house and toss a bunch of paper to the wind hoping someone can see it

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah, I dont know if ive done anything other than posting updates on twitter and talking about it in groups like this

and twitter is mostly just me talkin to people who already read it...

idk talking about my work without being asked first makes me feel like im inserting myself where im not allowed

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Self promo got MUCH less intimidating for me when I started thinking of it like: "okay, so my comic is made for readers like me, people who share my tastes. That means I only need to answer one question: what can I say to get me to check out this comic? I don't need to impress anyone else. I just need to appeal to me." (since "me" is my target audience)

Deo101 [Millennium]

mhm ^^

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

But take it with a grain of salt because I'm still not really promoing

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

exactly, thats why i find it hard to tweet about it most of the time, but i get the whole if i dont care about to talk without being asked no one else will either

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah lmao mood im like what would get me to read... hmmm... probably exactly what im doing.... I'll keep it up then :)

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

yea i get excited to draw out certain parts..but wouldnt want to just tweet about all the little tidbits of the story ruining it for others

Deo101 [Millennium]

sweats

dako

i made a whole side twitter for my comic cuz talking about it on my main intimidated me too much

it is my containment chamber

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

hm may do that, just to say i did it and to get my mind away from the thought

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

yeah same

Deo101 [Millennium]

My main is just whatever I want it to be idk. Its kinda for all my comics, since my comics are all I want to talk about

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

though my main is mostly just retweeting from my side twitter lol

Deo101 [Millennium]

it removes a lot of the pressure of like what if my followers dont wanna see this??

cause they wouldnt be here if they didnt wanna see it

cause its all Ive been doing the whole time

dako

thats a good point

i had my main way before my comic so most of my mutuals/followers dont follow for that

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

yea, it can feel abit disorienting when there is no interaction one way or another on anything you tweet (also if twitter has messed up and causes your tweets to not show up)

Deo101 [Millennium]

but yeah I dont really advertise cause it just makes me so uncomfortable >.<

dako

understandable

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I'm kind of somewhere in between. I advertise my comic mostly because it is all I wanna talk about, like Deo. But I also don't think it's gotten me many readers. Most of my readers came as far as I can tell because I was making something that appealed to them. (The whole "if you build it, they will come" thing.) Although, I really don't have a big audience, I do have an audience, and I am certain most of them came from me just posting.

I think it's determined a lot by luck, and also, how big your niche's audience is to begin with (and some skill tbh).

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah like I think "gay sci fi" is a p big niche so ive got a big amount of people I could potentially reach

which makes it much easier to draw people in

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I'm particularly lucky, I guess, that fantasy/romance has a lot of readers (also more competition, but...)

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah fantasy romance is a damn big one

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

eh i think im in an awkward void with my action/drama story (since im not doing romance drama)

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I just go with the mindset: "what makes my fantasy/romance different from the rest" and go from there.

Deo101 [Millennium]

mhm

tbh I dont think my sci fi romance is doing anything special?

but im having fun so :) I dont rlly care about that hahahha

dako

having fun the most important thing

Deo101 [Millennium]

its not my goal to make somthing mindblowing ^^ truley im just here for a good time

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I mean, LGBT+-inclusive sci-fi is pretty unique

I haven't seen a lot

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

It's clear that your characters are people, and that's special, regardless of how common/uncommon

dako

think if i didnt love my comic as much as i do id have stopped a long time ago

Deo101 [Millennium]

thats true keiiii, thank you <3

also yeah its Sad that theres not more LGBT+ sci fi cause its like youve got aliennnssssssssssssssssssss you can do whatever you waaaaaant

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I knooowww

Deo101 [Millennium]

guess it shows what ppl want or something

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

yup

Deo101 [Millennium]

off topic

so to make it back on topic

I underestimated how much people would like gay sci fi GJKLAGJLAJLKAGJSLAKGJKL

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

One thing I learned specifically with my current comic... I did not realize how much difference the reader's cultural background would make in terms of interpreting my story.

Deo101 [Millennium]

!!!!!

I actually almost mentioned you in class once tbh keiii

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Big oversight, in retrospect

Deo101 [Millennium]

saying "someone I know makes a comic which they noticed, it's interpreted completely differently just depending on cultural backgrounds" kind of a thing

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

like I would not have made the comic any different, but I would have approached the... presentation differently. Like, talk about it differently

Deo101 [Millennium]

cause we were talking about how narratives affect rt

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I guess another thing that was unexpected about making webcomics was... there are way more people with my exact tastes than I thought

Deo101 [Millennium]

and I was saying that I think the viewer's narrative affects art more than the artists narrative

I mean, the artists narrative obviously is what makes it so.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

In the eyes of the beholder

Deo101 [Millennium]

but interpretations and all that... yeah!!!

so. actually I might have offhandedly mentioned you I cant remember if I did or not

lemme check

I did! very like "second hand" offhandedly mentioning though ahaha

hope that doesnt make you uncomfortable GSKLGSJALGJLGK no one replied to me so e.e

in the class I mean

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I am super uncomfortable and offended !!!!!

j/k

Deo101 [Millennium]

hgjkghsjkagskajgdhsakgjhgjd

but... yeah idk starting out I truly just was making it cause I really love my characters a lot, the idea that other people would like them too is very unexpected :) in a good way

I also definitely didnt expect how important enviornments were e.e

didnt plan those well enough.

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

that relatable feel

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I really desperately advertise my comic everywhere. I don't really know how to do marketing effectively though & I don't know if its working

eliushi [Keyspace]

I find what increased readership most consistently is still the feature aspect from the hosting sites. It’s really about finding the right readers/right readers finding you

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Same, I'm basically a rounding error away from being 100% reliant on the features for subs

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I don't think my comic has ever been featured on the hosting sites. My numbers have always been low on Tapas and maybe thast why

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Yeah, features help a lot

I've been featured on Webtoon, but not Tapas, and you can really see the difference in readership there

Deo101 [Millennium]

Ive been featured on both, uhh in a couple of diff places, if you wanted a breakdown of how many readers i got from the diff spots and stuff ever just lmk im happy to share

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I've been featured on both. It certainly got people to check it out and even sub, but retaining those people (even if they've subbed!!!) is a different story. I think my story is just not the right type for the platforms, but eh, even if 99% of the platform users aren't into the kinda thing I'm making, 1% increase is still an increase.

Which is another thing I learned over the course of running this comic, specifically (since the internet has changed so much after my first two attempts). Just because the majority of your subs don't actually read the comic, doesn't mean your work sucks. Today's internet caters to casual users, and there's a bajillion factors affecting who's actually reading your stuff.

dako

i agree

my comic has never been featured on either, and webtoons doesnt have a guideline on what they pick but tapas does and my comic doesnt really meet their featuring requirements so i dont think either site ever will feature mine haha

so i gotta advertise on reddit and use twitter tags a lot

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Don't go too crazy with twitter tags; they can make people zone out and not look at your tweet.

dako

i try to use 5 at the most, i know too many is unpleasant to look at haha

Jib {WIP haha}

Oh huh, my rule of thumb is to use 1-2 on twitter and as many as I can on Insta but I’m no expert lol

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, IG seems to be where you want all the tags XD

varethane

Webtoon's algorithms are like turning a hose on and off lol

The difference between views and sub growth during periods of being featured vs not is stark(edited)

carcarchu

i've never been featured by webtoons but i've seen series grow from 100 followers to 10k overnight

not an exaggeration

varethane

I put my new comic on webtoon in november 2019, and in 1 month I crawled up to.... maybe 50 subs?(granted I only put up one episode and then paused for a bit)

Then in December I started updating it weekly and got placed in the new and hot section of the app

And bam, 6k subs

It last 2 weeks and then the section updated and all growth stopped, and subs went down by 10 or so over the next week

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

(Omg featured is like the new Daily Deviation goals from DA way back in the day!)

varethane

Until it got another feature on a different part of the website and went up another 2k. It was like playing with the handle on a faucet lol

dako

I got some pretty good growth during canvas week, but beyond that not really

I get 1-2 subs after an update if I'm lucky

varethane

I feel like their algorithms are very reliant on the regular rotation of features that staff have to do manuallt

Outside of that, discoverability is quite weak

Mostly because of the volume of comics on there

boogeymadam

same boat as vare. the only thing i know about webtoons features is they have stated a couple times one of their recquirements is consistant updating, so if u skip a week that disqualifies u for a lil while i imagine

varethane

I wonder what they count as consistent. I was doing every 2 weeks for awhile, but this month I'm gonna try weekly to see if it helps me earn more $$ from ads :U

dako

I wish there was more incentive for readers to check out the new section on webtoons and tapas

carcarchu

i have found some amazing gems in the new section

i swear i've seen stuff in featured that were not at all updated consistently

dako

I have too, there's a ton of good comics that get overlooked because they're not in the front page

some featured comics havent updated in months sometimes

varethane

I definitely would not have considered myself consistent at the time of the first feature, considering there was a gap of a month between episode 1 and 2 lpl

carcarchu

the consistently updating thing is more of a recommendation than a requirement i feel?(edited)

boogeymadam

ooohh good to know!!

varethane

I'm sure it cant be a hard rule, especially for comics that have just launched

boogeymadam

im just going off their canvas qna's from last year

dako

if it's actually a hard rule for staff to feature comics that regularly update they break that rule a lot

i also heard a bot picks up comics too

carcarchu

well i at least think the staff or bots or whatever at webtoons are doing a better job with features than tapas is

tapas is always pushing their premium comics way more than their indie stuff

boogeymadam

tapas needs to bring new comics onto the frontpage more often than it does, yeah

dako

yeah I agree

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I mean, I get why they put premium on the front page. But I feel more variety would help them because it's more interesting for the readers?

dako

I can't tell whats premium or not with tapas sometimes

boogeymadam

i do like that they've been asking stuff like this in the forums tho

carcarchu

more distinction would be helpful to me too dako

i don't think its as clear as it could be

dako

yeah, webtoons at least it's clear what is and what isnt featured or canvas

Jib {WIP haha}

Huh, anyone remember that really popular writing podcast? I forgot the name

Or have any recommendations I guess

Moral_Gutpunch

Terrible writing advice? It's sarcastic

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

is this related to the topic?

Moral_Gutpunch

It's a podcast about writing, so I'm going to say yes.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I think snuffysam meant the weekly topic for the channel

Moral_Gutpunch

Just for this channel, no. I'm too new to know that.

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Please check #rules

Moral_Gutpunch

Sound more like someone forgot context than the rules

That's why I'm hardly here. I don't know stuff people who've been here for a long time know like podcasts or older comics(edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Basically each of the channels under "CTP Activities" on this server has its own topic of the week.

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

It's not a matter of being here for a long time or not. This channel is used solely for discussing the weekly topics, and such information can be found in #rules

Moral_Gutpunch

Kudos then. I came for creator babble only.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

For general webcomic creation-related advice (either seeking or giving) and such, #shop_talk usually is the place!

creator_babble is for answering the topic of the week

It's not actually for generalized "creator babble" despite the name.

dako

looks like they left

Jib {WIP haha}

Oh my bad, it’s been a while since I read the rules, I brought up the new subject

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Happens!

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

No problem, we were just reminding you all :)

Jib {WIP haha}

Ty for that then haha

dako

I think one unexpected thing for me is that no one tells you how crazy the highs and lows can be

well I guess people do but you really don't know until the highs and lows happen to you if that makes sense

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Oh God, that's so true

Burnout is way more dreadful than I could ever guess prior to experiencing it

Feather J. Fern

One unexpected thing for me was how many people I would meet because of my comic. It surprised me greatly that I found so many cool people through the comic community and made the friends I have made now. Love you all

rajmews

The unexpected thing for me was just how much you have to just...predict...what the market will want to read. Like even if you research a whole lot, and you draw really well, and have been doing art professionally, you can still strike out. It's a humbling experience, but being able to just let go of poorly received pages and move on and try things differently is a lot of the battle for doing a webcomic. It teaches you how to fail gracefully because...it's all a process of learning your readers better. Even if they're few at first.

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

My major unexpected thing was how much my initial ideas change as I work through a page. Everything from the expressions, dialogue, and layout can change as I look at it and 'solve' it more closely than I did in thumbnails. There are pages I look back on and realize they are ENTIRELY different than what I had first sketched. And they're better for it. Allowing myself the freedom to edit during the artwork... it's created some majorly awesome opportunities.

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yes!!!!! Me too!!!

It's exciting thoufh

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Absolutely same

Could plan something out meticulously but then change it in the last 2 secs before uploading

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yup... I don't thumbnail much ahead of where I'm at cause of this(edited)

I thumbnail a scene at a time, and then usually I end up changing stuff halfway through ahahfjjdkskdkss

varethane

Same hat, haha. I often make changes at every stage-- even the thumbnails will often depart from the script. If anything, I wish I made even more changes-- I feel like my page layouts tend to be pretty standard, I do a lot of pages with the 3 rows of 2 panels each, and I want to break out of that more. But... well, that's a work in progress.

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #comic tea party #ctp #creator interview #comic creator interview #creator babble

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possiblyimbiassed · 5 years

Text

John’s wedding is a crime scene - Part IV

In Part III of this meta series I came up with a rather horrible hypothesis: What if Sherlock and John actually did get intimate on the stag night, but none of them wanted to admit this fact - perhaps not even to themselves - for different reasons? Which was what ultimately broke Sherlock’s heart and made him OD after the wedding? This is a rather speculative idea of course; it could definitely be very wrong, and I don’t actually wish it to be true. But this is still what I see, and it would explain certain things in the show, so I might as well try to provide evidence and explain what makes me jump on this train of thoughts.

In Part III I tried to point out the distinct, symbolic resemblance between the Mayfly Man’s ‘crime scene’ and 221B. This, together with John showing up in Mrs Hudson’s kitchen the following morning, makes me think John and Sherlock never actually left Baker Street after the stag night. And their leaving 221B is not confirmed by John’s blog. So if they never left 221B, what did actually happen?

Permit me a bit of more analysis and shameless speculation (if you’re already bored, you can just skip this part, because it’s long and maybe tedious :) ).

So if they never left 221B, what about this nurse who came between them? I think ‘Tessa’ is either incredibly naïve, or lying. As @raggedyblue said in the addition to Part III, ‘Tessa’ only dates a guy one night, and it’s only dinner out and exchange of numbers. If she doesn’t hear anything from him after that (and she didn’t seem to know him before) why would she go to his flat to investigate? In the show ‘Tessa’ says that she thought he’d at least call to say they were finished. But how can you finish something that never actually started?

We could also ask why John followed Sherlock home after the pub round, instead of going home to his soon-to-be wife? Well, alcohol might have had to do with it. But the alibi of a case sounds better, doesn’t it? ;) Actually, during the wedding planning scene in TSoT (and this is part of Sherlock re-telling some cases from John’s blog in his best man speech), Sherlock tells us “I once broke an alibi by demonstrating the exact severity of...” until he’s interrupted by ‘Mary’. And he says this directly after he claims to have solved another case “without leaving the flat”. Hmm... By the way, this is also the scene where Sherlock is showing off his skills with the serviettes:

The swan looks a tiny bit cocky, don’t you think? (Of course it does - swans are some of the cockiest birds I know ;))) ‘Mary’ made him choose the Opera House, though, whatever that might symbolise...

Anyway, What if John is lying in his blog post, and the interruption from this ‘nurse’ (whose name is not revealed in the blog post) was actually a phone call or a text message from ‘Mary’? Which they might have dismissed, John perhaps telling her they were on a case. While the real Tessa actually e-mailed Sherlock late at night, or something like that. Just speculating here... ;)

By the way, these blog descriptions are getting more suspicious the more I think of them. John’s next-to last blog post is called “The Hollow Client”, and it’s dated July 2nd:

This is about a month before the wedding, and John and Sherlock have been to a suit-fitting together. Sounds logical enough; friends could totally do that, even though John is living with Mary since at least a year back. But John describes it as if he were still living in 221B with Sherlock: it’s “when we got back” and “sitting in my chair” and “He’d emailed us”. And now there’s also an empty suit, exactly when John has been to the tailor to have his own suit fitted for the wedding. “Jack Griffin” has the same number of letters as “John Watson”, by the way, and the name starts and ends with the same letters. It’s almost as if John is indeed still living there, but he’s invisible - isn’t he? ;) Why is John gravitating back towards staying with Sherlock at 221B, shortly before his own wedding? Of course, in the show, the wedding planning seems to have mainly taken place at 221B, but wouldn’t ‘Mary’ then be at least mentioned here? But she isn’t visible when Sherlock recounts this case in his best man speech either.

Anyway, back to ‘Tessa’.

For some reason, a visit to this flat made her believe she had dated a ghost (or an ‘empty suit’, perhaps? ;) ), rather than someone who just didn’t want to give her his correct address. And for this she hires a detective? Visits him late at night? In the other cases described, the Mayfly Man seems to have actually taken the women ‘home’ with him for one-night stands (well, ‘Gail’ in Sherlock’s MP court room at least says that “nothing happened”). But this wasn’t the case with ‘Tessa’. Up to this point the ‘Mayfly Man’ blogpost coincides with what we see in the show; Sherlock’s MP conversations with the ‘victims’ are actually taking place online. But it’s only in the show that the famous detective finds this ‘ghost’ case so important that he goes out late at night - in a heavily inebriated state - to check out this (supposed) address, which could just as well be fake. Why not do this in daylight? But no, he goes there at night, immediately as if it were an urgent murder case, ‘clueing for looks’. But the only clues he does find are reminiscent of 221B. To me, there’s something very fishy going on here.

John’s little white lies on the blog may be understandable, if he simply doesn’t want to reveal that they were both so drunk they got picked up by the police. But aren’t the gaps a bit too obvious? Why does he have to describe his stag night as a “a quiet, civilised evening in the pub”? John isn’t exactly someone who says no to a drink, so at least he could have revealed the less compromising parts of it. It was supposed to be a stag party after all. And why - after having been arrested, and with Mary probably waiting at home for him - does John return to 221B in the morning? Living with ‘Mary’ since last year, it’s not as if he’s leaving 221B now, is it?

Apart from this, there are two main things that bother me, I think, and perhaps most of all the combination of them: John’s silence on the blog after this event, and the sheer amount of sexual innuendos concentrating around John’s wedding.

As for the blog, John seems to be hanging over the comment section instead of focusing on his newly wed wife on their honeymoon, as Sherlock points out. John keeps commenting on it, apparently until Mary makes him stay away from it (“John. You are reading your blog again” appears on August 12, the day after Sherlock posted the wedding photos and talked about John’s “sex holiday”). And yet none of them even comments the 'attempted murder’ that Sherlock solved on their wedding, thereby saving the whole event from disaster - why? (And why is this the last time John ever posts anything on his blog?)

There are lots of erotic hints sprinkled all over the show (pointed out years ago, for example by brilliant Rebekkah in TJLC explained), but in TSoT the sexual innuendos get very blatant, and they’re raining down like a shower. I mean, apart from the ones I’ve mentioned in Part III, there are much more, for example these lines, that on a textual level all seem (more or less) farfetched: The Waters gang gets caught “in the act” by the police. Donovan: “We’ve got the tunnel entrance covered”. Janine: “I’m very pleased to meet you. But no sex, OK?” Sherlock: “...with a history of erectile disfunction”. Molly: “And we’re having quite a lot of sex”. Sherlock to Mycroft: “Why are you out of your breath? Either I’ve caught you in a compromising position or...”

And then there’s the most blatant innuendo of them all: this absurd theory of what happened to Bainbridge, suggested by a Sherlock mirror (and look how the John mirror beside him is smirking :) ):

Why would this idea occur to a random boyfriend of Molly’s? Unless it’s a metaphor - and a painfully obvious one. And to whom was this supposed to have happened? To Bainbridge - another Sherlock mirror.

Lestrade’s theory about the killer is that he’s a ‘dwarf’.

(I mean, come on Sherlock Greg, give poor John a break!) In a recent post, @ebaeschnbliah discovered other suspicious innuendos about an ‘organ’ in TSoT (X), which only increases the impression that TSoT is this show’s El Dorado of innuendos.

And - continuing the pile of subtle pieces of evidence - then there’s S4, marked by John’s terrible sense of guilt over cheating on ‘Mary’:

But isn’t it a bit exaggerated to be this guilt-ridden over some basically innocent text messages to a totally random woman from the bus? While 'Mary’ is (supposedly) forgiven for having nearly killed John’s best friend? The same friend that John himself had recently nearly killed too? If this isn’t blown out of proportions, I really don’t know what is. But later in TLD we learn that this bus woman is actually Eurus in disguise - who I believe represents a side of Sherlock - ‘Sister Sentiment’. Wouldn’t this outburst of guilt be more logical if it had some real background?

Johns policy on the blog seems to be to pretend the stag do never happened. And if this was John’s reaction, Sherlock’s behaviour is probably an auto-defense mechanism aimed to repress and compartmentalise this emotionally devastating memory. Not because he didn’t like what happened, but because of the heartbreak of how everything turned out after that - because of John’s denial and decision to mary ‘Mary’ anyway. As I’ve tried to show in my meta series “What happened to Sherlock” (X) I believe that we’re in Sherlock’s mind from Day 1, that what we see in the show up until HLV is Sherlock living through his memories while reading up on John’s blog. And the rest of the show Sherlock is in coma after an OD, but still running hypothetical scenarios inside his Mind Theatre. If my idea about the stag night would turn out to be true, I actually think this would fit both with John killing Hope in ASiP, with Sherlock losing Faith in TLD and with Love being a constant suspect of Sherlock’s after TSoT. And it would definitely fit with the fact that Sherlock never gets a ‘confession’ out of Culverton Smith (= John mirror) in TLD.

But then in TFP Sherlock has this mental “purgatory” through which he drags himself; this experimental lab that is Sherrinford, ruled by Sister Sentiment, where he’s going through hell and facing his demons. And in TFP we have this conversation between Sherlock and Eurus (Thanks for the transcript, Ariane deVere. My bolding):

EURUS: Oh! Have you had sex? SHERLOCK (continuing to play the tune): Why do you ask? EURUS: The music. I’ve had sex. SHERLOCK: How? EURUS: One of the nurses got careless. I liked it. Messy, though. People are so breakable. SHERLOCK (still playing): I take it he didn’t consent. EURUS: He? SHERLOCK: She? EURUS: Afraid I didn’t notice in the heat of the moment and afterwards... well, you couldn’t really tell. Is that vibrato or is your hand shaking?

I never thought that this conversation made sense; why is Eurus’ sex life interesting at all? Why is she presented as some kind of sex predator, while being painted as gay at the same time? Is this meant to be some sort of horrible homophobic joke from the show makers?

However, after realising that Sherlock and John might have never left the flat after the stag night in TSoT, this conversation with Eurus kind of offers a new reading that I honestly hadn’t thought about before. (And I think the trap that shouls be avoided here is reading it without emotional context; this context might actually have been provided long before this in the show). You don’t follow me? OK, let’s play Sherlock here. Let’s put up a Mind Theatre scenario and pick this conversation apart, line by line, reconstructing what possibly might have happened during the stag night. I’ll substitute Eurus’ name with MP!Sherlock to facilitate the understanding. Remember that in our little scenario, this is Sherlock talking to himself:

MP!Sherlock: Oh! Have you had sex? This could of course be about Victor Trevor or someone like him in Sherlock’s earlier past. Or it could be a taunt if Sherlock is still a virgin. But if Sherlock did at some point have sex with someone, he apparently has repressed this memory, so the question might be valid for the stag night scenario. And on a meta level, it’s also hard to see why Eurus’ words would allude to something that the audience is not familiar with, since it hasn’t been shown. So balance of probability makes me think stag night, because we might actually have seen it happen, albeit covered up with metaphors.

SHERLOCK (continuing to play the tune): Why do you ask? But now he gets suspicious - always the curious detective. :)

MP!Sherlock: The music. I’ve had sex. In TSoT we have these scenes out at the pubs, with sexual innuendo in the shape of chemistry measuring cylinders, and some rather suggestive pieces of music.

So this talk of music might just trigger Sherlock’s memory that he did indeed have sex with John, albeit in such an inebriated state that he doesn’t even remember the details, just the fact and the emotional imprint it left on him.

SHERLOCK: How? Please note that he doesn’t ask “when”, which would sound more logical, wouldn’t it? But at least Sherlock’s subconscious might be perfectly aware that something ‘forbidden’ did happen during the stag night. So the next immediate question would be: how did this event at the stag night actually come to happen? How was it even possible?

MP!Sherlock: One of the nurses got careless. I liked it. Messy, though. People are so breakable. You could say that the nurse ’Mary’ got careless, in the sense that she didn’t seem to keep track on her fiancee’s doings shortly before their wedding. And yes - Sherlock obviously liked ’it’. But since they were both drunk, it was quite messy, both in a physical and an emotional sense. And of course people are emotionally breakable, even if Sherlock tends to despise this fact. But all three of them are human beings who can break down. Which I believe is exactly what Sherlock did, only some time later, when the wedding was a fact (’delayed action stabbing’). And consequently he took a lot of drugs and OD:ed (as I have tried to suggest before X, X).

SHERLOCK (still playing): I take it he didn’t consent. MP!Sherlock: He? Who - John? Well he actually did, didn’t he?

SHERLOCK: She? But where was ’Mary’ in all this? Did she consent to John and Sherlock spending the night together?

MP!Sherlock: Afraid I didn’t notice in the heat of the moment and afterwards... well, you couldn’t really tell. Neither of them probably noticed the ’consent’ issue in the heat of the moment, since they were drunk. And when looking at how ’Mary’ acts about John and Sherlock, indeed it’s difficult to understand what she thinks. ‘Mary’ knows from start how much John has been grieving Sherlock; she must have noticed that there was probably something deeper than friendship going on between them. And she definitely noticed what Sherlock did to John at the Landmark restaurant. And still...

Isn’t ‘Mary’ just a little too tolerant to be a truly authentic fiancee/wife? During the wedding reception she told Sherlock that “neither of us was the first, you know”. And then in HLV we have her threatening to kill Sherlock if he “takes one more step”. Contradictory indeed; I think it’s no wonder Sherlock finds it hard to tell whether she ‘consents’ or not.

MP!Sherlock: Is that vibrato or is your hand shaking? Vibrato?! No further comments… ;)

So if my horrible hypothesis happens to be true, this conversation with Eurus actually does seem to make some sort of sense.

I do know this hypothesis is wild, but reconstructing important events backwards from observations of tiny details is actually the Sherlock Holmes character’s MO, so why shouldn’t we, the audience, have a try at it as well? We have Holmes and Watson themselves pointing it out for us in TAB:

HOLMES: From a drop of water, a logician should be able to infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara. WATSON: Or a Reichenbach.

And, by the way, this show is not unique in using subtle double entendre that might mean something sexual has happened between these two guys. ACD canon is full of innuendos too, what with Holmes and Watson using the Turkish bath together (ILLU), sharing double-bedded hotel rooms (TWIS), etc, etc. And Watson has not been married a month before he abandons his job and wife for some new adventure together with Holmes (who is suddenly waxing lyric over a rose), which ends up with him sleeping in 221B (NAVA).

Tagging some people who might be interested:@sarahthecoat @tjlcisthenewsexy @ebaeschnbliah @fellshish @gosherlocked @loveismyrevolution @sagestreet @raggedyblue @sherlockshadow @darlingtonsubstitution @devoursjohnlock @tendergingergirl @kateis-cakeis @csi-baker-street-babes @88thparallel @timilina @dieseldrakilis @sherlock-overflow-error @elldotsee

#the stag night #john's wedding is a crime scene

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wonderlustlucas · 5 years

Text

joie de vivre - kim yugyeom

⇢ prompt “What an odd individual. What an odd joy.” ⇢ pairing yugyeom x female reader ⇢ word count 10.7k ⇢ genre fluff & comedy ⇢ warnings swearing & a gross amount of fluff ⇢ summary (i couldn’t come up w a summary but camille did so here u go heheh) In this sweet and relatable story of hopeful romance and inner girl power, you find yourself meeting and getting to know the effervescent boys of GOT7. With exotic food orders and the unmistakable heart-fluttering that defines young love, Joie de Vivre delivers a humorous and cleverly fun take on the awesomeness of your favorite K-pop stars.—beach!au ⇢ a/n wow i can’t believe i’m finally posting this. since july i have deserted & gone back to this damn chapter so many times & i’m just so happy i can finally post it. nevertheless, considering it’s almost christmas & i have zero summer vibes left, this is probably going to be on hold for a looong time since i have so many autumn & winter inspired works i wanna write, so i apologize for the tease. i’d also like to give a big shoutout to my friend camille who edited this for me (along with helping me in various other ways) since i didn’t have time:) & last but not least, i wanted to have this up for yugyeom’s birthday but couldn’t make time, so happy belated birthday to my love, i hope your year is full of all the happiness in the world❥

i ii iii iv v vi vii

moodboard

Contrary to all the whining and complaining that ensues at the start of each grueling summer year, it truly is the beginning of the most thrilling months.

A time when, despite the startlingly tremendous surge of obnoxious, vape-induced teenagers hoarding the boardwalk like flies drawn to an outdoor barbeque, and the influx of ignorant young children flopping through the ocean waves like they are training to become fish, there is always a milieu of genuine elation hanging in the air.

This constant joy—whether it is emanating from the relaxation that oozes from unwinding vacationers flooding the beach and boardwalk, continuous hours wasted away doing nothing and days melting into one another, or simply the enkindling of town—makes up for all the downsides that arise with the start of summer.

Over years of enduring this unnamed cycle of life, you have come to appreciate that there are four types of joy; the expected, the unexpected, the habitual, and the unknown.

The expected—a joy with which you are familiar and the elation it will give you.

The unexpected—aware of the plan, but not expecting the joy that will result from it.

The habitual—occurring so frequently that, while still appealing, is more of a routine rather than a new and exciting experience.

And the unknown—any choice resulting in a different ending, a different joy.

However, despite recognizing these, the unknown sort of joy is the most enigmatic because, named for this specific reason, you never know when it is happening or when it will be.

Even so, one such occurrence is most certainly not a habitual joy. Rather, a royal pain in your ass: when Kim Jinae, in an effort that you could never grasp entirely, decides to wake not only herself but also the two of you up at a time that you should most definitely still be dead asleep nearly every day during your months off.

“You know,” you huff, deeply inhaling the morning ocean hair to fill your lungs. Your body is sagging in sheer exhaustion as you follow her peppy steps—how is she still so fired up?—a few feet behind, sneakers skidding lazily against the worn wood of the boardwalk. "I really miss when your shift was in the morning, and we worked out at night. I hope you know I hate you for guilt-tripping me into this."

Jinae scoffs, coming to a stop and whipping around. “I’m sorry, but who wants to spend the whole damn day down at the beach? And who guilt-tripped who into switching shifts?”

You huff heavily, accepting defeat because she's right, but you would never tell her. You look away to peek at the waves approaching the shore nearly a football field away that reflect apricots and azaleas on the horizon from the remaining sunrise. Your irritated thoughts are replaced with the wonder of today’s plan. “Speaking of, what are we doing today?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugs. You make a mental note to never ask her anything again because—Lord knows—Jinae is zero help. “I assumed we were just doing the usual.”

You sigh, following her silently down the wooden steps from the boardwalk, the ocean now faintly hushed behind you. You wipe away a bead of sweat dripping down from your hairline. “Can you make breakfast before I have to leave?”

Jinae mutters something under her breath, then twists around to face you. “You’re a real brat, you know?”

You beam. “Learned it from the best.”

Your first joy, practically your best friend since you could walk, quite possibly your soulmate—Kim Jinae.

While some days do in fact seem to drag on endlessly, working only four hours a day and four days a week during the summer months is a bargain worth paying for and an opportunity sent by the heavens. It pays what your parents don’t, you tell yourself when service is slow and customers bark at you as if you’re the one doing the cooking. A little extra in the cookie jar, you whisper under your breath after covering eight tables at once, shifting uncomfortably in your uniform as perspiration dribbles down your spine while darting from the sweltering kitchen to each consecutive table.

However, most days seemingly fly by. After all, eight to twelve are prime breakfast hours, and so the quaint diner is not half as cruel as some prior jobs. Not to mention, it is right on the boardwalk, which makes meeting up with Jinae for the rest of the day well spent at the beach even simpler.

Upon setting down the check for your last table and offering a polite farewell, you scan the room curiously until, after a few seconds of concern, your gaze lands on a certain busboy setting down silverware on a recently cleaned booth. "Hey Markipooh," you coo, greeting the unacceptably gorgeous brunette and sliding across the tiled marble floor to stand beside him and to help finish laying out paper placemats.

Mark Tuan—the Devil in Disguise. During your first few days at the new job, you were quietly aware of the only other employee that took advantage of the locker room, initially an exceptionally attractive blonde who had not even graced you with a glance since you started.

That was, until hardly a week later, you found yourself packing up for the day when he entered to do the same.

“Woah, you’re a brunette now.” It slipped out before your brain could truly even process the sentence, gears positively malfunctioning in your head because God, he’s hot but God, you’re an idiot. He blinked, running a hand through his darkened locks and eyeing you curiously for an agonizingly long heartbeat before he straightforwardly said, “It’s pink, actually.”

Oh, so he’s sarcastic. “Hilarious,” you retorted, watching curiously as he made way for his own locker. “I’m glad to see that you do in fact talk, though.”

He laughed lightly, a percussion that made your heart soar. He disregarded a chiming notification from his phone to stare intensely back at your inquiring gaze, saying, “Is that what keeps you up at night? Whether or not your incredibly hot co-worker is mute?”

You wrinkled your nose. “Don’t flatter yourself, you're not that special.”

And so, it came to be that the busboy was not who he seemed to be. Like two puzzle pieces that fit together seamlessly, you clicked with Mark so quickly that even Jinae seemed to impatiently grow jealous. Tirelessly cunning, Mark is a perfect force against your own quick-wittedness. However, he is a precious munchkin of a boy when he wants to be. The fact that he has not only been to but has lived in so many places in the span of twenty-four years, plus his expansive knowledge of more languages than you could ever possibly grasp, has heartily drawn you in until, you have realized your second joy—Mark Tuan.

And here you are, hardly two months later.

Instead of replying verbally, Mark only glares at you coldly before, finally, "You're going to use that against me for the rest of my life, aren't you?"

You grin mischievously at the mathematics major—well, the mathematics major working on his Master’s, as he likes to remind you at every chance that presents itself—and follow him once he makes way to the otherwise empty locker room.

“Probably,” you chuckle while slipping the suffocatingly hot sneakers off your feet. You check the door behind you once more before peeling your top and bra off and replacing them with the navy-blue bathing suit top shoved haphazardly into your locker. You add, “It’s really funny seeing you get annoyed.”

“It’s really funny seeing you get annoyed,” Mark mimics under his breath, voice uncharacteristically high to impersonate your own, as you slip a plain tee-shirt from high school over your head. “I had to become friends with the spawn of Satan, of all people.”

You laugh, shimmying out of your pants and underwear and swiftly pulling up the matching bathing suit bottoms. “You know I love you.”

“Nuh-uh,” Mark grumbles from somewhere behind you. You are too preoccupied with trying to fold your clothes as nicely as possible into your bag. He continues, “Don’t pull that shit on me. Just ‘cos you’re a senior now doesn’t mean I’m gonna deal with your crap.”

“Just because you’re a senior now,” you mimic as he had, only he interrupts your shenanigans with a hard punch to your arm as the two of you head outside. “Anyway,” he sighs, ignoring your scowl and pausing to inhale the briny aroma that never seems to leave the thick ocean air, “I don’t know what your plans are, but some of my friends are working at a joint that opened recently, and I was hoping you’d come?”

“Is this just another sneaky plan to hang out with Jinae?” You chuckle, digging into his side with your elbow. He gasps, “Hey! Maybe I’m just being a nice friend.”

“Oh, yeah, a friend,” you snort. At the genuine pout that clouds his expression, however, you stop and hook your arm through his. “Don’t worry, I promised I would be your wingwoman, didn’t I?”

Mark sighs, shrugging. Then he says, “Why couldn’t I have fallen for you instead?”

With a noise of amusement and disbelief that sounds like something between a snicker and a choke, you rest your head against his bicep momentarily before glancing up at him. “You’re too hot for me.”

“Sure, and pigs fly. I’m actually kind of worried that my friends are going to pounce on you.”

You scoff. “Yeah, okay. Speaking of, who are these friends of yours?”

“Oh!” Mark exclaims, visibly brightening, his white teeth dazzling as he smiles. “So there’s six of ‘em. We all ended up meeting each other at the studio for the first dance class.”

“Pause,” you interject, surprised. “They all go to the same school as us?”

He nods eagerly. “They’re all getting their Master’s, too. Youngjae just graduated with Jinae, and I think BamBam is in your class. Yugyeom is a grade below, I believe.”

Your jaw nearly hits the floor. “BamBam? Like, the—”

“The really cute, bubbly loudmouth?”

“Yeah! You’re friends with BamBam?” You gape. What a small world, you think. When you glance up you happen to notice Jinae waving like a madwoman several feet ahead. You wave back, however, Mark’s snort interrupts you. “What?” He says. “Am I not cool enough to be friends with him?”

You giggle. Though it is tempting to agree, you do not feel like delving into a full roasting session. You instead opt for, “No, shut up and stop being insecure. I was just surprised. I never spoke with him, but we had calculus together.”

Mark only hums in agreement. You assume that by reaching Jinae he has suddenly clammed up. You clear your throat. “Jinae! Mark has plans for us!”

Whether Mark notices it or not, you certainly catch the way Jinae’s face brightens, her enchanting brown eyes scrunching in delight. They’re so into one another, you think, just as she gushes, “No way! Let’s go, then! Where at?”

Your gut truly twists as a result of the saccharine sweetness between the two, an indisputable and perpetual attracting force that all people but the pair can recognize. In an instant, you clear your throat after a disgustingly long amount of time passes of them just staring at each other before you end up with a cavity. “C’mon, then. I’m not going to wait all day.”

Mark jolts, turning to you as the apples of his cheeks bloom pink. He scratches the back of his neck. “Yeah—Yeah, let’s go.”

You cannot help the satisfied smirk that comes with him rushing ahead and Jinae positively melting into a pile of mush. You snort, patting her flushed cheeks and following Mark’s speedy path ahead of Jinae’s delayed trailing.

Like most shops and grills lining the boardwalk, JJ’s—as you learned several minutes later once the two bounced back after whatever happened moments ago—is just the same.

With an entirely open entrance, aside from two small table-and-chair sets halfway on the boardwalk and halfway under the ceiling and walls painted butterscotch orange, the grill is squeezed between an unnecessarily expensive jewelry store and a bustling candy shop. The mouthwatering aroma of bulgogi and honey soy filling your senses is a grand contrast to the briny odor from outside. It’s so small you wonder if customers even order to stay, yet it is not cramped in any way—within a space of ten feet, give or take, there is shelving on each set of parallel walls, wide enough to dine at, with two metal chairs tucked in front, a black refrigerator stocked with cold drinks, the counter, which is checkered marble and decorated with a change jar and a vase of snapdragons, is to the right of a sliding barn door painted with doodles of the beach and a lighthouse.

Beyond the counter is a small kitchen with deep fryers to the left and three large aluminum dishes full of fried chicken resting on an island in the middle of the room. The archway that leads to an unknown area occupying the rest of the space is blocked by a plain maroon curtain; with one last scan of the quaint space and another deep inhale, you conclude that, even before tasting anything, this may be your new favorite place to eat.

Your captivated daze is cut short by the voice working behind the counter.

“Mark-hyung!” None other than BamBam calls from his perch on a stool, silver hair pushed up and over his forehead in a messy comma-shaped style. Mark scoffs, “Stop calling me hyung in front of my friends. It makes me feel old.”

“Is that Mark?” Shouts a disembodied voice as BamBam hops from his seat and slides open the drawn-on door. You glance to Jinae, whose baffled expression most certainly mirrors your own, just as said voice bolts over to greet your eldest friend.

“Mark!” Roars an unreasonably attractive brunette, shoving BamBam to the side so roughly that you lean back a bit just to make sure he doesn’t hurt himself.

“Jesus, you guys are so fake. Stop putting on a show. My friends are normal,” huffs Mark, sending the loud newcomer a condescending glare. Just as you begin to think you have gone invisible, he twists to you with a beaming boyish grin that reaches his eyes. “Jackson, BamBam, this is ___,” he says, introducing you and resting his palm on the small of your back. “and Jinae,” he adds.

“Hello!” Shouts another figure who you had not spotted working behind the counter. Like BamBam and this Jackson, he too is classically handsome, and you practically feel your stomach twist into knots at the sudden intensity of it all, not one but four strikingly gorgeous young men—where have they been your whole life?—in one room that is most definitely tinier now, and you cannot breathe, and there’s still three more you have yet to meet?

“Hey.” BamBam’s chirpy voice—having not heard it since sophomore year, you reckon that it matches the sweetness of his facial features—interrupts your short-lived tizzy of emotions. “weren’t you in my calculus class?”

“Yeah, that would be me,” you nod, smiling in response to his own heartwarming grin. “I didn’t know you lived around here.”

“Youngjae?” Jinae’s gasp cuts into BamBam’s potential answer. Evident surprise is laced in her tone as the aforementioned employee rounds the counter. Your gaze flicks back and forth from her and Mark to his three friends, not knowing where to focus. You decide on Jackson—Hell, he’s nice to look at—and find yourself thanking the heavens that fate has made it so Mark entered your life and has ultimately led you to a much too small grill, containing way too many blessed genes all at once.

“You look lost,” says the brunette god himself, catching on to your hazy staring and shuffling to stand beside you, “not that I blame you.” You laugh lightly, dragging your gaze from the distracting way his dark hair falls over his forehead to Jinae and Youngjae bubbling away, something about not having seen one another since graduation, and how they both will be working on their Master’s. Finally you look to Mark, who stands beside BamBam with an expression of delight gracing his features, watching two separate groups of friends intermingle.

“Yeah, this is a bit much,” you admit at last, refocusing on him once the cogs inside your brain begin working again. “I like it, though.”

Jackson grins widely and you positively swoon. He laughs. “Sorry to break it to you, but if you’ve survived three years avoiding Bam, your life is probably going to go downhill from here.”

“Hey!” The plump-lipped model—oh, he could definitely be a model parading down the runway with that face—cuts in, his brows drawn together in mock irritation. You choke, making a noise of surprise when he continues, pulling you into a tight side hug. “This is the beginning of the best chapters of their lives.”

“Keep dreaming, bud,” Mark snorts, slapping his shoulder. You watch from under his chin as BamBam frowns, shooting your friend a glare that could most definitely kill if it weren’t for the dazzling grin that follows.

“Where’s everyone else?” Mark questions as BamBam unwinds his arms from around you—why do they have to be hot and nice?

“Dad and Dad are trying to fix the sink and Yugyeom is...” Jackson says. Rubbing at his bottom lip, he trails off, looking to Youngjae and BamBam. “Where is Yugyeom?”

“I think he went to get chocolate milk,” Youngjae chuckles, dark hair falling over his eye as he does so. “You know how he is.” You look to Jackson, whispering, “Who’s Dad and Dad?”

“Jaebum and Jinyoung. They own this place, plus we’re all pretty certain that they’re an item, so we call them that. They’re in the back,” he explains, nodding to the archway. At this, you hear the muffled noises bustling from behind the curtain that you had not noticed beforehand.

“And Yugyeom?”

“Oh,” Jackson smirks again—trouble—and makes his way back to the counter, “He’s the big ol’ goof. You’ll like him.”

“You guys have bubble tea, right?” Mark changes the subject as Youngjae and BamBam follow Jackson. With them not clustered around you any longer, you take another moment to glance all around, pausing your meandering to glance over the options on the menu. Fried chicken, tacos, rice bowls, kimchi fried riceballs... kimchi cheese fries? You jab your elbow into Jinae's side, nodding to the overhanging menu, "Kimchi cheese fries, dude."

"That's definitely not part of my diet."

"Oh, fuck the diet," you hiss, earning a sharp glare, but you roll your eyes nevertheless.

"No, the bubble tea menu is just there for fun," Jackson snorts, finally responding to Mark’s question and grinning like a madman. Youngjae is howling, smiling so bright you fear his whole jaw may break. "Hilarious," Mark grumbles, turning to you for backup. When he finds you mirroring Jackson's expression, though, he frowns. "This was a mistake."

"Oh, lighten up," you coo, ruffling his parted hair, but he smacks your hand away with a huff. You roll your eyes and look to BamBam, who stands ready for your order. You say, "I'll have a large black milk with tapioca and, uh, hm—a chicken rice bowl."

"Sure," he hums, tapping the screen. "That's gonna be fifteen ninety-one.”

"Make it ten," Jackson butts in, grinning like he just won the lottery. Oh, you're burning up now. You smile to the floor but hide it as you fish for money in your pocket. "Thanks," you manage to croak out, passing the cash to BamBam. After he’s finished, he smacks Jackson on the shoulder, muttering something about his discounts for hot girls putting them out of business, which causes the elder to howl in faux pain while shuffling to the archway to yell back your order. You watch the entire episode with an amused smile that can’t seem to leave your face. You shake your head and at last move to sit on one of the barstools while Jinae orders.

“Should I pay for hers?” Mark whispers, leaning onto the ledge with an expression of apprehension etched onto his face. He chews on his lip. “Yeah, that’s sweet,” you grin, and with an encouraging squish of his cheeks, you push him forward.

You watch, utterly zoned in and praying to every god out there that he does not turn into an awkward pile of mush. The grin can’t seem to leave your face when he steps up beside her and—

“Oh my God, he’s become a man,” says a voice from beside you suddenly. You nearly jump out of your skin, jerking in your seat. “Holy fucking shit!” You wheeze, clapping a hand over your heart but, alas, this does not comfort the additional torment your essential organ faces once you look up to said tormentor.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” the boy-man-squish giggles—he giggles—with pinkpinkpink, heart-shaped lips pulling back to reveal quite possibly the cutest and most endearing smile you have ever seen.

And, just like that, you sit there, dumbfounded, positively enamored by this—this attacker, with every last working brain cell stuttering to a halt to admire him. “Oh,” you laugh—or was that another wheeze?—with a cough, then you clear your throat, squinting in some sort of weak attempt to make eye contact instead of gawking at his windblown, light golden brown hair that, conveniently, falls right into his eyes. However, as soon as you focus on the darkness of his irises, you realize you are totally, unquestionably screwed, lost in the depths of his nearly black eyes—obsidian is a better word—and even though there is nothing astoundingly exceptional or different about him, you simply cannot help feeling absolutely overwhelmed within a matter of seconds.

“That’s okay,” you finally force out. “I just didn’t see you come in.”

He smiles softer this time, and while your heart still jumps at the expression, you force yourself to look back to Mark and Jinae before a heart attack ensues. You come to find you missed whatever proceeded Mark’s initiative. However, judging by the threatening smiles and rosy cheeks, you assume it had to have gone well, and so your interest that's burning like a wildfire to peek at the boy that remains beside you proves to be preeminent.

Upon twisting back around, you take notice to the plastic twenty-two-ounce convenience store cup, full of what looks like chocolate milk, gripped lazily in his hand, an outrageous juxtaposition to his height and strong features. Condensation drips from the bottom and onto the tiled floor. You ask, hardly without thinking, “Are you Yugyeom?”

“That’s me,” Yugyeom hums, eyes scrunching into precious crescents as he smiles. “How’d you know?”

“They were talking about where you were earlier,” you say, waving your hand to the others. “Mentioned chocolate milk, so I assumed that was you.”

“Of course. That seems to be my only known trait,” snorts Yugyeom, sending his friends a condescending glare despite them being deep in their own conversations. You snort out a laugh, covering your mouth with your hand when his eyes fly back to soak in your reaction. You compose yourself, then say, “That’s not true. Jackson called you a goof.”

“Wow,” he sighs, frowning, and you watch with a grin etched onto your face as he slaps a hand over his chest. “What did Jinyoung say? Do I have to kill him?”

Snorting quieter this time, you shake your head. “I haven’t met him, so he didn’t say anything. Homicide is not necessary today, bud.”

Yugyeom beams—fuck, it is so unfair to be this good-looking—lifting his cup up to take a long sip. “Hold up,” he pauses, chewing on the straw, “are you ___?” Upon hearing your name fall from his lips, you sit up straighter in your seat as if being on a name-basis suddenly changes things. “Yeah. How’d you know?”

“Mark has a habit of talking about you and Jinae when he’s with us, seeing that you’re his only other friends,” Yugyeom says proudly, diverting his gaze to the aforementioned boy who is settled beside Jinae at the other seats. He takes another sip of his drink. “Well, it’s mostly about your friend, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget how many days he went on about there being a girl in the locker room.”

Your mouth falls open. “No way!”

“Totally serious. He was annoyed about not having the room for himself for a while, but he always whined about you being pretty, and then one day he started complaining about how sarcastic you are and how he can never win with you, so I guess his little crush ended. And then he met Jinae,” Yugyeom explains, grinning mischievously. “And we all know how it is now.”

“I’m—wow,” you whisper, flabbergasted, mostly from the clarification but also, deep down, hearing the unfairly tall boy use the adjective pretty while talking about you. “I’m glad they met, then. He’s too stinky and old for me.”

“Wait, aren’t—”

BamBam’s sudden calling of your name interrupts whatever the blonde was about to ask. You nearly stumble out of the barstool but relax upon realizing he has only placed your order on the counter, ready for you to grab. “I got it,” pipes Yugyeom from beside you and, heart hammering in your chest, you watch with starry eyes as he places his cup beside you before skipping over and taking your tea and a disposable paper bowl from the counter.

“Thanks,” you smile appreciatively as he places the order in front of you. You twist to sit correctly in your seat. Instead of staring at the wall, you watch curiously as the iced chocolate boy shimmies onto the chair next to you. You clear your throat. “You were saying?”

“Hm?—Oh! Yeah, aren’t you in the class above mine?”

You nod, tearing open the chopstick packet and diving right into the dangmyeon and honey soy chicken. “That’s what Mark told me.” You pause, stuffing food into your mouth. “Although, if I were to judge you by your height,” you chew, letting out a mesmerized sigh at the unacceptably delicious flavors, “I would have thought you were older.”

Yugyeom, smiling charmingly once more, breaks into laughter. “Would you want to try that again without your mouth full?”

You gape, kicking his shin before silently realizing you’re not close enough with him to do that. Grumbling, you say, “What else am I supposed to do when you’re trying to talk to me when I’m eating?”

“Sorry, sorry, I’ll leave you be,” he chuckles to himself, taking a slow sip of his milk, and you look back to your meal, digging down to the rice and prodding tacky clumps into your mouth. Your neck suddenly begins to prickle at the notion that you’re being watched. With another mouthful, you slurp up a dangling noodle before building up the courage to look at the blonde only to find him already watching you intently, a lazy smile softening his features.

“You know,” you say as he raises a brow. You take a sip of your tea for effect, nearly choking on an unexpected tapioca ball. You continue, “A stranger watching you eat is rather uncomfortable, especially when it comes to noodles.”

“What else is there to do? Talk to Mark and his girlfriend?” Yugyeom retorts playfully, nodding to the pair, and you smack yourself when the idea of pushing away a stray strand of hair that falls into his left eye arises. Instead, you follow his gaze to Jinae and Mark cheerfully talking away.

“Point taken. Don’t you work here, or something?”

“I get out at one,” he confirms, chuckling when you oh-so-gracefully miss your mouth. Rice lands on your bare thigh. His gaze trails the grains and, upon realizing your lack of clothing, his cheeks flush cherry red, and you fight back a laugh. Deciding to save him from his internal, middle school boy panic, you continue, checking the time on your phone, “It’s one now. Yet when I got here, you weren’t working.”

“I had to get my iced choco.”

“But… don’t you need to work?”

“Eh,” he twists to look at the three behind the counter. “They don’t need me.”

“I don’t think that’s how jobs work, but okay,” you laugh, picking up the dumpling—Jesus, why is everything so good?—and, panicking over the fact that the conversation is ending, you opt to continue, devouring your meal in silence.

Barely two swallows later, a hand slaps against your shoulder and you drop yet another mound of rice as you lurch in surprise.

“Do you like swimming? In the ocean?”

Jackson, looking way more handsome than your average employee should—you’d love to meet the parents of everyone in this room—grins mischievously down at you, dropping his hand.

“Of course. My parents practically threw me into the sea the day I was born,” you joke, slapping yourself on the back when he rears his head to let out a roaring, high-pitched laugh. “Why?”

“On days when we get out at the same time, we always head down and stay until, like, seven. Do you guys want to come with us?”

“Oh.” Nearly choking on the lack of a response, you twist to look at Yugyeom, who watches with the same gentle smile that has not left his face. You cough, turning back around. “Definitely! That’ll be fun. Who is us, though?”

“Me, Jackson, Youngjae, and Bam,” Yugyeom interjects. Once more you turn and offer him a thankful smile before glancing back to Jackson, then past him to Mark and Jinae still chattering away over their meals like two doves sharing a bird bath. You sigh, half out of the dejection that comes with achieving the role of a third wheel but partially over the greedy realization that this means you may have these new friends to yourself. You clear your throat, glancing back between Yugyeom and Jackson before you say, “Are you the type of guys who like to yell ‘shark’ when we’re swimming?”

Jackson smirks. “Shit, are you not into that?”

Within the span of the time it takes for the foursome to change behind a dumpster outside of the grill and join you on your walk down through the sand, you have come to learn four things.

One—these five boys together are louder than any colony of seagulls fighting over a half-bite of a sandwich (if you have ever been the victim of that scene).

Two—Youngjae and Mark are co-parents to a fur child.

“You’re a dad?” You initially hissed, nearly dropping all the belongings you carried. “Coco is a dog,” Mark sighed, clearly exasperated by your conclusion-jumping. You rolled your eyes. “You never told me you had a dog.”

Three—Mark’s friends have a very in-depth plan to give him and Jinae their final push.

“You have to stay as distant from them as possible. We’re going to be your new best friends,” Jackson whispered once you fell in step beside him. “How do you plan on getting them together?” You whispered back, laughter lacing your tone at the idea of scheming on their future relationship. Jackson paused, blinking. He looked to Yugyeom on your side, who casually shrugged.

“We’ll have to leave during random times so they’re left alone together,” BamBam piped up from beside Jackson, nodding to the aforementioned pair walking ahead.

And four—when you are not used to it, insecurity has the claws of a vulture and the weight of an anchor.

And yet, insecurity may be the wrong word. Whatever it is, it sparks a small fire in your tummy, and butterflies are gradually coming to life at your obvious delay, barely there until you proceed to remove your tee. At this, you are startlingly aware of the quick glances thrown your way, and this is when it grows. Or, were there even glances? Had you imagined it? Yeah, that’s what happened, you tell yourself, laying your blanket onto the lumpy sand with unexpected accuracy that only comes with years of doing so. No, they’re staring, definitely staring. An internal panic—an unknown panic—now a forest fire, heart thumping against a glass ribcage. No, nobody is even looking.

You cast an inspecting glance over your newfound group, all mindlessly busy with their own belongings, until—there it is!—there's a fleeting peek from choco boy. You gulp, catching the way the right side of his mouth quirks up. Once you catch his agonizingly long stare, you look away, focusing on flattening the edges of the blanket until you realize, fuck, your boobs, practically spilling out like the Niagara Falls broadcasted on television for all to see with this position. Scrambling to stand upright—fuck the blanket—you skip on the sunscreen orgy and hurry towards the white blanket of froth that forms as the tide gradually approaches the shore, sighing in relief as your toes come into contact with the nippiness of the waves.

So. That’s what it was. Who it was. Shivering against the waves, you trudge on, dodging a wailing child who stomps madly toward his mother. You sigh blissfully as the burning temperature of your skin—whether it be from your fizzing nerves or from the sun beating down relentlessly—drastically cools once you duck through a wave.

In the past you were able to brush off passing thoughts of those around you, those watching you and possibly judging you, by starting up a conversation with Jinae, and even when Mark began joining you, he was so enamored by her that you knew you had nothing to worry about.

However, this is the first time in years you are at the beach with a group predominantly male.

Pushing back your now saturated hair and kicking your legs to stay afloat, you spin to look for your crowd, squinting at the shore that fades into liquid gold, vivid in the brilliant light, and search through the masses of gaudily colored umbrellas and chairs until you catch sight of your blanket and what looks like Mark practicing a backflip in the sand. Mark, Jinae, Youngjae, BamBam… fuck. Recounting, with your fingers this time, and still coming up with a measly four, you shudder into a silent panic all over again, rifling through the clustered vacationers for two certain boys. However, once you do in fact locate the duo resurfacing after diving with aesthetic synchronization under a wave, it seems to only benefit in their search for you, seeing as the older of the two beams like a star and quickens his pace.

“Thought we lost you there for a second,” Jackson greets. At this, you conclude that you may never get over his smile, and you force yourself to turn to the horizon in order to gather your thoughts. “Well,” you grin, looking between him and Yugyeom, both tanned honey gold from daily exposure to the sun, “You found me.”

“What happened back there? You looked like you saw a ghost,” Yugyeom continues, staring up at him. You wonder whether or not the glint in his eyes is innocent but brush it off as simple, playful banter. “I don’t know,” you lie, shrugging. “I think I just got really hot.”

Jackson hums, oblivious to the unexpected tension that has you longing to swim off to another nation and never return. “Do you think it’ll work?”

Yugyeom shrugs, finally breaking eye contact in order to look to his hyung. “Yeah, I mean, at least in the beginning. Don’tcha think they’ll catch on eventually, though?”

In the midst of focusing on jumping up with the current of the waves, you process their words, realizing you really do not even know what they are talking about. “Does this have to do with Mark and Jinae?”

“Mhm,” Jackson starts. “While we’re here, Bam and Youngjae are conveniently going to take a nap.”

“Oh, smart. You guys are really serious about setting them up, aren’t you?”

“At this rate, they aren’t going to do it themselves,” Jackson chuckles, running a hand through his darkened locks, pushing wet strands back. Your gaze absently follows the action. Barely a heartbeat later, salt water is splashed at your face, stinging at your eyes, but you are quick to squeeze them closed. Upon opening them again, you come to find Jackson, eyes wide and honest, and Yugyeom, biting down on rosy lips to hide his laughter.

“Did you just—” splash.

He does it again!

“Oh, you ass!” You yelp, lunging forward and reaching out for the younger boy’s shoulders. No matter how new of a friend he is, this is war. You fight against the strong tug of the ocean at your body. Cackling like a hyena, Yugyeom dodges your weak attempt of a punch, smacking away your insistent hands and shit, you can’t touch the floor anymore. In a split-second decision, you dive beneath the surface and peel open your eyes as much as you can despite the salty sting prompting you to close them. You swim toward your assailant, wrapping your hands around his leg, just above the knee. When you dig your nails lightly into his skin, you nearly choke on a mouthful of water at just how muscular his thigh is. When he starts to squirm away from your grasp, all mouthwatering daydreams about the thighs your new friend possess disappear, and you regain your pose, releasing his leg for hardly a second, just long enough to dig your fingers instead into his side and resurface.

“Stop!” He whines, thrashing away from your tickling. He splashes more water your way as a result. Once he finally trips over his own feet and his head submerges under an approaching wave you finally relent, backstroking away from him to an amused Jackson. “What a thot,” you grumble, rubbing the sting away from your eyes and warily watching the child as he recovers from your attack. “I met you guys hardly an hour ago and suddenly we’re close enough to beat one another up.”

Jackson shrugs, flicking your shoulder, and you shoot him a warning glare.

“I told you we’re going to have to be your new best friends,” he says.

“You! I could’ve died!” Shouts a bewildered Yugyeom as he swims over, looking way too gorgeous for someone who just got knocked by a wave. Despite his playful exaggeration, you smack away the finger he waggles in your face with an eye roll. “You splashed water in my face! Twice!”

“You were staring!”

“Staring? Staring at what?” You snort, unable to even recall what was happening before he suddenly splashed you. “I—hm. Nothing,” he sighs, the apples of his cheeks blooming pink. He looks down and focuses on the ripples of the water. “Never mind.”

“Ooh. ‘Kay,” you laugh awkwardly, looking to Jackson, who mirrors your puzzled expression. Finally letting silence settle in comfortably, you look to the shore in search of Jinae’s obnoxious rainbow umbrella to find all four lying on their towels.

“Anyway, I’m going to see how things are going. Try not to kill each other,” Jackson smirks—how dare he—before moving with the current to shallower waters.

Now what?

Praying to every god out there that conversation will come as fluidly as it did back at JJ’s, you look to Yugyeom, only to witness him with his leg held to his chest as he pulls a shell from between his toes. You wrinkle your nose, laughing, “Did you just pick that up with your foot?”

“It bit me!” He whines, frowning.

“The shell bit you?”

“No,” he caves, grinning stunningly. “It’s a hermit crab.” As he speaks, he moves closer to you, rolling the small cerith shell onto his palm before holding it out to you. “Aw,” you pout, pushing your wet hair away from your face to lean closer as the crab hesitantly taps Yugyeom’s hand with its claws. “They’re so cute.”

He snorts. “Not when they bite you.”

“That’s called karma,” you smirk, cupping your hands for him to drop the crab into. “People who splash their new friends and practically blind them get bitten by crabbies.”

“You’re very dramatic,” Yugyeom says, watching you the same way you adoringly watch the hermit crab. Your attention, however, is not so fixated on the small crustacean in your hand as it is on the slow rise and fall of Yugyeom’s chest—right there in front of you. Tears of water race down the toned muscles of his stomach each time the water level climbs and retreats. You’re just in the middle of ogling when you take notice to the sharp, black edges of tattoos on his sides, more so to the intricate pattern you can only partially see on his right. No, you scold yourself. What are you doing? You just met him today. Shaking your head to rid your mouthwatering daydreaming, you say, “So are you, Mr. I-splashed-you-for-staring. By the way, let me see your tattoo.”

“You’re not going to have it pinch me, right?” He chuckles cautiously, casting a wary glance to said it, and you laugh, gently letting the waves take the hermit crab out of your hands with a shake of your head. “I said I wanted to see it, not pinch it.”

Rolling his eyes, Yugyeom finally lifts his toned arm up to offer a better view to the precise design of a flower, a rose, on his side. You ignore his quiet intake of breath when your fingers subconsciously trace at the detailed ink. “It’s so pretty. I’d kill to do something like this.”

Yugyeom shrugs. “You should, then.”

You scoff, finally stepping back. “I wish, but then I’d have to deal with my parents. They already threw a tantrum when I got my first.”

“Can I see?”

“Oh,” you chuckle, heat rising to your cheeks—God, how old are you?—at the realization that answering his question would take a bit more effort considering you’re shoulder-deep in the ocean, “I’ll have to show you when we get out.”

“Sure,” he hums with a pretty smile, looking around quietly as you drop beneath the surface to once again cool the heat scorching your body. Then, when you come up, he says, “Do you want to get out now?”

“Yeah. We should tell Jackson we smacked each other or something,” you grin, beginning to head back to shore with him trailing a few steps behind. Once you get to the point where the waves start to break, you cross your arms over your chest to keep the girls in place, angling your body to avoid being knocked to the ground for an inevitably sandy, humiliating death.

“Oh, yeah, we’ll think of something,” says Yugyeom.

The sarcasm lacing his tone has not even registered in your brain when his hands are on your waist, shoving you forward until you helplessly trip over the force of the current, flailing ungracefully into the sand with a cry that only gets smothered with the wave passing over your head. That son of a bitch.

When you surface and rub the stinging water from your eyes, you watch unamused as he reels back in laughter, louder than any of the children around you, and with him not paying attention you grab at his ankles, tripping him into his own sandy misery and ignoring all the judgmental stares from bothered teenagers sent your way. Although, you realize much too late that you should have taken him falling on you into consideration. This still does not prepare you for an elbow in the gut and his unfairly giant build squashing you further into the sand. To make it worse, as a wave recedes and another surges forward, all you can focus on is the gritty sand smearing your skin as you tussle in battle with Yugyeom.

“You are,” you spit, finally shoving him off once you’ve gained some safety from the waves, “a royal pain in the ass.”

Unable to contain his laughter, Yugyeom stays on the ground. You wrinkle your nose grossly at the sand not only coating your hair but also his lightened locks. At his lack of a reply, you scoop up a handful of wet sand and slap it onto his stomach. “Hey! That wasn’t cool,” he whines, reclining up on his elbows and glaring at the glop of sand spreading over his abdomen, torso heaving with laughter, “c’mon, that was pretty funny.”

Your irritated façade finally breaks once he flashes an unfairly adorable, boyish grin, and you finally join in with his laughing, scooping up more soppy sand and dribbling it on his toned arm. It does not hit you until he only frowns playfully instead of stopping you how unexpectantly intimate yet natural it is for someone you just met. “I like the tattoo,” Yugyeom suddenly states, poking at the lavender and coral shaded scallop shell right above the waist of your bottoms. You jolt in surprise, cheeks burning at his friendly gesture that only further supports your earlier thoughts.

“Thanks,” you smile. With the last bit of sand glopping onto his stomach, you cringe at your own state of filthiness. “c’mon, we should wash this off. And no more tackling.”

With another quiet laugh, Yugyeom stands to his feet, watching sickeningly as wet sand slides off his body and back into the shallow water with an unpleasant plop! Then, much to your surprise, he reaches his arm down to help you up. “I think your knee went up my ass,” he giggles once you’re up, walking ahead and using the waves to wash off. you grimace at the thought while walking out further to rinse out your hair. “Yeah, and you nearly pulled my top off,” you scoff, cupping water into your hands and scrubbing the sand off your skin. “You’re like a little kid.”

“And you complain too much,” he fires back once you start heading back. This time you keep a watchful eye on him in case he tries to pull another stunt. You gasp playfully, slapping a hand over your heart. “Ouch.”

“Don’t worry,” Yugyeom says. You look over to catch his playful expression. His lips are curled up into a sly smile and his dark eyes twinkle mischievously. “it’s hot.”

You blink, suddenly overwhelmed. Walking alongside the unfairly tall boy you look back to your feet, wary of holes dug and left exposed as a tripping hazard by reckless children. You scoff. “Since when is being a bitch hot?”

“Technically I paused in between those phrases, so I could’ve been talking about the temperature,” Yugyeom says, smirking like the little jerk he is as you lean down to pick up your towel. “What are the first three letters of assuming?”

Scowling, you contemplate kicking up a shower of dry sand if Jackson was not snoozing peacefully next to your own layout. Instead, you punch his arm and watch in satisfaction as he grimaces. “Ha, ha. Very funny. Please leave me alone now.”

“I need help putting on suntan lotion, though,” he pouts just as you plop down onto your blanket, towel wrapped snugly around your shoulders.

“Jesus Christ, how old are you?” You groan, falling back and glaring upside down at him, biting back your laughter when he lets out a loud sigh. “Please? Just my back.”

“Oh my God. Fine, you big baby. I’m not moving, though, so pop a squat.” Finally giving in, you lean up with a defeated sigh, scooting over to leave enough room for his tall ass. You watch disgruntledly as he drops beside you, crossing his legs with his back faced to you. Once he passes back the bottle, you give it a good shake before twisting the cap off. Spraying routinely over is skin, you mutter an apology when he breaks out in goosebumps. “Here,” you mumble, tossing the bottle into his lap before rubbing the greasy spray further over his back and shoulders. You cringe for a millisecond before quickly swiping over the lowest area at the waistband of his bottoms and slapping his shoulder. “Begone, thot.”

When he spirals to face you, you are momentarily whiplashed, and you almost—almost—tell him that he’s so pretty with the mole under his eye and indisputably gorgeous face. However, you quickly remind yourself, oh yeah, you have only known him for a few hours. Fortunately, he replies to your banter, concluding your drool-worthy trance.

“I’m not moving. Just because you called me that.”

You watch, dumbfounded, as he casually flops over and onto his stomach, burying his face between crossed arms without another word. “You—You’re despicable. You have a whole towel to yourself. Leave me be,” you protest, poking his ribs with your foot, still wrapped cozily in your towel.

At your insistent jabbing, he finally pulls an arm away and seizes your ankle, holding it still with an amused smile while he stares up at you. He looks way too hot for someone so incredibly, undeniably annoying. “Yugyeom,” you whine defeatedly, poking his thigh with your other foot. You watch the confidence only grow over his features. You say, “Stop being an ass.”

“Jesus Christ, I thought we were here to set up Mark and Jinae, not you two children,” BamBam suddenly grumbles from beside Jackson, leaning up on his elbows and scowling in your direction. “We’re the same age as you,” Yugyeom retorts, looking to him with a glare. You wait for him to deny BamBam’s accusation, heart thumping loudly in your chest, and yet he doesn’t. “Shut up or I’ll kill you,” BamBam grumbles, realizing it’s not worth the fight. He returns to his interrupted napping.

Laughing, you accept defeat as well and remove yourself from your towel’s shielding concealment, crumpling it into a ball as a pillow and placing it down a few inches from Yugyeom’s head. You lay on your stomach beside him. “Your friends threaten to kill you a lot.”

“It’s because I’m the baby,” he grumbles, resting his head on his wrists to look at you. You do the same.

He continues. “It’s whatever, though. They’re just jealous I’m taller than them.”

“No, you’re just annoying,” faintly, you hear BamBam mumble. Laughing, you cover your mouth with your hand. “I agree with him,” you whisper, the smirk growing harder to hide when Yugyeom frowns in playful hurt. “Shut up,” he grumbles, kicking your ankle with his own. “Don’t you need sun lotion?”

“I put some on before work.”

“But you went in the water,” he pouts, “and that was hours ago.”

“It’s fine,” you smile, heart warm at his concern. “It’s almost four, anyway. The sun isn’t as strong.”

“Oh,” Yugyeom seems to accept this, eyes traveling to your shoulder and lingering there long enough until you feel the heat spread from your head to your toes. Then he looks back to your face, expression soft. “You don’t actually mind if I nap here, right?”

Smiling against the dampness of your crumpled towel, you quietly say, “I don’t mind. As long as you don’t kick me, or something.”

“I can’t make that promise,” he smiles once more before finally resting his forehead on his forearms. You study what you can see of his relaxed silhouette for a moment before messily tying up your damp hair and comfortably burying your face into the towel with a peaceful sigh. What an odd individual.

What an odd joy.

Two hours and a series of blurred insignificant events later, you find yourself lying on your back. A hand jerks your shoulder and brings you back to blurred consciousness. “What?” You grumble, your mind hazy as a result of a long, hot nap that has your brain momentarily reeling at where you are. “It’s a little after six. I’m leaving. Are you good?”

Squeezing your eyes as a sort of fine tuning to get your mind back into business, you finally blink up to Jinae. Holding beach items in her arms, she tells you she's heading back up to your apartment. “Um,” you pause, straining to sit up and scan to see if the others are up. “I’m good. I’ll see you tonight.”

Once she’s off, a tired sigh escapes from your lips as you flip back onto your stomach. You easily drift off for another fifteen minutes or so before waking once more, this time to a screaming baby. Rubbing sandy knuckles over your eyes, you look to your side. Yugyeom, still fast asleep, remains spread out across your blanket, right hand positioned into a small hole in the sand an arm’s length away. You wonder if he dug it in his sleep.

“He sleeps like a dead man. Once we left without him and he came to me and Mark’s apartment at, like, two in the morning ready to kill us,” a voice grumbles ahead of you. Jackson is lying just as you are with a messy case of beachhead, strands dried and awkwardly sticking up in all directions. You laugh, momentarily looking away from the brunette to the dimming sun, which is much lower in the sky at this point. You finally respond, “I can tell. Every time I woke up, he was still knocked. Also, I didn’t know you were Mark’s roommate.”

Wrinkling his nose, Jackson glances over his shoulder to the other three boys still passed out on the sand. “Is that good or bad?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I just hear a lot about you. And now I have a face to match all the stories with.”

“Gosh, what does he say?”

You contemplate it for a moment. It's not like Mark has ever really talked shit. You decide on messing with him. “He says when you sleep, you talk about feet.”

Mouth hanging open, Jackson absorbs your bullshit before his face drains of color, spewing nonsense like a child caught in a lie. “What? Oh my God, you’re joking. You’re joking! Shit, you probably think I have a thing for feet or something. I swear I don’t, oh my—oh my God, bro. I definitely don’t talk about feet.” In an attempt to hold back your laughter resulting from his panic, you force your gaze elsewhere. You focus on Youngjae’s hair billowing from the light breeze until Jackson has exhausted himself breathless.

“I was joking,” you finally cave, but only when you glimpse the deep puppy frown he holds. “All he’s ever said it that you’re too loud in the morning.”

It takes Jackson a few seconds to process your trickery. He blinks. “Wow,” he heaves, sitting up onto his haunches. “I see how it is. You have betrayed me. I guess we’re enemies now.”

“Ha!” BamBam roars somewhere behind. “You really had him!”

“That was pretty good,” pipes Youngjae, sitting up and lifting his sunglasses to push back his hair. He pokes Mark beside him. “Yo, your side girl just flamed Jackson.”

“Side girl?” You snort just as Jackson flails to stand up, kicking sand in the process.

“No, she didn’t!” Jackson shouts defiantly, hands on his hips.

“What’d she say?” Mark grumbles tiredly, blinking to keep his eyes open. He reclines on his elbows.

While Youngjae fills him in, you look to Jackson, who shoots daggers your way but fails to hide his own humored grin. You stifle a laugh as Yugyeom stirs beside you. He mumbles, “What’s all the commotion for?”

“She,” Jackson says, looking at Yugyeom and pointing a finger at you, “is a bitch.” He smirks, flicking your forehead on his way back to his towel. You stick out your tongue. In response he adds, “But a smart bitch.”

“I thought we already established that.” Yugyeom sighs. You shoot him a glare, and he returns the gesture with a sleepy smile that extinguishes your urge to smack him.

“Hey,” you wrinkle your nose. “Since when is it ‘national attack ___ day?’ For a group of guys, you sure are babies.”

Jackson gasps. “Shit, she’s Jinyoung in female form.” He shakes BamBam by the shoulders. “We can’t let them meet. They’ll be too powerful.”

“You’re so whiny,” Yugyeom says sharply. All eyes fly to him. He shrugs. “They’ll be too powerful.”

“Oh shit,” BamBam snorts, moments before Jackson shoots up and charges for the younger boy. Yugyeom flounders away in time to run away. You dodge the sheet of sand sent your way with a prepared duck and watch the two sprint up the beach. “Tragic,” Mark comments as Yugyeom stumbles face-first into the sand and Jackson hops on top of him to choke him in a headlock.

“Well, that’s my queue to go,” you quip, patting around for your crumpled tee shirt, finding it, and pulling it over your head. “This was fun. We should do it again sometime.” Shaking the sand out from your blanket, you become startlingly aware of the sudden silence hanging over the four like fog. You realize before Mark even speaks up that, chances are, this will be a regular thing.

He hesitantly says, “Well, I was thinking… maybe we could—”

“Yes. I know what you’re gonna say. I don’t think Jinae would mind hanging out, either. Anyway, I feel like I’ve known everyone for years, and the teasing is kind of fun,” you say, cutting him off. You return the smile he tries to hide before swinging your bag over your shoulder and waving to the others. “See you tomorrow, then.”

“Wait!” Youngjae yelps. You watch with wide eyes as he jumps up and gives you a warm hug, encasing his arms around you only for a moment but still long enough for your heart to warm. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” you smile, patting his cheek and waving once more to BamBam and Mark. You start up looser sands when Jackson finally separates from Yugyeom after shoving him once more into the sand for good measure. “Careful you don’t kill him!” You shout over, watching with a laugh as the older boy whips his head up like a dog summoned by the shaking of the treat bag.

“Are you leaving?” He shouts, bouncing away from Yugyeom and jogging to you. Abs. “Yeah,” you say once he has reached you. “A shower is calling my name.”

“Are we hanging tomorrow?”

Looking to the three still lying out a few yards away, you shrug. “I’ll be here. Who knows with Jinae, though. Sometimes she gets bored of beachin’ every day.”

“Oh, well, whatever you guys decide to do, we’ll be here,” Jackson grins sinfully, slapping your arm before walking away. Of course you couldn’t have gotten a hug from him. “Keep your eyes out for the baby!” He suddenly calls, and you twist around to dumbly watch the tanned boy return to his friends. Your heart is suddenly beating loudly in your ears, and your internal fire only intensifies when said baby whines, pulling you into his chest, “Why are you leaving?”

Sucking in a necessary breath, you practically fall limp against Yugyeom’s hold, pressing your cheek against his chest but turning away from his friends in fear that they’re looking. “I want to shower. And eat. Plus, I have some dramas to catch up on.” At this he leans back, gazing down at you peculiarly. You’re painfully aware that his arms are still looped around your waist. He’s just a touchy guy, you tell yourself as he continues to groan like a child denied what he wants. “We could get food together.”

“Don't fret; I'll be back tomorrow,” you offer, satisfied when his lips quirk up and the corners of his eyes crinkle. “And probably all the days after that. Also, when school starts, I bet we’ll all be hanging together. We have plenty of days to get food.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” He smiles, his expression soft. Then he pulls you in for another hug. “Text me when you get home.”

Flustered, heart beating frantically, you choke out, “I don’t have your number?” Grunting in realization, Yugyeom reaches for your phone in your hand. You watch with a held breath as he tries each of your fingers for the correct fingerprint scan until it unlocks. He goes into the Messages app and puts in a new number. “You do now,” he smiles, irises reflecting gold specks. He hands your phone back, and it’s not until you cross both arms over your chest that you notice the goosebumps painting your skin. “Thanks,” you force, spinning on your heels and making way for the sandy walkway up the dunes.

“Come back to the grill tomorrow with Mark and Jinae!”

“I will!” You shout back, not daring to look back for fear that the tall boy will make your heart hurt more, in a way that it most certainly should not. You sigh and concentrate on the sand dried on your feet rather than how you hope he will decide to crash on your beach blanket again tomorrow.

“Pussy,” Jinae taunts as you crash onto her mattress. You struggle to stretch your leg out far enough to give her bare ass a feeble kick as she changes out of her uniform. Scoffing, you tumble to lie on your stomach, twirling a strand of recently washed hair in between your fingers. “Like you’re any better. I just met him today while you and Mark have been galloping around each other like eighth graders since summer started.”

“Touché,” Jinae says, accepting defeat. She tightens the strings of her sweatpants before thumping down on the bed to be beside you. The bed dips as she rolls to curl her form around your own. “I bet you’ll both be in love with one another by Saturday.”

You laugh and wrap your arm around her shoulders, running your fingers through her dark corkscrew curls, the only thing she fully acquired from her mother’s genes. “You and Mark already are in love. You just refuse to act on it.”

“Yeah, whatever, I don’t wanna talk about him.”

Sighing, you tug harshly on a curl. “It’s gonna happen this week. You and Mark will be official.”

“Mhm,” she hums, smirking. “And so will you and Yugyeom, Miss We-Practically-Fucked-In-The-Ocean.”

“Stop,” you whine. You retract your arm and drape it over your face, shielding the burn that is creeping its way up. “Seriously, though,” Jinae giggles, tugging at your elbow. “I can’t believe you met each other today. The attraction was unbelievable. Chemistry classes across the world are quaking.”

“Shut up.” Groaning, you roll away from her relentless probing. “Listen, he’s cute. Really cute and yeah, sure, we got along great. But who said that I’m ready to date again? And you don’t even know if he would be interested.”

“You could always ask Mark,” Jinae says as you struggle off her bed, leaving her sprawled out alone. “Double dates!”

“Yeah, sure, Jinae. Keep dreaming.”

She pouts. “You’re no fun,” she huffs, reaching for her phone. “Get out, it’s almost two-thirty, and we have to get up soon.”

“Can’t we skip the jogging for one day? Sleep in? No one wants to see the literal ass crack of dawn,” you yawn. Folding your hands in prayer, you beg her to give you a break for one day. Jinae ponders it for a moment, rubbing her bottom lip with her index finger, before an open-mouthed grin evilly lights up her features. “Sure.”

Squinting, you waggle an accusing finger at her while slowly backing out of her room. “I don’t trust you. Try anything, Kim Jinae, and your ass is out on the street!”

“You can’t kick me out!”

“Yes, I can!” You shout, finally allowing your grin to show once you have closed her door.

Maybe some days are just a tad more joyous than others.

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cindylouwho-2 · 5 years

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RECENT NEWS, RESOURCES & STUDIES, May 2019

Welcome to my latest summary of recent news, resources & studies including search, analytics, content marketing, social media & ecommerce! This covers articles I came across from May 3 to May 30, although some may be older than that.

I am out of town June 10-16, so I cannot predict when the next edition will come out, but I will do my best to make it before the June trip. I’ve recently narrowed my reading list so that I can get through it more quickly and post these more often. If you have any suggestions or comments, please let me know!

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES

If you had your entire promoted listing budget eaten up by clicks on an item with “shoe” in the searchable keywords, contact Etsy to make sure you will be refunded.

Etsy was accidentally suspending some shops for not using Etsy Payments, but they are in ineligible countries. Some but not all drop ship or use fulfillment in countries with Etsy Payments, but that doesn’t appear to explain all the errors.

Mailchimp launches a new marketing platform that integrates multiple marketing needs, not just emails. Pricing will stay the same for existing customers for the time being.

On the same topic, here is a study of various email services, and their different deliver-ability rates.

Etsy is being sued after a child dies, strangled by an amber necklace bought on Etsy. [video & article] This is getting a fair amount of media attention. Not covered in many stories is the fact that the daycare employees didn’t call 911 at first, and the day home had more infants that day than they were licensed for.

Better media attention: disappointed in the long delay for the introduction of the Harriet Tubman $20 bill in the US, an Etsy seller designed a stamp buyers can use to cover up Jackson’s face with Tubman’s. “Harriet Tubman” is a trending search on Etsy frequently since these articles, so this media coverage is really bringing traffic to the site.

Amazon is now using packing machines in a few of its warehouses that replace 12 workers each. They have other warehouse automation, too, & just started work on their hub at the Cincinnati airport. If you need any more evidence that diversification is the key to successful businesses, remember that they make the biggest chunk of their profit on their cloud services.

ETSY NEWS

This year, Etsy’s Maker Cities program (US only) has joined up with Mastercard for their grants. Applications are due July 3, and there is a webinar on June 3 with more info and instructions. [links in article]

They’s also extended their Design Awards submission deadline to June 4. Check out their FAQ if you have any questions.

Etsy released a summer update to their spring/summer trends guide, with some useful search data. Clothing shoppers are interested in vintage styles, “with Etsy searches for “70s” and “90s” up 26% and 7% year over year.” I summarized the earlier report here.

In case you missed it, Etsy released their first quarter financial report for 2019, & I summarized it in the Etsy forum.

In related news, Etsy ranks 3rd in USA Today's list of the top 20 fastest growing retailers in the world, even ahead of Amazon.

Some businesses are competing based on delivery speed, but Etsy is able to do well with much slower shipping. (That’s a nice feature in an article they didn’t write; not all good promotion is paid.)

I can’t remember if I posted this interview with Etsy chief financial officer Rachel Glaser before, so here it is again. [audio file/podcast and short text excerpt. Please note I have contacted Etsy about the photos & search comment, but they have not yet replied, other than with the usual links to Etsy’s search guide.]

Short piece on Etsy’s approach to diversity. Spoiler alert - they like it, and the article links to other materials demonstrating why this is the best approach for businesses.

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES

If you want to get your website or blog material ranking faster, Moz has some tips for you. Note that the first part in particular contains advanced-level technical tips, but most of the rest is easier to grasp for non-techies. It’s worth a skim!

But don’t break Wikipedia rules to get your images on top - North Face got caught doing that, & had to apologize. But “[f]rom Leo Burnett Tailor Made's original statement, it seems the agency was anticipating such a reaction to the North Face effort all along. In stunts like these, the ensuing controversy and attention around it can be part of the overall campaign goal and strategy.”

Once your website starts getting Google traffic, it is not unusual for growth to start to slow or even stop completely, but there are things you can do to avoid that.

Despite many people insisting that longer blog posts are necessary for good Google ranking, there is no ideal length for a blog post.

Here’s a good list of free SEO tools; note that some are paid tools that have a limited free version.

Links on other high-quality websites still matter to Google. (Most of us won’t be able to do the link-building that this test did, but the test demonstrates how much the links are worth. So if you aren’t ranking, realize that other people linking to your page is probably a big factor.) Some of your pages might fit perfectly on a resource page/site, if they answer a question or uniquely fill a need. You can find link opportunities on Twitter through following certain hashtags and engaging with the users.

Google search results now include podcasts. “This feature doesn’t only search for the title or meta data of the podcasts but also can search for the audio – as Google transcribes them — directly within the podcast show itself.”

As of July 1, Google will use the mobile version of all new websites for their index, so make sure that you have a good mobile set up on any new websites (or old ones, for that matter, since most web traffic is mobile these days).

There was a possible Google search update around May 9, then May 22, and now maybe May 29th. Google updates its algorithm a lot, if you hadn’t already noticed. "To give you a sense of the scale of the changes that Google considers, in 2010 we conducted 13,311 precision evaluations to see whether proposed algorithm changes improved the quality of its search results, 8,157 side-by-side experiments where it presented two sets of search results to a panel of human testers and had the evaluators rank which set of results was better, and 2,800 click evaluations to see how a small sample of real-life Google users responded to the change.” (and some people think Etsy tests a lot LOL)

CONTENT MARKETING & SOCIAL MEDIA (includes blogging & emails)

Have popular content on one platform/site? You can repurpose it to use elsewhere, for maximum reach. It’s less work than coming up with brand new ideas all of the time!

Micro-influencers may work best for most businesses, because they can speak directly to your target market.

There are proven ways to get more social media followers; it’s not just luck.

Up-to-date infographic on the ideal sizes for social media images, by platform.

Facebook announced several upcoming plans at their annual developer conference, including a desktop redesign. Facebook has also changed the video algorithm to favour posts that people watch for longer, and to disfavour posts that are just repurposing old video.

Tweetdeck is rolling out more updates, including emojis and the ability to set up polls within the app. I use it, & I like it - I wish they had a phone app!

If you are using LinkedIn, you may be missing some great tricks to get more attention.

ONLINE ADVERTISING (SEARCH ENGINES, SOCIAL MEDIA, & OTHERS)

Here’s how you can get better results out of Microsoft ads (formerly Bing ads)

There was a bug in Google ads stats for April 30 & May 1st; they are working on fixing it.

Google advertising can be very confusing, so here as some tips on mistakes you should avoid. [video with transcript] They also recently announced some upcoming changes.

Etsy shops can only buy their own Google Shopping ads through Etsy’s program, or you can let Etsy buy them for your shop, but if you want to advertise your website, here is a great starter guide.

Chrome is giving you more control over cookies so that you can avoid more targeted ads. Some point out this is not necessarily as user-friendly as it sounds - it means Google can stop other companies from tracking their ad performance while Google has all those records through Chrome & other tools.

Facebook is also giving users more control over tracking for ads, & advertisers are not happy.

STATS, DATA, OTHER TRACKING

You are going to be surprised that Russian search engine Yandex has a really good Webmaster tools package.

ECOMMERCE NEWS, IDEAS, TRENDS

Some people are comparing Walmart’s new online wedding shop to Etsy, "with tons of personalized wedding gifts to buy on a budget.”

The coverage of Amazon’s big announcement about one-day shipping with Prime (in the US) mostly missed the fact that Amazon can already deliver to 72% of the US population in one day.

Amazon employees told some third-party sellers that religious items were banned from the site - but it wasn’t true.

Big Commerce now has a plug-in for Wordpress blogs.

As promised, Zibbet has added Etsy to its integrations, which allows you to list on Zibbet and it will automatically be added to Etsy as well. This is only going to be useful once they add other platforms (since Zibbet has no traffic), so shop around if you are interested in this sort of tool, as other companies are doing the same things. Indiemade websites completely integrate with Etsy, for example, and they have more website tools.

BUSINESS & CONSUMER STUDIES, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE

With increased discussion of free shipping on Etsy recently, this is a good time to review some of the more recent studies & surveys on the topic. One US report from January shows that buyer expectations in this area continue to increase. Shipping cost is a big factor in purchase decisions, & shipping costs are a common reason for cart abandonment. There are a variety of ways to calculate how to offer free shipping without losing money. (Thank you to Rebecca for the last link!)

If you want more shares on social media, this study on the top 5 reasons people share things online will be useful. But Americans are now more engaged by mobile games than social media, which has implications for app development and advertising.

Googly eyes make people donate more.

Smaller online businesses tend to make very specific types of customer service mistakes that harm your ability to compete. Although there isn’t always much you can do about the fact that “37% of customers expect a response within an hour“.

Can everyone read and understand your web page? Easy-to-understand English is an important aspect of accessibility.

Help Scout produces some fabulous material on customer service; here is a great article on value propositions, with examples, and another on how to collect customer feedback, including analyzing your stats package to see where customers are having trouble with your site.

MISCELLANEOUS (including humour)

Trend alert: more professional women switching purses for backpacks.

You can now control how long Google retains data on you.

You can also join the class action against major US telecom companies that sold your location data.

Another example of a company getting people to post photos so it can develop facial recognition technology.

Some businesses are offering products & services based on your DNA & other biological markers.

Most people worldwide over the age of 15 have a cell phone, although not all are regular users.

If you are concerned about internet privacy, & hate tracking, the browser Brave may be worth a look. (I haven’t tried it yet, but it comes well-recommended from various tech people I respect.)

Burger King has trolled McDonald's in ads & social media posts for years, & it can be pretty funny. “When McDonald’s abruptly and surprisingly lost its trademark on “Big Mac” in the EU earlier this year, Burger King couldn’t help but rub some salt in the wound. BK’s Swedish operations decided to celebrate for a day by offering a menu of “Not Big Macs” such as “The Like a Big Mac, But Actually Big” and “The Big Mac-ish But Flame-Grilled of Course.”

#seo #search engine optimization #search engine marketing #etsynews #analytics #stats #social media #contentmarketing #ecommerce #smallbiz #cindylouwho2newsupdates

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nathannewlandbct-blog · 6 years

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Making the Pit Area

On the 20th of September I began work on the pit section that would serve as the introduction to the gameplay within our game. I started by making the deferred decal textures that I would use to guide the player though the space. These were not difficult, and I quickly moved on to modelling the basic blocks I would be using to create the jumping puzzle. I knew I wanted to go for a simple geometric shape that was worn down and beaten about. This was inspired by the games Destiny and Destiny 2 where the Vex would have monolithic geometric structures constructed out of detailed, yet basic, primitive shapes.

I took a primitive cube, subdivided it, sculpted some dings and scrapes into it and added a single face bevel to the edges. This keeps with the theme of simplistic geometric shapes within the game but the damage, combined with a detailed material, gives the prop a clean, yet sophisticated look. They were often many times the size of the player in terms of scale and so added to the monolithic sense of hte game area.

All the cubes were aligned with the world space axis in units of 90 degrees. This helped on a practical level so that the cubes would line up flush to one another and it gave the whole scene a sense of order in relation to each other. There are two cubes, one 2x1 rectangle and four quarters of and 2x2x1 with a negative cylindrical hole. This piece means I can make curved ramps, arches, tubes or half, cylinder shapes.

I started by making a basic jumping route, tested it a bit and tweaked some distances and scales, added some more, and got team members to test it. The whole process was shorter than I expected, I got most of the structure done in a day or two and polished it in another day or two. This also meant that not only myself, but the team was happy with the layout. Level layout should not technically be my job anyway as an environment artist and not a gameplay designer, but I was happy to help.

The tricky but was the lighting after. As the space is quite dark because of it being down a deep well, I wanted to play on the concept of having it so dark that the player can only see the essentials of the platforming experience, this would limit their need to explore and work well with the whole motif of the game where the player begins by falling into a pit of darkness and ends by being shot out of the top on into the blazing sunlight.

Again, I looked to the Destiny games to see how they did some of thier dark levels, and I remembered a specific boss fight (the Sunless Cell Strike) where the three players have to fight in a completely dark cavern where the only light comes from the boss itself and players when they activate abilities.

Our player character lights up when it uses abilities, but I knew that this would be ridiculous to require the player to move in order to see. I settled for framing key jumps with light (like how Wheatley does in portal 2)

and guiding players with glowing particle clusters.

The biggest problem with this was the iris settings on the game camera. The desert by nature is a bright place and my bottom of the well scene is about as close to absolute dark black as I can get. I could balance the exposure of the post processing volume to look current at low light but as soon as the camera looks at the pool of fluid ability pick up thing, the images would darken to compensate for the bright material. It was a water material which in the past ive found to have used emisive channels however, in this particular material, there was not emisive. It was not technically emitting any light, yet it was the brightest thing in the room. It still is as I havent found a fix for it yet. I tried replacing the empty node with 0 and that doesnt work. I tried having and internal space ppv and an external space ppv with exposure looked on both but i couldn't get those to balance out smoothly ether. The last thing I have left to try is to increase the ambient light level in the space with a couple of point lights and balance it out the exposure in the ppv. This would bring the values closer to what the exterior conditions would be as well.

It was about this time we had the GDM playtest. I was manning another game project I was also part of but was right beside this project was well low key listening to feedback that was being given regarding the work i had done. That afternoon I had added the most light that area had ever had since I started working on it to the point where it was almost too bright for the tension I had planned. This was after that morning some of my colleagues started to complain that it was too dark as I think they were expecting a light and breezy platforming adventure without realising this was the darkest, lowest point of the sentient tower and of the game itself. We also added a point light to the player character that was always on and cast some slightly creepy shadows on the player characters face. So I would stand beside the game while watching another and hear a few players mention how dark it is. Then I would have three colleagues come up to me and get my attention and and tell me its too dark. And this would happen again, and and again and again. I would go home and come back the next day to work on something else and I would have three or so more people tell me by the way the level is too dark, fix it. I would go home for the weekend and have my phone periodically light up with chat to do with the project and, did you know, we had lots of people say the level is too dark. I get to Uni on a Monday to add more light to the level. Before I get my laptop out to even open the project I get told the levels too dark, you might want to fix the lights in the first area, learn to light a level.

I finally get to edit the lighting in the level and find that its simply the settings form the build we used to showcase hadn't carried over from what I had designed.

This kind of communication behavior is unacceptable and beyond irritating. It try to be patient with my team and receive criticism well but I cannot stand constantly being told information I already know, especially without being able to do anything about it. I know this kind of thing never happened when I was leading Project Kowhai.

At the moment I am working on fixing the lighting for the entire map as the directional lights and dynamic sky blueprint from the GDM demo build are glitching. Once thats fixed I can add and balance the first scene like I had intended to do.

D. (2018, July 20). Destiny 2: How to Get Whisper of the Worm - Exotic Sniper Rifle Guide. Retrieved October 8, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRewTTLRkYk&feature=youtu.be

I. (2015, September 15). Destiny: The Taken King - Sunless Cell Strike Mission. Retrieved October 8, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWLP0JXcrpo

I. (2011, May 21). Portal 2 Walkthrough: Chapter 5 The Escape. Retrieved October 8, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm2bu9HezEE

#bct #aut #kowhai studio #kowhaistudio #ctec709

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flapperfromthefuture · 6 years

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It’s been a year since I took my first-ever baking class at our local world-famous food emporium, and since then I’ve slowly but surely expanded my doughy horizons.

I made my own challah during the holidays at my parents’ house, with fancy chocolate chips and dried cranberries mixed in.

My entire family acted like there was an astronaut in the kitchen. At one point, my dad wandered in and yelled “She’s kneading! Just like on TV! Someone take a picture!”

Then my sister asked, “What would happen if you ate yeast? Would it bubble up in your stomach?” I said I had no idea. She said, “If you give me fifty bucks I’ll eat some yeast.”

My first attempt was decent, but my second was overproofed and I had to start over, and my ambitious plan of baking a dozen challahs to give as gifts to all our friends had to be scaled down to “Here’s two loaves for everyone to split,” but the results got good reviews.

Over the spring, I got into baking this Tunisian Orange and Olive Oil cake, from a recipe by the aforementioned food emporium, and I made so many of them that I experimented with swapping out the oranges for lemons (look out Bake-Off).

My summer bakes were even more ambitious. Stella’s mom gave me a German checkerboard cake pan from the ’70s (it was made in West Germany!). Fortunately, Stella speaks German, so she translated the directions and stopped me from putting it in the dishwasher. I baked three-layer checkerboard cakes in honor of the World Cup and the Fourth of July.

I made a red velvet/yellow cake combo for the Brazil/Mexico game with homemade green frosting to give each country’s flag colors equal representation.

Then Stella and my sister decorated it and let’s just say they will not be assisting me with my Bake-Off audition.

On Saturday, Stella joined me for my latest baking class: “Noodling about Strudeling.”

The description for the class really reached for the stars: “Remember when you were little and the gym teacher pulled out a compact plastic bundle and magically unfurled it into a huge parachute that the whole class could fit under?”

Stella and I said “HELL YES!” because we went to hippie school, where every day was parachute day.

“Well, you’ll have that experience all over again when we take a grapefruit size piece of strudel dough and stretch it out to cover a 24 square foot table! It’s just about the most fun you can have making food!”

Seriously, this food emporium has some good copywriters.

We were super pumped. Stella’s mom is from Germany, and she’s taught Stella all their family recipes, but they’ve never attempted strudel. Stella’s Oma back in Germany, a certified badass who is still going strong at 97, has never made strudel either. Strudel is really, really hard.

My hero and yours, Mary Berry, even says so—strudel is the only dough she buys rather than makes on her own. In fact, when the contestants made strudel on Bake-Off, one guy nearly sliced his finger off on the kitchen mixer and had to leave the competition to go to the hospital. Strudel is not playing around.

We entered the baking class to the sound of Cher’s “Believe.”

“I’m loving this already,” said Stella.

“Strudel” means “vortex” because you can stuff anything in there. Fruit, vegetables, meats, as long as you’ve got the time and space to stretch out dough to lengths that no other dough can go.

Someone asked if strudel can be made gluten free, and the instructor tried not to laugh.

“No, that would be impossible,” she said, for very sound scientific reasons. To get paper-thin strudel dough, you need gluten—and lots of it—because gluten is what gives dough the ability to stretch in the first place.

“Challenge accepted,” whispered Stella.

Strudel dough is so precise that we were told that if we poured just a smidgen too much of water, we would have to start over.

“You will know if it’s not exact,” said our instructor. “The dough will tell you so.”

She also told us to add in the eggs one at a time instead of cracking both at once.

“Uh-oh, you added the eggs together,” said Stella. “Oh no, I did too!”

“We’ve been here five minutes and we’ve already messed up the eggs!” I said.

“I didn’t even realize I was copying you,” she said. “Just like piano lessons.”

This is our relationship in a nutshell.

In order to develop the gluten and get it to the point that it can stretch from a ball of dough to this . . and then this . . . you have to smack it around.

Our instructor demonstrated a technique called “The Beaver Slap” and I will be happy to invest in the first lesbian bar that copyrights that name.

The Beaver Slap is basically a yo-yo toss combined with a flyswatter whack only with dough that can easily fly out of your hand and into someone else’s head.

On Bake-Off, someone’s dough took actual flight across the room before a magnificent crash landing, resulting in the immortal line, “I can’t serve Mary Berry green carpet!”

“Don’t forget to duck,” said our instructor.

We were advised to take off our watches and rings. Stella and I were nervous, but we cheered each other on. You don’t survive twenty-two piano recitals together without some coping skills.

“Good connect on that one!” I said as Stella’s dough thunked against the table. We were told to do fifty Beaver Slaps in a row! “You’ve got this!”

Strudel! It’s not for the faint of heart!

So as with my brioche class, the dough we made in class was for taking home and baking later, with one of the many recipes we were so kindly provided. For the strudels we were making in class, dough had already been prepared by the pros, and we would work in teams to make that super-dough into FOUR individual strudels—two savory, two sweet. All we had to do was stretch the dough over our tables, then fill, roll, and bake.

On Bake-Off (this was my favorite episode!), someone said that strudel dough should be so thin that you’re only good to go once you can read a newspaper through the dough. But you can’t tear it! If you tear it, you can make a bandage out of your extra dough. And there is a lot of extra dough. Our instructor said extra strudel dough was ideal for making noodles.

“Ooh, we should take a noodle-making class,” said Stella. “Oh my god, I forgot about my thumb ring!”

“You’re still wearing your thumb ring?” I said.

“It could’ve flown off during the Beaver Slap!”

It was time to stretch. Our giant ball of dough needed a lot of work to make it paper-thin. We had to walk our fingers underneath the dough and manually pull it apart without tearing it or jabbing through with our nails.

It took some time and we had to patch a couple of holes, but we did it. Our dough was so stretched out that we used pizza cutter to trim the edges—and we had enough left for an entire new strudel. Stella wrapped it up to take home.

We brushed the entirety of the dough with melted butter, then we lined up our savory fillings at one end of the dough—asparagus and Parmesan cheese. We were just about to brush the asparagus with even more butter and then roll it up when the instructor gently pointed out that we had forgotten to lay down the base of bread crumbs.

Bread crumbs absorb the extra moisture that’s expelled by the fillings when they bake. On Bake-Off (I watched it live and then watched it again right away!), several people had “strudel hemorrhages” because their fillings started leaking in the oven and burst out of the pastry, Alien-style.

And then there was the guy who put on a latex glove because he’d cut his finger and then before he knew it the entire glove had filled with blood and oh my god it was such a ride.

“How could we forget the bread crumbs?!” we said, scrambling to toss bread crumbs over the entire length of the dough like we were trying to feed a colony of starving ducks.

We spread our sweet fillings—apricot preserves and farm cheese—without any issues. With fruit fillings, you want to be careful and put in only preserves or pie fillings that won’t release too much liquid in the oven, or use fruits that hold less water, like apples.

People on Bake-Off made the mistake of using other fruits like strawberries and the end result looked like a strudel massacre.

Next came rolling the strudel, which requires coordinating both the cloth and the dough at an increasing speed and without losing any of your fillings in the process.

“You just have to commit to it,” said the instructor.

Stella told herself, “Don’t panic!”

“That’s our story right there,” I said.

“That’ll be on the gravestones!” she said, and then she rolled that strudel like a champ.

“See? You were born to strudel!” I said. “It’s in your blood!”

“And I didn’t lose my thumb ring!”

We sent off our strudels to bake, and enjoyed slices of the demo strudels fresh out of the oven. Stella ate my asparagus slice. “I know you don’t like asparagus,” she said.

She’s been helping herself to food I don’t like since preschool. It’s such a relief.

“You know, we did cooking classes together in kindergarten,” she said. “Even though we’re adults, we’re just building on the same skills. And we still can’t follow directions.”

We clinked forks to our success.

“The gluten break starts tomorrow,” she sighed.

“We still have to bake our other dough,” I said.

“The gluten break starts Monday.”

I made apple strudel at my parent’s house to take full advantage of their kitchen island. When I said I’d stretch my dough to cover the entire thing, my dad thought I was kidding. My mom filmed me on her phone with the intensity of someone documenting the moon landing. And my sister immediately requested multiple strudels for the holidays.

Challenge accepted.

Dough IV: Strudel! It's been a year since I took my first-ever baking class at our local world-famous food emporium, and since then I've slowly but surely expanded my doughy horizons.

#ann arbor #baking #bread #british bake-off #cooking #food

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patriotsnet · 3 years

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How Many Votes Do Republicans Need To Repeal Obamacare

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-many-votes-do-republicans-need-to-repeal-obamacare/

How Many Votes Do Republicans Need To Repeal Obamacare

Schumer: ‘we Can Work Together Our Country Demands It’

Senate Republicans fail to get necessary votes to repeal and replace Obamacare

Until the end, passage on the Health Care Freedom Act, also dubbed the skinny repeal, was never certain. Even Republicans who voted for it disliked the bill.

The skinny bill as policy is a disaster. The skinny bill as a replacement for Obamacare is a fraud. The skinny bill is a vehicle to getting conference to find a replacement, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said at a Thursday evening news conference hours before the vote alongside fellow Republicans McCain, Ron Johnson and Bill Cassidy, before the details were released.

The skinny repeal was far from Republicans campaign promise of also rolling back Medicaid expansion, insurance subsidies, Obamacare taxes, and insurance regulations.

Many Republicans who did vote for it said they were holding their nose to vote for it just to advance the process into negotiations with the House of Representatives.

The legislation included a repeal of the individual mandate to purchase insurance, a repeal of the employer mandate to provide insurance, a one-year defunding of Planned Parenthood, a provision giving states more flexibility to opt out of insurance regulations, and a three-year repeal of the medical device tax. It also would have increased the amount that people can contribute to Health Savings Accounts.

Leigh Ann Caldwell is an NBC News correspondent.

Kevin Mccarthy: Republicans Can Repeal Obamacare Before Replacing It

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Tuesday that Republicans could repeal Obamacare before finding a replacement for it, according to the Hill.

I dont think you have to wait, McCarthy told reporters. My personal belief, and nothings been decided yet, but I would move through and repeal and then go to work on replacing.

But healthcare experts, including some Republicans, say this approach could cause chaos for Obamacare enrollees and the insurance market during that period of time between the repeal of the law and when a replacement is found.

McCarthy and others have called for a transition period where Obamacare would be phased out gradually over a period of two years or another specified period of time after a repeal of the law is passed.

Even so, critics have said that insurers could leave the system once they know the law is being phased out, leaving no options for those enrolled in Obamacare for 2018.

Insurers have already left the exchanges in some states, leaving people with only one insurer to choose from when purchasing plans on the exchange.

The task of repealing and replacing Obamacare at the same time, however, could prove difficult for Republicans.

They need just 50 votes in the Senate to repeal the core of the healthcare law, but they need 60 votes in the Senate to pass a replacement to the law, which means the replacement would have to have support from Democrats as well as Republicans.

What We Learned In The House: Support For A Repeal Bill Can Happen Quickly

One lesson Ive taken from the past year of covering the Obamacare repeal-and-replace debate is that these bills look doomed to fail up until the moment they dont.

Take, for example, the American Health Care Act that the House passed this May. Within 48 hours, the bill went from doomed to sailing right through. The most puzzling part was how little happened in between.

Moderate Republicans like Rep. Fred Upton were critical of the bill because of how it could affect Americans with preexisting conditions. Upton publicly came out against the Obamacare repeal bill on May 2 in an interview with a local radio station. But literally the next day, he announced that a small tweak to the bill would win his support.

The tweaks didnt actually fix the core problems that Upton had with the bill. He secured a small pot of funding to help those with preexisting conditions and used that as cover to vote for a bill that would cause 22 million Americans to lose coverage.

Other Republicans quickly fell in line behind Upton, even though no major changes were made to quell their concerns, and the American Health Care Act passed the House on May 4.

Of course, some Republican plans that look doomed are, in fact, doomed. But at this stage, its really hard to tell the difference. Sometimes, as we saw in the House, a small amendment can make all the difference in flipping the key no votes to yes. Sometimes, as weve seen in the Senate, the votes just arent there.

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Trumps Executive Action Could Erode Marketplace Built Under Obamacare

Attempts to repeal portions of the Affordable Care Act have failed in the past several months, leading President Donald Trump to issue an executive order expanding access to cheaper, less comprehensive health care plans.

The order, signed on Oct. 12, instructs federal agencies to remove certain limitations on “association health plans” and expand the availability of short-term health plans, both of which can skirt certain minimum coverage requirements included in the Affordable Care Act and state laws.

These changes will not immediately take effect; federal agencies will have to figure out how to act on Trump’s directions.

The executive action orders agencies to explore ways in which the government can expand access to short-term health plans, which are available to individuals on a three-month basis and meant for people who are in-between health care coverage plans. Under the instructions, association health plans would be allowed to sell plans across state lines; those plans allow small businesses to band together to create cheaper health care plans that offer fewer benefits.

The order was intended to create more options for individuals seeking health insurance and help stimulate competition among insurers. Some health policy advocates worry that it could disrupt the insurance marketplace in a way that would drive up health care costs for elderly individuals and people with medical conditions.

It will be months before changes are seen in the marketplace.

Likely To Vote No: 1 Senate Republican

Alaskas Lisa Murkowski also voted against all three versions of repeal in July, criticizing what she viewed as an overly secretive and partisan process to write the various bills and raising concerns about the Medicaid cuts. She has not slammed the GOP repeal effort as aggressively as Collins, but she does not sound especially inclined to back Cassidy-Graham.

So if Collins and Murkowski are no votes, Republicans need all four members below to vote yes.

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Senate Gop Tries One Last Time To Repeal Obamacare

McConnell and his lieutenants will gauge support for the bill this week in private party meetings.

By BURGESS EVERETT and JOSH DAWSEY

09/17/2017 02:51 PM EDT

Republicans say Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wont bring up the bill if there is any chance of failure, given the dramatic collapse in the summer. | john Shinkle/POLITICO

Obamacare repeal is on the brink of coming back from the dead.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his leadership team are seriously considering voting on a bill that would scale back the federal governments role in the health care system and instead provide block grants to states, congressional and Trump administration sources said.

It would be a last-ditch attempt to repeal Obamacare before the GOPs power to pass health care legislation through a party-line vote in the Senate expires on Sept. 30.

No final decision has been made, but the GOP leader has told his caucus that if the bill written by Sens. Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy has the support of at least 50 of the 52 GOP senators, he will bring it to the floor, Graham and Cassidy say. That would give Republicans one more crack at repealing the Affordable Care Act, a longtime party pledge.

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Some Republicans believe that if the bill were put on the floor Monday, it would have the support of 49 senators.

Obama: Gop Blocked 500 Bills

President Barack Obama is railing against congressional Republicans, telling a Hollywood crowd that the midterm elections are crucial because the GOP is willing to say no to everything.

The president, speaking at a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee event Wednesday evening hosted at Walt Disney Studios Chairman Alan Horns home, said Republicans have been obstructionist since even before he took office.

Their willingness to say no to everything the fact that since 2007, they have filibustered about 500 pieces of legislation that would help the middle class just gives you a sense of how opposed they are to any progress has actually led to an increase in cynicism and discouragement among the people who were counting on us to fight for them, Obama said of Republicans.

The conclusion is, well, nothing works, the president continued. And the problem is, is that for the folks worth fighting for for the person whos cleaning up that house or hotel, for the guy who used to work on construction but now has been laid off they need us. Not because they want a handout, but because they know that government can serve an important function in unleashing the power of our private sector.

Obama opened by saying that he is in trouble at home, because in 2012 he had told his wife, first lady Michelle Obama, that he had run his last campaign.

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Wild Cards: 4 Senate Republicans

Utahs Mike Lee and Kentuckys Rand Paul have been continual roadblocks for Republicans during the repeal process, fighting it from the right and essentially opposing any legislation that leaves Obamacares rules and regulations in place. Lee has been noncommittal about Cassidy-Graham. But Paul has attacked it, arguing that it still gives states the choice and ability to effectively leave Obamacare in place. He sounds like a hard no right now, but Im skeptical he would cast the vote to block an Obamacare repeal bill. The reason: Paul has cultivated a brand as a strong conservative, so a vote that would, in effect, save Obamacare would not be ideal for him.

Kansass Jerry Moran, meanwhile, has been a vocal defender of Medicaid, so its not clear if he would back a bill that cuts Medicaid as much as Graham-Cassidy does.

McCain, for his part, was a key vote against Obamacare repeal in July and it seemed like a capstone to the Arizona senators career as a self-described maverick. He urged Republicans just this Sunday not to engage in a hurried process that skips over the relevant committees and doesnt include Democrats. Cassidy-Graham is being rushed, hasnt gone through the committees for hearings and has no Democratic support.

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Gop Has A Month To Pass Obamacare Repeal With 51

Republicans vote to repeal Obamacare

If Republicans want to try again to repeal the Affordable Care Act with just a simple majority, they only have until the end of September to do it.

Thats according to Sen. Bernie Sanders, the ranking member on the Senates budget committee. According to Sanders, the Senate parliamentarian declared Friday that the Senates 2017 budget resolution, which gave reconciliation instructions to repeal Obamacare, will expire at the end of the month.

That means that Republican senators will either have to pass a new budget to repeal health care with a simple majority or they will have to have 60 votes a filibuster-proof majority to make changes to Obamacare.

The parliamentarians office declined to comment to CNN, saying its policy was not to speak with the media. CNN has reached out to Republicans on the Senate budget committee about whether they agree with Sanders assessment.

Todays determination by the Senate parliamentarian is a major victory for the American people and everyone who fought against President Trumps attempt to take away health care from up to 32 million people, Sanders said in a statement. Now that the parliamentarian has determined that Senate Republicans cannot use reconciliation instructions to repeal the Affordable Care Act beyond this fiscal year, we need to work together to expand, not cut, health care for millions of Americans who desperately need it.

CNNs Manu Raju and Ted Barrett contributed to this report.

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Trumps Promise To Repeal Obamacare Is Now In Limbo

President Donald Trump expressed disappointment after Republican lawmakers’ failure to muster enough votes to repeal Obamacare placed one of his loftiest campaign promises in limbo.

A series of defections by Senate Republicans scuttled two separate efforts to dismantle the sweeping U.S. health care law put in place by Trump’s predecessor, President Barack Obama.

“We’ve had a lot of victories, but we haven’t had a victory on health care,” Trump told reporters July 18, as it became clear the latest Republican legislative efforts would fail. “We’re disappointed.”

A slim margin of error constrained GOP efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare and forced a delicate balancing act between the party’s conservative and moderate members.

But defections by Sens. Jerry Moran of Kansas and Mike Lee of Utah on July 17 brought to four the number of Republican senators to publicly oppose the bill , effectively killing the repeal-and-replace plan. Senate leadership could only afford to lose two Republican votes for passage.

Senate Republicans then turned their attention to a measure that would repeal major parts of Obamacare over two years, in theory buying lawmakers enough time to agree on a replacement plan before the Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare, was largely dismantled.

“I did not come to Washington to hurt people,” Capito said in a statement. “I cannot vote to repeal Obamacare without a replacement plan that addresses my concerns and the needs of West Virginians.”

Gop Aims To Kill Obamacare Yet Again After Failing 70 Times

Chris Riotta U.S.Donald TrumpAffordable Care ActObamacare

The GOP may be down for the count in it’s failed attempts to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Actbut don’t count Lindsey Graham out just yet.

President Donald Trump met with the South Carolina senator and one of his fiercest critics in the Republican party on Friday night to discuss a bill that would effectively block Obamacare funding, according to two sources familiar with the meeting and legislation currently being drafted. Republican officials tell Politico Graham’s bill could potentially reach 50 votes after a series of failed attempts in recent weeks to both repeal and replace, then simply repeal, Obama’s landmark health care initiative.

After last week’s latest attempt to remove provisions of Obamacare ended with Sen. John McCain’s dramatic “no” vote effectively keeping it alive along with two other senators, Newsweek has found at least 70 Republican-led attempts to repeal, modify or otherwise curb the Affordable Care Act since its inception as law on March 23, 2010.

“I had a great meeting with the President and know he remains fully committed to repealing and replacing Obamacare,” Graham said in a statement Friday night. “President Trump was optimistic about the Graham-Cassidy-Heller proposal. I will continue to work with President Trump and his team to move the idea forward.”

How many more times that may take, is anyone’s guess.

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Dylan Scott guides you through the fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic and the health care policies that matter most.

Analysts expect the bill would lead to millions of Americans losing coverage, similar to previous Republican repeal bills. Republicans might not even know the full extent of the new bills effects on the health care system because they are likely to vote on the bill before the Congressional Budget Office can release its full analysis. The CBO is rushing to at least a provide a bare-bones analysis by early next week. The Senate has now scheduled two hearings for Monday and Tuesday on the bill.

Senate Republicans need 50 votes to pass this bill, meaning only two Republicans can defect. As my colleague Dylan Scott has pointed out, Republicans always have 45 or so votes to repeal Obamacare. Its the last five that are the battleground.

Several senators who opposed the last Obamacare repeal effort havent taken an official position yet. So the vote could fail just like past Republican attempts. But all signs we have from Capitol Hill suggest that it could pass. Cassidy is actively working to persuade senators to vote for the bill and reaching out to governors, too, to pressure their senators.

Ive had governors calling up their senators, 14 or 15 governors, saying you need to get on this, Cassidy told reporters at a Friday morning briefing.

Gop Health Care Bill Would Cut About $765 Billion In Taxes Over 10 Years

But sentiment has changed on Obamacare, with Gallup Poll finding this month that 55 percent now approve of the ACA.

The AHCA faces a much tougher road in the Senate, and if it dies there, some of those vulnerable GOP members may have made what ends up being a futile vote.

But there’s another side to consider, too. For Republicans who have made the refrain “repeal and replace Obamacare” their mantra for seven years now, not acting on their signature campaign promise could risk depleting enthusiasm among their core voters, who they also need to turn out in November 2018 to combat a Democratic base that is energized against President Trump.

And after the first attempt at repeal failed in an embarrassing fashion, House Republicans and Trump badly needed a win. That’s why they took a victory lap in the White House Rose Garden on Thursday afternoon, even though the bill is far from becoming law.

“The American people expected us to deliver on the promises we’ve made and that’s what House Republicans have just done,” National Republican Congressional Committee communications director Matt Gorman wrote in a memo after the vote.

Republicans have pointed out that more insurance companies are pulling out of state-run exchanges, and the GOP bill will cut about $765 billion in taxes over the next decade, NPR’s Scott Horsley reported, though mostly for wealthy Americans.

Thank you @RepMimiWalters and for standing in front!

Meredith Kelly May 4, 2017

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