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casspurrjoybell-17 · 10 days

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Hart and Hunter - Chapter 25 - Part 2

*Warning Adult Content*

Julian Hart

Neither was his distrust of Halloran... the only Fae I'd met this side of Faerie and a blood relative to boot.

Halloran had the knowledge and experience to help me in ways no one else could and that... I suspected... was part of what Dane didn't like about him and where our interests were most at loggerheads.

Dane sees my nature as a threat but I don't want to hide from it anymore.

I want to master it, as Dane has mastered his inner Wolf.

Somehow, it feels like I won't truly be his equal until I do.

For the next few days, however, it's easy enough to keep my promises.

I'm too tired to attempt anything more strenuous than light meditation and I only hear from Halloran through Dane, who informs me that the autopsy confirms what I'd seen... Stephanie drowned and there are indications she experienced pressures similar to what she'd have encountered at the deepest part of the reservoir... how she had gotten down there being a mystery to the human authorities and pointing their suspicions toward murder.

In the meantime, Dane takes the lead on our investigations, with Freya filling in as his partner.

I can't deny I'm a little jealous of the way he places total and unhesitating trust in her or of how cool she looks on her matte black Indian Chief Dark Horse... she's the walking definition of badass.

Over the following week, Dane and Freya revisit the lake as Wolves, scouring the shoreline and surrounding forest for clues.

They return to the row of shops as well, attempting to pick up any trace of a scent but they turn up nothing new.

I'm not surprised, given what little evidence we've discovered so far.

Meanwhile, I'm not the only one feeling a bit jealous and left out.

After the third time Freya accompanies Dane for his nightly pre-ritual territory run, leaving Ingrid to 'guard the house' it's clear she's been relegated to babysitting duty.

Neither of us is happy about it.

"This is such bullshit," she grumbles, watching through the window as Dane and Freya emerge from around the side of the house as Wolves and take off across the meadow at an easy lope.

"I was here first."

I can't help laughing at her pouty, little sister tone and she frowns at me.

"What?"

"Nothing," I say, shaking my head and smiling.

"I was here first, too."

She relaxes and huffs.

"Yeah. I mean, I get where Dane's coming from. Grandma or not, I'd be freaked if some old lady broke into my house in the middle of the night, too. And it's not like you can keep up with him as a Wolf."

I turn away and make a pretense of clearing the table, so she doesn't see my face.

She catches my reaction nonetheless and winces.

"Sorry. Touchy subject, I know."

I shrug.

"I mean, I'd probably do the same thing in his place and it's not like he's wrong. Using my gift takes its toll. I just wish I had more to show for it."

I huff a sigh of frustration and shut the dishwasher with a little more force than necessary.

The feeling that there's something I'm missing or failing to remember, persists.

Every time I cast my memory over the impressions I got from Stephanie, it's as if some part of my vision is obscured... blocked out to hide something my brain just doesn't want to see.

It's like trying to remember a half-faded dream and yet I feel certain that if I could just focus...

The thought triggers a different memory and I dash to the bedroom and retrieve the spell kit Danni had given me from where I'd stuffed it at the back of my sock drawer.

Returning to the living room, I gesture for Ingrid to join me as I clear a space and sit cross-legged on the floor, feeling a bit like a teenager about to mess with a ouija board.

"Fancy a little witchcraft?"

Ingrid laughs.

"What?"

"You believe in that stuff?"

She raises a brow and it's my turn to laugh.

"Most people don't believe in werewolves, you know but no, I don't think just anyone can sit down with a candle and some crystals and work magic. I think magic, like a Gift, comes from within. The accouterments are just that... tools and props to help the practitioner channel intention and..."

I shrug.

"Focus. Which is what I need."

Ingrid settles across from me as I open the little pouch and remove the contents... a card of instructions, a small white candle, a bundle of dried herbs and the amethyst.

"Okay, how's it work?"

I hand her the card and she reads aloud.

"Spell for Mental Clarity and Focus. You will need... a small bowl or cup of purified water (not included)."

I jump up, retrieve a glass of water from the kitchen sink and set it with the other things as I sit back down.

"Okay. What next?"

"Directions... Cast a circle."

Ingrid looks up at me.

"How do we do that?"

I shrug.

"Never mind. Let me see the card."

She hands it over and I read through the rest of the instructions quickly.

At its core, the spell isn't much different than what I do to ground myself before a reading, though there's more ritual involved.

"After clearing your mind and heart, place the water in the center of your sacred space. Stir the water clockwise three times and call on the element to ask its blessing. Light the candle, call upon fire, and pass the flame over the water three times. Light the herbs with the candle, call upon air, and pass the smoke over the water three times. Lastly, call upon earth, hold the stone in your hand, and concentrate upon your question. When you are ready, drop the stone into the cup, and drink the water. Let the elements guide your way."

"What should I do?" Ingrid asks.

"Just watch," I say, already slipping into a state of concentration.

"I doubt anything will happen but you can tell Dane you did your job."

Ingrid makes a face.

"And if something goes wrong and he chews my head off, you can blame yourself."

I crack an eye open and squint at her.

"Noted. Now be quiet."

She rolls her eyes and sticks her tongue out at me, reinforcing the feeling that we're a couple of kids breaking the rules at a sleepover but obeys.

With my concentration restored, I turn back to the task at hand.

It feels oddly natural and as I slip deeper in a meditative state, what I can only call an instinct awakens.

When I reach for the water, a strange sensation fills my chest and when I 'call' on the element, it seems to answer.

From mountain springs to ocean waves, dark depths to blue clarity, the spirit of water fills my mind.

The same occurs with fire when I light the candle and especially with air... the element I seem most connected to and I can almost feel a breeze stir about the room.

Finally, as I grasp the amethyst, focus on what I want to know and drop it into the water, the stillness of patience of earth settles in my mind.

Lifting the glass, I almost imagine I can see little sparkles of purple magic, like glitter catching the light, flickering within.

Holding my question in my thoughts, I drink it down.

Something blooms and burns like a brand between my eyes but I keep them shut as I call forth the memory... or Stephanie's memory... of the Shadowlands.

It's almost as if I'm there.

Again, I smell the ashy damp scent of the air and the faint hint of decay... I see the monstrous trees stretching like skyscrapers into gray gloom and I hear the whispers, chitters and clicking croaks of unseen things.

The first time I'd experienced it, I couldn't separate myself from Stephanie... I'd felt the pain of her exertion in my chest and the thrill of her terror in my veins.

This time, I retain my awareness of myself and watch from a slight remove as I run with her memory and this time, I distinguish more nuanced feelings amidst her fear.

Urgency and purpose.

She wasn't just running for her life and she hadn't escaped without help.

As she stands before the deep, black pool at the base of a massive tree, its banks choked with dark ferns and its depths unknown and as sobs of terror shake her bones in the face of death, a thought holds firm in her mind.

She had to try and not just for herself.

She had to bring help, if she could... for them.

For the children.

My eyes snap open as an involuntary gasp fills my lungs and I find Ingrid staring at me, her dark eyes ringed in white.

"Julian?" she sounds oddly uncertain, so I nod.

"Yeah. I think it worked."

She blinks at me.

"You don't say," her voice shakes a little and then, as my attention expands to the rest of the room, I see why.

I hadn't cast a circle when I started but I'm surrounded by one now.

Ingrid and I sit at the center of what I can only describe as a glowing ring of Faerie light but that's not what seems to have her attention.

"What is it?" I ask, as she continues to stare at me as if she's never seen me before.

"What's wrong?"

She just shakes her head.

"I think you better see for yourself."

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bamf-jaskier · 3 years

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Who the Fuck is Eskel?

If you have ever gone on The Witcher tag on Tumblr, I’m sure you’ve seen dozens of blogs dedicated to this guy named Eskel and for people who have just seen the show you might be wondering - who the fuck is this guy?

Hi, I’m Aaliyah, and this is Part 5 of my WTF Series - a crash course in subjects from The Witcher Books.

Post under the cut

Let’s jump in by talking about what books Eskel is in. He’s only mentioned in one line in The Last Wish, The Tower of Swallows and The Time of Contempt. He has a flashback scene in Lady of the Lake and the only book where he plays a heavy role in is Blood of Elves.

For all you Eskel Stans out there, this is good news, because it looks like S2 of the show is going to be taking some cues from Blood of Elves and we do know Eskel is going to be appearing so these scenes might be showing up in some form or another in the show.

We first meet Eskel in Blood of Elves when Geralt is first bringing Ciri to the keep:

“Who comes?” Ciri heard a menacing, metallic voice which sounded like a dog’s bark. “Geralt?”

“Yes, Eskel. It’s me.”

“Come in.”

The witcher dismounted, took Ciri from the saddle, stood her on the ground and pressed a bundle into her little hands which she grabbed tightly, only regretting that it was too small for her to hide behind completely.

“Wait here with Eskel,” he said. “I’ll take Roach to the stables.”

“Come into the light, laddie,” growled the man called Eskel. “Don’t lurk in the dark.”

Ciri looked up into his face and barely restrained her frightened scream. He wasn’t human. Although he stood on two legs, although he smelled of sweat and smoke, although he wore ordinary human clothes, he was not human. No human can have a face like that, she thought.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” repeated Eskel.

She didn’t move. In the darkness she heard the clatter of Roach’s horseshoes grow fainter. Something soft and squeaking ran over her foot. She jumped. “Don’t loiter in the dark, or the rats will eat your boots.”

Still clinging to her bundle Ciri moved briskly towards the light. The rats bolted out from beneath her feet with a squeak. Eskel leaned over, took the package from her and pulled back her hood.

“A plague on it,” he muttered. “A girl. That’s all we need.”

She glanced at him, frightened. Eskel was smiling. She saw that he was human after all, that he had an entirely human face, deformed by a long, ugly, semi-circular scar running from the corner of his mouth across the length of his cheek up to the ear.

“Since you’re here, welcome to Kaer Morhen,” he said. “What do they call you?”

“Ciri,” Geralt replied for her, silently emerging from the darkness. Eskel turned around. Suddenly, quickly, wordlessly, the witchers fell into each other’s arms and wound their shoulders around each other tight and hard. For one brief moment.

“Wolf, you’re alive.”

“I am.”

“All right.” Eskel took a torch from its bracket. “Come on. I’m closing the inner gates to stop the heat escaping.”

Couple things here. First, for all the game fans out there, Eskel’s scar in the books is VERY different. It’s not the lightening-like claw marks that go over his eye but instead it goes from the corner of his mouth to his ear. This is interesting because it really parallels in my mind Ciri’s scar she gets later on that extends from under her eye to her ear.

Also, the little reunion between Geralt and Eskel, so sweet. The line about Eskel in Last Wish establishes that they were close friends so here is the snippet just to give more backstory to the two of them:

“Once, years ago, when a little snot-faced brat following his studies in Kaer Morhen, the Witchers’ Settlement, he and a friend, Eskel, had captured a huge forest bumblebee and tied it to a jug with a thread. They were in fits of laughter watching the antics of the tied bumblebee, until Vesemir, their tutor, caught them at it and tanned their hides with a leather strap.”

Childhood friends and brothers is just so damn great. Actually, speaking of brothers, it is stated in Blood of Elves that Geralt and Eskel actually look very similar and are often mistaken for brothers such as in this scene from Triss’s POV.

Eskel stood next to Geralt, resembling the Wolf like a brother apart from the colour of his hair and the long scar which disfigured his cheek. And the youngest of the Kaer Morhen witchers, Lambert, was there with his usual ugly, mocking expression. Vesemir was not there.

“Welcome and come in,” said Eskel. “It is as cold and blustery as if someone has hung themselves. Ciri, where are you off to? The invitation does not apply to you. The sun is still high, even if it is obscured. You can still train.”

“Hey.” The Enchantress tossed her hair. “Politeness comes cheap in Witchers’ Keep now, I see. Ciri was the first to greet me, and brought me to the castle. She ought to keep me company—”

This really interests me because Ciri is very young child when she meets Eskel and she is very terrified of him and intimidated. Which makes sense, she is very traumatized. But, when Triss meets Eskel she only makes a short note of his scar and focuses more on his resemblance to Geralt and commenting on the lack of politeness. It just goes to show how different characters perceive people differently. A child’s perspective of a warrior is not going to be the same as a Mage’s.

“You didn’t even know.” She nodded in what was now a calm, concerned and gentle reproach. “You’re pathetic guardians. She’s ashamed to tell you because she was taught not to mention such complaints to men. And she’s ashamed of the weakness, the pain and the fact that she is less fit. Has any one of you thought about that? Taken any interest in it? Or tried to guess what might be the matter with her? Maybe her very first bleed happened here, in Kaer Morhen? And she cried to herself at night, unable to find any sympathy, consolation or even understanding from anyone? Has any one of you given it any thought whatsoever?”

“Stop it, Triss,” moaned Geralt quietly. “That’s enough. You’ve achieved what you wanted. And maybe even more.”

“The devil take it,” cursed Coën. “We’ve turned out to be right idiots, there’s no two ways about it, eh, Vesemir, and you—”

“Silence,” growled the old witcher. “Not a word.”

It was Eskel’s behaviour which was most unlikely; he got up, approached the enchantress, bent down low, took her hand and kissed it respectfully. She swiftly withdrew her hand. Not so as to demonstrate her anger and annoyance but to break the pleasant, piercing vibration triggered by the witcher’s touch. Eskel emanated powerfully. More powerfully than Geralt.

“Triss,” he said, rubbing the hideous scar on his cheek with embarrassment, “help us. We ask you. Help us, Triss.”

Now, if you can’t tell, Triss’ favorite is Eskel. This scene is also implies that Eskel is more magically powerful than Geralt which Is very interesting. But Triss is an Eskel stan, in fact a couple lines later Triss thinks to herself:

Vesemir hawked again. But Eskel, dear Eskel, kept his head and once more behaved as was fitting.

“Of course,” he said casually, smiling. “We understand and clearly we will postpone your exercises until your indisposition has passed. We will also cut the theory short and, if you feel unwell, we will put it aside for the time being, too. If you need any medication or—”

Eskel definitely has the older sibling energy where he ends up in charge sometimes and knows how to keep a cool head. He’s also the most aware of societal norms of behavior which is why Triss likes his so much. She really respects people who know how to move in society.

There’s also this scene in Blood of Elves where Eskel is drinking and offers Triss some:

“White Seagull.”

“What?”

“A mild remedy,” Eskel smiled, “for pleasant dreams.”

“Damn it! A witcher hallucinogenic? That’s why your eyes shine like that in the evenings!”

“White Seagull is very gentle. It’s Black Seagull that is hallucinogenic.”

“If there’s magic in this liquid I’m not allowed to take it!”

“Exclusively natural ingredients,” Geralt reassured her but he looked, she noticed, disconcerted. He was clearly afraid she would question them about the elixir’s ingredients. “And diluted with a great deal of water. We would not offer you anything that could harm you.”

I think it’s very funny how secret The Witcher keeps all their potions and elixirs. Whether it’s mushrooms or potions, they gotta keep those secret drugs locked down tight. Also the fact that Eskel is the fantasy equivalent of high every night? Love that for him.

Eskel really is the peace-maker of the group. He’s not a push-over by any means but he is definitely more willing to play along that any of the others. When Triss is talking at night, Eskel is really the only one listening and engaging, even if it’s very half-hearted.

In the evenings, consistently and determinedly, Triss guided the long conversations held in the dark hall, lit only by the bursts of flames in the great hearth, towards politics. The witchers’ reactions were always the same. Geralt, a hand on his forehead, did not say a word.

Vesemir nodded, from time to time throwing in comments which amounted to little more than that “in his day” everything had been better, more logical, more honest and healthier.

Eskel pretended to be polite, and neither smiled nor made eye contact, and even managed, very occasionally, to be interested in some issue or question of little importance. Coën yawned openly and looked at the ceiling, and Lambert did nothing to hide his disdain.

And he is really the only sort-of listener to Triss’ stories and retellings of events:

This time it was Triss who began to yawn and stare at the ceiling. This time she was the one who remained silent – until Eskel turned to her with a question. A question which she had anticipated.

“And what is it really like in the south, on the Yaruga? Is it worth going there? We wouldn’t like to find ourselves in the middle of any trouble.”

“What do you mean by trouble?”

“Well, you know…” he stammered, “you keep telling us about the possibility of a new war… About constant fighting on the borders, about rebellions in the lands invaded by Nilfgaard. You said they’re saying the Nilfgaardians might cross the Yaruga again—”

“So what?” said Lambert. “They’ve been hitting, killing and striking against each other constantly for hundreds of years. It’s nothing to worry about. I’ve already decided – I’m going to the far South, to Sodden, Mahakam and Angren. It’s well known that monsters abound wherever armies have passed. The most money is always made in places like that.”

“True,” Coën acknowledged. “The neighbourhood grows deserted, only women who can’t fend for themselves remain in the villages… scores of children with no home or care, roaming around… Easy prey attracts monsters.”

“And the lord barons and village elders,” added Eskel, “have their heads full of the war and don’t have the time to defend their subjects. They have to hire us. It’s true. But from what Triss has been telling us all these evenings, it seems the conflict with Nilfgaard is more serious than that, not just some local little war. Is that right, Triss?”

Once more, Eskel is the peace-maker of the conversation and he brings it back around to what Triss originally said and also points to her expertise. Basically, Eskel is not really a fan of verbal conflict.

This is actually the last line we see Eskel in a scene outside of the flashback in Lady of the Lake. After this, Triss, Geralt and Ciri head off. It is important to note that near the end of Blood of Elves Ciri says this about Yennefer:

The lady magician knew a surprising amount about a witcher’s sword and “dance.” She knew a great deal about the secrets of Kaer Morhen; there was no doubt she had visited the Keep. She knew Vesemir and Eskel. Although not Lambert and Coën.

Yennefer used to visit Kaer Morhen. Ciri guessed why – when they spoke of the Keep – the eyes of the enchantress grew warm, lost their angry gleam and their cold, indifferent, wise depth. If the words had befitted Yennefer’s person, Ciri would have called her dreamy, lost in memories.

So clearly Yennefer is also friendly with Eskel and knows him. I love the idea that Yennefer regularly visited Kaer Morhen before Ciri came into Geralt’s care and I would literally cry if they did a flashback sequence in S2 of Yennefer visiting Geralt in Kaer Morhen.

The flashback sequence in Lady of the Lake with Eskel goes like this:

The fire in the huge fireplace went out. A gust of wind from the mountains whistled through the crevices of the walls and screamed through the improperly closed shutters of Kaer Morhen, Home of the Witchers.

“Damn it!” Eskel said, standing up and going to the cupboard. “Seagull or vodka?”

“Vodka,” Geralt and Coen said with one voice.

“Sure,” interjected Vesemir, hidden in the shadows, “Yes, of course! Drown your stupidity in vodka. Damn fools!”

“It was an accident…” muttered Lambert. “She had already mastered the comb…”

“Shut your big mouth, you idiot! I don’t want to hear any more! I warned you, if something happened to that little girl…”

“Enough,” Coen interrupted him, softly. “She sleeps peacefully. Deep and healthy. She will wake up a bit sore, but that’s it. About the trance, and what happened, she will not even remember it.”

“As long as you remember,” said Vesemir, panting angrily. “Cabbage heads! Pour for me too, Eskel.”

They were silent for a long time, listening intently to the howling gale.

“We will need to call someone,” Eskel finally said. “We will need to bring a sorcerer here. What is happening to the girl, it is not normal.”

Eskel is one of The Witcher who really pushes to call Triss in order to help with Ciri’s trances. Also, once again this guy is hitting the drinks.

So yeah! That’s Eskel in the books. Based on how in the non-canon wedding short Asaps wrote where he ended up having Triss and Eskel get together, I think his hints of them having a connection in the books is very intentional and if The Witcher wasn’t such a god damn tragedy and Triss wasn’t mooning over Geralt, I’m willing to bet they would have gotten together at some point.

Eskel is the peace-maker of the family and is the best at recognizing the norms of “polite society” (or at least noble society) and while Ciri might have been scared of his appearance, it isn’t enough to phase Triss who is considered rather vain. In fact, she seems to respect Eskel the most out of the Witchers. Just imagine a dark-haired, scarred Geralt and BOOM, you got yourself an Eskel.

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mixelation · 3 years

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i've been in the naruto fandom off and on for years now and one thing i've always wondered is why multisaku/akatsukisaku/everyone loves sakura fics, and also sakura/obscure character shes never even interacted with, are so common and popular. i've read a fair amount of them and some are really interesting and cool and some not so much but i just wonder where they come from. is it because she's the easiest character to project onto or because shes one of the very few female characters with enough personality to write about or because people just love her that much orrrrr? idk.

I think it’s a combination of a lot of things. The reader projection is definitely a big one. For ME, when I was twelve and reading the manga for the first time, I definitely felt like Sakura was the easiest character to relate to. Like, when you’re a young geeky girl in middle school, the character who struggles with physical feats but IS book smart and has an inner gremlin voice that says all the mean things she can’t say out loud for social reasons... it’s Relatable(tm). And I’m an adult now, but I still relate my feelings of being an awkward teen a lot to Sakura, even if I’m not currently like this. (And also it’s REALLY fun to write a character who gets to, for example, break a table when a slimy guy at a bar won’t leave you alone.) The fact that she’s one of the more fleshed out female characters definitely helps with her relatability, IMHO.

(As I grow older, I’m also increasingly interested in Sakura as a complex character who both desires to bee a Conventional Feminine Lady but also excels at violence and is a hyper-competent medic. Like, it’s just interesting collection of traits and I like seeing her interact with people who can bring out the Mean Violent parts of her she keeps trying to repress. But also I don’t think her being a compelling character is the reason MultiSaku fics are popular LMAO.)

For other people, it does seem like she’s just meant to be a reader surrogate and her canon personality is largely ignored in favor of whatever the writer wants to write about. This isn’t a bad thing; male writers do this for Naruto all the time! But I do think the reason Sakura gets picked for this 1) she’s the Main Girl, so she has both a cool skillset as a mini-Tsunade AND 2) she has a lot of interpersonal connections that means she already has a canon connection to lots of characters. So, no, she’s never had a conversation with any of the Akatsuki but Sasori, but they have a lot of character interactions in common, so it makes more sense for her to get involved with them than, say, Ino. ALSO: readers complain less if it’s a canon girl than just your OC.

So that’s why I think Sakura is the usual pick for “reverse harem” style fics. The reason why reverse harem fics are popular, I think, has less to do with Sakura herself and more to do with it being fun and incredibly self-indulgent plot, where the reader is definitely supposed at least SOMEWHAT indulge in the fantasy of a bunch of hot people you like being interested in you. :P This is, again, not a bad thing-- it’s fun! I’ve read and enjoyed a lot of them! Fics where Sakura becomes a ~bad ass~ and also potentially gets to tell off Team 7 for “ignoring her” are definitely also popular in part because of the sheer fantasy of it.

The attraction of Sakura/Obscure Character is.... I think less obvious to break down? Like I’m into them because a combination of Sakura’s relatability and Main Girl Status/characterization makes her a “fandom bicycle” for me (as in, I’ll ship her with almost anyone). PLUS I like reading fics where characters who’ve never interacted get together because it allows for a lot of novel character interactions, which is interesting to me. For some people it’s probably “I like this obscure character and I want to read/write a romance where they’re paired with a reader surrogate, so I’ll pick Sakura.” And for some people it’s probably “I like putting Sakura into weird situations because she’s relatable/interesting to me, so I’ll send her back and time and have her fall in love with Izuna.” For some people it’s likely a combination of things.

And then there’s probably some founder effects going on. A few really fun MultiSaku fics happened, and then other people wanted to write their own take, and now there’s a bunch!

#i do want to see more of these fics with other female characters though #like i do love sakura but what if... idk... karin-becomes-a-BAMF training montage fic??#Anonymous

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teknicianwrites · 3 years

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Kissing a scar that they got from something traumatic for f!Hawke and Merrill?

Thank you for the lovely prompt! This definitely got away from me, but I think I like it anyway.

@dadrunkwriting

Meredith gave Marinda a last long look before nodding. "I trust we understand each other, Champion." She turned away, calling out to gather the mages and Templars she'd brought and headed back to the Gallows.

Carver glanced back at her and she gave him a sheepish shrug. He rolled his eyes and fell in line with the rest of his Order.

She took a moment to breathe in the cool night air of Hightown, but the normal comforting scent of night-blooming flowers was covered by blood and smoke.

Andraste give me strength.

Cheering erupted as Marinda gingerly walked back into the main hall of the Viscount's keep. Nobles rushed to her side to express their gratitude, touching her, crowding her, blocking her view as she tried to find her lovers in the crowd.

She forced a smile to her face and nodded at whatever Lady de Cerrac said. "If that's the best the Qunari have it's a wonder they're still causing trouble in the north," she replied, with no idea whether it was relevant to the topic. It probably was. If not to de Cerrac then to someone talking at her. The Arishok's body still lay on the ground where he'd fallen, and even the aristocracy of Hightown didn't have that short of an attention span.

Tittering laughter followed her words so it must have been the right thing to say, except it quickly became the wrong thing to say as a strong hand gave her an approving slap on the back. It took every ounce of willpower she had to grin through the fire that lanced through her abdomen for it. The owner of the offending hand grinned back at her underneath a disheveled mustache. "Too right, Champion, too right you are!"

Maker, she had to get out of here. She couldn't pass out in front of everyone, not after the Knight-Commander had given her that title.

She could have cried with relief when Aveline pushed her way through the throng, Merrill trailing close behind and Varric's voice ringing out, "Alright everyone, I know she's impressive but I do believe our Champion has earned her beauty sleep."

Despite the murmurs of disappointment, the crowd parted for the Guard Captain as she led Marinda out into the night. Merrill came to her side, and Marinda clutched at her hand for support.

"Where's Bela?" she asked softly, still forcing herself to walk with an event gait while within sight of the dispersing nobility.

"She skulked away in the commotion," Aveline said, voice hard with disapproval.

Merrill tucked herself closer, pulling Marinda's hand to drape her arm over her shoulder, and Marinda leaned into it gratefully. Her warm body shared much-needed heat after Marinda's recent blood loss."I think the crowd made her nervous. She'll be back. She always comes back."

Aveline shot her a skeptical look, but upon looking over Marinda's increasingly failing attempts to hide her pain, kept her thoughts to herself.

"What did the Knight-Commander want, Chuckles?" Varric asked as they walked through an empty side-street on the way back to her home.

"Oh, you know, the normal things." Marinda attempted a half shrug and choked back a whimper for how it made agony shoot down her side. "The duties of a Champion, my responsibility to the city, she'll throw me in the Gallows if I don't toe the line. All the standard formalities."

Merrill's eyes widened as she turned to her, and Marinda stumbled. "She wouldn't. You saved the city! You can't lock someone up after they saved the city!"

In the privacy of the alley she allowed herself a small groan from the sudden change in angle. Merrill bit her lip apologetically and returned her position at Marinda's side. "She didn't say those exact words, but it was heavily implied."

Aveline frowned. "It may have been bravado, Hawke. She named you Champion herself. Hauling you in now would be a tough sell."

"Red's right," Varric agreed, then hummed thoughtfully. "Still, it wouldn't hurt to ingratiate yourself with the hoity-toity in the coming months." Marinda groaned at the thought and Varric shrugged. "I'm just saying. You get into some weird shit with some weird people. Hightown having your back would be a good position to be in."

"I just saved all their lives! Isn't that enough?" Marinda whined, because if she was whining in annoyance then she wasn't whining in pain.

"With these people? Start going to the dinner parties, Chuckles. Trust me on this."

They reached the front door of her estate and she slumped in defeat. Merrill unlocked it for her and helped her through the threshold. She was immediately greeted by a cold mabari nose against her palm..

"Hey, Cal. It's fine. I'm fine." She gave him a reassuring scratch behind the ear.

Cal whined his disagreement and licked blood from her hand.

"Meserre!" Bodhan peeked his head out from the basement. "You're alright! Is the trouble over?"

"Yes, Bodhan. Everything's fine." Her gut was screaming at her to lie down and she was cold and lightheaded from blood loss, but she was breathing and the house was still standing. That counted as fine, right? "Do we have any elfroot?"

His eyes darted over her bloody and battered form. "I believe so, meserre. Is there anything else you need? Food? A hot bath?"

A hot bath sounded lovely, but she was afraid she would black out and drown in it. Not a very Championly way to die. "Maybe some broth? And water?" She knew she desperately needed fluids.

"Of course, meserre. Orana's down the stairs keeping the boy calm. I'll have her whip something up for you right and proper."

"Thank you."

Merrill scurried off after him, saying she was going to get some bandages, and Marinda was suddenly faced with the prospect of getting to her room.

All she wanted to do was pass out in her bed, but the stairs down from the Viscount's Keep had been bad enough. Stairs going up? She stared at the climb in despair.

Aveline must have seen her face. She held out her hand and, when Marinda moved to take it, gently scooped her up into her arms. Marinda hissed as her middle was jostled, and Maker, if she had the blood for it she would be blushing in humiliation at finding herself in a bridal carry.

"Aveline-" she tried to protest, and Aveline cut her off with a stern glare.

"No, Hawke. Hush. I've got you."

Varric's amused face quickly fell when she didn't put up any more fight. "I'm going to see if I can find Blondie for you."

Marinda shook her head. "He's probably healing people the Qunari hurt. Don't pull him away from that, I'll be fine."

He gave her a dubious look. "All the same. I'll let him know you're hurt and ask him to check on you when he gets a chance."

She was too tired to keep arguing and let herself slump into Aveline's hold.

Aveline carefully carried her upstairs and carefully deposited her on her bed. Cal immediately hopped up to her side, snuffling his concern at her neck.

"No, buddy," she murmured. He whined, but she knew he would get in the way of getting her armor off. "Foot of the bed," she offered in compromise, and he whined again but obeyed.

Merrill came through the door, balancing bandages, rags, a bowl, a cup, and a pitcher in her arms. She must have had Bodahn pile it onto her; there was no way she could have stacked it herself. "I've got everything. Well, not everything, Orana's working on the broth, but everything else. There's elfroot under here somewhere, if I can… oh…" She seemed to realize her predicament. Her arms were so full she had no way to put anything down without dropping it all, and the sloshing from the pitcher told Marinda it was already full.

Aveline came to her rescue, setting the pitcher on the nightstand and helping her unload the rest onto the bed.

"Thank you Aveline! I didn't think that through. I should have let Bodhan help me but poor Sandal was so scared I couldn't bear to pull him away with Orana needing to cook," she rambled anxiously.

"It's fine, Merrill." Aveline gave Marinda a long look. "You'll really be alright? You're not trying to joke away internal bleeding?"

Marinda huffed a soft laugh she immediately regretted. "Everything hurts, but I'm not going to die. I may not have my own ride-along passenger like Anders, but I'm still a healer. I'm not losing any blood. Just need time to make some more."

"I'm trusting you on this, Hawke. You'd better be alive tomorrow," was the stern reply.

Marinda gave a weak smile. "Champion's honor." She gave a weak salute. Did Champions salute? She didn't know. She should have asked Meredith for a handbook. "Go. I know you need to check on your men and get the city to stop being on fire." Marinda watched Aveline's face meander between exasperation and amusement, before finally making the unexpected journey to sincere.

"Thank you. You saved a lot of lives tonight. Even if Hightown forgets that in a month, I won't." Aveline gave her hand a squeeze and looked to Merrill. "Take care of her."

"I will," she promised.

Aveline gave them both a nod and left, pulling the door closed behind her.

Merrill hovered at her side. "Ma vhenan, what do you need?"

"Water. Please."

Merrill helped her drink, then gave her some elfroot to help with the pain. Marinda chewed on it, ignoring the bitter taste as Merrill carefully helped her out of her ruined armor. Her lover was gentle, but everything hurt and Merrill apologized for every wince and gasp.

"Creators…" Merrill stared at the fresh scar on her stomach.

"Fuck," Marinda agreed, looking down at herself.

She'd known it was bad. The Arishok had run her completely through and pinned her to the wall of the Keep. But even with dried blood obscuring it, Marinda felt light-headed to see just how much of her torso had been rent apart.

Merrill took an unsteady breath and dipped a clean rag into the bowl of water, gently washing the blood away to reveal the full extent of the scar. Her hand shook as she wet the rag again, moving to clean a smaller wound at Marinda's shoulder.

Marinda tore her gaze from the scar and looked at Merrill's face to find her eyes welling with tears. Marinda gently caught her wrist and pulled the cloth away, setting it aside and entwining their fingers with her other hand.

"I'm ok, Merrill. I'll be ok."

Merrill tightened her grip like her hand was a lifeline. "You almost died."

The Arishok whirled on her, and she ducked away from his axe and stumbled against the wall.

She should have been watching the sword.

"I'm alive. I'm here."

"You almost died. You were on the ground and you weren't moving and there was so much blood… Creators, there was so much blood."

Agony liked fire burned in her gut, clear through her back. She heard metal scrape against stone as she looked down at the weapon piercing her torso.

"I'm here."

"You were already so hurt and then-"

Her vision blurred as she looked up at his snear.

"Your role is realized."

"Shhhh."

"You shouldn't have done it. I didn't teach you just to watch it kill you. You almost died-"

This was how she was going to die. She stared into his eyes and distantly heard someone scream her name. She turned toward the sound and saw Bela, restrained by two Qunari, frantically trying to break free.

Bela….

"I couldn't let him take her."

She was dying, but she wasn't dead yet. And she wouldn't let him have her.

"I know. I know, ma vhenan. But I thought I lost you. I thought I killed you."

With a cry of rage and pain, she ripped the power of her own lifeblood from her wound, and boiled his blood in his veins.

"You saved me."

"Merrill no, there's too many people-"

Marinda turned Merrill's hands over and pushed back her sleeves, and traced the fresh scars from where she had used her own blood to keep Marinda's in her body.

"I can only slow the bleeding, I can't close the wound. Heal yourself, vhenan."

"That was so dangerous, love. All of the nobility could have seen."

"Merrill…"

Merrill laughed through her sobs. "You started it. You lost so much blood they would have thought it was yours."

"I can't lose you. Heal yourself or I'll bleed myself dry, I won't watch you die-"

Marinda kissed her left wrist, then her right, feeling each scar beneath her lips that had saved her life.

"I can't."

"You can."

She kissed them again, and a third time for good measure, and it wasn't until she tasted saltwater that she realized she was crying.

Merrill's gaze was resolute. Marinda had no mana left, and she couldn't use her own blood to stop the bleeding. Merrill was offering her own.

Her throat was closing up, but she made herself speak. "I can't lose you either, love. You're my heart too. You and Bela."

As Varric and Bela distracted the crowd and Aveline used her own body to shield them from sight, Marinda tentatively reached for the pull of Merrill's heart. It wasn't Marinda's blood and she couldn't call on Joy this way, but she was still a healer. Ignoring the pains that weren't threatening her life, she mended back arteries and organs and flesh. She was used to the warmth of Joy, or the soothing cool of creationism, or even the steady burn of Justice, but this felt raw. Primal.

Merrill took a hand back to cup Marinda's cheek. "We're quite the pair, aren't we?"

With careful attention to Merrill's pulse, she healed as much and as quickly as she dared, increasingly aware she was twice a maleficar in the Viscount's throne room. She didn't think she'd have the strength to run.

Marinda smiled and pulled her close. "Absolute disasters."

Confident that if she died tonight it wouldn't be from this wound, she made a last small pull on Merrill and sealed the bleeding at her wrists.

They both cried, delayed terror finally safe to be expressed, and then they kept crying, in relief and disbelief that they had survived and were free.

When they finally calmed, Marinda kissed her, tasting salt and lyrium and blood.

"I love you, Merrill."

"I love you too."

Merrill finished cleaning her and carefully wrapped the cuts and scrapes that hadn't been healed. Orana came by with the broth, and Merrill helped her drink it. She gave her more elfroot to chew as she changed out of her own bloodied clothes, and poured her some more water to wash away the taste.

She helped Marinda lie down and kissed her brow. "Sleep, vhenan. I'm sure Anders will be by tomorrow, and you'll want to be rested for that. If Varric told him what happened we're probably in for a scolding."

Marinda chuckled and closed her eyes. Merrill put out the lights and snuggled into her shoulder, and Cal crawled along the bed to curl up at her other side.

She was alive. Kirkwall was still standing. She was its Champion, whatever that meant. Merrill was with her, and though she didn't know where Isabela had gone, she knew she was free.

Marinda slept.

#Teknicianfic #Dadwc #Hawke/merrill #dragon age fanfiction #Potatowitch #Thank you for the lovely prompt!#It didn't at all go where I was expecting but I'm ok with it

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volganic · 3 years

Text

Song of Awakening

[part 1] [part 2] [part 3] [part 4] [part 5] [part 6] [part 7] [part 8] || [AO3] || [discord]

i didnt mean to take two months to update but ive been playing among us and now i have ideas for an among us au that i’ll never write

“I have to go back to the woods!”

“Absolutely not.”

They spent the better half of the morning bickering with each other: Link needed to complete his mission — the sole reason for leaving the castle — and Volga wouldn’t allow it. The dragon argued he was unconvinced that Link’s grief had fully passed for his fallen comrades; a wandering mind would only land him into more trouble if he wasn’t careful. Pinks and oranges of the early dawn bled into blue, and Link was growing impatient with Volga’s stubbornness. He folded his arms and stared the dragon down.

“I’m going back.”

“I won’t allow it.”

“I’m flattered that you think I need your protection, but I really don’t,” Link huffed. “If I don’t finish my tasks in Faron Woods, even you can’t protect me from the general’s wrath.”

“I would never keep you from your duties as the hero, but you are no hero yet,” Volga snapped. He rose from his seat with his spear in hand, drawing closer to take his turn to intimidate his smaller companion. “One Manhandla sapling is of no danger to you or your army — let it sprout. You are lying. There’s nothing in those woods for you except another death wish.”

The Hylian refused to listen, bristling in his spot. “That’s where you’re wrong, Volga. There’s something else in there too, and after I kill the sapling, I’m going to find it.”

“Then I shall accompany you—”

“No!” Link put his foot down to interrupt Volga from spouting out another excuse or insult. “I can handle it alone from here. If I can’t do it, it only goes to show that maybe I’m not worth bearing the Triforce. I have to prove myself worthy.”

Their eyes fell downward to Link’s gauntlet. Where Link might have considered the outcome of his last venture into the woods as cowardice, Volga saw it as means to survive. The Triforce was a sign of status; if this was how Link wanted to prove (to nobody but his goddesses) himself as worthy, Volga could allow it.

The spear in his grip slackened. With a grumble, he spoke. “Very well. If it puts your mind at ease, I will honor your decision.”

Link’s posture relaxed as his face broke into a sheepish smile. Maybe he’d win a lot of arguments from this point on if he used this excuse. He adjusted the holster holding his blade behind his back. “I’ll hold you to it; don’t think I forgot how you managed to sneak up on me last time.”

Volga turned away and grunted in response.

“Hey now,” the Hylian approached, placing a tentative hand on Volga’s arm, “I appreciate all you’ve done for me, but I also need supplies from the village below. As much as I like suffocating against your dragon body at night, I think I can manage a night of sleep with a decent bedroll!” Volga shot him a glare. Link smiled a bit wider, but his expression softened. “In all seriousness, thank you. You’re really a great friend.”

Link gave the dragon’s limb a quick and gentle squeeze — a wordless promise to return when his mind was clear.

——

The sun had yet to reach its highest point when the Hylian managed to enter the deepest part of the grove. The environment was serene, peaceful — a little too quiet for his liking. There were dangerous creatures that lived in these woods, he knew, and to not even hear the song of a bird or the buzz of an insect’s wings through the air perturbed him. The only sounds that reached his ears were the leaves rustling against the breeze with the occasional sound of twigs and gravel being crushed under his boots.

The wooden bridge that led to an old Hyrulean outpost creaked underneath his weight, threatening to give out from the lack of use. It was useful back when he and Impa had led their small brigade when they had first encountered Lana, but the lack of upkeep since those few months had left the fortress withered and decaying, succumbing to the depths of the forest. Even if it had been months ago, the magic that lived in this place left it looking as if it hadn’t been used in centuries.

Careful to cross the bridge through the other side of the outpost and to another keep, Link found what he was looking for — sort of. A Manhandla sapling in bloom lay in the center of the clearing where sunlight could seep through the branches overhead. Upon closer inspection, Link found that the bud itself had been ripped cleanly out of the plant. He took his sword in hand and approached it even closer, leery of finding it in hiding. The tip of his blade poked and prodded and turned the leaves over to find any evidence of the carnivorous creature.

From the looks of it, either someone had done his job for him, killing the Manhandla sprout — or someone was bold enough to pluck it while in its sapling stage and grow it elsewhere.

While he was no botanist, the Hylian knew that it had to come to either of those outcomes; Manhandla in its sprouting stages weren’t mobile yet at this size. His mouth fell into a puzzled frown. Mission accomplished? As an added measure, Link staked the tip of the Magical Sword into the ground underneath where the Manhandla should have been, uprooting it from the earth. It wouldn’t hurt to make sure there's no chance of another one growing in its place, he thought, covering his nose and mouth with the folds of his scarf as his heels dug into and tore the leaves of the plant, cautious of its toxic dust.

Now it was mission accomplished.

——

The doors to the fairy fountain deep were heavy as Link pushed them to open. Clearly they haven’t been used since Farore knows when, kudzu and overgrowth nearly sealing the doors shut. If it weren’t for his sense of direction leading him astray from the forest path, fear of getting lost in these mysterious woods, and the crumbling staircase leading him there, he would’ve never found it.

The air inside the fountain was... different. It smelled wet, but held a crisp clean air about it as if unbothered by time outside of its doors, even with the scuffle with evil forces not so long ago. The Hylian tentatively stepped inside with sword in hand, half-expecting to be ambushed by something. Or someone. He couldn’t shake the feeling of someone watching him as he moved to the middle of the room, watching for any shadows that moved behind the stained glass window on the fountain’s wall. When there was no promise of a threat, Link sheathed his weapon and approached the edge of the fountain. Despite the withered and crumbling rock around the edge, numerous flowers floated across the water as if they were freshly picked.

Strange, he thought. Rumor had it that the Great Fairies often made themselves known to those of pure in mind and soul – something he would definitely argue he possessed. His ears picked up the faintest echo of a woman laughing, but paid it no mind – whoever it was, she was too far away for him to consider her an immediate threat. Delicately Link splashed his hand in the water, pulling some of the flowers toward his direction. The tips of his fingers barely grazed its petals before the water in the fountain began bubbling.

Uh oh.

Link staggered backwards as a torrential wave of water erupted from the shallow water of the fountain. An infectious and jovial laugh assaulted his ears and a large shadow obscured the streaks of sunlight that poured the window. He felt dazed for only a moment, clothing soaking wet from the eruption and the water that dripped from the ceiling before he lay witness to a rather giant woman now in front of him. She studied him with a sultry eye and hummed pleasantly.

“O, hero of Hyrule,” she cooed, beckoning him with a manicured finger, “come into my fountain! Don’t be shy.”

His face flushed in embarrassment with the sudden realization that this was the Great Fairy. He never expected her to be not only outrageously “tall”, but voluptuous and seductive; the stories he had heard from merchants who had set up shop outside of the castle walls about the fairies did her no justice. Link pushed himself up and brushed off any rubble (he had to look at least somewhat decent in front of a lady) and obeyed, stepping over the edge of the fountain into its cool waters. Immediately whatever worry that lingered in his body seemed to wash away much more effectively than the springs on Death Mountain.

“What brings you here, my hero?” The Great Fairy invited him to sit closer to her. Link inched over and brought his hands up to sign. She leaned forward and delicately pushed his hands down. “There’s no need for that,” she winked. “I know what gifts the goddesses have bestowed upon you, and your secret is safe with me.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but quickly quashed it. Inhale, exhale. “How do you know about it?”

“Oh, my love,” she laughed cheerfully, “I know many things. I might be the closest thing to Hylia herself! It’s a wonder that people pray and come to me for guidance.” The Fairy stretched out on her stomach, hovering only inches above the water and giving her undivided attention to her guest. “I know that the guardian of Eldin is the one to have awakened your divine gift, and that he is keeping a close eye on you as your mentor. I can only hope that he continues to treat you well.”

Link sighed wearily at the mention of his friend — Volga would have easily objected to coming into any fairy fountain. “He does… in his own way.” A pause. “Do you know anything more about him?”

The Great Fairy chuckled softly. “That I am not inclined to say, dear hero.” Link then decided she knew more than she was letting on if she knew that they were friends in the first place. “You’ve come to seek me for guidance, have you not?” she asked, changing the subject. “How may I be of service?”

“Do you know anything about the witch, Cia? And Lana? What are their goals? What can I expect?” The Great Fairy cupped her hand under the water to slowly pour it over his head, sensing his unease. Nervously, he rubbed the back of his neck, shivering with the feeling of the cool water trickling down his collar as it alleviated his nerves slightly to prepare him for any life-changing revelations. “Do you think I’m prepared enough to take the role of the legendary hero?”

“My love,” she began, “I offer guidance and assistance, not opinions or visions of the future. I cannot tell you exactly what you must do to fully prepare yourself for the coming battle. I will be here to assist you when you need me the most in your most dire hour. What the goddesses have intended for you is out of my control. Your fate is in their hands.”

Link feared for the worst, expression growing downcast with the answers he was given. “However,” she interrupted, “I can tell you that it is more than admirable that you have come so far in your ordeals. You make a fine hero as you are now. I have no doubt that you will do only the best for Hyrule… even if you are grounded on his mountain.” She winked, her pink lips spreading into a sincere smile. Link could only smile back feeling how infectious hers was.

“Thank you.”

“Always a pleasure,” she purred, reaching out to affectionately prod his cheek. The Great Fairy then rolled onto her back, dramatically throwing an arm over her face. “You must go now if there’s nothing more I can do to assist you, as much as I’d love to keep you here for myself. Your soul is bound to another, after all.”

Link felt his cheeks burn with the thought that the Great Fairy – the Great Fairy! – had found him appealing, but shook those thoughts out of his mind. Of course, legend always had found the hero bound to the princess. At least, it always presented itself that way. It wasn’t a destiny he would have personally chosen for himself, as he hasn’t had much interaction with Princess Zelda in the first place, but if the goddesses dictated it, so be it. As long as he served for Hyrule, he would serve for her. He stood silently and stepped out of the fountain with that in mind.

“You will find your other half in the most unlikely of times, my love — in fact, you might have found it already!” she exclaimed suddenly when Link neared the entrance. He blinked and turned to look at her to ask what she meant, but she cut him off. “Please, do not hesitate to come see me again. It gets awfully lonely here.”

The Great Fairy made her exit with a dive and a splash into the short pool of water, laughing all the while. Link turned away to save himself from getting drenched again, finding that the woman was indeed gone, nothing but freshly picked flowers and a few silent fairies fluttering over the water’s edge in her wake.

——

“Massster! Human isss back! He bringsss thingsss!”

Volga turned away from the ores he had been attending to when the sound of the younger Lizalfos scouts pattering after their chieftain echoed off the rock walls. Their arms were filled with items that definitely had no place in his caves. He grumbled at the sight; Link might have been simple at first glance, but the items he had gathered in excess proved that he was going to be a pain in Volga’s side.

“Where is he now?”

“Bottom of mountain! Climbing ssslowly!”

“He may be a friend to our clan, but he will not treat you like his dogs,” he scowled, gesturing for them to drop whatever items Link had pushed onto them to the side. The scouts obeyed without a second wasted while their chieftain apprehensively drew to Volga’s side.

“He asssk nicely. We help.”

“The boy is more capable of carrying his own rubbish up the mountain.” Volga’s frown remained. The chieftain stood patiently for any more orders. The dragon released a drawn out sigh and waved his kin away. “You have my leave to go. I will take care of the rest.”

With the clear dismissal, the chieftain scurried off further into the chambers of the caves, leaving Volga with his hoard of ores — and Link’s hoard of belongings. The dragon turned to the discarded items with a look of disgust. He left his own pile to sift through Link’s things; what on earth could he possibly need? Underneath the pile of clothes including his green tunic, there were a number of small bottles of potions, larger flasks of fragrant soups and broth, a few rupees here and there, a mirror — useless, useless things!

“What are you doing?”

Volga turned back to the entrance of the cavern. Link stood there with an incredulous expression having caught the dragon red-handed going through his things. He looked so different outside of his uniforms, clad only in a longer sleeved shirt that made him look like someone he wasn’t: someone lost; someone vulnerable; someone who shouldn’t be within his domain. Volga carelessly tossed the small mirror back into the pile. “You’re able to handle yourself, so why, I wonder, you use my kin to transport your rubbish up the mountain, I’m curious. Clearly it wasn’t worth the time.”

Link’s mouth formed a small frown. “If I’m offered help, I’m not gonna turn it down.” He pushed the sleeves up of his shirt up to his elbows and pushed through Volga to tend to the bottles. As callous as they were treated, none of them were broken. “I could have brought more, you know.”

“Essentials, I understand and commend you for. The mirror, however, is excessive.”

“Old habits die hard,” said the Hylian with a small hum in his voice. “I like mirrors. Appearances are important to keep up within the castle walls: I can’t act my part as a captain if I don’t look like one.” Carefully he picked up the round mirror and looked himself over in it. He couldn’t bring himself to look for too long; his hair was in disarray and dark circles began to form around his eyes from lack of proper sleep or rest; the exact opposite image of a hero.

“If you have the strength to uphold your title, appearances mean nothing. As battered and broken as you look now, I’m well aware of what you are capable of.” The dragon strode back over to his own belongings, taking one long glance at the ores in their respective pails. He had more than enough to trade. “It’s well into the evening. You need to rest.”

Link nodded in agreement. “I also told you I’d bring my own bedroll. The caves are a little warm for me, and it’s not too cold out—”

“Sleeping outside?” Volga asked. “To leave yourself exposed? I think not.”

“You’re free to follow if you want, but I’ve already made up my mind,” Link announced, pulling his scarf tighter around his neck and tucking his bundle underneath his arm as he made his way back outside. The rest of his belongings wouldn’t move anywhere. It took a good amount of restraint not to laugh when he heard Volga’s heavy footsteps following him a few paces away, but that didn’t stop him from smiling at his companion when he found a decent spot to settle down. “I take it you’ve never slept outside of the caves?”

“Why would I?” he bit back, crossing his arms over his chest to brave himself from the gentle breeze tickling his cheek. The temperature wasn’t at its lowest yet; Link really was a fool if he thought only a blanket and scarf were enough. “They offer all the protection you could need.”

“That’s true, but only if you’re either a dragon or have the means to survive in the heat.” Even with the fireshield earrings, the caves provided a little too much warmth. Waking up feeling uncomfortably sticky from sweat wasn’t necessarily pleasant. “I’ve never thanked you properly for the earrings before, but you nearly burned my ear off when I had the chance. So thanks for that, too.” Link’s face twisted into a pout at the memory, but it didn’t stop him from patting the grass next to him to invite the dragon closer. “At least here outside you can see the sky.”

“And that leaves you exposed to the elements, too, boy,” Volga said with a tone that clearly painted him as annoyed. Regardless, Link took satisfaction when the dragon made an effort to humor him by taking the spot next to him at least an arm’s length away. The dragon removed his helmet and held it to his chest as he laid down. It felt strange being so close to home, yet so far away, left vulnerable to the bitter cold that crept underneath every crevice of his armor. A puff of smoke left his lips to try and regulate his body temperature. The sound of Link shuffling around in his bedroll couldn’t drown out his amusement. “Is there something you find funny?”

“No.” Though the scarf around his neck concealed most of the Hylian’s face, it was obvious that he was lying. Volga held his stare, but turned away when it was clear that Link wasn’t going to budge. This was stupid. He couldn’t fathom why he continued to play in Link’s games, but he never had also expected to take him under his wing. It was like an itch he couldn’t scratch, but keeping Link so close seemed to soothe it, and, despite the immaturity he displayed more often than he should, the Hylian was slowly fitting into his hero role. That enough was satisfactory.

“Have you ever been to the village below?”

Volga’s eyes remained closed. “No. I have no interest in mingling among those beneath me.”

“Do you even have friends?” Link propped himself up on his arms. “And before you say your scouts or chieftains, they don’t count. I mean anyone outside your tribe.”

“I have you,” Volga said, “but sometimes I wonder if I’ve made a poor choice in keeping you as a friend.” He tilted his head and cracked an eye open, knowing full well that his comment would strike a nerve. In a huff, Link turned over and pulled the covers up to his ears. It was Volga’s turn to laugh quietly. “I have you, and I have ties with the Goron Patriarch. I wouldn’t have as grand of a collection without him.”

“Alright, I’ll give you that one.” Link turned onto his back. “It wouldn’t hurt to expand your horizons. I heard that merchants are supposed to stop by and trade in the village tomorrow.”

“I’d rather not. They have nothing I could possibly want.”

“Now you’re just being a killjoy, Volga.” Link chided with a yawn. “How old are you, anyway?”

“Enough.”

“Oh, come on—”

“No,” he interrupted, “I mean to say ‘I’m old enough’. I doubt you would believe me should I reveal my true age to you, which is why ‘enough’ should be a sufficient answer.” Volga let the words hang in the air for a moment for Link to absorb it, followed by, “You should be resting, boy, not spewing whatever thoughts are bouncing around in your mind with answers you can’t comprehend. With your duties to your army fulfilled, we resume ours in the morning.”

“One more question?” Before being given the chance to be shot down, the Hylian asked, “What’s your favorite color?”

The dragon remained silent. Of all things, that’s what he wanted to know? Whether it was out there to annoy him, or purely out of innocence, Volga didn’t know — and didn’t know how to answer it himself. As a dragon, instinct had told him to curb the favoritism to ward off those with prying eyes, as thieves were around every bend to steal whatever he coveted most. As for favorites, he realized then he didn’t have many — a favorite weapon? A favorite meal? A favorite song? — much less narrowed down to a specific color. He lived in a world painted in reds and oranges and yellows and greens with splashes of golds and silvers and a bioluminescent blue, but none of it appealed to him.

Volga craned his neck to look back at Link, unsure of how to answer and unsure of how Link would react, only to find that either he had taken too much time mulling over his response, or the Hylian was more exhausted than they had initially thought. Link had succumbed to the fierce grip of sleep. Under the covers of his bedroll, Volga could see Link’s chest rising and falling, his breaths light and evenly spaced; finally at peace. Without the expanse of the ocean staring back at him waiting expectantly for an answer, clarity had struck through Volga, and he knew his answer. The words poured out just above a whisper:

“I’m fond of the color blue.”

#hyrule warriors #volink #YEAAAAAA #fic

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sushigirlali · 4 years

Text

Admiration - Part III (Reylo Fanfic)

Part I | Part II | Part III

Summary: Padawan Ben Solo struggles to repel Snoke’s odious influence while coming to terms with his feelings for fellow student Rey of Jakku.

Parings: Rey + Ben Solo

Continuity: Jedi Academy AU; Rey is 19, Ben is 23.

Rating: E

Master list –> AO3 | ff.net | Tumblr

——————

Admiration - Part III

By: sushigirlali

——————

Could you move in slow motion? Everything goes by so fast Just slow down a little Save the best part for last

——————

Ben slowly stirred, shifting as a repetitive pressure in his side started to annoy him. "Poke me once more and see what happens," he grumbled into his pillow.

"Okay, tough guy," a lightly accented voice murmured before jabbing him again.

"Scavenger," he said affectionately, blindly reaching for Rey's lithe form.

She allowed him to pull her next to him, laughing as he pinched her pert bottom. "I borrow parts from the shop one time and—"

"Borrowed?" he interrupted, turning over to face her.

"Fine," she sighed in mock exasperation, "stole, but that doesn't change the fact that I made some much-needed improvements to Master Luke's ship."

Ben snorted, trailing a hand up her body to push a few errant strands of hair behind her ear, "I still remember the look on Luke's face when we found you knee deep in engine parts."

"He was so mad," Rey grinned, taking his hand and bringing it to her lips, "but you took the blame, like always. My hero."

Ben's heart felt full to bursting. "Do you honestly see me that way? As a hero?"

She leaned closer, rubbing her nose against his. "Yes."

All his doubts seemed silly now, when only a couple hours before he'd been sure about them. But Rey didn't see him as a monster or a descendant of the mighty Skywalker bloodline, she just saw him. "I love you," he said softly, cuddling her closer.

"I know," she replied smugly.

"Hey, I'm being serious here," Ben pouted, pinching her butt again.

"None of that now," she laughed, kissing away his frown.

"No?"

"Well," she leered, "maybe some of that. We definitely have better things to do than argue."

"We do?"

"Oh, yeah," she promised, playfully pushing him onto his back again. "Nap time is over, lover."

Ben choked as she kneeled between his hard thighs. "Wh—what are you doing?"

"What do you think?" she smirked, looking him over with hooded eyes. "You really are proportionate to your size, Solo," she said appreciatively.

"Uh…" Ben's brain stalled as she grasped his manhood.

"Loth-cat got your tongue?" she inquired, squeezing him experimentally. "Like this? I didn't get to touch you much before."

"M—move your hands up and down, like—yeah! Like that," he shuddered under her shy caresses.

"Faster?"

"Uh—no," he murmured, closing his eyes against the pleasure; the visual of Rey's small fingers gripping his cock was almost too much.

"Harder?"

"No, thank you." Was she trying to kill him?

"No, thank you? Well, at least you're polite."

Ben's eyes snapped open at her clipped tone. "Rey, what is it? Are you okay?"

"No, I'm fine, just… am I doing it wrong?" she frowned, maintaining the same slow rhythm. "What can I do to make it better?"

"Oh," he said, realizing the issue. "Rey, if you make it any better, I'm going to make a mess," he admitted frankly.

She sucked in a breath, then smiled, "I'd like that, actually. I'd love to make a mess of you."

Ben blushed under her hungry gaze. "You're amazing," he sighed, touching her hair again. But this time, he wrapped his hand around the back of her head and tugged. "If that's how you feel, then would you…?"

"Yes," she said eagerly, already lowering her mouth to kiss his flushed tip. "Mmm, salty."

"Sorry, it's the—"

"Heat?" She paused to lick him again. "I already told you, I like the way you taste." And then she was engulfing him between her pink lips, bobbing her head in time with his harsh breathing. Her movements were a little clumsy at first, but she quickly got the hang of it.

"Rey!" he cried, gripping her hair for purchase. "Wait! I'm—oh, Force!" Ben's back bowed and his dick slid to the back of her throat. "Rey! Fuck! Are you—ah!" His concern dying on his tongue, Ben barely held on as Rey seemed to lose herself in tasting a man for the first time. He could feel her in his mind, probing his fantasies, his desires...

"You already know what I want," he said without conscious thought. "You're what I want. You're perfect, perfect for me." Rey hummed around him in agreement, and the minute vibrations nearly tripped him over the edge. "Wait! Stop!"

Pulling back with a disgruntled glare, Rey wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "What? We were just getting to the messy part!"

"I want to come inside you."

"Oh!"

"Only if you want me to," he said in a rush.

Rey crawled back up his frame and hovered over his erection. "I want you to," she said, pointedly pressing her dripping pussy against him.

Ben gulped, palming her hips. "You take control, I don't want to hurt you."

"You could never hurt me," she said confidently. "I've been inside your head, remember?"

"I'll never block you out again," he vowed, clenching as she separated her nether lips with two fingers. "I love you, Rey."

"I—ah—love you too!" she gasped, slowly sinking onto his thickness. "Oh, my—Ben!"

"Rey, I—does this feel as good for you as it does for me?" he grunted, trying not to squirm as she enveloped him inch by inch. "Tell me what you need."

She nodded, bracing her hands on his wide chest. "Just—just be still for a minute. It feels good, but you're—a lot." Her thighs tightened on either side of his hips as she determinedly sank lower.

"Take your time, sweetheart," he encouraged. "There's no need to rush."

"I know, but I want—ooh!" she broke off on a moan as the fine hairs of their sex met. "I—I just can't believe this is finally happening! It's—ah! Ben!"

Fully seated within her at last, Ben struggled to fill his lungs with air. The oppressive heat and humidity outside had nothing on Rey's warmth and he felt like he was burning up. Thick fingers nipping into her waist, he made a strangled sound when she unexpectedly flexed her inner muscles. They were a tight fit, but Rey didn't seem to be in any pain. Just the opposite, in fact.

"Are you alright?" she queried after a moment, pushing sweaty strands of hair away from his face.

He cupped her flushed cheeks in answer, pulling her within range of his lips. Instantly feeling more grounded, Ben caught his breath by sharing hers. After what seemed like an eternity, she gently raised her hips, sliding almost all the way off him before forging the connection again, finding a languid pace that had them both on edge. Yet, their lovemaking remained soft and slow, existing in the space of one breath to the next. Of one heartbeat, one soul…

It was then that a word surfaced in his mind, something he had read once is an obscure tome: dyad. The exact definition eluded him, but Ben felt it beating like a tattoo in his mind. Leading him somewhere, drawing him into a separate world… but not alone. No, Rey was there too. Reaching for him… for the balance between them, light and dark. And the moment their hands touched...

Rey suddenly began to shake in his arms, her climax taking them both by surprise. "Ben, I'm—it wasn't like this last time! It's never been like this!" she panted, biting his shoulder, his chest, anywhere she could reach. "I don't know what to do!"

"It's okay, you're safe," he murmured, smoothing his hands up and down her back. "We're both safe forever," he comforted. What's more, he knew it was the truth; nothing could separate them now. They were made for each other.

"Then be with me!" she whined, still teetering on the precipice. "Be with me, Ben! Please!"

"I am." It was freeing to be in love, to be loved in return. He had feared giving into Rey's desires for so long, but now he knew that there was no difference between what she wanted and what he wanted. They were fated, just like Rey had said; soulmates bound through the Force...

Ben groaned harshly as he allowed himself to let go, to come apart in her arms, spilling his seed in an uncontrollable flood of passion. The pleasure was so intense, so sharp, it was almost painful, but then he realized why: Ben could feel Rey's ecstasy as well. "Force, Rey! Do you feel that?"

"Yes!" she screamed. "I feel it too!"

Supporting her weight as her strength gave out and she collapsed across his damp chest, Ben pumped into her a few more times to extend their shared delight. But, inevitability, exhaustion claimed him as well.

——————

You're an unfenced fire! (for last) Over walls we trampled! (for last) It's you I admire! (for last)

——————

Ben roused first this time, shivering despite the fact that Rey was still blanketing him. Though it was barely dusk, the weather had taken a turn. His once steamy bedroom was now cool, the wind wafting in through his open window chilly. "That's weird," he muttered, carefully rolling Rey onto her back as he moved to shut the window.

"Hey, come back," she said groggily, wrapping her arms around his middle from behind.

"I'm here," he chuckled, throwing the latch for good measure, "just hold on for a second."

"Don't wanna," she complained, nuzzling her face against his back.

"You are so greedy," he joked, letting her drag him back to the bed. "We'll have to work on that in class next—oh, shit." Ben froze as he felt his uncle's Force signature approach the front door.

"Are you decent?" Luke called, knocking merrily. "And there's no need to sneak out, young lady, I know you're in there," he added good-naturedly.

"Oh, no!" Rey's hazel eyes were huge in her elfin face as she tracked past Ben to the door. "Ben, what should we do?"

"Get dressed," he said numbly, hastily pulling black trousers and a matching long sleeve shirt from his dresser. He threw the latter at her and tugged on the pants, scrambling to look presentable before their master grew impatient and stormed inside. Quickly looking her over, Ben was pleased to see that his shirt fell to her knees.

"What else?" she asked anxiously.

"Hair!" he responded, grabbing his brush and motioning for her to turn around. Rey complied and he quickly put her to rights, picking up some of her pins and ties off the floor and securing her locks in an Alderaanian plait.

"All done?" Luke said with another knock.

Glaring at the door, Ben ran the brush through his own hair once, then smoothed out his rumpled bed while Rey stowed their discarded clothing in his hamper. "Almost!"

"Are you sure? I can always come back later."

"Just hold on!" they yelled together, giving the room a once over before looking at each other again.

"It's going to be okay," Rey told him, reaching for his hand.

Ben slid his fingers between hers and gave them a squeeze. "I know."

"Right then," Luke said, strolling into the hut as soon as Ben waved a hand to unlock the door. "Now that the two of you have finally figured things out, I must ask that you please cease and desist with manipulating the weather. It's not fair to the other students and inhabitants of this planet."

Whatever they had expected Master Luke to say, it wasn't that.

"What?" Rey gaped.

"Really, younglings, you must have noticed that our moderately temperate planet has suddenly experienced a change in climate today. Several changes, actually." Luke looked thoughtful. "It does seem to be evening out now, though. Likely due to the strength of your dyadic connection."

"So, it was because of us," Ben said in awe, recalling everything that had happened between them today. "Because Rey and I are a dyad in the Force."

The old Jedi texts in Luke's study mentioned Force-users powerful enough to affect the weather of whole planets, but Ben had never considered it could happen in real life. If the legends were to be believed, two Jedi Masters working in perfect harmony could do just about anything. And if those Jedi were also a dyad...

"You knew?" Rey tilted her head in interest.

"I suspected," Ben replied. "It started getting unseasonably hot when we were in the training center and then uh… you know… when we, um…" He trailed off in a mumble, recognizing that his uncle was still very much in the room.

"Ohhh…" she nodded in understanding. "But then why is it so cold now?"

"To balance out the heat?" Ben guessed.

"Precisely," Luke said, sounding amused. "So, if you're going to be together, please don't wait until the balance of the planet is at stake to, you know, be together."

"Are you giving us permission to have sex?" Ben said dumbly.

"I very much doubt I could stop you, so it seems like the prudent thing to do."

"You mean you're not throwing us out?" Rey said hopefully.

"Of course not," Luke scoffed.

Ben's mouth fell open in shock. "And we can still be Jedi?"

"Rey will obviously remain my Padawan when you graduate to Jedi Master, but yes."

"Really?"

His uncle rolled his eyes. "I can see that this conversation is going to take longer than I anticipated."

"But love is forbidden for a Jedi!" Ben exclaimed.

"For the Jedi of old, perhaps, but we are not them."

"No, we're not," Rey agreed, leaning against Ben's side.

"Uncle," Ben said, voice cracking with emotion as he put his arm around Rey for support, "thank you."

Luke beamed at them both, "You're very welcome, nephew. Now, I have some other news I wish to share with you."

"What is it?"

"Since the truth of our lineage has been revealed, your mother has suffered a blow in the Senate. She intends to come stay here for a while with your father."

"They're coming here?" Ben was astonished.

"They want to see you. To explain."

"They do?"

Luke's expression softened. "Of course they do. I'm only sorry they haven't been able to come sooner. You must forgive an old man's foolishness. I've been clinging to what the Jedi were, not what they ought to be. But we're going to change that, from this day forward. Okay?"

"Okay!" they said enthusiastically.

Still, Ben had a few reservations. "Uncle, can we talk later? Snoke's influence seems to have weakened, but—"

Luke waved away his lingering fear. "We can, certainly, but you have nothing to worry about. You will not fall to the dark side, Ben. Not now, not ever." He smiled as he backed up to leave. "Snoke doesn't know it yet, but he's already lost."

Ben knew it too, but nevertheless, it was a relief to hear the words from his uncle, his hero. "Thank you," he said again.

"No problem," Luke winked as he opened the door. "See you around, kids!"

——————

My living example... It's you I admire! My living example

——————

Rey and Ben collapsed onto his bed, laughing uproariously.

"I can't believe it!" she said happily.

"Me either!" he sighed. "All that worry for nothing."

"Not for nothing," she protested, curling into his side. "You needed to work through your fear."

"Thank you for sticking by me while I did." Ben closed his arms around her, kissing her soundly. "I'm glad you didn't give up on me."

"I'm glad you gave me a chance to get through that thick skull of yours," she teased.

"Yeah, well, it's really hard to say no to you when you want something."

"Which just proves that I have excellent taste in partners!"

"Partners?" Ben stared into her bright eyes.

"Life partners," Rey said seriously. "You're stuck with me, Ben Solo. Forever."

"Forever?" Meaning he would have someone in his life who loved him as much as he loved them? Someone who would never leave him alone again? Yeah, he could handle forever. "Deal."

-FIN-

——————

A/N: Thanks for reading my work! This was actually pretty therapeutic for me since I haven't been able to write much since TRoS. I truly believe that Ben should have reconciled with Leia and Luke and gone on to live and atone for his mistakes. I'll always be crushed that he didn't. Anyway, defy every cynical narrative <3

#reylo #reylo fanfic #reylo fic #ben solo #kylo ren #rey #reylo fanfiction #jedi academy au #reylo au #luke skywalker #admiration #song fic #my fanfiction #sushigirlali

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heuristicallyinclined · 4 years

Text

Nobody Knows

Chapter 2: Ah, here we go again

Part 2/? (Word count: 1,841 | Rated T | Past MSPA Reader x Mallek Adalov, MSPA Reader x Mallek Adalov, Past MSPA Reader x Polypa Goezee, Background DaveKat)

AO3 Links: Part One | Part Two (This) | Part Three

Chapter Summary: MSPA Reader wakes up in an unfamiliar, terrifying place with unfamiliar, terrifying people. But what else is new?

Notes: Thanks for all of the support from the first chapter! I was really blown away by all of it. Enjoy some set-up before the inevitable angst.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

The first thing you notice when you come to is the chittering of machinery. Earth tech hums when it runs, maybe you hear a fan or two. Alternian tech chitters. Sometimes it even makes a soft screeching sound. You prefer not to think too hard about it. The next thing you notice is the headache you have. Your forehead is throbbing and when you open your eyes the room is moving. Damn, you have had your fair share of concussions, but this is new. In your infinite intelligence, you finally realize that this is because you are getting carried like a sack of potatoes over the shoulder of a stranger. Well, fuck.

Slowly and carefully, you crane your head back to get a glimpse of whoever is holding you. You see large horns extending horizontally and curving towards their face. Their uniform having some intricate repeating bronze pattern. Realizing this is an adult, you become very conscious of your breathing. Just extremely slow and even. Oh God. You have never seen this troll before in your life. You continue to glance around and notice you are on some sort of vessel. A door opens and your captor joins another bronze troll. A new stranger, maybe a friend? You stop yourself from introducing yourself so you can hear what they say. Now is not the time to be horny for platonic connections.

“So ! nearly tr!pped over th!s sh!t on my back from do!ng !nventory !n the cargo bay. Do you have any !dea what the fuck th!s !s?” Your captor asks with an excited lit, swinging you off of his shoulder and holding you by the back of the hood. You remain still, motionless, having perfected the art of playing dead to fool drones into not culling you. Not your most dignified skill, but definitely one of your more useful ones. Something thuds as it is set down to your right.

“()h gr()ss, d()n’t t()uch it with y()ur fr()nds.” Your captor chuckles while their colleague sighs in exasperated disgust. Ah yes, you didn’t miss this. Alternia has made you super self-conscious about your body in the weirdest ways just about as much as it has made you fear for your life. But one of those things is temporary. You know you’re cute, friendly, are incredibly resourceful and optimistic. You have nice legs! The clown pope said so! But you can still hear the sneer in her voice, “It pr()bably just wandered ()n b()ard during the last rest()ck and the change in gravity culled it ()r s()mething, I d()n’t kn()w.” She sounds a little pissed now, “Etiv()r just st()p playing with it and dr()p it in with the rest ()f the trash s() y()u can help me get the rest ()f the requisiti()ns delivered.”

Etivor shakes you a bit in front of her. She doesn’t react. “F!ne Yleeda,” he draws her name out and huffs, clearly disappointed, “!��ll be back.” You get thrown back over his shoulder and you can hear a light growl come from him. She apparently does too, and mockingly chitters at him, dropping another box onto her pile. “Wait, what if that thing i-,” she starts, but Etivor isn’t having it and picked up to pace and is already gone. Bold move.

He slows down after a while and walks and as he does you pass by a window. You look for telltale moon colors, but you seem to be in the middle of nowhere with nothing particularly familiar in sight. On a spaceship. Full of adults. Neat. Well, mortal peril is always a solid way of getting out of your head.

He continues onward and you hear other trolls pass by you, all of them caught up in their own work or conversations, none of the spare you two too much of a glace. A door slides open and he sets you on the ground. You hear him step away from you and fiddle with the settings on what you think is the trash, and you'd rather not get immolated today, no thank you. It begins to clunkily whir to life before settling on a scratchy, chittery sound. Luckily, you notice you didn’t hear the door close. You get up slowly, quietly, and slink over to the door, the machine helping to obscure any sounds you were making. You don’t need to be stealthy for too long, just enough to get the door and you can just abs- and he is looking right at you.

You try to match the familiar look of wide-eyed "what in the actual fuck is that" that trolls have often graced you with when meeting you for the first time. His pupil skits widen slightly and his mouth is set in a hard, straight line. You both remain frozen and are locked in a staring contest. You stay like that together for a good ten seconds and you become intimately aware of how long ten seconds in total silence is. He blinks and as he starts to reach for you, you do the only thing you think to do. Blurt out some dumb shit and stick your nose where it doesn’t belong.

Were you also getting a pitch vibe off of that or was that just me, because I know you need to be professional, working here and all but I feel like if I wasn’t there you two would definitely have gotten into an argument? Are you two like a thing or have something going on there or…? You wiggle your hands noncommittally.

If you weren't terrified, you would be laughing at the look he is giving you. He immediately pulls his hand back and holds it to himself, aghast. His mouth opens and shuts as he struggles to figure out what to say before settling into a concerned frown. He steps back in confusion with an expression betraying he was clearly not prepared for you to be alive, or sentient, or fluent in Alternian, or immediately asking him about his love life. He is very clearly trying to unpack a lot and you are just trying to put some space between you and someone who easily has two feet on you and a lot of muscle, hopefully gained from things other than hauling aliens into fiery dumpsters.

“Uh. What. ! mean maybe? But ! don't, wa!t th-“

Because I feel like you were definitely trying to piss her off a little bit, like not enough to ruin her night or anything and fuck up her work, but like she'll be thinking about it, so I think that's smart, kinda leaving the ball in her court as you left.

He gives you the smallest, tightest smile as he uncomfortably, slightly nods, locked in place. He looks like he is trying to smile after biting a lemon. This man is deeply fucking uncomfortable which you can deal with much better rather than hostile. You need to keep this shit up. Fuck, WWGD?

What would Gorgor do? You think back to his tricks and techniques that you learned from being his partner. How to maintain control over a situation without dominating it completely or else a highblood could easily feel like you were overstepping and at best, get defensive and shut you down and choose another teal. You don't want to think about the worst case scenario. But you are not Tagora Gorjek and have not been playing four dimensional mental chess with people since hatching. Also death is more of a temporary roadblock at this point, so really, there is no sweep like the sweep you’re fucking in since you couldn’t escape it even if you wanted to.

You already overstepped by making this about quads so you just need to keep talking confidently long enough to fluster him into answering so that you can try to run off. An alien coming back from the dead out of concern for his personal life is probably doing it well enough.

Do you two have like a history from before this or did it start when you got your assignments here?

You are trying to convey an authority you don't fucking have. But as someone once taught you, image is everything and to fake it until you make it. You don't need to have your shit together, god no, but if religiously following a nineteen step east Alternian skin care regimen or parroting back bullshit you've heard like you're a goddamn relationship wizard makes people think you do, then bitch you better roll with it.

"We started working together l!ke a few wipes ago, but k!nda just started talk!ng," he says slowly and unsure, staring at you. You hum knowingly at him and he squints at you, perturbed. You place a hand on your chin and shift your stance to that of one in thoughtful consideration, the fact that you are closer to door thanks to it is not relevant. You look like you do this all the time, which you do. He glances around the room and pales.

God, he must be panicking worse than you are. He is answering. This is probably ideal. Okay plan time, so he and the other lady, Yleeda, are the only ones who saw you here. Wherever here is, and she thinks you’re dead so really you just need to have him be incredibly cool and then run into literally no other person on board the ship while exploring it, figure out where you are, and how you got here. Easy if you don’t think about it.

You were trying to get to Mallek and he is neither of these people so maybe he is on board somewhere on whatever place they restocked at. Maybe he does get to work with tech and he got to hole up somewhere with access to energy drinks that would kill anyone gold and below. This could mean you will never find him. Okay, you need to deal with one thing at a time.

Oh, so when you got started working on this ship? Is Yleeda doing anything to irk you back?

You ask this while stepping to look cool and relaxed against a wall, like all normal, cool guys do. Guys who are calm and not worried at all about incineration. Guys just trying to get a feel for where others are at so that they can give appropriate advice in appropriate situations that they are in. Those guys. You are them.

Your back finally makes contact with a wall. Or at least you thought it was a wall based off of how solid it was. You look up when you feel something grab your shoulder. The sound of the machinery that you thought would mask your footsteps definitely masked Yleeda’s entering the room. She stares down at you and then back up at Etivor, her gloved hand holding you firm.

Oh.

So that plan didn't work.

Notes: How quickly can one person get attached to fantrolls made up on the spot to act as plot devices? One author finds out.

#homestuck #hiveswap #friendsim #mspa reader #mallek adalov #hs mallek #mallek x reader #my writing

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astargatelover · 5 years

Text

Watching The da Vinci Code for the first time - A documentation

- About to watch The da Vinci Code for the first time. It’s about 3AM. Back of the DVD says the movie’s almost 2h30 long. Will approximately be going to bed at about 6AM. I gotta be crazy.

- Back of the DVD also says (translated from German): In the middle of the night the (…) is (…) Langdon (TOM HANKS) in the (…) director was murdered. His (?) (…) that of the Vitruvian Man (…) is the first horrible clue (…) and symbols. At the risk of his life (something something) Langdon – and from then on it’s a normal description, it’s just that that part is obscured by the library stamp. So I can confidently say I totally know what’s going on in this movie! *serious nod*

- Third highlight of the back of the DVD: Ian McKellen, grumpy-looking monk dude and a guy looking like Palpatine. And the Louvre.

- Also in the movie: Some German I don’t know (but yay!) and Paul Bettany. He’s cool; I really liked him in A Knight’s Tale.

- Let’s get this show on the road!

- …gotta update my media player. One sec!

- There we go. …where’s the always-on-top button? Ah, found it! Light’s off in my room; cinema time.

- Music’s already nice in the menu.

- Audio: English. (More nice music.) Subtitles: (Hey, they have Turkish on offer!) Off.

- (They even have subtitles for the trailers. But no extras. Am miffed. What kind of bare-bones DVD is this?!)

- 20 minutes after the first “about” up there: Play movie.

- Fancy title cards.

- Dude running. He’s gonna die; I know that much.

- Paul!

- *sigh*

- Oooooh, it’s Robert. That’s a lot of applause.

- (Btw, in case you didn’t know: I have watched Angels & Demons because I love Ernesto Olivetti a crazy amount.)

- I like Robert. Awesome presentation.

- Also like Tom Hanks. He’s great.

- Accents, y’all.

- Latin? Latin. Italian? No, definitely Latin.

- Ouch. Self-flagellation. Ooooooouch. Some religious people are crazy.

- Dude, you can barely stand. I’m a sadist and I don’t want you doing that to you.

- We’re only 10 minutes in, my goodness.

- Claustrophobia! I relate to that.

- Just let the dude take the stairs.

- Wow.

- Priests.

- Have I mentioned I’m not a big fan of catholics? Nothing personal.

- Also: Autistic Langdon, symbology special interest.

- French.

- Sophie! Heard of her.

- Strange happenings.

- Oooooooooh.

- French lady. I don’t speak French.

- *window jump scare*

- We don’t trust the police guy.

- Conspiracies!

- Fuck.

- “Once he starts, he doesn’t stop.” He’s like Javert.

- Climb out the window?

- More French.

- Oooooooh! They’re so tricking them, aren’t they? They’re not dumb.

- Bye bye!

- I’m sorry for Sophie.

- (I saw that part where her grandfather got shot years ago.)

- Here we go with the anagrams.

- Eidetic memory (pretty much) - firms up my autism headcanon.

- Can you even get that close to the Mona Lisa irl?

- Tom Hanks has a really nice nose. xD

- Langdon’s so good with anagrams.

- It’s like a scavenger hunt.

- Ooh, Musketeer symbol.

- Chase music!

- Flashback with crazy meetings.

- A smart! I get to bop someone now.

- Ooh, Les Mis.

- Backwards! That’s impressive.

- She’s so gonna make it.

- She made it!

- Bye bye, mirror.

- Paul’s looking angry.

- Someone got stabbed. I sense guilt.

- More dead people.

- Holy water.

- A nun.

- A rose line.

- Is he gonna kill her? She seems nervous.

- MORE FRENCH.

- Red light zone.

- (It’s raining outside. Kinda sets the mood.)

- You stay away from that dude, nun.

- Saving a junkie?

- (Sophie’s a really nice name, btw.)

- He rambles when he gets the chance so much. Really reminds me of special interests. (And in case anyone takes issue with that, I should know. I’m autistic. I have them.)

- My parents just watched Knightfall. Now I know some about the templars’ fall.

- Sophie didn’t know they were supposed to protect the Holy Grail? Really? Huh.

- Moooooore French.

- Please don’t die, nun.

- That’s some scar under his eye.

- Those look like some anger issues.

- It’s the grumpy-looking monk dude.

- Seriously, I understand more Latin than French.

- “Blood is being spilled” as he’s spilling wine, that’s great.

- Freeeeeeeeeench.

- “I don’t think he liked me very much. He once made a joke at my expense.” I relate to this guy so hard on the autism level.

- It’s the German dude.

- That’s some system they’ve got at that bank.

- You call that a rose?

- I’m with Langdon here. Safe passage?

- Aww, poor guy. I’ve got claustrophobia, too, and I haven’t even got a traumatizing event behind me. (I read that somewhere.)

- I like the driver.

- A lot. Nice one with the watch.

- Langdon, you look sick. Please don’t die, y’all.

- JESUS CHRIST.

- Poor Sophie. </3 Woah.

- How tf did that truck get there?

- That bullet. Smaaart move. *thumbs up*

- Ouch.

- Bye bye again.

- Do I like the police captain? I don’t know.

- The tea convo. xD

- Is Langdon like this in the books? I hope he is.

- How old is Sophie? *googles Audrey Tatou* (Ooh, Amélie!) *checks when movie was made* ‘bout 30.

- Yaaaaaas, Ian.

- Also please don’t die.

- (Both my faves in Angels & Demons die. I’m vorbelastet and can’t find a good English word for that.)

- Jesus was cool.

- Those helmets. Feathers!

- “Not even his nephew twice removed.” xDDD

- Is that paisley? *googles* It is. Nice!

- Just in case you’re wondering, I am typing this as I watch the movie. I’m not saying I’m not missing anything, but I like multitasking.

- *googles The last Supper* Wow, no cup.

- Genital symbols.

- Wombs open towards the ground, though. People with them aren’t constantly doing handstands.

- Have I mentioned one of my favorite movies is Dogma, which postulates that Jesus had siblings? I’m liking this conversation.

- “Companion meant spouse.” My gay ass likes this.

- If that is Mary Magdalene, though, which apostle is missing? Been wondering this for years.

- Scions. I like this.

- I’m all for sex positivity.

- Your time’s kinda running out, guys.

- Almost halfway through, now.

- Do you seriously believe they’re murderers?

- Why do you wear your police thingies like a blind man’s band?

- Was overall expecting a bit more running in this movie, I guess.

- Poor Sophie. This is a lot to take in.

- Beating someone up with crutches! Yas!

- Like, ouch.

- Do you happen to have a secret passage under your house? Would come in real handy.

- Oh, Zürich! Man, accents. Barely understood that.

- Frehehench.

- In my personal experience claustrophobic people aren’t generally fans of planes. That might just be me, though.

- Still don’t know Paul’s character’s name.

- We are leaving the country.

- That haircut. On the dude with the grumpy-looking monk.

- Does Jesus having a family beside his parents somehow make him less holy? *shrug*

- FRENCH.

- Police brutality?

- “Please”? Seriously? I understood that much and you’re a dick.

- This is, like, some Order of the White Lotus stuff.

- You need a mirror? You can’t read it otherwise? Huh. Well, I guess it’s just easier.

- I really like Lee.

- How many more ways can I angrily write French? (I don’t have anything against the language per se. I just don’t understand what they’re saying and that irks me. There aren’t even subtitles for that. I feel like there are supposed to be subtitles.)

- (It is nice, however, that they’re sticking to the languages they’d actually be speaking. I wonder if it’s all German in German.)

- Yo, police. Be more subtle. You could have laid a trap.

- “You can start with him.” Hm! xD

- “I could run them over.” !! Man, this is great.

- This is like a fucking magic trick.

- You know what, I wanna watch that again.

- The DVD did not like that, so now I get to look at the “pick scene” menu. At least there’s more nice music.

- Just out of curiosity… *checks* There are 24 chapters and I’m at the 16th.

- I can understand more French when I concentrate on it, but I’ve been too annoyed about it so far.

- Never had French at school, btw. But have a bit of a talent for languages. When it comes to those I can sometimes cobble meaning together from context and existing knowledge.

- “The French cannot be trusted”, sounds so ominous.

- As a fan of Angels & Demons, I am very interested in what the Vatican has to say about all this.

- Told ya we don’t like planes.

- Naww, Sophie. Arm pat, yas.

- How do you accidentally fall into a well feet first? Hmm…

- Saved by pigeons, wow.

- Paul’s eyes are super blue.

- Is he gonna get killed?

- What an old-ass phone.

- I’m worried about that newspaper.

- How they’re keeping the identity of the teacher secret is A+, shooting-wise.

- “Your identity shall go with me to the grave.” Did he know he was gonna die?

- Nice one!

- Is the second movie this long? *checks* Not quite.

- Seriously. Unnaturally blue eyes.

- Shoot-out.

- I can kinda see where Lee’s coming from. Don’t agree with the method, but…

- Did a shoulder-shot really kill him?

- See? Nope.

- I think I do kinda like the police captain.

- Have I mentioned my attraction to side characters?

- Oh, that tiny wound on her neck. I like the attention to detail.

- And those stained glass windows! Pretty.

- His mind! Wow.

- I wanna see this scene without music and special effects, though, to see what Sophie and Lee see. Must be pretty weird. xD

- Dramatic musiiiiic.

- Police captain coming through! Yas.

- Robert’s like “What is happening?”

- Man, those poor policemen with the screaming dude in the back of the car.

- Can’t resist a challenge, can you?

- It’s hecking dark behind that doorway.

- Can they get away with getting rid of all the villains half an hour before the movie’s over?

- Now she’s all Ghost Whisperer-like.

- I like the way it sounds when she calls him Robert.

- (Doing some more googling. Ah, it’s Leigh. I see.)

- Who are these guys? Something bad’s happening.

- Flashbacks and MORE FRENCH.

- Wonder if Robert and Sophie use the formal you in German. It wouldn’t fit.

- Sophie’s world is kinda falling apart.

- (She’s like Bethany in Dogma. Don’t know if anyone here even knows Dogma, but I love it.)

- Family reunion! Who put those onions here?

- See? Robert and I agree. Why should a family make Jesus less holy?

- I really like this friendship. I hope they’ll meet again.

- Checking if she can walk on water. xD

- Hey, it’s the Eiffel tower! And it’s playing light house.

- Blood.

- What? What is it?

- Wow.

- This music is real nice.

- 7 minutes of credits.

- Again, though: The music is nice.

#the da vinci code #robert langdon #dan brown #tom hanks #sophie neveu #long post is long

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deanssexplorations · 6 years

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Dean’s Signature Sex Moves

The other day I was thinking about some of the things I tend to gravitate toward in the bedroom, and realized that over the past couple of years I’ve developed a few “signature moves.”

So I thought I’d share.

These are not necessarily the things I like the best (Kristy pointed out that 69ing is not on this list, even though it feels amazing) nor that I do the most (see The Massage Fuck, which I’ve only done once or twice). Instead these are the things that I think if you were in the bedroom blindfolded with me and I did them, you might think to yourself “oh yeah, that’s so Dean.”

In fact, I told my friend Cynthia my idea for this post, and despite the fact that she and I have only had sex once, she successfully guessed four of the top five. I guess I’m more predictable than I thought!

In reverse order, here are the top six:

#6 - The Massage Fuck

Okay, I’ve been using back massages as a vehicle to get women naked since high school/college (with remarkable success, especially back then), and not coincidentally, I have learned to give a decent back massage. Which I’ll gladly extend to a full body massage on request. With oil and all. But that’s not exactly what I’m getting at here.

This particular move I’ve only done once or twice but I enjoyed it so much, and she seemed to as well, that I need to make it a more regular part of the repertoire. Basically I was giving one of my lovely lady friends a nice back massage, complete with oil, and enjoying the view of her beautiful, round ass. With my full-on erection gently rubbing between her butt cheeks.

So I decided to take it up a notch. I had her angle her ass up very slightly, and with her legs still together I straddled her thighs and inserted my cock into her waiting pussy. All the while continuing the back massage. Applying firm, sensual pressure to back, neck and shoulders. And at the same time fucking her, my cock sliding rhythmically in and out in long, leisurely strokes. It was super hot. I gotta do that one again soon.

‘Course, she seemed to like it quite a bit as well.

#5 - Pictures and Videos

This one is cheating, sort of, since it’s not a move or a position. But I do love taking pics and videos. Just about any picture from any angle is fun, but since I’m the one taking the pictures, I mostly take point of view stuff. Looking down at her pussy as my cock goes in and out. Pics of her tits as she cups them in her arms. Artfully arranged shots of her giving me a blow job with her face obscured just enough not to be sufficiently recognizable.

I do like mirrors. I’ve had several encounters lately with mirrored closet doors, which provides new angles for exploration.

I did have a fun offer in Beijing, which I have not yet written about, but it was a follow on to the German in Beijing story in which a Chinese girl offered to take videos of me and my German friend, Amelie. Unfortunately Amelie wasn’t into it so it never happened. And at one point my MFFFF was going to have a designated picture taker but the lineup changed and everyone ended up participating. Which was pretty darn good too. Beside, we still managed to take plenty of pictures.

The other cool thing about pictures and videos is once the encounter is documented, I get to relive the experience afterward. Who wouldn’t want to do that?

;-)

#4 - Cock on Clit

I was with Rachel, my friend in Israel. Taking a break between rounds of sex, she idly reached down and started rubbing my cock against her clit. Not really with any sort of purpose, just sort of playing around.

Needless to say, it was incredibly hot. And got me hard pretty quickly. And moved us along to the next round of sex. But I still remember that and how nice it felt, and I’ve started doing it a lot with my partners lately.

I’ll often do it while we’re fucking. I’ll pull out and instead of re-inserting my cock into her vagina, I’ll rub it up and down between her labial lips, the bottom of my cock rubbing against her clit. It seems to drive my partners crazy. Partly because I think it’s a huge tease, having my cock right there but not in her pussy. But I’m sure it feels pretty cool rubbing against her clit. And it hits a very sensitive spot on my cock, so enhances my pleasure as well.

Just the other day I drove myself and my partner to the brink of orgasm with that move alone, at the last minute moving my cock into her waiting pussy just in time for both of us to explode. It was great.

#3 - Edge of the Bed

Alright, this is a really big one for me. Anyone who knows me IRL will probably roll her eyes in agreement, and anyone who’s read enough of my blog will have come across this one before. My partner and I can be going at it, fucking away in the middle of the bed, and I’ll take her by the legs and move her to the edge, so her back and her butt are still on the bed, but her legs are sticking over the edge (or she can put them up on my arms or shoulders if she prefers).

I then stand on the floor and fuck her. Which is an amazing position. Most beds are around the right height for me to stand comfortably, and I can always adjust my height a bit by spreading my legs out or standing slightly on my toes. And it gives me incredible control. Over all sorts of stuff. The angle of penetration, depth (I can go a lot deeper with that one than most any other position), and pace.

And the icing on the cake is that I get a fantastic, bird’s-eye view. Starting with my lovely date’s face, down to her tits and stomach, all the way to her beautiful pussy, with my cock pounding away at it.

I’m not sure why this doesn’t seem to be one of the more common sex positions for most people. You should give it a try if it’s not part of your repertoire.

# 2 - Simultaneously Sucking and Licking Her Clit

This is another big one. I’ve always been a huge fan of cunnilingus. I feel it’s one of the most intimate things you can do with a woman, if not the most intimate. She’s completely opening herself up to you and it can be an intense source of pleasure for her. And it’s incredibly enjoyable to me.

There are a few things I like to do when going down on a woman. First and foremost I like to just take my time. It’s not a race; it’s a journey, and half of the fun is getting there. Beside, going slow teases her and (it seems) heightens the eventual payoff. Another thing I like to do is to insert a finger or two when I get to the point of licking her labia and clit her out. Simultaneous stimulation of her clit and vagina seems to go over well. These are both things I’ve done for many years.

One thing I’ve experimented with much more recently, however, and which both my partners and I seem to be enjoying, is to use suction to maximum advantage. When I eventually make my way to her clit, I usually start out in a fairly standard mode, with light pressure and lots of back and forth motion with my tongue. But when she’s well aroused, I’ll surround the area around her clit with my lips and apply gentle suction. I can feel her clit get more engorged and I can only imagine that the sensation she’s experiencing.

Then, while still applying suction, I like to resume the gentle back and forth motion with my tongue. This seems to deliver a double-whammy between the sucking and the licking. And if nothing else, it definitely exposes more of her clit to my tongue, allowing me to maximize that part of the experience.

I don’t know first hand what this sucking technique does to the experience of course, but it seems to be a real winner from what I can tell. And if my female friends enjoy themselves more, then I enjoy myself more. It’s a win all around. So I expect this one will continue to stay on Dean’s must-do list for a while!

#1 - Triple Defilement

This is the most recent addition to the mix, and is one I’m having a lot of fun with. With the amount of “sport fucking” I’ve done over the past five years or so, I often think that my partners didn’t want to be kissed while I was fucking them. That somehow it was too intimate. Like the fucking is fun, but kissing introduces a different level of intimate involvement.

But most of my FWBs are fabulous kissers, and I do love to kiss a woman. There are a few with whom I can spend an hour or more (or so it seems) just kissing and fucking them simultaneously. I started doing it with Wendy in particular, and enjoy it so much that I’ve started to do it with all my partners. And they seem to be enjoying it as much as I do.

And since we’re already kissing and fucking at the same time, which are two of the most intimate things you can do, I decided why not just go the rest of the way and grab her tit at the same time? Hence the move I think of as “triple defilement” - cock in her pussy, lips and tongues locked in intimate embrace, and my hand taking full advantage of her breasts. All at the same time.

I think of it as taking advantage of her three most intimate/erogenous zones all at the same time - pussy, mouth, and tits. It’s like she’s as exposed as it’s possible to me, every erotic area all laid bare and free for my taking. It gives me such a thrill. And best of all, my partners all seem to like it every bit as much as I do. Yet another win/win, and something I’ll definitely be using going forward.

Now, if I can just work on my flexibility so I can reach her ass with my foot...

#Dean's top sex moves #Giving away my trade secrets #You're welcome boys #Cynthia #Amelie #Rachel #Kristy #Wendy

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betweenthetimeandsound · 3 years

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Three Minutes to Eternity: My ESC 250 (#110-101)

(Also known as, the last set of songs before my top 100! Afterward, the write-ups will expand, and each song will have their own gif set of varying sizes. So less songs will appear in each section)

#110: Ani Lorak -- Shady Lady (Ukraine 2008)

“I've just turned one more page I belong to the stage Baby, don't call me baby”

Surprisingly, for such a beloved song, I didn't really get it at first. I came off of one listening believing it was just another pop song. It took a few watches of Ani's performance for everything to fall into place.

There’s so much sass in Shady Lady; the production to the lyrics click together to tell of a woman who not only leaves her lover, but seeks to become even greater than them. The mix of drum machine and strings add to this thumping dance number; I never fail in getting endeared with those head nods.

Ani sells with gusto, and the use of light boxes are incredible. She becomes an absolute superstar on stage, and has equal parts presence and vocals. No wonder a lot of people though this deserved to win.

Personal ranking: 4th/43 Actual ranking: 2nd/25 GF in Belgrade

#109: Knez -- Adio (Montenegro 2015)

“Još te ne dam maglama sa planina Još te ne dam vodama iz dubina A ti kažeš pusti me, živ mi bio Zaboravu predaj me, sad adio”

“I still don’t give you to the mists of the mountains I still don’t give you to the depths of the water And you ask me to let you go, forever To let you sink into oblivion and say goodbye”

The most recent of Zeljko’s compositions stands just as solid on its own, with its own melancholic string intro and beautiful soundscape. From the opening notes, you know of the story that is to come, which the lyrics painfully convey through beautiful images of rosemary, flowers, the sea and sky.

Not only that, but the build is absolutely graceful, with the key changes working effectively to build to a tragic crescendo. The staging plays well with this, going from a serene night to a bright red dawn. Despite the energy given out through the clapping and the eagle dance, Knez and his backing vocalists still convey the pain of leaving.

And if you look closely, you can find his daughter, Kszenija, amongst them. Six years later she would end up representing Serbia in this year's contest, albeit going "Loco loco" with her bandmates!

Personal ranking: 5th/40 Actual ranking: 13th/27 GF in Vienna

#108: Aliona Moon -- O mie (Moldova 2013)

“Între soare și ploi se nasc mii de culori Dar noi vedem doar nori”

“Between sun and rain, thousands of colours are born But we only see clouds”

Moldova is usually known for their wacky, fun performances, but O mie shows they could slow down a bit without losing their quirks. Even the songwriter, Pasha Peferny, takes a hard turn from his cute 2012 entry, Lautar (which you should still check out, by the way!)

The beautiful lyrics really stand out, which show equal parts whimsy and light. I like the use of colors and nature to convey the ambiguity and loss at the end of a relationship. While meant to be sent in English, it's good they went for Romanian in the end--it's a beautiful language, and we have a dirth of good Romanian-language songs in Eurovision (please, more of them!).

While the staging was a bit messy at times, especially with multiple dancers helping Aliona in telling, the song still shines through with Aliona’s sweet vocals and beautiful melody. Also, it took a while for me to note how her glowing dress arose at the bridge, haha.

Personal ranking: 4th/39 Actual ranking: =11th/26 GF in Malmo

#107: Nina Sublatti -- Warrior (Georgia 2015)

“I’m a warrior, isolated World gonna get up and see!”

While the lyrics are a bit simplistic (especially with the random , Warrior is badassery personified. The instrumentation (refined in Sweden) amplifies the intensity of the song and its message; the opening drums gives way to a dark pop soundscape with equal parts starkness and power.

Nina maintains a resolute stance--not only in the studio cut, but also in the live performance. The dark costuming transforms her into a modern-day warrior of sorts, and the LED imagery enhances the intensity. Notably, the GF performance featured a malfunctioning smoke machine; the smoke obscured NIna and we couldn't see her for a few shots. Doesn't take away from the rest of the performance, which shows her in a much clearer light.

Also, she did mention the song was dedicated to the Georgian people--not only to become strong women, but also against the Russian occupation in the north. Intriguing political message, my friend.

Personal ranking: 4th/40 Actual ranking: 11th/27 GF in Vienna

#106: Loïc Nottet - Rhythm Inside (Belgium 2015)

“Be you enemy or lover? We are put here to discover...”

(One minor thing about this is how Loic kind of reminds me of Julian Quintart from Abnormal Summit--not only because of their backgrounds, but how the former is dressed. haha)

Rhythm Inside is very cool, albeit timed art pop piece really showed Belgium’s strengths in the mid 2010s. The song is minimalistic and slick, with an ambiguous message detailing the processes of life. While really cool, sometimes it can rub me off because of how cold it can become. Art pop is great, but it has to engage too.

The performance is just as refined, if a bit odd, and Loic announces himself to Europe with his skills in music and choreography. He and his backing vocalists create a pointed performance which is equally minimalist and yet fills up the stage. Very modern and cool.

Beyond the contest, Loic has had a good music career, and I've actually followed a few of his songs. Check out 29 especially; the way he sings it is so heartwrenching.

Personal ranking: 3rd/40 Actual ranking: 4th/27 GF in Vienna

#105: Pernilla Karlsson -- När Jag Blundar (Finland 2012)

“Som en sjö utan vatten, som en lykta utan ljus Ett liv utan färger, det är inte du Nå’n man ser då man blundar, som en ängel framför Nå’n som hjälper en och flyga då man glömt hur man gör”

“Like a sea without water, like a lantern without light A life without colours – that’s not you Someone you see when you close your eyes, like an angel before you Someone who helps you to fly when you’ve forgotten how to”

Nar jag blundar is notable for being the only song sung in Swedish since the language rule was dropped (because Finland has a Swedish-speaking minority there). It's a pity because Swedish is a beautiful language to sing in, with its accents and how it flows in music.

Beyond that, Pernilla’s song for her mother is so tender, with poetic lyrics and a sweet charm about it. The images used in there, assuring how her mother is so special and how she's the best, really touches my heart (hi mom, I love you!) and adds a sense of innocence in it.

The staging also adds to the grace; despite Pernilla's initial hesitation, it grows into a beautiful package with a nice orange-turquoise contrast and a pretty use of the wind machine in the first chorus. While I do understand how it might have not stood out, it's definitely one of the least deserved NQs of all-time.

(Also, Finland was the only Nordic to NQ that year?! That's a shame...)

Personal ranking: 3rd/42 Actual ranking: DNQ -- 12th in the first semi-final in Baku

#104: Hadise -- Dum Tek Tek (Turkey 2009)

"Angel, I wake up And live my dreams endlessly"

Definitely one of the more notable ethno-bops in the late 2000s, Dum Tek Tek is known for its simple structure, but good use of drums and guitar really lift this piece up. It's a bit more produced than what was offered earlier in the decade, but still holds its own.

The frequent "dum tek tek" in the refrain is quite curious; for a while I thought it actually meant something, but it turned out to be a heartbeat. Still a fun way to put it, though!

The staging is quite well done; I liked the choreography and how Hadise played with the camera. However, her backing vocalists had to help her quite a bit in the singing, because she fell ill during contest week and it showed in the vocals. The fourth place might be a bit over-the-top, but it's still enjoyable.

Personal ranking: 7th/42 Actual ranking: 4th/25 GF in Moscow

#103: Paula Seling & Ovi - Playing With Fire (Romania 2010)

“You and I could try to stop – uh boy, till you drop If we get together now, we'll burn this place down!”

A (tapping at the top of the piano): You certainly look nice tonight. B: Thanks; but I got the skirt from a friend and I need to make sure nothing spills on it.

(At that moment, A twirls around and puts his hand on B's shoulder. She stiffens before relaxing and places her fingers gingerly on A's wrist. A sudden beat)

B: I thought I told you that I needed to keep the skirt clean! A: Then why did you want to dress up like that tonight? (Beat) B: Well I wanted to go out later to a bar? A: In this climate? (sighs) B: Don't tell me you have something else in mind...

If Eurovision decides to do a jukebox musical, then Playing with Fire has to be one of the main songs in it. There's so much tension between the duo; one could make a bunch of plot points ranging from illicit affairs to a first crush and everything else in between. And then it all explodes.

On stage, the chemistry between Paula and Ovi is absolutely infectious. This adds to this dramatic bop, with flirtatious lyrics that are simultaneously fun and witty; they tease and shout at the same time. The instrumentation is dramatic (though it took me a while to appreciate the transition between the verses and the chorus), and I love the piano motif that persists throughout. Paula’s high note is fantastic; it can pierce through the transparent piano and through the stage itself. Such a dynamic duo!

Personal ranking: 3rd/39 Actual ranking: 3rd/25 GF in Oslo

#102: Koza Mostra feat. Agathon Iakovidis -- Alcohol is Free (Greece 2013)

“Μεσοπέλαγα φανάρι Ρε μας πήρανε χαμπάρι Ποιος το πήγε το σπιτάκι μου μακριά, μακριά;”

“There’s a lantern in the middle of the sea Dude, we were found out Who took my little house far away, far away?”

If you remember my commentary under Opa! (#207), the Greek economic crisis impacted the country significantly. At the time of this entry, there were different negotiations about how to handle Greece's debt; when that fell through, it looked like Greece was going to leave the European Union. By the time the 2013 contest ended, the Greek public TV station, ERT, shut down for two years.

Alcohol is Free tries to describe this chaos through a number of metaphors, ranging from mermaids to whisky and everything else in between. The exclamation mark to Greece’s golden era not only has silly lyrics, but also mixes their usual ethnic sound (with rebetiko) with ska to create a very vibrant concoction. It’s a definite spark of energy whether it’s just to brighten up a day or running around with actual alcohol! (though this blog does not condone underage drinking, driving under the influence, or pressuring people to drink alcohol. Be responsible.)

Personal ranking: 3rd/39 Actual ranking: 6th/26 GF in Malmo

#101: Anouk -- Birds (Netherlands 2013)

“If being myself is what I do wrong, then I don’t want to be right...”

When Anouk volunteered as tribute to represent the Netherlands, she was coming off after eight years of non-qualifications and with quite a bit of pressure. Birds was a little bit different from her regular discography (which I should really do a deep-dive on), and people thought it wouldn't work. Well, here's why it did.

The lyric is very hard-hitting, in terms of substance and how dark it is. I don't know exactly what Birds discusses about, but it ranges from just another relationship to suicide. I’m particularly intrigued by the dark nature of this song; the harp flourishes really toe the line in dreaminess--is it a dream, or a nightmare? However, I find it a bit cold sometimes.

Thanks to her experience, Anouk sells this really well on stage, with her soft, relaxed composure and the bird graphics creating a calm atmosphere. The flag-waving, which is a deriment towards other songs (including one coming up in the top 100), actually works towards keeping that serene nature, despite the dark undertones. And the bridge gives me all the chills; I can't help but sing along to that part.

The result? The Netherlands' first qualification and a route through which, after six years, they finally won again.

Personal ranking: 2nd/39 Actual ranking: 9th/26 GF in Malmo

#eurovision song contest #eurovision #esc 250 #esc top 250 #esc ukraine #esc montenegro #esc moldova #esc georgia #esc belgium #esc finland #esc turkey #esc romania #esc greece #esc netherlands #three minutes to eternity

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littlemisskookie · 7 years

Text

Sound the Alarms: 08

Sound the Alarms: 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 Ship: Jungkook | Reader ~ Jungkook | Seulgi Description: You were in love with Jeon Jungkook since you were 14, but made the mistake of introducing him to your best friend at 16. Now you’ve slept with him at 19, and it appears that fate isn’t done screwing you over when it comes to your two best friends. Warning: Angst, Self-Harm, Mentions fo Suicide, Oral, Intercourse, Slight Dirty Talk, Cumplay, Orgasm Denial, Overstimulation Word Count: 6,494

Five Years Ago

It was a small and cramped space, and extremely dusty. You were only 14 at the time, and small enough to wiggle between the metal of the vents' walls. You had to complete some stupid dare from one of your friends, and already you wanted out. You never turned down a challenge back then, and somehow they helped hoist you up while the teacher was away.

You were supposed to end up in the boy's bathrooms, where a friend was waiting to catch you as confirmation that you completed the dare. It was for $500, and you definitely needed the money for whatever stupid things you could get at 14. Somehow the large group each pooled in the large sum of money, and you were the first to volunteer to win it, resulting in you accomplishing the first dare at hand.

It was certainly cold here, which you didn't expect. Maybe that's why classrooms were always so frigid. Your knees felt as though they were rubbed raw against the metal, and your skin was sticky and sweaty. You followed the directions of your friends, who told you their best estimates for the way to the men's restroom. This was the last direction, for you to simply turn left, the second vent below you.

Or was it right?

You chose to go right instead, crawling to the second and looking down. You could spot the top of a boy's head, and you automatically assumed you were right and began lifting the gate that both obscured your view and blocked the exit. Once it was out of the way you gripped the ledge, slowly lowering yourself down, hoping that the boy would've noticed and prepared to catch you.

The metal of the gate ends up slipping past, landing right in front of the boy, making a loud clattering noise and alerting him of your presence. It isn't until he looks up, getting a view straight up your uniform skirt, that you realize this was a complete stranger in the hallway. You should've gone left.

Your grip slips, and you fall on top of him, luckily using his very human-type body as a pillow to break your fall. You groan out in pain, rolling off of him and onto the floor, your cheeks burning red. "Oh, crap!" you exclaimed. "Oh, I'm so, so sorry!"

"Ohh, fuck," the boy groaned out, sprawled across the floor as he rubs his head and face. "What on Earth?"

One of the nearby classroom doors swings open, the infuriated face of a middle-aged woman peeking out to see what the ruckus was about. Her eyes landed on the two of you, spotting the metal on the ground, and gasping as her eyes trailed up to the ceiling. Her nose scrunched, eyes blazing as she marched over to the two of you. "Why, I never! You two, trying to get into the vents I see? Detention! You ought to both be expelled!"

It was silent in the detention room, oddly enough only you and Jungkook were the ones in class. The teacher- who just so happened to be the same middle-aged lady- spent most of the time simply glaring at the two of you, who had earned three weeks worth of detention. You were flustered and embarrassed, a switch from the collected, cool image you tried to showcase.

You were so embarrassed, you wanted to grab a gun and shoot yourself with it, pulling the trigger to 'pew pew' your brains out.

You knew who this boy was, now that you recognized him. He was in a few classes of yours, but he was so cute, you never really got the nerve to talk to him. Mainly because he was in a different circle from you. Jeon Jungkook. Little did you know then how much the name would come to mean to you.

You didn't know whether or not he knew who you were, but you were sure that after this he would. You were extremely sorry for dragging him into this mess and considered giving him part of the $500 you earned, since the boy who was supposed to catch you heard the noise and spied the following events from the bathroom, proving that, in a sense, you had accomplished the task you were given. Sure, you got caught, but regardless you did sneak through the vents.

You expected Jungkook to throw you glares the entire time, but instead, you were thrown curious glances, and it made your cheeks glow rosy and your eyes bore intently into your desk, as though it were speaking the country's secrets and if you dared to tear your eyes away it'd blow up on the spot.

The minute the old crone watching you fell asleep, you looked over to Jungkook, beginning to profusely apologize through hushed whispers. "I am so, so, so so sorry!" you apologized. "It was a stupid stunt, and I didn't mean to land on you, I swear. Much less drag you into this."

"It's alright," Jungkook assured you, a warm smile on his face.

"No, it's not," you shook your head. "Now we've got detention for like three weeks. I swear I tried explaining to her you had nothing to do with it, but the old bat refused to listen."

Jungkook snickered at that, his mouth covering his smile. The teacher snorted in her sleep, making the two of you freeze up and stay still, but her snores continued.

"I'm really sorry," you apologized again. "Is there any way I can make it up to you?"

The boy hummed quietly. "There is one way."

Please don't be one of those perverts who suggests sex.

"What is it?" you asked hesitantly.

"Be friends with me," the boy smiled nervously.

You blinked in response, stunned. "Oh dear God I think I made you hit your head too hard when I landed on you," you murmured.

"It's okay if you don't want to," the boy chuckles sheepishly, scratching the back of his head.

"No, no, I want to," you say immediately, earning a smile from the boy. "I just mean... I just landed you in a lot of trouble, why would you want to be friends with me?"

The boy shrugged, licking his lips as he grinned to you. "It's not every day a girl falls on you from the ceiling. I'm unashamed to admit I'm intrigued."

You scoffed, a smile stretching on your own lips. "And this is how I'll make it up to you?"

"It's the only way," Jungkook smiled. Your eyes locked with his, and you noted how beautiful his were, trapping the stars and galaxy in the dark spheres, and you were immediately stunned. How could someone keep the night sky behind their irises?

"Then I guess I have to," you grinned.

Four Years Ago

It had been one year since you started being friends with Jungkook, and you had not expected that you'd fall for him hard and quick. He was quickly becoming one of the closest people to you, and at 15, even you realized how often you'd get caught up in his starry eyes and youthful looks.

But loving Jungkook was hard. He had a new girlfriend every other month, and you were the one who more often than not had to whisper in his ear the way to their hearts because Jungkook's love was brief and short. You didn't feel threatened necessarily because you knew it'd end sooner or later, and Jungkook didn't usually stay with the same girl for long. But it hurt, knowing that no matter how many girls he'd quickly look to, he never seemed to look your way.

You were crying about this to your childhood friend, someone who went through hell with you and back, and you were weeping on her shoulder in her bedroom, sobbing to yourself as she rubbed your back comfortingly, the room filling with a song she always played to keep you calm. You were outright sobbing like the school girl you were over a high school crush, but you couldn't help yourself. Your body wracked with sobs, and you were a pathetic mess. Seulgi was patient though, keeping you in her arms and humming along with the music.

You had told her you were in love with a boy who never seemed to look your way, choosing not to reveal his name, for that would perhaps make you cry even harder. He was like a little secret to you, and Seulgi didn't have to know his name to understand your pain.

"Shh, it's alright," she cooed comfortingly, rubbing your arm soothingly. "The boy must be blind not to look your way. What idiot wouldn't? Trust me, he'll turn around eventually. And if he doesn't, who needs him?"

You scoffed, sniffling. "I don't know. I... It's hard, you know? I try but he's always there."

"Maybe you should look in some other directions," Seulgi suggested. "What about that guy from your math class you said asked you out?"

You grimaced. "That guy uses so much gel in his hair, comb your hand through it much and you'll have all the lube you need."

Seulgi laughed hard at that, her joyous laughter filling the room and making you feel slightly better. "Ooh, harsh, Y/N. Real harsh."

"I wish you went to my school," you sighed. "You'd know what to do."

"So do I, but you know how I have to go to private school," Seulgi winced. "Not fun, trust me. But if I could be there with you, I would in a heartbeat, Y/N."

You smiled, wiping away the tears that were starting to dry. "Thanks, Seulgi. You always know just what to say."

"Girls?" a woman called outside the door, following with a few knocks. "Seulgi, it's time to take your medicine."

Seulgi closed her eyes, sighing as she looked to the door. "Come in, Mom."

The woman walked in, handing Seulgi the pills and a glass of water, her eyes looking at your puffy ones. "Oh, dear, are you alright? Did I intrude at a bad time?"

"No, ma'am," you said, rubbing your eyes a bit. "I'm fine now, thank you."

"Well, I'm glad Seulgi could help, and if you need anything dear, I'm always here," the woman smiled, taking the glass from Seulgi. "It's nice you girls are still so close. I hope you stay together for a very long time. They say when you're friends for over 7 years, there's a big chance you could be friends for the rest of your life."

"We already plan on it, Mom," Seulgi grins, turning to you. "Isn't that right, Y/N?"

"Of course," you grin back. "I'll be by your side forever."

Present Day

You thought over the memories, of how you came to be friends with Jungkook, and of all the times Good Seulgi shone through. You were busy swiping through the pictures on your phone, two in particular. The one with Jungkook's swollen cheeks, and your own with the bruise on your jaw.

You thought back to when it all started. To when you first introduced Jungkook to Seulgi, to when you first slept with him, and to all of the disasters that quickly followed. The question was, were you sorry for them? Were you sorry for introducing Jungkook to his future abuser, and yet the woman he loved? Were you sorry for sleeping with him, making his abuse even worse, and yet opening a whole new light? Were you sorry for any of the actions that lead to where you were today?

Had you made one different step, perhaps Jungkook wouldn't even want to be with you. Perhaps he wouldn't even be friends with you still. Perhaps you'd still be with Seulgi, taking snide comments when she was feeling particularly snotty. Perhaps you'd go back to your mundane life, and nothing would really be able to brighten your day. If you hadn't slept with Jungkook, perhaps you'd have never found out about his real relationship.

The what ifs seemed to fill your mind, but you knew it was no use. It wouldn't change the past, it wouldn't affect the future, and it would do nothing for the present. Perhaps it was time for you to stop wondering about scenarios and actually making it happen. For you to stop dwelling on the past and appreciate the present for what it is, all while looking to the future.

The question is, where did you see everyone? Did you see Jungkook with you, despite all you two had experienced? Did you picture yourself still with Seulgi, staying by her side and being her best friend still?

You wondered what Jungkook would think of what you were doing right now. Continuously he went on about how he didn't want to harm her in any way, not to get her in trouble despite how poorly she treated him, all because he loved her. And now he was trapped in a situation he couldn't get out of because she was paranoid and threatening to harm herself.

You remembered how tired he was that night, the star in his eyes dimming down to a dull haze, blurring in the same way that traffic lights would when you take off your glasses. Still there, still bright, but not as clear.

You knew that even if he couldn't forgive you for this, you had to do it. You loved him and wanted to protect him. And ultimately, a part of you that you couldn't deny wanted to protect her too. From herself.

And with that thought echoing into your mind, you walked into the police station.

Your hands were stuffed in your pockets, staring at the police car at the building Seulgi resided in. It had been about fifteen minutes. Where was she?

A car swerved in, rushing close before parking near you, and a figure hopped out. Jungkook ran by your side, his eyes wide and breath heavy. "I got a call from Seulgi, she said policemen were at her door, did you-"

"Yes," you answered immediately. "I'm not sorry for it. They can help her, talk to her. In cases of emergency, they have policemen who will bring you to the station to talk to you about your problems, like suicide. So I told everything."

Jungkook was silent for a few seconds, his eyes boring into the police car. "She's hurt herself," he whispered. "She kept screaming it into the phone how I betrayed her, calling the police, and saying how she'd slit her wrists until she bled out, all over the carpet. She hung up once they entered..."

Your heart was beating fast, feeling distraught as your stomach twisted in pure guilt and uneasiness. "Maybe they got to her in time," you whispered optimistically, praying for the best. "We can't give up hope."

To your horror, you saw an ambulance pulling up, quickly parking behind the police car, and you saw the figures of the paramedics rush into the building. It was absolutely terrifying, and your legs were already shaking, and you began to collapse, though Jungkook caught you before you could hit the floor. He supported you, bringing you to stand and holding onto you firmly, his eyes wide. "Y/N? Y/N!"

"I killed her," you whispered. "I killed my best friend."

"You didn't," Jungkook protested. "Listen to me, you did what was right. We don't know if she's dead, alright? Y/N, stay with me."

You shook your head, tears spilling from the corners of your eyes as you stared at the doors, waiting for the paramedics to carry out a stretcher of the girl's dead body. "What was I thinking? What have I done? I've killed her, Jungkook, what have I done?"

"Y/N, Y/N please," Jungkook pleaded. "Everything's going to be alright, do you hear me? Seulgi's going to survive, and she's going to get the help she needs, and you and I will be alright. We've got each other, don't we? We'll stay by each other's side."

"Yes," you whispered. "We have each other."

You said the same thing to Seulgi. And now look what's happened.

You saw figures come in, bringing out a body on the stretcher, and you whimpered, turning to Jungkook and sobbing into his shirt. It was unbearable, and you couldn't look to see the sight. You squeezed your eyes shut, hot tears flowing down your cheeks to be absorbed in your shirt.

Jungkook rubbed your back, hugging you tightly as he murmured soft nothings in your ear, and you knew he was squeezing his eyes shut as well. You glanced back, lights flashing in your vision, and already you felt yourself beginning to faint, vision fading at the sight as you collapsed in Jungkook's arms.

The last thing you heard was the sirens.

6 Months Later

First and foremost, Seulgi survived.

She had slit her wrists with so many cuts she was starting to bleed out, and she was absolutely hysterical when the police barged in. When they saw what she was doing, they immediately called the ambulance and refrained her. She was losing so much blood, she fainted.

She was put in the hospital for a while and then moved to a mental hospital. From what you knew, she got a new prescription and was going to therapy often, though you hadn't seen her since the incident. You were glad she was doing better though, at least that's what you could assume.

You and Jungkook had healed over time, and though scarred by the events as you were, the two of you helped each other cope through comforting each other and therapy. You took things slow, letting yourselves heal and be there for each other as friends before you finally acted on the simmering romance between you two after three months.

Dating Jungkook was surreal. It was as though it wasn't quite reality, finally having the boy as your own. It was like a hazy dream, and after living the hellish nightmare, it was definitely something that you slipped into with absolute grace, giving your all by wanting to give him the love he didn't get from Seulgi.

It was as though he was still your best friend, joking with you, laughing, hanging out and goofing off. You two already knew each other's secrets, and you'd often hang out in ways that felt like the older days. The difference was how you'd wear his hoodies, sometimes getting matching couples shirts. How you two would kiss each other fondly and how the intimacy and bonds felt stronger than before.

Most of all how the stars in his eyes seemed to shine brighter than ever before when he looked at you.

Once in a while, you two would discuss previous events, though it always put a rather down aura as the memories washed over you two. But you didn't ignore it, or suppress it, but rather accepted what happened and its effects, moving on day by day.

And, of course, the sex was far better than ever before.

After a long day, the two of you decided to go out for a nice, fancy dinner, though frankly, you would've been fine with eating at a fast food restaurant any day. You decided to make things more interesting by playing footsie under the table, teasing him with a devilish smile as you seductively ate your food, making sure to make the small hums and moans provocative enough to give him the message you were turned on, but quiet enough that no one else would notice.

It wasn't until the point your foot went all the way up to rub his crotch that he called over for the check, and within minutes he was quickly ushering you past the tables and to the car.

And here you were now, with your back slamming against the mattress, and his large hands already riding up your skirt, pushing the fabric off of you. It was peeled off within seconds, discarded to the floor to be forgotten for the night.

Jungkook's lips sucked against your neck, nipping harshly at the delicate skin to form bruises you were sure would pop by morning. You groaned at his effort, hips grinding against his. He quickly took off his shirt to reveal his toned chest, though you didn't have much time to marvel at it because he was already unbuckling his belt and slipping off both his trousers and boxers, completely bare as he climbed on top of you again.

Your arms locked around his neck, pulling him in and closing your eyes, letting his tongue dance with yours. He breaks away, his chest panting as his hands come to slip your underwear off, slowly dragging it down your legs. "You think it was funny teasing me?" he questions. "Because I can assure you, there won't be anything to laugh at in a few minutes."

His promise added pressure to your lower stomach, jolts of arousal going to your heat. Jungkook slipped the underwear all the way down your legs, discarding it to the floor before the cold pads of his fingertips made contact with your clit, rubbing it in circles that had your back arch into his touch. He lowered himself, instead letting his mouth suck tenderly on the small nub, and slipping two fingers inside of you, making scissoring motions.

You moaned softly, loving the feeling as his tongue swiped through your folds, lapping up your arousal as it started to coat his chin and mouth. You mewled in delight, and he decided to add a third finger, stretching you out as he began to pump the digits against your walls.

"You can barely take three fingers," he remarked, letting his lips detach from your clit. "What if we try four?"

"Fuck," you let out, his dirty talk making your stomach twist. After sleeping with each other continuous times after you two became official, he seemed to notice how much the dirty talk turned you on. He was much more comfortable with all of the sexual acts, and the fact it was so lewd and dirty made your mind spin.

"I'll be nice," Jungkook laughs, meaning that he wouldn't follow up on the suggestion. Tonight. He sucked at your clit again, pumping his fingers and curling them every so often. The coil in your lower stomach was threatening to snap, and your mewls and cries were getting a bit louder, and you felt your orgasm begin to approach.

Your fingers curled into the bedsheets, and Jungkook took it as a sign that you were close. He pulled away, slipping his fingers out of your heat and looking at you in pride, licking off your arousal from his lips. You felt the orgasm die down, and you gave him a shocked look, glaring at him. "Jungkook!" you exclaimed.

"You know I'll make it up to you," he chuckled.

You had to admit that was true. You rolled your eyes, smiling as you tried to slip off the bed to get on your knees, knowing how much he loved bucking into your mouth, but he stopped you. "I don't want to waste time on that today. I need to be inside of you," he says, climbing onto the bed with you.

You bit your lip, his words turning you on more than you'd typically like to admit. "How do you want me?" you purred.

"Spread your legs and I'll show you," he grinned. You followed his commands, and he hooked your legs around his arms, lifting them up as he got on his knees. Your rear was raised off the bed and into the air, and Jungkook positioned himself where your rear was pressed directly against his erection, the lower half of you off the bed as only your head, upper back, and arms supported you, pressing into the pillows and mattress. Jungkook aligned himself with your entrance, letting the juices coat the head before he pushed into you.

He began pounding into you, the hollow sound of his thighs slamming into your ass as he continuously rammed himself into you. Your hands flew to your clit, vigorously rubbing it and sending jolts of electricity through the nervous system. Jungkook gave quick and rapid thrust, grunts spilling from his lips as he continued to slam himself into you, just the way you like.

It wasn't long before the coil formed again, pressure building up in your lower stomach. With each thrust his hips made you whined, letting out whimpers and moans that were impossible to contain. Jungkook's thrusts were getting harder and harder and had his arms not been holding your legs in place in the air on either side of him, you'd have flown off him by now.

You were surprised when he reached over, grabbing a pillow and tossing it on the floor beside the bed. He grips on tightly to your legs, swinging you around where he was now standing, and you panicked, only to find the top of your head pressing against the pillow on the floor. It had been a while since you tried out this position, but you remember how great it was.

The blood was rushing to your head as Jungkook rocked back into you, and your body was moving rhythmically with his. His cock moving against your walls was a feeling you relished, loving how full he made you feel, and your moans were getting breathy as you started coming close to your orgasm, fingers going faster and harder to add pressure to the small nub. Your other hand was on the floor, helping to stabilize yourself, though you trusted Jungkook not to let go of you.

Jolts of pleasure spread from your core as you reached euphoria, your orgasm washing over you as you let out opened mouthed cries of relief, the tingling sensation making your mind feel blissed-out. Perhaps it was the blood that was flowing to your head, or from how Jungkook continued to slam into you, that made the orgasm so intense.

Jungkook dragged you back up, and you grabbed the pillow as he hoisted you back onto the mattress. It was thrown back on the sheets, and Jungkook flipped you over to where your legs were on either side of it, and Jungkook firmly pressed his hand against your back, pressing you down where your face was in the mattress.

"You can't see me, can you?" Jungkook asks in a breathy voice. "Guess you won't know when I'll slam into you then, huh?"

He spreads your cheeks wide, mesmerized by the view, and you whined, wanting to buck your hips back into his. You felt something poking at your entrance, and let out a gasp as he plunged into your heat, not even hesitating to pick up the fast pace again. His pelvis continuously slammed into your ass, his sweaty thighs slapping against your own. Your body rocked back and forth, and you were humping the pillow, your clit rubbing against the fabric, and you cringed from the delightful overstimulation.

Jungkook's hands kept you pinned down, not allowing you to move as he rocked your body back and forth. The bed shook with his thrusts, the squeaks intertwined with your muffled moans as you felt a delightful high reaching once again.

It was getting near, and now that the overstimulation was dying and your pleasure was starting to take over from your humping the pillow and Jungkook's harsh and aggressive thrusts, the orgasm was definitely building up once again.

"I love you," Jungkook grunted, panting out the words as he thrust repeatedly into you. "I love you, I love you, I love you."

You wanted to stop letting your words and moans drown into the sheets and ask him What? but the high was overtaking you, and your entire body was shaking as you experienced your second orgasm of the night, legs shaking as he pounded you out through your high, chasing his own.

His staccato grunts were speeding up, deep and gravely as they were, and soon enough you knew he was getting close. "I'm coming," he panted out, and shortly after you felt the hot liquid spill into you, and you moaned out at the sensation. Jungkook continued to go through his high, and you knew one of his favorite things was to watch both his and your own fluid coat his cock as he continued using you, and soon he pulled out.

His fingers gathered any of the liquid that was already starting to drip out, scooping it up before pushing them back into your heat. "Keep it there," he says, his voice deep and raspy as he gathers the rest, storing them in your heat.

You roll over once he's done, your chest rising up and down as you tried to catch your breath. You watched as Jungkook put the fingers in his mouth, staring at you darkly as the digits entered his hot cavern.

"Did you mean it?" you question. "That you love me? As in romantically?"

"I do," Jungkook admits. "I love you so much. I'm in love with you Y/N, and it might be too soon in our relationship to say this in some eyes, but I feel like I should've said it long ago."

You smile, grinning as you pulled him in, pressing your lips against his. "I love you, too."

He smiled against your lips, his eyes devilish and twinkling as he traveled down your body again to eat you out for the second time, though this time with his own cum inside.

One Year After Seulgi's Departure

"She wants to see you?" Your eyes were wide. "It's been a year since we've seen her, why now? Are you sure this is a good idea? Is she... healthy right now?"

"She wants to see you too," Jungkook adds. "Though, I think separately. I don't know, you can check the texts if you'd like."

"That's fine, I believe you," you say. You knew he was rather uncomfortable with handing someone his phone to look through, especially because of how often Seulgi used to check it back when they were dating. He wasn't hiding anything, but there was still the unsettling fear that he experienced each time she looked through, and you knew better than to do it. Besides, you trusted him. "But what'd she say?"

"It was just a random text saying she'd like to catch up for coffee, and perhaps have some closure with both of us," Jungkook says, staring down at his phone. "I don't have to if you want. It's okay if you don't want to either, I know it might be difficult."

"I mean, are you going to be okay though?" you ask him softly. "She is your abuser. Are you sure this would be healthy?"

Jungkook pauses for a moment. "I think it'd be nice to get some closure. To make sure she's alright, to fill in the blanks, to answer some unanswered questions. I think I've spent enough time away to heal, especially with you. I think I can handle it, can you?"

"I think I can," you sigh. "I'll wait in the car or something as it happens, and then I'll see her once you're done. She was my best friend, and I'd like to know she's doing better now."

"Then it's settled," Jungkook says. He stares down at the glowing screen on his phone, the words of the text being embedded into his mind. "We'll see her."

"Thanks for agreeing to meet up," Seulgi comments as they sit down, drinks in hand. "I... know it can be difficult, especially considering everything that happened."

"I'll cope," Jungkook says. He wasn't going to lie and say 'it's alright' or 'no trouble' because frankly, it was a lot harder for him than it seemed. "How have you been doing? What happened after you were... escorted?"

Seulgi's mouth goes small, and she takes a small sip of her coffee. "Well, I was put in the hospital to heal and questioned extensively. They said you didn't want to press charges or anything, and considering the situation and the fact you and Y/N apparently didn't want me to go to jail, they decided to send me to the mental hospital instead."

"And did it work out?" he questioned. "Y/N heard something about a new prescription and you going to therapy."

Seulgi nods in confirmation. "Where is Y/N by the way?"

"She'll come after I leave, we both wanted to get separate closure," Jungkook confirms.

"Ah," she says, sipping on her coffee. "I see. That's fine, I understand. I understand you also have some questions?"

"Er, yes," Jungkook admits.

"Ask away."

Jungkook waits a few seconds, hesitant to ask the question. "Was it ever real?"

Seulgi understands what he means. "It was at first. I fell hard for you Jungkook, I'll admit that. But it morphed into a need to always have you choose me first, to be the priority, and for the sense of being in control and idolized. I started depending on keeping you in control to feel as though I was in control of everything else. Once I started losing you, I felt as though I was losing control of everything else. It was no excuse for my actions of course, but that's what happened."

"So you thought of me as your property to boost your ego?" Jungkook questioned.

Seulgi's brows furrow and she licks her lips. "To put it simply... yes. I had the mindset that a girl should keep tabs and control of her boyfriend at all times because otherwise, he'd cheat. And once my fears came true, I became a paranoid mess obsessed with establishing what's mine. I didn't think you belonged with me anymore, but rather to me."

Jungkook nodded in understanding of her twisted previous reasoning. "Do you regret what you did?"

"Every day," Seulgi admits. "I know what I did was wrong, and that there's nothing I can do to change it, but I am truly sorry for my actions back then. I'm sorry."

Jungkook nods, sighing to himself. "You're forgiven," he says. He couldn't say it was okay, or that all was forgotten because it was far from the truth. But forgiving the people who wronged you is a step towards moving on and maturity.

"I wasn't in the right mindset back then," Seulgi murmured quietly. "I let my mental disorder swallow me whole until I was just pure anger and rage. It never suited me well."

"Well, the important thing is that you're okay now," Jungkook says.

"I am," Seulgi smiled, though the smile itself is small and weak. "I've gotten better and accepted who I am while trying to change for the better. I'm glad the therapy and medicine worked, and I think the reason I pushed it away before was because I didn't think I was myself with them, and that I didn't need them to function properly. It really took a toll on me."

"And you're keeping up with them?" he asks.

"Of course," she says. "Have you gotten any help from the incident?"

He nods. "Me and Y/N both go to therapy nowadays. It's helped a lot, frankly, and it's made us a lot happier in the long run."

"Are you two together now?"

Jungkook nods again. "We have been for about three months now."

"That's good," Seugli says, though she doesn't smile. Her voice sounds far away, as though she were murmuring off in the distance instead of to the boy a few feet in front of her. "I'm glad you two are making each other happy."

"Yeah," Jungkook mumbles. "So am I."

You spin the straw around in your cup, trying to avoid her eye. It was weird, seeing her after so long. Last time you saw her was a brief glimpse of her on a stretcher and the last time you two were face to face she had her fingers latched around your neck.

"I thought you always liked black coffee," Seulgi remarks, staring at your cup, which was full of sugar instead of the bitter taste.

"I guess I liked things a bit less bitter," you shrug.

"Y/N, I know it's hard seeing me, but there's a reason you came to talk to me, or agreed to," Seulgi says. "At least ask what you want to ask."

"Why'd you do it?" you blurt out, no hesitation in your voice whatsoever. "Why'd you constantly put me down? Why did you hurt him? Why did you hurt yourself?"

Seulgi's mouth screws into a tiny pout, and she looks down at the table. "Oh. That."

"Yeah, that," you say.

"I was jealous of you," Seulgi admits. "I made it an effort to try to be better than you, because in my mind you were already practically perfect, angelic in the way I could never be. So I blamed my problems on you and convinced myself if I could rise above you, perhaps I'd be perfect too. To put it bluntly, the only way I could climb on top was to push you to the bottom, and that's what I did. I blamed everything on you at my worst moments, and made it a point to have what you couldn't."

That made sense.

"And him?" you questioned. "Why'd you hurt him, when he thought of you as the setting sun?"

"Because he was my only way of establishing and maintaining control," she confessed. "I felt in control when I could control him, and the BPD and overwhelming jealousy took a toll on me that morphed into pure anger and shaped me into a person who was far from what I wanted to be. I was just too blind to realize what I was doing to others, or even myself."

"And why'd you hurt yourself?" you asked, the last part in a whisper. "With the cuts, and the threats?"

Seulgi decides to raise her arm above the table, lifting the sleeve up to her elbow to reveal long white scars scattered across, now faded into white after a year. "I've been clean ever since, but these-" she tapped at them, and your eyes bore into the new skin. "-I thought these were the only ways of keeping him."

"Are you alright now at least?" you asked. "Jungkook said that's what you said, but I want to make sure for myself."

She puts back down her sleeve, nodding. "I'm better than I have been for years, admittedly. Not exactly happy, but I'm in a better place. I'm no longer angry all of the time, so it is a step in the right direction. I'll get there with time, and for now, the medication and therapy can help."

"Good," you remark. "I'm glad to hear that."

She nods, and a few more silent seconds pass between the two of you. She coughs awkwardly, glancing up to you. "Do you have any more questions?"

Did you?

"I... no," you shake your head. "I think I understand now... you put it bluntly."

She licked her lips, nodding. A few more seconds pass, and she gets up to leave, though she pauses. "Y/N, you were my best friend, the one person I really did depend on when times got rough. I thought when we were little we'd grow old together, but I know now life isn't so simple. And I know that my actions have no excuse, but I do care for you, and I always will. But I hurt you, and the boy you love. And for that, I'm sorry."

She says no more, and your eyes trail after her as she exits the coffee shop.

Some apologies are packed with meaning, and others are mumbled dismissively when you so much as bump shoulders with someone in the hallway.

But you were glad to know that hers was the first.

And eventually, for all apologies, there is forgiveness.

#jungkook #jeon jungkook #jungkook smut #smut bts smut #jungkook angst #angst #bts angst #bts jungkook

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shadowrebel-17 · 7 years

Text

An Endless Journal - Second Entry

Entry 2

12/15/16

Hey Ellie.

I’m finally in my room… and what an upgrade! But… its why and how I got this upgrade that’s… hard to… put into words.

Guess I should start at the beginning.

First off, while on the plane, I had the strangest dream, there were these three nice looking guys in it. And no, it wasn’t that kind of dream… more… terrifying in the obscure way.

They were warning me of something coming or reaching for me.

The first was a soldier with floppy surfer hair, the second a chiseled black guy, but The last one, he was a dashing-yet creepy older guy who said

“You don’t understand, do you? But you will. In time.” And there was this big volcano and… that’s where I woke up.

But that’s not the weirdest part. The second guy? In my dream? He shows up for real walking down the aisle and Diego had the brilliant idea of shoving me into him THEN putting me on the spot.

I… well his name is Sean Gayle and he’s HOT and charming as hell, and tall, and apparently is the star quarterback for our university’s team (but I didn’t find that out ‘till later) so…. Yeah anyway my mouth moved before I could stop it, as usual. And I just blurted out that I had dreamt about him and all that… yeah not my best moment.

He didn’t seem to mind though. Definitely want to get to know him better.

Oh and apparently Diego filmed all of this, I have no doubt for blackmailing me into helping him on our finals… but I’d do that anyway.

So after that we noticed that the flight was taking longer than expected so I went up to check what was up with our pilot.

On the way met some of the other ten winners talking with our tour guide, Lila. Who might I add is… ok remember “tour guide Barbie” from Toy Story 2? Yeah that’s her. Perky and sunny as a Pina Colada. Great… now I want one.

Ok so anyway I go to ask the pilot and….. he’s totally asleep. Yep. Feet on dash, head on chest. And probably I would have flipped out if… if it wasn’t for the fact that I got distracted by the fact that HE was the beach-boy soldier in my dream earlier. Yep. Well… that and the fact of that southern drawl, blue eyes and that smile…

Oh yeah and apparently he gives nicknames to people that annoy him. So I’m “Princess”

Honesty, I… kinda like it. And because he seriously looks the part of a scruffy ranger I called him Aragorn.

Yeah and I may have a crush on him too… did I mention those eyes? He’s like, part Han Solo, part Aragorn, part Colonel Jack O’Neill from SG-1.

Anyway, right after that things got… scary like, frickin’ terrifying.

This big, black storm front hits, and throws me into a wall. And its bad. Like fire ball lightning and deafening thunder, Armageddon like bad.

I kinda got the sequence of things a little jumbled in my memory, honestly for the first half of it I just clung to a seat in shock, taking it all in ‘till Lila shook me out of it and helped me to a seat.

Somewhere in there the plane got hit and the engines died, people screaming and all that. All but one. There’s this girl with us, with a blue hoodie and she’s got a scar across one eye and has these dark eyes. There’s something off about her not like… bad just… she wasn’t afraid. if anything she looked… determined.

So yeah pretty much beside her it was Jake, he’s the pilot and Sean that kept their wits about them. The girl in the seat next to me, she… she looked worse then me at this point. About to have a panic attack. I cracked a joke like, a bad one, you know. The Cantaloupe one. Yeaaah… hey I did pretty good for short notice!

Anyway, I think it helped. Cause, like she laughed and started breathing again. And let me tell you… that laugh. Her grin. Okay yeah we helped eachother keep our nerves. She held my hand tight as did I in return.

Oh her name is Quinn and you have got to me her. Bright, bubbly, long sweeping red hair… looks like a Disney princess. And just as easy to be with.

Okay fine I like her too. A lot. Do I sound desperate?

Like… three people I’ve just met and I wanna spend more time with them? Maybe it’s the air here. Magical.

Okay I digressed. So somewhere after that Jake breaks us out of that storm and its as brilliant blue as it was before. Like… almost never happened. Except for the engines still being dead as you and I after that party Kaitlyn and her roomies threw last semester.

Honestly? Jake is one hellova damn good pilot. Like Tom Hanks in the movie Sully good.

He, without engines, got us on the ground AND parked in a hanger, coasting through it all. No one answered at the tower though. Which was spooky and it gets weirder later on.

But he got us down in one piece, and Oh My god this island is STUNNING! Green as an emerald gem from the air, caught a glimpse of crystal rivers and waterfalls on the way in and this big ol’ smoking volcano in the middle.

So on the ground got to meet the rest of the group better… had an encounter with one of the other girls while we were unloading our bags.

I.. may have been hitting on Sean. Like can you blame me? He reminds me of Kaitlyn’s friend Chris, with his gentle manners yet strength of character, wait.. heh, I think they are on the same team lol! Anyway he’s just… taller and so… how to… eh. Ok so anyway… back to what happened.

She, Michelle, lit into me for flirting with Sean, like straight outa Bad Girls Club. And well, there’s history with those two but they’re not together.

I… yeah that was rude but, hey, with what we’ve been through, frayed nerves and short words are forgiven. Anyway, we are ok with eachother now.

She and Sean ended up in an argument though. So I backed off from that. That’s when I found the first of several odd things. A honkin’ huge tranquilizer dart. (Yes honkin’ is a word. I’m from the Midwest remember?)

Whatever critter it was used on had to have been big. Or is really out of it.

I hope.

That’s also when I noticed creepy scar girl in the hoodie was watching and listening to us.

You know, Diego and I are also wondering about something. That there are Ten Students that won, yet not counting Jake the pilot and Lila the tour guide, we’ve got Sean Gayle, Michelle, his friend Craig (must be another football player judging from his jacket.) Grace who is one smart, sweet little lady, Quinn, and umm… the ivy league loudmouth, who’s name escapes me. [A scribbled in note of “Aleister” is apparently added later]

Then Zahra, emo-chick, that’s a petty name by the way, Raj, big playful fellow. He’s cool. Then Diego and I. That makes ten… she makes eleven.

What’s her story I wonder.

Anyway now the weirdness really picks up. There is no one here.

I mean NO FREAKING PERSON!

Besides us the whole place is abandoned. Its creepy. Like that ship, the Mary Celeste. Everything is in its place, half finished cups, luggage etc. Just… people.. gone. Very Twilight Zoney.

I’m still waiting for the You Tube prank folks to pop out.

Jake and I check out the control tower, empty like everything else but… there were these lights, in and on the forest and the air, like I imagine the Aurora Borealis to be like. Only saw them for a few moments in the air there. Not back outside. Now Grace had mentioned earlier this place as a very special ecosystem. So perhaps its like those glow-y plankton in the Pacific just, airborne. Anyway, it was magical. Aaaand yes I think I made Jake blush by holding his hand. .

Also found out he’s an ex-navy pilot. Some altercation with an officer.

Aaand made a fool of myself… heh, and I remeber it pretty well so here it is:

Jake: “Look, I’m from Louisiana, and if ferrying rich jerks around a couple times a week is the price I gotta pay for never setting foot back there, hell I’ll pay it. Been sleeping in a beach hammock in Costa Rica ever since.”

Me: “That sounds lonely”

J: “Uh yeah, that’s the appeal” (man that crooked grin of his… Though this time I wonder… if it isn’t forced.

Me: “I mean, I get wanting to get away for a little while but… don’t you want more? You know, someone to come home to… someone to listen to you… someone to hold you all through the night…”

I know! Gosh! I gotta think before I talk! His… response though… Looking back now I’m not sure if he minded my… blunder.

“You offering, Princess?”

Like… totally teasing me… right?

“what?! No- I.. I just meant.. in theory…”

Yep… damn… blew it.

“In theory, I wanted to be the best pilot the Navy had ever seen. In practice… well you cant beat a cold beer and a Caribbean sunset.”

We talked more as well… honestly didn’t take that long to check the tower in comparison.

I also quick checked out the beach with Quinn, Raj, Craig and Michelle too. Man… Quinn is not subtle. And that is not a bad thing… she um, gawd I’m blushing again, so we went swimming and she, considering what she went through on the flight was so, happy. I mean skipping and splashing and flirting.

She’s beautiful Ellie. That’s about all I can say at the moment.

She did have one down moment though. Referencing how she wasn’t always this way and that after last year she decided to make the most out of life. I wanted to ask more but she was too serious so… things got wet ;) (splash splash)

And OMG and there was this flying butterfy-seahorse! It… it was as bright and shimmering as that Aurora I saw with Jake. Only Quinn and I saw it before it flew away though.

Craig had buried the sleeping Raj in the sand.

Anyway, I wanted to unpack before it got much later so I could go exploring more so we all went back to the group and that was when we had found out just how devoid of people this place was. In Sean’s words. “Where the hell was everyone!”

After getting over the shock we dropped our luggage in the lobby and split up into groups to look around.

Seriously, this resort is beautiful. Stunning. A dream come true! … if it wasn’t so… so.. empty.

Jake said he’d go with Brain Trust (Grace, btw love his habit of nicknames, I might stick with it!) And look around the pool area, Zahra and Lila to the ballrooms, I went with Craig, Raj, Sean and Michelle to the restaurant. My stomach made that call.

Also noticed hoodie-girl was missing. Weird.

Anyway at the restaurant named Tortuga. (Cant hear that name without seeing Jack Sparrow lol) like the rest of the place, seems everyone left in a hurry. Even the credit cards were left on the table.

Sean pointed out that the Volcano was supposed to be dormant. That big thing out the window was definitely not dormant. Very steamy. Eagle eye there also spotted some kind of flashing beacon. Maybe a building or something near the mountain.

Anyway we went to compare findings with everyone else.

The pool didn’t have much other then being abandoned.

The ballrooms had been set up in some kind of retro-roaring twenties wedding.

Then… there was that big portrait on the wall. Aleister said it was Everett Rourke, the owner of the hotel. But damn… he was the last guy from my dream on the plane. The older guy with the creepy saying. Apparently he’s some kind of real life Tony Stark genius business man.

I don’t get something though… I get the feeling Grace is attracted to the snob, er Aleister.

She found something else though by the pool. By a damaged fence a foot long tooth! Man hate to see the animal that came from. Maybe that’s why there was that Tranq dart I found earlier.

So basically we are all now completely puzzled and worried and bewildered on what to do next.

And then freaky girl pops up behind me and says that its getting dark and we should all go to bed.

She says she was also looking around like us but wouldn’t share what she found… I think she trust me as much as I trust her… which ain’t much.

But she’s right. Oh and Lila at least knows her. Called her Estella.

So basically, hehe, consensus was (at Zahra’s provocation) to pick any room we wanted.

I snagged myself the honeymoon suit.

Just. Cause.

It has got the most amazing view! And its own hot tub! Candles, roses. The works. Aaand then Diego shows up and I almost mistake him for someone else. He’s not gonna let me live that down will he. Not telling him who I thought it was either cause then he’ll only make it worse! Or… better… heh. Love that guy.

Then he found this romantic note, with two different messages on it:

“I must see you one last time before tomorrow… Meet me at our spot in Neptune Cove. Midnight” and “I’ll be there.”

Oh my goodness I’m so tired… looong day. And it wasn’t over yet lol!

So basically I also got talked into going to a midnight impromptu pool party or “Raj Rage” as the big guy called it.

After all the drinks it’s a little fuzzy.. but I know Jake called Craig Drax, such a perfect fit! He also showed me that apparently he is quite thoughtful.

I… may have missed an opportunity with Sean but I saw Estella sitting alone up on the hill and well, I wanted to know more so excused myself a moment to go talk to her.

We… actually connected. Least… I think we did. I got the feeling that she’s been very hurt in the past and has little trust in people. Explains her attitude. Actually managed to get a smile out of her. Briefly. Before she left. Saying that the people in her life usually get hurt. And she didn’t want that to happen to me.

….. well okay then. That’s… confusing. But at least I’m getting to know more about her. She’s not so scary after all. Just… now I want to find out what hurt her in her past so maybe I can help.

Diego says I have a big heart and a big mouth. And that both get me in trouble. As you well know.

Anyway after Craig soaks everyone with a cannonball I go to get more towels…

Ellie, I don’t think I’ll ever forget what I saw. Something big with muscles and glowing eyes was staring at me from the bushes. With everything that had happened. I’m afraid I lost it. I screamed.

Sean, Quinn and Jake came over first but what ever it was it was gone. I’m not sure everyone believes me. Heck I’m not sure I believe me.

Kinda killed the party too. Which sucks.

Anyway at least this awesome huge bed makes up for it. Kinda.

Hopefully tomorrow we can figure out what’s going on.

G'night Ellie.

-S.

#choices stories you play #choices #playchoices #fanfic #fanfiction #mc #jake mckenzie #sean gayle #quinn kelly #estela montoya #endless journal

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courage-a-word-of-justice · 5 years

Text

Notably, Sarazanmai’s first ep isn’t here, but it’s a huge contender for making my spring watchlist.

Shield Hero 11

Okay, someone’s trying to remind me of Goblin Slayer, aren’t they…? *grumble grumble grumble*

I wonder if Naofumi has a Thunder move like those guys…?

Why isn’t Raphtalia, who was cursed by Rage Shield, affected, but Filo, who was eaten by the zombie dragon, is???

Price of Smiles 12 (FINAL)

Is Huey…not an a$$? Is he just really tsundere…?

Fingers don’t move that way, Layla…

Post-credits segment. Keep watching…

I feel like making Stella and Yuki meet off the back of Layla’s death was a bit much and pushing the button together was a bit…much-er, if that’s a concept. Anyways, see you next time!

Morose Mononokean II 12

The Cobweb = Above the Spider (by literally translating that ep title, that is).

I’m finally listening to Koura’s voice. Koura sounds like she’s always teasing Itsuki…

Jinja = Shinto shrine. That nuance is missing from the translation.

Why did that one track (when Itsuki was escaping) sound like Mission Impossible…?

What’s an analeptic? I can’t seem to pause the video…Update: Apparently my ad blocker was stuffing with the pause button. Also, an analeptic appars to be a restorative drug, or describing a drug as restorative.

Rippou sounds so enthusiastic (sarcastic) when Shizuku offers to make him tea.

Spec Ops Asuka 11

Wat. A girl in Thailand going “nya”? Update: Uhh…apparently the girl in Thailand…was Peipei??? Wuh???

Hmm…I never actually put 2 and 2 together regarding karate and the whip. It makes sense in retrospect, though.

“…sever the…” – Sever the…what, exactly?

I thought human!Giess didn’t exist anymore under that armour…so seeing him surprised me.

Sometimes I feel like I sympathise with Chisato more than Asuka or Kurumi…that’s how developed Chisato is.

Mob Psycho 100 II 12

Serizawa is playing Bomberman.

I like the symbolism of the umbrella as a “light”.

My Roommate is a Cat 12 (FINAL)

The ep title is “Kimi to Boku to” (You and I and…). Presumably it should end with “everyone else”…or something.

Wait, wasn’t Subaru’s umbrella handle round before??? It’s straight now!

What a waste of a perfectly good umbrella!

Somehow I knew Subaru would go to Nana once he needed cat knowledge.

*Subaru rescues Haru* - *cue Lion King song* Ahhhhhhh ze ban yaaaaaaaaaaa…or something like that.

Why is it that I want a dub for this so…darn…badly???!!! Wait…*record scratch* it already has one. Scratch that.

Shield Hero 12

“I can’t stop trembling,” Raphtalia says as she stands there, still as a statue…geesh.

I’d assume there’s a Meteor Shield in there for Naofumi as well…?

Come to think of it, we never learnt that weapon merchant guy’s name until now, huh? Elhart. I’ll try my best to remember it.

Spec-Ops Asuka 12 (FINAL)

Twin-headed Dragon Peipei, huh?

Morose Mononokean II 13 (FINAL)

*Fuzzy gets punched away* - Fuzzy, noooooooo!

In the same way Mob became a so-called “bishonen” for s2 ep 5 of his show, Hanae became kind of hot – but also kind of weird – for the finale.

Notably, the “Ashiya” Abeno is referring to is only Hanae…not Sakae at all. Hmm.

Mob Psycho 100 II 13 (FINAL)

“Bishonen” Mob returns!

I keep getting the feeling that Mob will sacrifice himself this episode. It’s a very Mob thing to do, but…I worry about him, because without him we have no show.

*explosion* - I wanna yell “KANEDAAAAAAAAAA!” Is that appropriate for this scene?

I LOLled at Dimple wearing Serizawa’s chunk of hair, haha.

Anyways, that was way too fun (and way too worrying at the end). See you next time!

Yu-No 1

Okay, first episode of this particularly meager season…coming right up!

I’ve never had to watch an ep on phone for subs before…I much prefer a bigger screen.

Okay…as soon as I heard Potato-kun say “Panties?” I knew I was in for a bad time. I’m watching based on the title and the series image, not the fact it’s based on an adult VN.

I can’t believe we have to be told about these ladies from the guys first…I feel sorry for Yuki.

I-Is Arima-mama the kind of person one would call a “MILF”…? I dunno since I don’t swing that way.

Seriously, how long ago did Potato-kun’s father die??? (I know his name is Arima Takuya, but…he’s “Potato-kun” to me, even as a joke.)

Potato-kun is so obviously following his…pen island, so to speak.

Ah, Potato-kun. The only time you make me laugh is when you humiliate yourself on public news. Thank goodness this show isn’t particularly lewd…yet.

It’s like Grand Blue…only with less drinking.

Seriously, why does Yuki call Potato-kun “boss”???

The one time I hear the name “Neumann”, it’s this time travel show, of all things…*remembers von Neumann architecture* Yup, that’s where I remember his name from. By the by, Googling “Neumann space” yields this site on travelling to the…stars? Wrong frontier, folks.

Okay, that was probably the least exciting way to pull off a big reveal like that. Drop.

Shield Hero 13

To be honest…I like Rise better…

“You’re are surrounded.” – I know you’re in a hurry to sub your content, CR subbers, but seriously?????

It’s always funny to see Motoyasu get a good socking from Filo, LOL.

Fruits Basket 1

I have zero experience with OG Fruits Basket outside 1 episode I didn’t really finish (but finishd the entire manga and may have caught a tiny bit of it - not enough to mark on anyone’s anime list as “complete” - while it was on TV), so…this’ll be interesting.

This is exactly as I remember it! Beautifulllllllllllll…so beautiful I wanna cry…(Keep in mind I binged most of the manga years ago, so it’s getting harder and harder to remember the exact story every day.)

Holeeeeeeeeeeee…sugar. I just realised how old Fruits Basket is! Also, rumour has it Motoko has differently coloured hair in the OG version, but I didn’t watch (or didn’t remember) that part, so…I don’t have a standard to hold her up to, really. Plussssss…I love how Motoko and her Prince Yuki fanclub are like Mean Girls. The reason I had to check up how old Fruits Basket is is because of that comparison. Mean Girls is from 2004, thereby being 5 or 6 years younger than Fruits Basket.

The angelic “ahhhhh” in the background really sold how good Tohru’s food was (for Hanajima).

This CGI fan is going to haunt me until the end of my days, isn’t it…?

Ouch…I think I just realised why Fruits Basket is so powerful (at the part where Tohru is working hard at her job). It resonates strongly with those who are lost in life. I found I couldn’t really relate when I first read it though, which may have been attributed to the fact I was…what, 13?...at the time.

Shigure, you a$$!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wanna kick you for laughing at poor Tohru!!!!!!!!!!!

Photorealistic clouds…no. I think that Indian festival with the dye (I don’t remember which one it is off the top of my head) happened to my eyes…(i.e. my eyes…my poor eyes…)

I didn’t think Vickeblanka was capable of doing slower songs. This song’s kinda nice…but only because I heard the last few seconds of the ending (the rest was obscured by background noise and I don’t have time to play it again).

Between the comment about Shigure and the comment about the clouds, I was internally bawling about how stupid and spoilt I’d become. This is the power of Fruits Basket!

We Never Learn 1

Hmm…I thought the manga of this (or what I saw of it, at least) was kinda vanilla, so…this’ll be an experience, one way or another.

Yuiga’s face game is spot-on, LOL.

Aw, this show encourages the growth mindset…how cute. *does Kaguya-sama face*

The eyecatch is about what classes the main trio are in, but Furuhashi is taking it as related to boob size…*sigh*

The sign just says “library”. There’s no need to contextualise it more than that…

Yup, this is vanilla like ice cream…

Come to think of it, why did I pick this series up? I’ve read the manga parts that correspond to this episode…Well, I remember when this series was still new. I think it was that it was refreshing to see these guys so gung-ho about uni, because recently I’ve been in doubt about my own future (and to tell the truth, I’ve been thinking different things about what I want to do at different stages of my life anyway). I’ve literally only settled on the things I’m doing because I suck at everything else, but I can do whatever I put my mind to…for most things I try. Much like Fruits Basket is for those who are lost in life, We Never Learn is an affirmation that you can change your future…or something like that, anyway.

…The disembodied mouths creep me out…anyways, this show isn’t bad, it isn’t 100% a keeper either (unless I get co-opted into a collab for it). It’s just squarely in the middle.

Boob grope…eesh. That brought down the keeping factor down a little.

Kimetsu no Yaiba 1

[big chunk of information redacted because it’s me stressing over what has to be done before I go overseas...and also it reveals I had a collab for this lined up, which I’m trying to keep a surprise at the time this post went out]

To be honest, I don’t like 1st person cam.

Hmm…there’s more CGI than I’d like to admit is in here…

I remember reading a while ago that the “Tan” in Tanjiro is the word for “charcoal”.

Take = bamboo, and he’s a woodcutter kid. LOL.

This is exactly as I remember it! It’s kinda cool, since the smelling thing is obviously foreshadowing.

I remember I didn’t quite get the idea that Nezuko was growing in size in the manga…well, now I just did.

Oh-hoh-hoh-hohhhhhhh! Giyu Tomioka, me boy! There he is!

I didn’t know Giyu Tomioka was basically a ninja, LOL.

This is definitely one of the better series out there this season. It might not be the best due to its sheer amount of shonen trappings, but it’s still dang good! (I like Giyu Tomioka already, but now that I think of it, I’d like to see Lightning Boy in action within the show and not just the OP…hmm.)

[Sarazanmai 1 is not here because I saw it at the anime club first. I do intend to cover subsequent episodes here though…]

Kono Oto Tomare! 1

I find Funi’s video player unwieldy, to be honest. Maybe it’s because I’m too used to CR’s…

Oh! It seems like the Defence Club has a legacy now!

Surprisingly, this is very funny…!

Hmm…this seems like a show where you should ship people, but there doesn’t seem to be enough of a connection between anyone that I can see anyone shipping. I guess that’s why this thing is basically a shoujo in appearance, huh…?

By the way, who’s “Nadeshiko”? Takezo…?

Do you guys even know what a koto is? If you do, that’s great, but if you don’t, you’re going to have to infer…that’s a bit nasty for an ancient instrument the West doesn’t know about. Then again, this clearly isn’t something made for the West.

I’m wondering why the culprits confessed so easily…

Well, that was…alright. I went “aw” more than I expected and laughed more than expected. It’s not going to top the other shows I’ve got though.

Mayonaka no Occult Koumuin 1

For some reason, I’m just not used to calling this show “Midnight Occult Civil Servants”…that sounds clunky. That’s why I’m calling it “Mayonaka” for short…oh yeah, right now Funi is undergoing maintenance which is why I had to shuffle Mayonaka forward. I was meant to be doing Fairy Gone in this slot, to be honest with you.

Hmm…*thinks about time talking with Plyasm* *thinks about how Seo trid to kick this Reiji Kyoichi person* I see a resemblance here…with the kicking and all…Update: There is a guy called “Reiji” in this show, I just read “Kyoichi” wrong because I was trying to type up comments here.

Somehow it never actually occurred to me that Seo was a gender-neutral name. I’m normally quite good with these things…or maybe it was Ply keeping me up late that’s making me not notice…or even the fact I’m not listening to Seo’s voice, since that’s sometimes a hint to a person’s gender in particularly ambiguous cases (I’m currently not listening to the audio). Update: Okay, that’s definitely a man’s voice coming from the effeminate-looking Seo.

Oh yes…I forgot to mention, this show does an awful lot of telling and not showing.

I keep noting this episode is set on April Fool’s Day…what a day for pranking, huh?

I’ve seen a Cait Sith in anime before…so there’s a dog version too (Cu Sith), huh?

Tape? That’s so mundane…then again, I guess this is what happens when you have boring jobs in interesting places, huh? Reminds me a lot of my own stabs at this kind of story.

This is…angel-tengu Romeo and Juliet…

Now this is the real Reiji…I think?

Ohhhhhhh crab balls…these CGI angels look terrible.

I never thought cherry blossoms could look so terrible…urgh.

I’m of two minds when it comes to this show – on the one hand, I like its plot (it’s better than Charlotte in this field, at least). It’s a bit cliched, but it might lose against competition like Sarazanmai or even Kono Oto Tomare. On the other hand, its visuals are kinda…ugly.

Fairy Gone 1

Fa-Fanatica…? What sort of name is that??? (That’s not a good sign if I question the first name on the screen now, is it?)

Lay Dawn, would you please…lay down? (Okay, that joke only works with a particular pronunciation of “down”, but you get the bad pun…right? Right?)

So this is Spec-Ops Asuka without the huge boobs, I expect? That would make Fairy Gone at least 10 points (on my anime list) better than the thing I’m comparing it with.

I think the tiny symbols under most of the credits are stylised English, although I was looking at a credit for a guy with the surname Yamamoto and it wasn’t quite working.

The CGI is one of the better efforts I’ve seen, but still slightly obvious.

Veronica’s run reminds me of Akira from Devilman Crybaby. You know the one GIF of him running while leaning forward at an impossible angle? That one.

Post-credits scene…keep watching.

This is another anime Jesus…(the first one was Kagura’s dad in Ga Rei Zero.)

Rendai Utena 1

(Update: This was an anime I had to watch via VPN. Notably, the last time I resorted to one was B Project...however, no one remembers that but me, so the last big time I had to use a VPN was for Sakamoto Desu Ga?.)

Uh…yeah. This is the one Buddha anime this season. But before you run off, screaming about how blasphemous I must be to Buddhists, I’ll have you know I was originally not intending to watch this…if you know me well enough, you’ll know I like bishies. Only after I compiled my to-watch list for this season did one of the star bishies show up and convince me to watch…yeah, now you can run away screaming. (Oh and if you’re interested as to what image caught my attention enough to make me watch a show…it’s the top image on this CR page – not the thumbnail, the other top image.)

Okayyyyyyy…for a show about bishies, you sure aren’t capturing me right now with this plight of a salaryman.

Aw, dangit. I actually liked the few moments this was a zombie anime! Give me High School of the Dead, but with bishies instead of jiggly-boob girls! *shakes fist at cloud*

Oh, great…I can’t even tell who’s who around here. They even had little name cards and everything! So much for my great memory…*grumble grumble* But hey, at least I recognise some names…not from being Buddhist, but from other anime. I mean, Miroku is the guy from Inuyasha and Fudo Myouou is the guy who inspired Okurikara in Touken Ranbu, yeah?

Uh, hey. Isn’t sloth meant to be a vice? Isn’t “lounging around” a vice???

Another thing. I get the feeling that putting these guys in tracksuits is just trying to coast on the success of Touken Ranbu. Touken Ranbu is nice, but only because I was familiar with the source game and a bit about the fandom. This? I have no such basis.

Lotus Head – Bonten – his nagging is starting to get on my nerves already. I came for Taishakuten, not you!

Yeah…even in Touken Ranbu, they have washing machines. Convenience, but also…vice in terms of that old-timey Buddha stuff, I guess…? Update: Actually, I thought about it and I don’t think they’ve ever shown a washing machine in Hanamaru, but I think they might’ve had a fridge.

Wait, wait, wait…the bird was a bishie tooooooooo?????????????? I think that’s the biggest bending my brain’s going to get all premiere season (for this season)! Even more so than the entire debut of Sarazanmai!

Wait, wait, wait…Bonten likes porridge?! D’ya mean “congee” or “oatmeal” kinda porridge? I can’t tell because I’ve got the volume off, but if it’s the latter then Bonten wouldn’t have known about it. Update: It appears to be the latter. How Bonten would’ve ever known about porridge…I don’t know.

New aesthetic – Taishakuten’s hair. I like me a man with a ponytail (which is why I fell hook, line and sinker for him in the first place), but his hair done up like it is in the bath…*swoons, then goes back to normal* That is all.

What’s up with Paomi anyway…? And…this is kinda petty if the central conflict is just getting Shaka to get off cooking duties. That’s too low a conflict for even Hanamaru, methinks.

So…you introduce all these Buddha guys and then expect me to care about some human who doesn’t even have a name? Wuh…?

Okayyyyyyy…I’ve never seen an earthquake that was that fast before.

Wait, wait, huh???????? The guy who voices Taishakuten is…Choreo (Brave Beats)??????????? Oh no, I should’ve listened to it! Anyways, I’ve decided I’m dropping it, simply because if I want Taishakuten only for his looks, I can just find a wallpaper of him.

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superman86to99 · 7 years

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Adventures of Superman #500 (June 1993)

OVERSIZED ANNIVERSARY ISSUE! Featuring the return of Superman! And Superman! And Superman, and also, Superman! But first: The Badass Adventures of Pa Kent in Hell. The last time we saw ol’ Pa, he’d just had a heart attack and seen a ghostly vision of his dead son (that’s Superman, for those joining us), who grabbed his hand and pulled Pa towards him. Now Ghost Superman is like, “Whelp, nice seeing you dad, gotta go.”

Superman is taken “into the light” by a couple of demons disguised as robed Kryptonian ladies. However, Pa refuses to give up on his son and follows them, only to find himself in a battlefield covered with corpses -- those of his Korean War buddies. Pa is (understandably) confused and thinks he’s back in the war, carrying out a mission to rescue some captured “airman”. Private Pa then comes across a farm littered with more dead people, including one that reminds him of his brother Harry... mainly because that’s exactly who it is.

In case you hadn’t noticed, something fishy is going on here. A demonic-looking enemy soldier tries to kick Pa out of wherever the hell this is (get it? hell?), but Pa just punches him into oblivion and soldiers on. Sometimes you just gotta punch some Nazis, folks.

Next up, Pa runs into Lady Blaze, the satanic mistress/recurring Superman baddie. Blaze generously offers to help Pa find his son in exchange for one million do-- I mean, his soul. Pa apparently thinks “eh, I don’t love him that much” and prefers to jump into the void beneath him.

At this point, Pa is saved from pinballing from sad memory to sad memory for all eternity by Kismet, the nice cosmic entity Superman met a while back (“our favourite naked outer space lady in a cape”, as Don Sparrow puts it). With Kismet’s guidance, Pa finally finds Superman, but he’s in the middle of some sort of weird funeral procession carried out by more demons disguised as Kryptonians (and Superman’s old furry friend, the Cleric).

Superman has completely fallen for the show these guys put on, and is prepared to let them take him to the “Kryptonian afterlife”, but Pa eventually breaks the spell with his hollering. More punching ensues!

Superman gets rid of the demons, but he still thinks that Pa should go back to the land of living without him. He’s been gone for too long, and it’s not his place to deny death. Superman’s Kryptonian father Jor-El suddenly shows up to reinforce this notion, telling Superman to join him and his biological mother, Lara, in the afterlife. It is the natural way of things.

Naturally, Pa Kent ain’t having any of that.

Pa practically carries Superman through the portal in front of them. Cut to: Pa waking up in a hospital bed in Smallville, whispering “Clark is back” to a freaked out Ma Kent and Lois Lane.

Suddenly, Superman sightings are reported all over Metropolis -- it’s like he’s in four places at once! Lois refuses to give herself any false hopes, but just to make double-sure her fiancee is still dead, she decides to take a peek inside his tomb. Inspector Henderson opens the casket for her, and it’s... empty?!

TO BE CONTINUED! But first...

Epilogue 1: Two rival gangs are fighting over turf when one pulls out some futuristic super-weapons that literally blow the other guys to pieces. As the cops roll in, out of the rubble emerges a hulking figure saying “DOOMSDAY! GOTTA STOP DOOMSDAY!” Holy shit, it’s Superman! He’s back! Also, black!

Epilogue 2: As an evildoer tries to carjack an innocent citizen, a caped figure flies to the rescue... and blasts the absolute crap out of the would-be thief with some energy blasts, throwing him off the roof of a building. The familiar figure explains that he’s “risen from the dead” and been changed by “the fire and darkness” -- OK, that has to be Superman. There’s no other explanation.

Epilogue 3: There’s an emergency at Project Cadmus, the genetic experimentation facility that recently held Superman’s corpse: some type of secret cloning experiment has broken out before it/he was ready. We see this brash young clone being led to the outside world by the Newsboy Legion, and upon hearing the way they refer to him, he exclaims: “DON’T EVER CALL ME SUPERBOY!” Because he’s actually Superman! Oh my God!

Epilogue 4: A tourist family stops in front of the Daily Planet and reflects solemnly on the plaque marking the spot where Superman died... until a man in blue tights lands from the sky, rips out the plaque, and burns it with his heat vision. We then see that he’s got robot parts all over his body; you know, as if he’d been brought back to life after being pummelled to death by a monster. Whelp, that’s it. That’s Superman, right there.

Character-Watch:

First appearance of these four mysterious Supermen: Black Superman, Blind Superman, Brat Superman, and Beep-Bop-I’m-a-Robot Superman. Or is it?!

Creator-Watch:

This is a suitably epic finale for Jerry Ordway’s original Superman run, which started way back in 1987. Ordway went from artist to co-plotter to writer/artist to just writer, along the way pioneering the house style that all Superman series will use throughout the ‘90s. This is often called the “Byrne” and/or “Jurgens” era, but I’d argue that Ordway was the single most influential creator involved in this period, and although what comes directly after his departure is cool as hell, we’ll definitely miss the heart, humor and realism he brought to even the most obscure background characters.

Speaking of which, this wouldn’t be an Ordway comic without a shit-ton of subplots, so here we go...

Plotline-Watch:

One detail I never caught as a kid: one of the “Superman sightings” at the end of the issue is clearly a drunken Bibbo in a Superman shirt.

The Final Misadventure of Jose Degaldo: He’s been beaten, burned, broken (literally), had buildings dropped on him, and dumped by both Lois Lane and Cat Grant, but Jose “Gangbuster” Delgado has finally had enough -- he’s ditching Metropolis. A regular crime-punching adventure goes wrong when Jose accidentally beats up an undercover cop posing as a drug dealer. Upon learning there’s a warrant for his ass and getting shot by another cop, Jose decides to call it quits and leave town (using the bus ticket Inspector Henderson recently gave him). He’s actually going to Fawcett City along with his creator -- he’ll show up again in Jerry Ordway’s Power of Shazam, but that’s it for Jose in these pages! Goodbye, Suicide Slum’s rose.

Incidentally, Cat Grant is feeling rather down since she split with Jose, and her boss Vinnie Edge uses the opportunity to invite her to dinner. She agrees, even though A) her relationship with Vinnie’s son did not end well, and B) he’s a disgusting perv who just grabbed her butt. Don Sparrow says: “The interplay between Cat Grant and Vinnie Edge hasn’t aged well -- though in some ways it seems timelier than ever.”

The “favor” Vinnie mentions above is not what you might think: he wants Cat to talk to Jimmy Olsen, who has neglected his duties as star of the hit Turtle Boy TV series ever since a certain pal of Jimmy’s was violently killed. Jimmy isn’t in the mood for light-hearted TMNT copyright infringement, though, so the series is currently on reruns.

Those Turtle Boy reruns are watched by the cellmate of Oswald Loomis -- aka Superman’s least intimidating rogue, The Prankster. Loomis, once a children’s entertainer himself, doesn’t appreciate ‘90s television and tries to electrocute said cellmate (who, in my memory, was Vinnie’s son Morgan Edge, making this scene slightly less random).

Pa Kent smashing the ghostly Jor-El with a shovel that materializes out of nowhere is, of course, a shout out to John Byrne’s classic Man of Steel #6, when he does the same thing. I want a full series about Pa dispatching Kryptonian ghosts the same way. His maligned brother Harry was also mentioned in a Byrne comic, World of Smallville #1.

As usual, I’m forgetting or lazily leaving out plenty of important details, so check out Don Sparrow’s section after the jump for way more!

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

Even more than Superman #75, it’s this issue (and the storyline that follows) that most define this, my most beloved era of Superman comics for me. Perhaps it’s because I was actually opposed to Superman’s death, rather than excited about it, whereas with this issue, I was only completely excited, and totally curious about how they’d bring Superman back.

Still more nerdy background: as we’ve mentioned in previous blogposts, I live in the same city as Super-teamster Tom Grummett, so the fact that he drew this comic was big, big deal in my hometown. Our local comic store (which sat below Tom Grummett’s art studio upstairs) had Tom in on the day it was released to sign copies, so it was a major event. Though I was only a lad of 13 at the time, both that day, and in the years since, I bought enough copies of Adventures of Superman #500 to insulate my house with them (and so did the rest of the world, making the resale value not quite what Superman #75 was). How big of a deal was Superman’s return in my hometown? Well, we made the evening news…

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The direct market edition cover features a stunner of a painting by the great Jerry Ordway, of a ghostly Superman reaching out to Pa Kent from beyond the void. It was billed as being a removable translucent screen, but I don’t know anyone who was successfully able to remove the vellum without ruining their cover, but the softening of the add-on is very effective. The newsstand edition (remember when comics could be purchased on newsstands?) has a decidedly story-driven cover, which must have perplexed the many non-regular Superman readers who came out in droves for this big issue. It features Superman and Pa Kent floating over a background of enemies (including the demonic Blaze, which, to the uninitiated, must have been pretty spooky) with Pa Kent inexplicably in a Challengers of the Unknown looking jumpsuit. Confusion aside, it’s still a great cover, and a nice hint at all the zip-a-tone goodness we’ll find inside.

Throughout the issue, the real world and the afterlife are given very distinct visual styles, with the ‘real’ world being inked and coloured normally, and the spirit world with lots of zip-a-tone shadows and gleaming bright colours. It’s such an effective way to delineate the storylines, and man, I love how the extra shading looks on the afterlife pages. It’ll be hard to single out only a few pages, because, honestly, this is one of the best drawn comics of the era.

In the first few pages, I was struck that, despite seeing Superman in full uniform at the end of Superman #77, the Superman Jonathan Kent sees on the ‘other’ side is Clark Kent, which is a telling note about how he sees his identity. The image of Pa stripping away his Clark garb is a great one, with the mist and swirling clouds establishing we are indeed, not in Kansas anymore.

The direct market edition also has some differences within the book, in addition to the difference in cover—it has a number of full page splashes inserted into the storyline, which are missing from the newsstand edition, and each one is a stunner. The first one is Gangbuster descending a fire escape on page 6, having ignored the warnings he got from Inspector Henderson in the Superman specials that preceded this issue.

The most interesting thing about these splashes, aside from how just about every one of them would have made for some killer poster art, is how seamlessly Jerry Ordway matches the scripts. Many of the splashes contain dialogue, but if those sentences are removed (as they are in the newsstand edition) the story still makes sense, which must have been a real challenge. [Max: Oddly enough, the one flaw I’ve found in my giant Death and Return of Superman omnibus so far is that some of the dialogue from these pages is duplicated, presumably from combining pages from both editions.]

Page 9 features another great Gangbuster image, and the fight choreography in the pages that follow has a real sense of place and pace.

As we return to Pa Kent’s near death experience, the visuals go a good job of selling the story’s dreamlike conceit—“reality” is pretty flexible where he is, so as Jonathan spends time there, his thoughts get muddled in with memory, and he can lose his purpose. It really feels like a dream in that way. Also, having heard about Jonathan’s brother previously, I thought he’d look a lot worse. There’s a strange cutaway to the Prankster in these pages, and while it’s a funny little scene, it has no bearing on the story, and Prankster doesn’t pop up again in these pages for a very long time---if memory serves, until the ill-fitting reboot of his look some 80 issues later. [Max: We saw him during the Dominus storyline, but I’m not sure if that counts.]

I also love how Grummett seems to draw Prankster as looking like UK comedian Terry Thomas, which is a great fit. It’s always tricky to translate such goofy-looking characters into real people, and here, perhaps for the first time, Prankster looks like a human being and not a doughier Alfred E Neuman. (Do prisoners really get their own portable TVs? Surely this scene demonstrates the danger of such a luxury!)

The scenes of Pa Kent falling into a pit and being pulled out by Blaze are chilling, but, like the rest of the issue, doesn’t it just make you fall in love with tough, no nonsense Jonathan Kent? It’s a mini-Godwatch when he pulls a Luke Skywalker and choose oblivion over joining forces with Blaze. (Extra points for Jonathan asking the question on the minds of a lot of Superman readers—is Blaze the devil or what?)

Next up is an appearance by what would seem to be Blaze’s opposite number, Kismet, our favourite naked outer space lady in a cape. Both sides of the two-page splash are pretty stunning here.

The ersatz Kryptonian funeral is pretty interesting too. Here, Grummett walks a fine line, having the Kryptonian stuff accurate enough that we know what it’s supposed to be, but just off enough that we know something strange is going on.

Once Clark figures out that the wraiths mean him harm (has there ever been a nice wraith?) it’s so, so great to see him back in action after all these months without him. Major kudos to the colourist, here especially, but throughout the book, for the unique colours which look great here on Superman’s uniform. Plus, I always like the times when Superman loses his cape.

The visual effect of the portal back to reality is just amazing, and from their perspective, probably pretty accurate. Next to the blinding light of the afterlife, earthly life would probably seem pretty dark. That last image from the direct edition, of Superman flying through the void with Pa Kent is just such a stunner. And from a story standpoint, this is just so definitive of the Super-team. That a story about bringing back Superman is told in the most personal, meaningful way, with a chubby, balding old farmer as more or less the lead character. It’s a total rejection of the grit teeth and substance-less Image comics trend of the era in its’ wholesomeness. And I love this is how they chose to bring him back. My very favourite detail, that I came back to again and again was that the heartbeat that returns to Pa Kent’s monitor goes across his panel, into the panel of Superman’s tomb. So subtle, and so, so awesome.

The four page previews kicking off the Reign storyline are almost an issue unto themselves, but I love how all the eye-witness accounts from page 45 are later seen within issues, and give clues to very different Supermen.

If you’ll allow me just a little more nerdiness, DC sent comic shops some previews of this issue to create excitement, and these pages included scans of the end section with the new Supermen. The only catch was, on these previews the figures were totally whited out, so you couldn’t see what he looked like. So having read those short previews, I thought they were all referring to ONE new Superman, who I assumed had been changed by his experience with Doomsday. It wasn’t until I got the issue home that I realized they were launching four different storylines.

The art on these is pretty interesting. This is really the point where Jon Bogdanove shifts into a really loose, less constrained style, which honestly works quite well for the larger than life character of John Henry Irons. And that first look at him—you can definitely see why they thought that Shaquille O’Neal would work for this character.

Next is a spooky look at the Last Son of Krypton, who I 100% believed was the real Superman, mainly because of his appearance. The panel of Superman lowering to finish off the thug is a great, eerie look, and I dig the Gandalf the White style dialogue here, too.

I love everything about the “Metropolis Kid” section, because it’s all built-in, and even gives us hints of this character’s “tactile telekinesis” with the grating not being damaged from his blow. Maybe it’s just nostalgia, but man, it’s a great costume too.

Lastly, the Man of Tomorrow segment, which is such great, great storytelling, as, until the very last second, you don’t realize anything is amiss, in spite of the facial expressions of the tourists. [Max: This guy freaked me out even before I saw his full face, and I just realized why: the panel of him turning to face the family reminds me the end of this traumatizing BTAS episode.]

STRAY OBSERVATIONS:

It’s interesting to me that this issue establishes that Jonathan Kent fought in the Korean conflict, and not, as was established in the World of Smallville mini-series, World War II. It’s amazing that enough time had passed by this point, that they had to move the timeline up. I suppose if Pa Kent were still in modern stories, he’d have been a Vietnam veteran by now. I’ll admit being surprised watching Smallville that Jonathan Kent had never been in any war—I thought for sure they’d have made him a Gulf War veteran or something.

Even completely in shock and grief and confusion, Lois Lane really rocks those stretchpants.

GODWATCH: This is the big one, where, as hinted to in past issues, the belief system that the Kents raised Clark within is made explicit. First on page 22, in a moment of despair, Lois admits she wishes her faith were stronger, and Martha relates that their beliefs included Heaven, and that Clark himself, to her knowledge, subscribed to those beliefs. Finally, when Pa stabilizes, Ma Kent thanks the Lord, on page 42. [Max: I also find Pa’s theory that Clark only ended up in this limbo because he’d been raised as a mortal pretty interesting.]

“Sure—have some of my hootch, why don’tcha?” A very funny exchange. [Max: I forgot to mention High Pocket’s essential contribution to this issue, when he fishes Jose out of the river, gives him booze, and tries to recruit him for some larceny! Shame on me.]

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norafinds · 7 years

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ATWWV - Laila Shalimar

Third post of the Around The World With Vintage and I cannot be more excited for you to read this. Today I would like to introduce you to the Australian-Pakistani pin up Midcentury Mermaid aka Laila Shalimar. I was really excited when I discovered Laila as she is definitely the perfect person to feature on this series. I started this series because I wanted to talk to vintage wearers about culture, nationalities, and identities. Laila has the most fascinating stories growing up in Pakistan and moving to Australia at 16. I thought it would great for me (and you) to learn about Pakistan and its history. I asked her about the Westernised Pakistan that I've seen in vintage photographs as well as her views on being a Desi woman and a pin up girl.

Hi Laila, tell us a little bit about you!

My name is Laila Shalimar. I am a twenty something tattooed pinup of colour from Western Australia. When I am not working one of my two reception jobs, you can find me in the library of Edith Cowan University where I am a student of Criminology and Counter Terrorism. I am passionate about writing and the art of storytelling. Being able to speak 2 languages other than English, linguistics have always been a source of comfort for me. The written word has been a source of solace during some of the most isolating and vulnerable moments of my life and I am grateful to be able to share my experiences with others through the power of writing. I have had some of my pieces published by magazines such as Adore Pinup Magazine, Retro Vintage Review, Damsel Magazine, Dircksey and I hope to continue writing for as long as my mind will let me tell stories.

What is your racial and cultural background?

Because I don’t have an Anglo Australian accent, I often get people asking me where I am “really from”. This is usually after a long and embarrassing guessing game where every country but Pakistan is thrown in as a possibility. I dread these kind of interactions because it makes me feel like my accent, name and appearance prevents me from being considered “Aussie” and also because I never know how people will react to my “identity story”. For one thing, I never know whether they are asking about my ethnicity/race or where I have lived before I moved to Australia. First and foremost, I consider myself a Desi Australian. I was born in Peshawar, Pakistan to a Muslim Pashtun father and a mother of mixed Indo European ancestry. I grew up between Karachi, Islamabad, and Peshawar. I have also lived in the UK and briefly in some parts of Europe. Because I went to an English Grammar school for most my life and was practically raised on American cable, I have a very American sounding accent. I moved to Australia with my family in 2013 and have lived here ever since. Because I was sixteen at the time, I never managed to pick up an Australian accent.

People make the mistake of assuming that “Pakistani” is a racial or ethnic identity when it is merely a nationality. Pakistan is a small country that only came into existence in 1947. Prior to that it was part of the Indian subcontinent and fell under the British Raj. My father’s generation was the first generation to be born in Pakistan. My grandparents were born in British India as it was called. Pakistan hosts a multitude of races and ethnicities much like Australia does and many of us refer to ourselves as Desi or “of the motherland/subcontinent”. I like to think of myself as a Desi Australian because I have a very mixed ethnic background, most of which can be traced to the Indian subcontinent. I value all these beautiful aspects of my ethnicity and often wonder what stories lie hidden in my genes. In my appearance I see a kaleidoscope- as time progresses and my features change, I cannot help but wonder about the ancestors in the obscured and missing branches of my family tree.

First prime minister and first lady of Pakistan during their US visit. The two have been credited for the Pakistan Movement that gained the country its independence. Photo by unknown, provided by US Department of State as part of the album "Visit of his Excellency Liaquat Ali Khan, Prime Minister of Pakistan, to the United States of America, May 3 to May 26, 1950." (Missouri Digital Heritage) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Tell us about your family and your childhood

My mother was 25 when she had me. She had only been married to my father for a year and they lived in a teeny tiny little studio apartment in Peshawar in a “not so desirable” part of town. My mother said she spent a lot of her pregnancy reading and eating tropical fruits. The day I made my entry into the world, she had been reading Valley of the Dolls and eating pomegranates and rock melon. It was a scorching 39 degrees and they had no air conditioning in their apartment. I was born on the 12th of June 1987, in the middle of a heatwave, in a small maternity home at 3pm in the afternoon. My parents did not know they were expecting a daughter and in a society that valued a male heir so strongly, my birth went largely unnoticed outside my immediate family. I was given an old Persian name that I wish I could share with your readership because it has the most delicate sound when pronounced correctly. I was raised in a household full of books, laughter, kitchen table science experiments and the concept of a Ubiquitous but loving God who didn’t care whether I prayed to him in the customary Arabic or my mother tongue of Pashto. I was raised to ask questions and my parent’s ensured they always answered truthfully and to the best of their knowledge.

I was soon joined by two siblings, a brother and a sister and we lived a pretty happy and carefree life amidst the political turmoil of Pakistan’s 90s. I grew up worshipping The Spice Girls, swooning over Nick Carter from the Backstreet Boys, having slumber parties with my schoolmates where we watched movies like Clueless and Never been kissed over and over while painting our toenails bright blue. Summer vacations were spent finding inventive ways to stay cool during ”load-shedding” (where an entire suburb loses power for a week at a time), trips to the British Council Library in Islamabad to borrow books like Matilda and the BFG, eating gola ghanda (local shaved ices) with the other neighbourhood kids and going on long road trips to see our grandparents in Peshawar. And in the background of my childhood and early teens governments were sworn in, governments were kicked out. Each party made promises it would not or could not keep before being replaced in some kind of political ousting. Sometimes there would be Union strikes that would result in school being called off for a few days and we would grow bored and restless indoors waiting to get back to our schoolyard and our friends. Pakistan in the 90s was the best bits of the west and the east tossed together like Chaat Masala on fries, coca cola with Naan Kebab, and Friday prayers after the Power Puff Girls marathon. Had I known what was to follow in the years to come, I would have committed more to memory.

I feel like my life can neatly be divided into two parts: pre and post 9/11. The collapse of the Twin Towers on September 11th and the so called “War on Terror” that followed had a major impact on the world I lived in. While Pakistan has by no means known peace and tranquility in its short existence thanks to our politicians, our military and our religious right, this time the instability was coming from politicians in an office more than 12,000 KM away from us. In war, they say, it is children that become the first casualties of damage physical and spiritual. The thing that will haunt me for the rest of my life are the tired eyes of small Afghan children attempting to sleep in strange doorsteps on freezing winter mornings. It was October when they first started piling into Peshawar, children no older than 5 or 6 unaccompanied by parents in the back of trucks huddling together like chickens roosting. The local hospitals were full of children with injuries from shellings, shrapnel embedded in limbs that often needed amputation, sometimes with very little anaesthetic. Often times the littlest ones would perish due to chest infections left unattended. Our country did not have the finances nor the infrastructure to take on the sheer volume of refugees that were making their way across the Khyber Pass once more. Aid arrived from the UN at a snail’s pace and the US happily wrote off these people as “collateral damage” forgetting that they were the children and family of the men and women who fought the Russians for them in the 80s.

My mother and grandmothers helped where they could by organising “khairaat” (charity food) but there was never enough food to stave off hunger just as there would never be enough comfort for children displaced in the middle of the night. I remember hearing a doctor ask an Afghan boy of maybe six what he wanted to be when he grew up in an attempt to distract him from the tetanus shot he was about to receive. The boy with big fat tears rolling down his cheek replied that he wanted to be “a grown up” and look after his mother who was still “back home”. Things like these hurt to think about even a decade later. I was 15 then but when I look back I feel as if I was watching the world with old eyes. I feel younger now than I did then somehow. Perhaps it is because I am now watching the same things happen from far away, on a television set that I have the luxury to switch off. Some nights I think about that boy and his mother, and other children I saw on my way to my grandmother’s house or our in Baara Market. I can switch off the Tv but the human mind refuses to co operate in the same way.

How did your family decide to move to Australia? How was the experience like for all of you?

Shortly after my 15th birthday I fell into a deep and unshakeable depression. It manifested itself in very violent and angry behaviour. I got into numerous physical fights, refused to hand in assignments and spent most of my time in the school library reading instead of attending classes. I remember thinking of the futility of education when it was likely that we would all end up dead at the flick of a button. What was the point of calculus, social studies and human biology in the event of an all out World War like they kept talking about on TV when I went home every evening sulking, writing terribly morose journal entries in my diary and crying myself to sleep. I could not eat because of constant anxiety and made several attempts to end my own life when it got out of hand. My parent’s sensed that the environment I was in was causing me great distress. They were also extremely worried about the political circumstances in Pakistan and what it meant for my father’s job and our futures. My parents had applied for American, Canadian, Dutch and Australian visas. The interview processes were often followed by months of silence and then rejection letters. In January 2003, I was 6 months shy of my 16th birthday, due to sit my O level exams and had completely stopped attending school altogether. My parents were frantic. What future was there for a woman in Pakistan especially if she didn’t even have a basic high school graduation? They tried over and over to talk to me about my poor performance at school and my lacklustre behaviour at home but to no avail. I was not living, merely surviving day to day, waiting for something to drop on my house or hurt someone I loved. It was an awful time for me.

On the 11th of March 2004 at 2pm in the afternoon, I was at home with my father who was reading a newspaper in the living room. I remember every detail of this day because that was the day the mailman brought the one envelope that changed the rest of my life. I cannot remember if it was from the Australian Embassy or whether it was from my father’s colleague who had ties to the embassy but I remember him opening the envelope, reading its contents several times before looking like he was going to throw up. “As of tomorrow” he said “I want you to start considering options for your future. Australia is a very competitive country with very intelligent people and you’re going to need to be on top of your class to go to their Universities”. That was it. We were moving to Australia. My family had been granted a 5 year multiple visa and with it came the option of residency and citizenship. The only catch was that we had to be in Australia by the 5th of May. We had little under 2 months to move across continents and start a new life.

With a suitcase and a backpack each, we said our final goodbyes to family and relatives at Peshawar Airport. One of my father’s work colleagues accompanied us to the terminal gates. They had been friends since college. I heard from my mother several years later that he had been assassinated. Rumour was that someone from a rival political party had decided to take a hit out on him to ensure a district election win. The more I think about things like this, the more I take comfort in the workings of Australia’s political and legal system. It is by no means perfect but the safety it offers those of us who are lucky enough to yield it is comforting.

Does your love of vintage stem from your cultural background?

There is a Pashtun saying that our home comes alive in our stories. That is to say our histories and therefore our cultural identity provides us with a sense of belonging or home and this really resonates with me. My family moved to Australia on such short notice, with such little time on our hands that there was never any closure. We barely brought anything with us to the new country to remember it by. I never got to say goodbye properly to my life, my family or friends. I was under the impression that our move was temporary and that I would one day return to my life as I left it. Nearly 14 years have passed and I have not visited “home”. I have lost grandparents, schoolmates, and relatives. Shops, restaurants and parks I went to as a child have been reduced to rubble or ruin. People have moved on. The Pakistan I felt safe in, the Pakistan I grew up in is like a little figurine in a snow globe, a place frozen in time, in a little bubble of reminiscence. There is no reclaiming it nor will I be able to return to those carefree and happy times.

We have seen numerous articles about how Westernised Pakistan was before the 1980s. Is there a lot of vintage now in Pakistan? Do people hold on to those memorabilia or were they destroyed?

One of my favourite pieces of furniture back home was a chest of drawers that my mother had as a teenager in the 1970s. The drawers were part of an old deco set that my maternal grandparents were given as a wedding gift. In the topmost drawer, underneath some very “groovy” 60s lining paper was a little peace symbol, “Janis Joplin forever” and my mother’s initials. When I inherited the bedroom set at 13, my mother showed me this little bit of graffiti and said “When I was a teenager, i wrote this in the drawer to piss your grandmother off”. I was equal parts mesmerised and weirded out. My mother was once a teenager who liked scribbling on furniture to make her mother angry. When I recounted this story in my year 12 drama class, my classmates attempted to discredit me. In their minds it was impossible to believe that a teenager that lived in 1970s Pakistan had ever heard of Janis Joplin. The Pakistan they had heard of in pre social media 2003 was the one overrun by the Taliban and women in blue burqas. It was hard for them to comprehend the Pakistan my parents grew up in.

My father fondly recounts stories of his American Hippie friends whom he met in Peshawar restaurants en route to Kabul. They had been traveling from India and wanted to visit the Bamiyan Buddha statues in Afghanistan. Pakistan was an important destination on what was called the "hippie trail" – an overland route taken by young western backpackers between 1967 and 1979 that ran from Turkey, across Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, usually ending in Nepal. Numerous low-budget hotels and a thriving tourist industry sprang up (in Peshawar, Lahore and Karachi) to accommodate these travellers. The hippie trail began eroding after the 1977 military coup in Pakistan, the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and the beginning of the Afghan civil war (in 1979).

My father delighted in telling me stories of discos and cinemas in Kabul and how he and his cousins would go on weekend trips to buy the latest in American style fashion from the markets there. I have seen photos of my mum in smart embroidered Kaftans wearing ridiculously wide bell bottom trousers topped off with big round sunnies. Like many teenage Pakistani girls of her time, my mother’s fashion choices were influenced by the 1974 box-office hit Miss Hippie. A cautionary tale of sorts, the film depicted the "effect hippie lifestyle and fashion were having on Pakistani youth" but ironically this movie seemed to draw more and more youngsters into the hippie fashion scene. When my parents and my relatives talk on skype its not long before the conversation turns to “the good ol days in Pakistan” and if I had not seen the photos with my own eyes I too would have thought they were lying to me. Live music, great food, lots of booze and dancing were the hallmarks of the scene in cities like Karachi and Lahore. Sadly, a lot of the amazing venues and attractions they spoke so lovingly about were closed down by Military Dictator Zia Ul Haq’s government in April 1977.

[Hippie trail into Aghanistan] - By Karte: NordNordWest, Lizenz: Creative Commons by-sa-3.0 de, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, Link

Is there any Pakistani vintage piece that you covet?

There are 3 pieces that I hold very dear to me that I managed to bring with me from Pakistan. The first is a pair of gold earrings my grandmother wore at one of her wedding events in the 50s. My mother wore the very same earrings to her engagement party in 1985 and I wore them as part of my day wear for Miss Pinup Australia 2016. The second is a pair of italian leather shoes my grandmother pestered my grandfather to buy her from Bata Shoes in the late 60s. The number of times they have been cobbled and resoled is incredible! I still wear them in photo shoots from time to time. The last and most important piece to me is my grandmothers rosary. My grandfather had bought her the rosary when he went to Mecca to pay pilgrimage in the early 60s. They are made of a strange kind of early plastic that glows in the dark. My grandmother would constantly be clicking the beads of the rosary, passing each through her nimble calloused fingers, reading short passages from the Quraan. She was hardly ever seen without them. The last time I saw her, she was sitting in front of an old gas heater all misty eyed with her rosary in her hand. When I sat next to her tying my shoelaces, she looked at me and said “i want you to borrow this rosary from me for now but remember to bring it back with you from Australia”. My grandmother passed away two years ago. The rosary has been on my night stand for 14 years, i never got a chance to return it to her.

Are there many Desi women in the vintage scene?

I think there have always been a number of us interested in vintage in some form of the other but the problem has always been exposure to our history and one another. With the advent of social media platforms such as instagram and facebook, we have started becoming more visible. It has become easy to find treasure troves of images, articles and videos from the bygone days showcasing our unique cultures. I know of several vintage loving Desi women that I met on autonomous Women of Colour spaces but wouldn’t have otherwise met because they are self conscious of how they look in vintage. The fact that the presentation of vintage culture and pin up culture is so euro and anglocentric makes a lot of pinups of colour, particularly darker skinned and more ethnic looking pinups feel too self conscious to put themselves out on social media. They often feel like they are “doing it wrong”. Our features and even our vintage ethnic fashion don’t readily fall into the already pre ordained and celebrated vintage or pinup look. An example of this is how coveted pale and almost snowy white skin is in the vintage community. Darker skinned Desi women are already maligned in their own communities for their complexions, and yet are indirectly made to feel unwanted and unattractive in their beloved subculture as well. It is harder for Desi pinups to gain visibility and popularity on social media because history has never placed us in a position to be thought about or considered desirable or conventionally attractive.

Do you find it difficult to be a Desi woman in the pin up industry? Do you think people are surprised that Desi women can and want to be sexy?

I remember when I raised the issue of the lack of diversity in Pinup and vintage publications in Adore Pinup Magazine last year. There was a slough of accusations thrown at myself and the magazine. I was labelled everything from a “reverse racist”, to “a toxic negative nancy”, to a “jealous and ungrateful pinup” all for that one article that discussed the need for change in the Australian vintage scene and the global pinup industry. Apparently, if you are a Desi woman, or a woman of colour, you are expected to be grateful for the one or two token pinups of colour a magazine publishes a year. God forbid you raise hell over the lack of diversity you see in the vintage scene or if you attempt to claim an autonomous online space to celebrate women like yourself. I was lucky that the editor of Adore Pinup Magazine, Brianna Blackheart, addressed the issues I discussed in the article publicly on all of Adore’s social media platforms and backed me up in my arguments. I don’t think I would have continued writing about these issues without her support so early on in my writing.

As far as creating Desi and PoC representation in vintage and pinup goes, the conservative desis in the community feel that I am too racy, too vocal and too sexual to “appropriately” represent Desi femininity while the conservative non PoC feel that I am trying to create a “racial divide” by working on projects such as Pinups of Colour that exclusively celebrates racially and ethnically diverse pinup communities. There is no winning! I feel like people want women like myself to pick a very narrow and carefully constructed box and sit in it very quietly. Every now and then a nice whitewashed hand will come in and either grab my ethnic outfits to be appropriated and if I am VERY good and quiet I will be paraded around like a ventriloquist's dummy parroting phrases that implying (non existent) diversity in the scene. I am sorry but I cannot do that. I refuse to shrink myself to make other people feel comfortable by helping to maintain a status quo and it is just as well as I find it impossible to follow guidelines in order to fit into these boxes anyway!

Staff and students of St Patrick's Teachers' Training College, Karachi, 1956. You can see that for some time during the 1950s-1970s Pakistan strongly adopted Western fashion and culture - Source - Wikimedia Commons.

How did you start wearing vintage? Have you been back since? How do you think you will be accepted there with your tattoos and your look?

I will be honest, I spent my teenage years riddled with insecurity and self doubt because I was one of the few ethnic Desi girls in my predominantly white high school. I stuck out like a sore thumb and at a time where there was a growing mistrust of people from Muslim countries, I was either isolated by my peers or ostracised by them. Vintage clothing gave me a way to feel comfortable with a body that at times felt like a battlefield. As a new migrant whose parents didn’t have much of an income, op-shopping was equal parts necessity and thrill! Much like vintage fashion, tattoos have helped me embrace my body. I wouldn’t say all my tattoos have stories behind them but a vast majority of them were inspired by moments in my life where I felt something move me to my core. I view my body as a passport and see each tattoo as a little stamp for moments in my journey, from my darkest moments to the happier ones.

Tattooing in the Indian subcontinent is not unheard of but it isn’t as common as it is in Australia. This is partly due to conservative culture in countries with little separation between church and state. Tribal facial tattoos were common among the early pagan Pashtuns, however, my ethnic group gave up these customs upon the advent of Arab Islam in the 12th century. While some tribal women in Pakistan’s far north still practise stick and poke facial tattooing, a manual method involving charcoal pigment being inserted into the skin using hand fashioned bone needles, tattooing as a Pashtun art form is almost non existent these days. When our tattooing history is brought up in conversations nowadays, our people refer to that period in our history as the “dark ages” and dismiss the practise as uncivilised. As I haven’t visited Pakistan since starting my body modification journey, I really don’t know how people would react to my body art or style of dressing. I suppose it would be no different to how tattooed ladies got treated in the 20s and 30s in America or Australia!

What is the one thing you want people to know about you?

I am one of those people who is passionate about social justice issues, particularly issues pertaining to the representation and rights of people of colour. Sometimes this passion is severely misread as spiteful. I am angry. Of course! How can you not be angry in this day and age when women, especially women of colour, receive the short end of the stick? My anger derives from hurt, from isolation and from the yearning to have my identity recognised as valid. It is frustrating to be denied representation in the subcultures I love. It is disappointing to be overlooked on the basis of appearance. It is heartbreaking to be denied a space in my own ethnic and cultural group because I defy convention. I am angry but I am not doing it to be spiteful. I am doing it because nice women seldom make history. There are some people who have the luxury to stand by idly and watch the world plummet into darkness. I do not have this luxury. It’s not in my nature nor is it in my favour to do so. Besides, I would much rather be a cactus than a wallflower any day.

#norafinds #around the world with vintage #atwwv #interview #series #blog #pakistan #pakistani #australian #australia #pin up #midcentury mermaid #laila shalimar

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