#she was such a genuine and lovely soul and I miss her beyond comprehension | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

whereflowersbloom · 3 years

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Morning after

The smell of freshly baked croissants and coffee woke her up. Raven hardly ever felt so rested, even after spending an hour meditating before going to sleep, opening her eyes and getting accustomed to the morning light of the sun that illuminated her room through the windows. She turned on her back and nestled in this new, previously unknown feeling. She was strangely calm as if everything was in the right place, and every possible problem remained in the past.

Maybe that’s what genuine serenity feels like, she thought to herself.

But how did she end up in this situation? They became friends. Best friends, even. They talked about everything including their most intimate thoughts. She told herself it was enough or deceived herself into believing so. There was no line for them to cross but a secret and deep part of her soul definitely understood and sought the need to feel wanted and loved and fulfilled. Not like she hadn’t thought of Damian that way before. There was such a terrible tension between them sometimes when they were both sitting on her the sofa watching old classic films or reading books they both enjoyed. She craved the heat of Damian’s embrace. She remembered how it felt to have him curled around her, how gently his thumb stroked her cheek, how his muscles flexed against her, and she wishes he would hold her again.

Damian was like a compass for Raven if she felt like she might lose her way, and that kind of thing never happened to her. Not often at least.

As usual Damian went jogging as it had become his habit thanks to Jon, who craved the sunlight as soon as he opened his eyes, persistently asking him to be his partner. A surprising string elbow in the ribs by Jon gave him the second push to voice his feelings for Raven. Later, he visited a local bakery that made exquisite chocolate croissants, as he memorized Raven’s favorites. Then he returned home with a sudden thought it was the high time to turn his quiet feelings for Raven into something serious. He wanted to fool himself at first, but as it turned out, he was too fucking smart to believe a single word of the downright falsehood he made up in his mind in order to excuse himself from the imminent truth. He was in love with her.

She was about to get out of bed to stretch her muscles when Damian walked into the room carrying a tray with breakfast: hot coffee, steaming Earl Grey, croissants and juicy autumnal fruit. She wanted to approach him, wrap her arms around him and kiss him on the neck, the sensitive spot she discovered last night, but they were not yet at that stage of the relationship. As the matter of fact, she did not know exactly who they were to each other now. Maybe nothing had changed. After all, it had been just a few kisses last night, letting go, a carpet diem kind of moment. Maybe Damian didn’t want things to change between them.

"Good morning.” Damian muttered, sending her one of his radiant, sincere smiles that made her legs weak. "Did you sleep well?"

“Yes. Better than most days. I didn’t know if you would come back...” She kept her own voice soft, matching his tone, afraid to burst the strange bubble they found themselves in. Controlling her anxiety was easier said than done.

“I simply needed time to clear my mind.” His expression was solemn. “We must discuss last night’s event.” He mumbled under his breath, voice deadly calm, a convincing facade, fighting to distract the both of them from his own wild whirlwind of emotions as he left the tray at the bedside table. No woman in his life had ever truly enchanted him in the way she did. He would not give her up.

Her lower lip trembled slightly. She repeated her mantra over ten times until she calmed her nerves. Damian was her closest friend, and she cared about not ruining the special bond between them. They said it was easier to move on as long as you were merely lovers, but what when you are so much more. She felt like a teenager who was falling in love for the first time. Not that she was that much older at the age of 19. She had experience in meaningless romances, short-lived, Wally, Garfield, but she knew nothing about true love. Their bond was beyond comprehensible lines of poetry. More than it being undefinable, it was the freeness to be defined, the way as open interpretations take you.

“We don’t have to to this now. In fact, nothing has to change.” She spoke tentatively, unsure whether she’s more concerned how this would shape their friendship or embarrassed she let herself cross a line. Slowly passing around the room folding her arms across her chest.

The distress was heavy in her chest, stirred with a fog of uncertainty.

At this, Damian’s eyes sparkled with determination and objection regarding her statement. Before she registered what he was doing, he grabbed her hand. “I do not want to leave things exactly as they used to be. Not before last night.” He held her gaze and rubbed his thumb over the backside of her hand, reveling in the softness of her skin.

There’s a fluttering in her stomach, and she’s taken aback at the intensity of it. Butterflied filled with hope and wish. There was hope of light after all darks, hope of happiness after grief, hope of a new colorful sunrise, a chapter to be rewritten.

“It was just a kiss..” In a trice, breaking off the contact. She lied and immediately regretted it. Damian stood next to her with a disbelieving expression on his face. There was a hint of indignation but it vanished quickly.

“You and I both know it meant more than a kiss. I do not need the gift of empathy to see it.” Damian stated sharply, his features hardened at his resolution. He was tired of constantly feeling this weight on his shoulders. What was the point of deceiving themselves any longer? If he didn’t know better, he would say she was avoiding him like a plague.

Letting out a breath she had been holding in since Damian entered her bedroom, Raven felt a weight being lifted off her chest. “Damian...I” She started, but never managed to finish interrupted by an unexpected question.

"Do you have any plans for today?" He left the question hanging in the air.

With brows furrowed in confusion she found herself unable to command her mouth to utter anything. Her heart thudded out of her chest. The normally unflappable last daughter of Azarath knocked for a loop by the close proximity of her stunning teammate.

Raven parted her lips and closed them again.

“It seems we are free to do as we please today. Clear schedule. No training or missions. He shrugged casually, willing his breath to remain steady, years of boiling emotions teetering over the edge of his elegant, suave composure

Raven blinked. Amethysts widening.

“I thought we could go somewhere. You and I” Damian licked his lips, swallowing the nerves in his chest as her eyes widen a fraction at his proposal. "There's a new Parisian café in the city I think you might like.”

Her lips curved up into a sweet smile, growing wider and more radiant as she thought of sitting in Parisian cafe with Damian, enjoying a minute of bliss to be in the other’s company.

“Are you asking me on a date, Damian Wayne?” She blurted with a momentary astonished look, even as she realized the implication of his words. Was this truly happening? She asked herself mentally.

“I’m courting you properly, Raven. So yes, I’m asking you out.” His shoulders ease from their tensed position, subconsciously hunched in nerves to what she’d respond.

It was surreal, talking about what a few minutes ago had been unbearable chains, restrained by her own fears and inner demons. Ethereal strands of thread that could be snapped by a mere jerk of fingers. He wanted more. He wanted her.

“I don’t know, Damian.” She bit her lip still indecisive, gaze away from his face. Once again mind invaded by intrusive negative thoughts. What if it didn’t work? What if she lost control? The numerous what if’s haunted her like never ending nightmares.

Taking a step closer, something in his emerald sparked with an idea and firmness of not quitting. “Any chance I can persuade you to change your mind then?” He crooned in her ear, nipping at it just slightly, taking her breath away. She wondered how long she could resist his gravitational pull for so long.

Raven hesitated for a good few seconds before finally resigning herself to the fact that whatever she did. She couldn’t fight this anymore. She loved him. “I can think of a few ways.” She was surprised at her own boldness, snaking slender arms around his torso. He pressed his built body against hers closer, placing tender, teasing kisses along her neck. Whilst she was glad that he was enjoying himself, she was going to completely lose it if she remained flush against him for much longer. Her entire core heated with want for him. He smirked at the effect he had on her with his natural charm. This confident, cocky air. This was so him and content and not bothering to mask it. No filters.

“Is that a yes?” He whispered and there was no missing the boyish grin spread over his tanned cheeks. Hooking a finger under her chin and brought her face level with his own.

“I suppose you earned a date, Mr. Wayne.” She laughed feverishly. Gently, stroking his palm with her thumb. Enjoying the calloused yet silky skin of an accomplished swordsman and fighter.

An audible sigh left Damian’s mouth as his muscles relaxed with her nestled in his arms. She could sense his relief. Yes, perhaps a change could be good, opening herself to feel again. A new chapter of light and joy.

Notes: I know I have disappeared and haven’t updated in forever but I’m still sick and weak. Also working on the fanzine project. I should be done in a week though. But meanwhile have this short damirae. Not my best but I hope you enjoy it 💖💖💜💜

@deepbreadlover @tweepunkgrl @alerialblu @chromium7sky @kallura-juniblade @cayeeast

I miss you all and youre all welcome to message me. I feel a bit disconnected from the world.

Also I’d like to use to wish @shewhowillnotbenamed1 a happy birthday!! Thank you for blessing us with your beautiful wiring and your friendship 😊😊🥰💜💖

#damirae #demon birds #damian wayne #raven roth #wally west #garfield logan #teen titans #dick grayson #batman universe #robrae #dc fandom #dc universe #creative writing #jon kent #super sons

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renzu-valra · 3 years

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Prompt #2: Aberrant

Character: Nobushige Matsugen ♦ Region: Redacted ♦ Time: Present Hosted by: @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast

Like a fly drawn to a web of stringed honey, she threw herself into a confinement with no escape. Allured by that sweetness, she stuck herself to the sticky threads and struggled, not to break free…but to pull what strands she could closer to make herself a more presentable meal. And yet, she cried. Her distant rationality mourning her fate and begging to be released. Though she acted the part of willing prey well, her heart simply was not in it.

Nor were the hearts of any of those who came before her. Lackluster things driven by the high of a lavish drug instead of sincere motive. It was what caused her to drop herself from the balcony. In efforts to keep my attention all to herself a moment longer. I couldn’t blame her. I only wished for her happiness above all else. To feel her soft smile underneath my fingertips as she received the full of my care used to reassure me that this scene was something to be cherished and considered beautiful…rather than viewed as a sad lie.

What would bring her joy? What were her true desires under this veil of misconstrued affections? If it was as simple as spending time with her ideal person, then why did she shed tears as if she wanted nothing more than to break away? Her mind knowing the final outcome of this love, and rejecting it.

Was this enough for her?

She was unfit to care for herself as she was now, at any rate. Her every need requiring assistance in order to fulfill. Her limbs fragile and limp like a doll’s. It was captivating. That she could satisfy my desires by breaking herself beyond repair should credit more of an effort from me. I wanted to find the one thing that made her smile earnest.

Before I met him, such ideas never would’ve crossed my mind. I would’ve thought this love real and without fault. He was unlike any I had ever known. His heart’s affliction: carnality. He did not leap into the spider’s web like all the rest. Instead, he set out to craft his own intricate webbing where the spider could see—inviting the other over so he might offer both himself and a new expanse. An expanse which was wrought with violence and insatiable want. His soul laid bare for all to witness. And for the first time, there was mutual reciprocation. His personality extreme and lacking humiliation.

Ever since our joining, I’ve doubted my intentions. I knew I was missing a vital part of mortal comprehension…however, since I also knew that I was above it, I never sought to understand it. Pain—and why people crave and abhor it in varying measures. Whilst it was beyond my knowing, having been born immune to its empowering effects, I laboured to explore the facets of it which I could. For his sake.

And thus, I lifted the woman’s hand up to my lips. Kissing her soft hand gently as she winced and smiled both from the touch and the soreness of her broken arm. Was that it…? Had a genuine emotion sparked in her just now? Her body shivered slightly as if that was the case.

Very well then…before her time expires, I shall endeavour to hail to her aspirations. As is my duty.

#ffxivwrite2021 #nobushige #ffxiv rp

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millennialdemon · 3 years

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Coming off of true trainwrecks the likes of Mars of Destruction and Skelter Heaven, I actually came out of Dark Cat with a sense of respect and gratitude for its competence.

For the uninitiated, Dark Cat is a notoriously bad OVA from 1991 that you will see listed in many Worst Anime Ever countdowns. It follows 2 brothers, “dark cats” Hyoi and Rui, who investigate supernatural happenings and purify evil with their somewhat undefined powers of shapeshifting and increased strength/agility. The majority of the story in the OVA is about a school girl named Aimi, who is pining after her childhood friend Koizumi, who since the rejection and sudden death of his crush, has been suffering a depressive episode and ignoring her. Hyoi and Rui sense dark forces are manifesting at the school, and they keep an eye on Aimi while fighting off the increasingly brazen appearances of demonic enemies.

A monstrous ex-dark cat named Jukokubo is revealed to be manipulating Aimi with his dark powers, and Hyoi and Rui fight him, but not before Aimi succumbs to the evil magic -- as well as her own violent jealousy and overprotectiveness of Koizumi -- and transforms into a horrific tentacle monster that kills seemingly everyone in the school.

In the end, Koizumi realizes that Aimi was in love with him the entire time, and doesn’t fight her when she engulfs him completely. Apparently this act of selfless love was enough to purify them both, and although they do indeed die, their souls are “light” and able to ascend. This throws a wrench in Jukokubo’s plan to prove that humans are The Worst, so he turns tail and leaves his boss fight against Hyoi, threatening to return again. In the epilogue, Hyoi and Rui reflect on the mission and wax poetic about the nature of humanity while crossing a busy street.

… Ehm… happy ending, yes?

Now then: there are actually quite a few things I enjoyed about Dark Cat, and they are all very simple things that I had come to miss after days of watching other entries from the Bottom of the Barrel.

It had a narrative, and was -- mostly -- comprehensible in its storytelling, as rushed as it may have been. There was an undeniable presence of an art director, something I’m not convinced was present in a few of the other similarly rated titles I have seen. Some of the shots were noticeably well composed and even clever, and required an artistic vision and some decent effort to create. The animation wasn’t awful, the designs ranged from serviceable to genuinely charming (I like the subtlety of Hyoi and Rui’s cat-like features!), and I liked that the characters actually emoted. It wasn’t as generic as I expected and took some risks, even if they didn’t pay off and left it with a reputation of being “too grotesque to be enjoyable”.

I can understand the common criticisms of the gore and body horror being poorly animated, but I won’t decry it for existing and “being ugly”... of course it’s ugly, it’s body horror reminiscent of The Thing from The Thing. (Now would be a good time to warn people not to look this OVA up, unless they are sure they are okay with body horror and gore of this calibre. Tentacles with teeth and spines rip out of people’s skin from the inside and deform their hosts, it is quite awful! I would also include a warning for trypophobia -- there are shots where the mutations form clusters of holes on the skin.) The body horror in Dark Cat being disgusting and making my skin crawl isn’t a fault -- I think it’s the intended purpose. Though I will concede that:

The phallic imagery of the horrific flesh mutations, particularly that of the teacher who attacked Rui, was… bizarre, considering that otherwise the OVA isn’t particularly dark in tone or otherwise sexually graphic.

Perhaps having grotesque body horror is completely unexpected in a story about two bishounen teens (?) who can turn into cats and fight ghosts.

Yes, Dark Cat, the OVA put on Worst Anime Ever lists for being a grotesque spectacle, is just as commonly placed on those lists for being a dumb anime about guys that can transform into house cats and who fight supernatural entities with not so amazing powers. This is a gripe I’ve seen in a few popular reviews, but there was no point during my watching experience that I thought, “Man, these teens are pansies, they don’t even turn into big scary lions or anything! What’s the point, it’s practically a power-down! cinemasins ding” because I don’t go into anime expecting every single male character I see to be Big & Strong & Cool, because I uh… don’t have brain worms I guess? I don’t know what to say about this criticism really, other than people who watch a lot of shounen have very strange hang ups about super powers.

Otherwise, it seems the biggest reason Dark Cat is lauded as One of the Worst -- perhaps even ahead of the silly concept and nauseating gore -- is actually because of the abysmal english dub. It’s my honour to say that I didn’t watch the dub, so it doesn’t factor in at all into my impressions!

So in the end, perhaps my only true gripes with Dark Cat are:

Despite having no particular issue with body horror and gore existing, the extent of destruction and graphic death gave the OVA a bit of a snuff film vibe.

The conclusion to the story was quite bad.

It could be surmised by the brief plot outline I wrote earlier that Dark Cat isn’t a very complicated story. Demons and ghosts exist and wreak havoc on emotionally vulnerable humans, and supernatural soldiers try to mediate between the realms by purifying tortured ghosts and saving those dragged into darkness by evil entities. These beats are common in the supernatural genre of anime, but Dark Cat’s handling of its tragic morality tale left me more confused than anything.

Koizumi didn’t do anything wrong -- he shouldn’t have had to die for the sin of not reciprocating Aimi’s feelings, nor for developing depression after the rejection and death of his classmate and crush. Aimi… did things wrong, but was nevertheless the most compelling character in the OVA. Throughout Aimi was kind, patient, and forgiving when it came to being treated badly by Koizumi. In the finale however, it is revealed that Aimi was the one responsible for Koizumi’s crush’s death, assumedly having murdered her out of jealousy or out of revenge on Koizumi’s behalf for hurting his feelings. Prior to this, the first students to be killed by the tentacle monsters just happened to be the ones that had bullied Koizumi in class earlier that day -- implying that Aimi was getting revenge on them, as well.

It was with these revelations that I started to wonder: Why not just let the flesh monster manifest as a direct result of Aimi’s negative feelings? Aimi confessed to murdering Koizumi’s crush before the events of the OVA -- would she have done so if she wasn’t being influenced by the malignant force set on her by Jukokubo? I feel that her arc would have been much more interesting without the introduction of a non-compelling and badly designed villain like Jukokubo, because then we would know it was all her. Even if she was influenced by forces exacerbating her pre-existing jealousy and rage, that is a more satisfying option than having a big dumb green cat of a villain to trace everything back to so neatly.

And really, what did Jukokubo do in the story beyond take the spotlight, and the blame, from Aimi? He had some previous relation to Hyoi and Rui, but it’s not developed at all, and his ideological rivalry with Hyoi was trivial. Hyoi could have come to the same conclusions about holding out hope for humanity without Jukokubo there to insist he be a guest to debate on his political podcast.

The lack of accountability regarding Aimi is a part of why the resolution to her conflict with Koizumi feels so wrong -- he succumbs to her feelings because he realizes the evil was born from her suffering, and he feels that he has to sacrifice himself to make up for unknowingly hurting her so much that she turned into a monster from hell. In the end she is absolved via being purified and getting to die with her spirit entwined with Koizumi’s, and he apologizes for having not recognized how he was hurting her.

Aimi kills his crush, kills his bullies, and ends up -- inadvertently, at least -- killing almost all of their classmates, because she was tilted about her childhood friend not realizing she had romantic feelings for him. And when Koizumi learns all of this, he apologizes and dies with her, and this is proof of humanity’s goodness? The dark clouds part and the rain stops and Aimi and Koizumi ascend in a heavenly ray of light, because he decided, while she was devouring him, that he was wrong to ignore his murderous best friend’s love for him?

I guess it’s fine -- it was probably mostly Jukokubo’s fault anyway, and everyone was just an unfortunate victim of his meddling… 😒

Other than the bad writing, the string of deaths that happen in the finale when the monster lets loose in the school are quite uncomfortable to behold. Deformed student bodies are splayed and strewn around classrooms, and the bullies are rendered into unrecognizable mounds of pulsating flesh in their homes. The violence of a fight against a monster like this, I can handle, but the graphic images of helpless death were difficult to stomach. And in this OVA, there is no miraculous reversal of the demon’s damage once it is purified -- there is no implication whatsoever that everyone who died isn’t still just as dead as Aimi and Koizumi in the end.

The main thing I was actually worried about when I watched Dark Cat was that there would be sexual assault, thanks to reviewers griping it for “generic hentai tentacles”. I am relieved to say that there is none, at least not insofar as deserving a comparison to actual porn. There is sexual content scattered throughout the horror scenes: The occasionally phallic appearance of the tentacles, shots of the tentacles coming down from under skirts, and there is one shot of nudity when Aimi’s shirt is ripped open as she transforms, though I would say it’s too horrific and ugly to be sexualized or otherwise considered “fanservice”.

What is the point of the hits of sex imagery in Dark Cat? I have no idea. This isn’t Alien, it isn’t about the horror of sexual assault or the violence of creation -- though the main horror of the scene where Rui is ambushed by the teacher seems to be that she uses magic to seduce him, only to reveal a very phallic tentacle from her mouth that she means to kill (or infect…?) him with, which can have multiple, potentially offensive readings… it is a one off, however -- and there doesn’t seem to be any moral posturing about it as is often seen in slashers. I couldn’t parse any sort of consistent STI allegory regarding the plague of tentacles upon the student body, despite how many summaries I have read that describe the tentacles as that, a “plague”.

… I realize I am probably the only person on earth to give any aspect of Dark Cat’s production this much thought. To sum up: It seems to just exist for the shock value. Considering the extent of disgusting imagery already present a la The Gore and Deformation of Human Bodies, I don’t think this OVA benefitted from featuring some explicit looking tendrils, beyond cementing its abhorrent reputation.

Is this all to say that I think Dark Cat is a good OVA? No, of course not. It’s tone deaf, and tasteless, and has awkward pacing and bad writing. But compared to the utterly soulless and artistically devoid works the likes of Skelter Heaven and Mars of Destruction, I would say the fact I was able to write this much about Dark Cat is testament to that fact that it at the very least, contains content -- and some of that content was like, decent! Skelter+Heaven was such a mess it was all I could do to understand the sequence of events, and Mars of Destruction was so bland I literally have no posts about it on the blog despite watching it more than once. Psychic Wars was a snoozefest I barely finished that similarly has no mention on the blog, and Hanoka’s production gimmick couldn’t save it from being a totally forgettable romance story.

Therefore, Dark Cat is the best worst title I have seen thus far, by virtue of being executed with an average amount of competency for an OVA from the early 90s, and for having a balance of good and bad elements that gave me something to hold onto and mull over after viewing.

3/10.

Oh, and I loved the bad 80s insert songs.

#:Dark Cat #dark cat #2138 words later the verdict is. It was ok

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demonlullaby · 3 years

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A comprehensive review of my favourite k-pop releases of the first half of 2021:

January

(G)I-DLE – I burn

Title track: HWAA

Despite being released earlier in the year, I burn is still absolutely one of the most memorable albums of 2021 for me. I’ve followed (G)I-DLE since debut, but it was after Queendom and Lion era (and then Oh my god not long after) that I think they began to show their true potential, and this release is nothing short of a masterpiece. HWAA is the single I wasn’t expecting but I needed: everything from the icy but charged atmosphere, the haunting percussive vocals, Soyeon’s rap verse splitting the song in two, the simple but extremely effective choreography… It worked so well for me, and definitely made me fall even more in love with the group, and especially Minnie’s stunning vocals.

The rest of the album isn’t just a no skip – all the songs are genuinely so good and well thought out. Some are mellow and melancholic, and my personal favourites are definitely Moon (mainly because of Minnie’s vocals – I seriously need a solo album from her – but also Yuqi’s strong pre-chorus, slightly reminiscent of Senorita era). However Dahlia definitely takes the place as my favourite song on the album. Something about it is so sentimental, yet gives a feeling of strength and resilience. Minnie and Yuqi really left an impression through the whole album, and as always I can only applaud Soyeon’s immense talent in producing and songwriting; she’s really the backbone of (G)I-DLE.

Dreamcatcher – Dystopia: Road to Utopia

Title track: Odd Eye

Dreamcatcher delivers every single time and with Odd Eye once again they did not miss the mark. The song has everything I wanted: the trademark Dreamcatcher rock sound, beautiful vocals (Siyeon’s adlibs, anyone?), Dami’s unique rap verses and, of course, absolutely mind-blowing choreography. Dreamcatcher are truly insane to watch on stage, and I do think they all deserve more credit on all aspects – discography but also vocals, dancing and performing. SuA is my favourite female k-pop dancer, so you bet I have watched every single fancam of hers that is out there. It’s also incredible how everyone in the group is very strong in not just one area – main dancers can sing like main vocalists and vice versa. The album was, as expected, gorgeous. I feel like all b-sides deserve to be talked about because I loved every single one so much. Wind Blows has one of the most beautiful pre-choruses in their discography (also, if I didn’t mention it already, I was absolutely over the moon about having Handong back) and the hook is literally meant to bang your head to it. I LIVE. Poison Love is yet another example of how Dreamcatcher excel in whatever genre they decide to try; while their title tracks usually borrow a lot from rock music, their b-sides explore more synth pop, r&b and house or trap styles. Overall an extremely solid comeback, and I expected nothing else from them. They’re truly a different league.

Hyuna – I’m not cool

This was HYSTERICAL. This release was purely Hyuna in her truest, strange and always charismatic form: from the odd progression of the song to the extremely over the top aesthetic and wardrobe. I was obsessed from the start and still am. I cannot express how happy I am to see her thrive and back to making music she loves. Flower shower was kind of a letdown for me, but oh did this mini album make up for it. I wasn’t expecting such a difficult choreography from her, but Hyuna knows how to own a stage, and it really shows what a pro she is because she is always able to fill the whole place with or without back-up dancers. I feel like I’m not cool was more about telling a message – Hyuna’s flourishing and colorful identity – than it was about vocals or rap, and I really liked that. I also enjoyed the rest of the mini, although I think I’m in the minority who still prefers I’m not cool over Good girl.

Cherry Bullet – Cherry Rush

Title track: Love so sweet

This is going to be a quick, but well-deserved mention. I still don’t know too much about Cherry Bullet besides their previous title tracks, but Love so sweet was truly a breath of fresh air and one of my most replayed songs of the year. I think all cute concepts lovers are extremely grateful to them for this release, and they executed it perfectly from concept to performance.

February

Kang Daniel – Paranoia

Hearing this song for the first time was like getting a punch to the gut, and honestly I feel like I still haven’t entirely recovered. Before Paranoia I listened to Daniel pretty casually, knew some of his songs but not all of them, but this song sunk its claws in me and literally dragged me into the fandom so hey, I guess now I stan? Everything about it ticked every box. The music video was spectacular, and the song itself has an extremely haunting and dark feeling, also paired with truly gorgeous lyrics. I feel like it was a brave and personal release. It was different and raw and I could feel the deep and true emotion behind it, and relate to it as well. Still one of my absolute favourite songs of the year.

SHINee – Don’t Call Me

For some reason it feels like it’s simultaneously been ages since this release and yet also like it just dropped this morning. Just SHINee things, I guess? I was excited beyond belief to get a new full SHINee album after the boys’ much awaited return from the military, for reasons that go from musical to pure and simple affection. It was so good to see them come together again, perform on stage, talk about their music and style backstage. I think all SHAWOLs needed it – I definitely did. I know a lot of people weren’t very into DCM, but to be honest I loved it at first listen. I think SM delivered a beautiful and whimsical music video that went perfectly with SHINee’s trademark uniqueness. They’ve always been known to stray away from trends, try new and sometimes odd styles, and this is exactly what they did this time as well. Even though it was a very different track from their previous ones, it still had an unmistakable SHINee flavour to me. I was also obsessed with all of Key’s verses in the song for MONTHS. I feel like the album as a whole could have been a little more, as some tracks were played safe, but I do have to mention queen Body Rhythm, which is the sultry but classy SHINee style in a perfect 3.12 minutes of a song.

Sunmi – TAIL

OH MY GOD. I was so unbelievably excited for this release and Miss Sunmi did not disappoint. She is and probably will always be my favourite female soloist in k-pop, but even though I enjoyed both pporappippam and Lalalay a lot, I felt like something was still missing there. I believe Sunmi needed some time, after leaving JYP, to find herself and her sound again, and to me that’s exactly what she did with Tail. She has her own brand of sexy, which somehow manages to be both subtle and very in your face. I loved the storyline of the song and music video, and Sunmi’s voice is just perfect for such a sensual and mysterious concept. The choreography was also not simply complex but also extremely clever, and a true example on how to use back-up dancers to an artist’s advantage. Rather than overshadowing Sunmi, which often happens with some soloists out of sheer number, they made her shine even brighter. A special mention here goes to the stylists: they kept the theme for every stage but somehow never made it boring. And overall, it’s Sunmi’s incredible stage presence that makes her songs really come to life on stage.

DEBUT

PIXY – Wings

This debut took me completely by surprise and had me OBSESSED. I replayed the song continuously for a whole week, watched the music video several times (which I usually don’t do) and oh my, that choreography. Wings is probably in my top 10 gg choreographies now, especially including the extremely haunting intro they performed on some stages. Overall I think it was a brave and interesting choice to go for a horror concept straight from debut, and I saw a lot of potential in the girls, especially as dancers and overall performers. While I didn’t personally like their next release, I’m still definitely keeping an eye on them because of this phenomenal debut.

March

WOODZ – SET

Title track: Feel Like

I fell for Woodz hard and fast. This song has that delicious dirty r&b sound that tickles me in all the right places, mixed with some more urban influences, and I feel like sultry soul is where Woodz truly excels. I had been keeping an eye on him because I had really enjoyed Love me harder, but I didn’t know if he was going to go in a more mainstream direction after that… and he did the complete opposite. He gave slow sensual vocals, an instrumental from the GODS, a beautiful retro and almost Wild West vibe and the wardrobe was on point. The other two songs in the mini were honestly just as good, moving in the direction of an even more contemporary r&b with a gorgeous taste of synthwave and dreamwave in Rebound.

DEBUT

Purple Kiss – INTO VIOLET

Title track: Ponzona

10/10 best debut of the year and I’m not accepting other opinions. I had high expectations for Mamamoo’s juniors and they SURPASSED THEM. Purple Kiss came out with a dark and mysterious concept and a song to match, and I feel like the group is extremely balanced, which is rare to see: vocals, rap and dance all have one or more members who absolutely excel in that skill, and it makes their performances beautiful and very professional, despite just being rookies. Like all 4th generation groups there is a definite focus on performance but, for once, I felt like this time the vocals didn’t have to take the backseat for the performance to shine, and I really appreciated it. I am especially interested in seeing how Swan will develop as a vocalist, since she’s so young but already so extremely talented; I am in love with how unique her vocal tone is. The title track stole the show from the rest of the album, which was also very good but could not compete with how incredible Ponzona was. Regardless, I feel like Purple Kiss immediately established their place in the industry with their debut, and I can’t wait to see more.

Baekhyun – Bambi

Ah, what a bittersweet goodbye. And yet what an absolutely flawless one at that. Baekhyun has been my favourite k-pop male vocalist probably since the first time I heard him sing, so yeah, it’s hard to think we won’t get any more new music from him for almost two years. Bambi was, after the incredible and well-deserved success of his previous releases, a gorgeous, sleek and mature level up into pure artistry. The instrumental is stripped down to the essential and yet for that very reason it hits much harder, and the song can’t help but follow Baekhyun’s voice wherever he wishes to take it. I loved hearing him showcase both his incredible upper AND lower register, and he probably had my favourite music video of the year – minimalistic, elegant, sexy. It made me think I would really like to see a collaboration between Baekhyun and Woodz someday in the future… anyone else? I also loved the album as a whole. Something I’ve noticed with Baekhyun is that every time, even delivering amazing title tracks, the rest of the album is always still just as beautiful. Maybe I’m just too in love with the man’s voice, but to me every single track on the album was memorable and beautiful in a way that felt a lot like longing.

April

ENHYPEN – Border: Carnival

Title track: Drunk-dazed

The day this album came out, ALL I DID was listen to it over and over. The sound in all of the songs follows a very interesting and coherent story progression, and besides visuals and choreography, the music was the most fascinating part of this release for me. From the intro it felt extremely atmospheric, which was helped by the narration, and the transition into the title track was seamless. I love that ENHYPEN have a very clear and unique concept and are going against the trend that we’re seeing from most 4th generation boy groups. Drunk-dazed was a continuation to Given-taken in storyline and music, but also an upgrade, and everyone has improved so much and so quickly it genuinely left me shocked. I was especially impressed by how much more refined and controlled Jake and Sunghoon’s vocals now sound, and delighted to see that not only Niki had more lines but they even gave him a small dance break. He’s always the highlight of ENHYPEN performances for me, and I do really believe he’s going to become one of the most legendary dancers in all of k-pop. The music video was my favourite of the year in a tie with Baekhyun’s Bambi: the cinematography was sleek and movie-like, Sunghoon’s acting beautiful and never overdone, and the imagery both haunting and gorgeous, mixing cold marble and blood in a way that reminded me a bit of the music video for BS&T. The album as a whole was also one of the most memorable releases of the year. Fever allowed ENHYPEN to perform a more sensual concept, still in a youthful way that felt appropriate for them, and all the choreography was beautifully intricate. I feel like it’s a general consensus that Heeseung shone the most in Fever performances; he always gives 1000% on stage and it’s genuinely captivating to watch. While Not For Sale is not my favourite sound for them and just in general, it’s still a fun song and makes it so that, while keeping stylistic coherence, the mini appeals to a very broad audience. Mixed Up became my new n.1 ENHYPEN b-side at first listen: something about it is so passionate and determined, and gives off the same exact vibe I get from the boys’ performances: youth, hard work, fierceness.

BIBI – Life Is a Bi…

Title track: BAD SAD AND MAD

SHE BROKE ME. This album made BIBI shoot up in my list of best soloists and she landed somewhere in my very sacred top five. She has an indie and r&b vibe paired with class and extreme relatability, and I could seriously listen to her sing forever; her tone is new and unexpected, not only in sound but also in storytelling. The songs on the album felt honest, raw, truthful. Unfiltered. Umm life, the first song on the album, is also probably my favourite. It hit me in a very personal way, and I feel like I’m not the only one who saw herself in the lyrics and overall feeling of it. With this album BIBI touched on a lot of difficult and often taboo topics, and the music video for the single (literally… BDSM) was both visually tongue in cheek and, lyrics wise, sad, poetic and rich with complex imagery. I loved seeing BIBI perform on stage and I watched all of her interviews too. There is something about her absolutely unbothered attitude on and off stage that fascinates me, and the way she performs shows how deeply she really feels her music. She put out an incredible album with tracks that were all thought provoking and well-thought out.

ITZY – GUESS WHO

Title track: In the morning

Okay, look. I know everyone is out there saying the lyrics were cringy or the sound didn’t fit ITZY or whatever else, but ITM and Sorry not sorry are still some of my most played k-pop tracks of the year so, say what you like but DAMN ARE ITZY’S SONGS CATCHY. To be quite honest I didn’t know what to expect after the disappointment that was for me Not Shy, but In the Morning not only delivered, it went beyond expectations in a way I couldn’t have imagined. ITZY managed to showcase all of their strengths and also their infectious charm and energy. Every performance was new and entertaining to watch; I love Lia’s vocals, Ryujin is the real definition of center and I was also captivated by Yuna’s energy and bubbliness, but also her professionalism at such a young age. Yeji stood out the most to me and proved that, at least in my opinion, she’s without a doubt the ace of ITZY in dance, vocals, rap and more. I wish JYP would give more spotlight to Chaereyeong’s dancing, however, as I feel she hasn’t been able to fully showcase her abilities yet. The choreography was extremely strong as usual and, unlike previously, I was finally able to enjoy some of ITZY’s b-sides, particularly Sorry not sorry, KIDDING ME and SHOOT!,all of which I loved. What ITZY ultimately brings to the table is an energy that’s impossible to resist and that I think no one else in 4th generation possesses.

May

Oh my girl – Dear OHMYGIRL

Title track: Dun Dun Dance

Someone get this song out of my head, please. Seriously. This release grabbed me and catapulted me in the world of Oh my girl and hey, I’m not complaining. I was desperately waiting for a fun, summery release that did not feel like it was a rehashed version of a 2020 song, and this was IT. The song came with a very tasteful, light and romantic album which contains some of my new favourite gg b-sides, like Who comes who knows or Swan. The performances were impossible to stop watching; the girls took a concept that is known to work and has been done so many times and still managed to give it a fresh and personal feel, and I loved all of it. The choreography fit so well with the song and the group’s image, and something I particularly loved was the styling (give me all the crochet tops please) and just overall how much fun it looked like they were having on stage. Thank you Oh My Girl for officially starting the summer of 2021!

SOLO DEBUT

YUQI – A Page

Title track: Bonnie&Clyde

I can’t stress just HOW ANGRY I still am that this wasn’t promoted in Korea and was barely performed even in China. Is Bonnie&Clyde the best song of 2021? Most likely. So someone explain to me why CUBE acted like Yuqi’s solo debut wasn’t the huge deal that it was (kind of like they’re doing with Soyeon now, to be honest). I frankly do not get their decision to not capitalize on it more, because they could have made a fortune with proper promotions but, moving on. TWO SONGS AND MY ENTIRE YEAR WAS MADE, MISS YUQI DID. THAT. I don’t sing, and I learned the lyrics to both songs. I’ve never played the piano before in my life, but you can bet your ass I spent 48 hours watching tutorials and now know how to flawlessly play Bonnie&Clyde on the keyboard. Yuqi has one of the most gorgeous voices in k-pop and just pop in general, and the potential all (G)I-DLE members have is INSANE. Her concept was strong, empowering and with hints of pain and, mostly, survival and resilience. I didn’t feel a choreography was necessary and I still think it’s pretty ridiculous how some people are so mad that Bonnie&Clyde, a song made to highlight Yuqi’s vocals, had a very simple dance performance. I cannot wait for the day we get a full album from Yuqi and we can see her perform on music shows.

Taemin – ADVICE

Genuinely, I do not want to talk about this album AT ALL. I have very complicated feelings about Taemin enlisting, what his artistry has meant to me through the years and the hell this man’s voice has got me through, and I still feel almost uneasy listening to this album. Restless. Advice was a risk for Taemin. He took a step away from his style both musically and in choreography, and it felt new and a little disconcerting, but deep down still extremely Taemin. It’s undeniable that Taemin includes in his art a strong element of, to put it simply, genderfuck; he represents both genders at once and also neither (I am in full support of recognizing “Taemin” as a new official gender identity :D) While the Move-Criminal-IDEA triad is still unshakable and probably impossible to top, Advice was something that, as a long-time fan, I needed. The album was as beautiful as I’ve come to expect from all of his releases (I believe I called Strings “slow, passionate sex” and I stand by that statement) and I have too many feelings I don’t quite want to figure out whenever SAD KIDS plays. As always, SHINee and Taemin’s music is more than just music or performance to me, and the reasons are many and complicated. All I really know is that Taemin’s voice manages to shake something very deep within my soul (throwback to when I first listened to IDEA and started full-on sobbing) and I am grateful to him for being the incredible artist he is.

EVERGLOW – Last Melody

Title track: FIRST

My girls!!! I am so proud!!! I feel like no one is giving EVERGLOW nearly enough credit for the growth they’ve done both as a group and as individuals. They started with BBC as an interesting but still somewhat lacking group, full of potential; having supported them since the very first day, I feel nothing but extreme pride as I watch their FIRST stages. They all look more confident and every single one of the girls absolutely owns the stage. I feel like finally Onda’s dancing was properly showcased (and I may have watched one too many fancams of hers because ?? Have you seen those shoulders??? *fans self*) and both Mia and Sihyeon’s vocals shone beautifully. They have grown up and become incredible performers, not just capable but extremely strong. In my opinion EVERGLOW have the most intricate and exhausting choreography amongst all girl groups as of right now, and this comeback they’ve shown they really are able to stand out in the midst of the industry oversaturation that is 4th gen. My only – but very real – complaint is: who the hell is writing their b-sides and why do they always sound so mediocre? I want to have a talk with the producer who thinks it’s ok to make C- songs just because they also delivered an A+ single. Also, EVERGLOW full album when?

TXT – The Chaos Chapter: FREEZE

Title track: 0X1=LOVESONG

HELLO??? WHAT WAS THIS?????!!!???????

Look, I didn’t even listen to TXT much before this; I just casually knew their title tracks and nothing more. Then they come back with emotional rock music, absolutely insane choreography and flawless live vocals??? OK GO OFF I GUESS????? (Can you tell I’m still in shock and absolutely not over it? You probably can)

This was most definitely the release that surprised me the most; I listened to the title track when it came out just to quickly check it out, to see if it was catchy and if I wanted to add it to my playlist, and then proceeded to listen to it about 50 more times before I moved to the rest of the album, and did the same with every other song (special mention to Dear Sputnik and Frost for literally being the best k-pop b-sides in history). I learned the dance down to every detail, marveled at Taehyun’s vocals, the hypnotizing way Yeonjun moves on stage and just overall their chemistry as a group and the impressive level of individual talent everyone in TXT has. It’s very rare to find groups where all members have such outstanding vocals, dance and performance, and I’ve been in a TXT loop since this release. Officially added to my stan list. What an incredible album.

June

B.I – WATERFALL

Title track: illa illa

This was… a lot. iKON was, back in the day, one of the main groups that got me into k-pop, and B.I’s departure from the group – if you can call it that – took part of the fandom with him, including myself. So, a lot of us set to waiting. I had trust B.I would eventually come back fully as a musician. He’s always been an inspiration to me and the snippets he let us see on Soundcloud before making his comeback reminded me how much his music is able to truly touch me. And then this album dropped.

B.I is without any doubt my favourite lyricist in all of k-pop, and it is even more impressive that he has been able to produce, write and arrange for his own group, other groups and now for himself as a soloist. Some of the lyrics in this album, especially for Waterfall and illa illa, keep staying with me through my days – I’ll keep building sandcastles even though I already know they’ll eventually come crashing down – and I was able to relate to him not only as a fellow artist but also, very deeply, as a person. This album felt personal to me and many others, and Hanbin did not hold back – he never does, but especially not this time. Waterfall opens the album true to its title: it pours out angry, tired, hurt, and it just keeps pouring. It speaks of wounds not yet healed and lays down the truth that, in life, some wounds do not ever truly heal after all. Following it is illa illa, which with the first few notes already introduces a few hopeful piano keys and B.I’s equally hopeful voice. It feels tentative, like seeing an end to the darkness but being so used to it that you can’t quite believe it. It feels like accepting and maybe, finally, moving on. The album goes from deep to playful to hip-hop heavy tracks and back to r&b, and I was also very happy to see B.I and Lee Hi collaborating again, as she’s also one of my favourite artists. I needed this ray of hope.

TWICE – Taste of Love

Title track: Alcohol-free

Was I skeptical when I first heard the title? Yes. Did I fall head over heels for this song as soon as I saw Twice first perform it? Also YES. This is this year’s summer song, period. The last one/two years have been years of discovery for Twice, of maturing, finding an updated but still authentic sound that fits them, and this album feels very much like Twice but also showcases their growth. Alcohol-free is the perfect title track, and I swear once I listen to it or even just think about it then I’m stuck singing SWEET MIMOSA PINA COLADA for the rest of my week. All the stages were phenomenal, and I swear I probably died and came back to life several times while watching Nayeon perform. I love how the song highlighted Tzuyu’s vocals better than most Twice title tracks, although I am still very tentative about Jeongyeon’s return. But at the end of the day, if she’s made the decision to come back then all we can do is support her and hope she keeps getting better. This era also gave us iconic Twice interviews and shows (who gave Momo the right to be so funny, seriously?) and overall felt almost like a new beginning, finally seeing the group as a whole for an official comeback again. I also think Taste of Love has some truly excellent b-sides that capture the summer feeling perfectly, without ever feeling repetitive or basic. I especially loved how catchy Scandal is with its whispered intro, the sensual and intimate feeling of Conversation and the perfectly captured naivety of young romance in First Love.

ONEWE – Planet Nine: Alter Ego

Title track: Rain To Be

I did not expect ONEWE to release my favourite k-rock album of 2021 and surpass even DAY6, but boy am I impressed. I feel like, given the chance, they could really take Korea by storm, and I really hope RBW starts to give them decent promotions and distribute their

budget a little better. This was just overall a gorgeous album with an incredible title track. It came out almost two weeks ago but I still play it several times a day because I absolutely can’t get over it. ONEWE’s take on rock is indie and very emotional; Rain To Be feels desperate in its passion, and the vocals are so soulful and honest the song manages to feel both exciting and heartbreaking. Also the bass. Just. THE BASS. It’s a beautiful album from start to finish, and I might or might not have cried a few times while listening to COSMOS. The music video managed to be epic while keeping an incredibly simple concept, and I loved the visual of them getting slowly submerged by water as the song reached further and further heights. I really hope at least one person reads this and gives ONEWE a chance and listens to their songs, because they’re relatively new to the scene but I feel like they already have left a very memorable impression on the k-rock music scene.

To conclude this review, here are my most played k-pop tracks of the year so far:

ONEWE – Rain To Be

ITZY – In The Morning

YUQI – Bonnie&Clyde

Jessi – What Type of X

B.I – WATERFALL

ITZY – Sorry Not Sorry

Baekhyun – Bambi

Key ft. Doyoung – COOL

Hyuna – I’m Not Cool

ENHYPEN – Drunk-dazed

WheeIn – NO THANKS

PURPLE KISS – Ponzona

WOODZ – Feel Like

Kang Daniel – PARANOIA

ATEEZ – Sunrise

Henry – Thinking of You

CLC – No

SEVENTEEN – Light a Flame

Stray Kids – My Universe

WONHO – Open Mind

Sunmi – TAIL

6 notes · View notes

wormholxtremearchived · 4 years

Note

💀 except i want this for raylee -evil laughter-

@pepperpxtts / @mindrcadcr | Death Meme | Accepting

For a moment, Kaylee forgot the battle that took place. Her mind was flooded with darkness. How this very second felt like an eternity and passed as quickly as a tornado was a mystery but she almost wished for that numbing darkness to return.

A fire ran under her skin, she felt like she was being boiled alive but she couldn’t see the effect on her physical form. Instead, her body was covered in debris. Tons of bricks and twisted metal that melted together in a vat of lava was starting to solidify as it encased and crushed her entire body. Hot tears streamed down her cheeks, evaporating into light clouds of steam from the heat that continued to radiate off of her.

If she could have moved, she would have nodded. It was the right move. She told herself, replaying the battle with Nitro in her mind. She didn’t have scanners to tell her what power he emitted but Kaylee remembered the horror stories from her parents. It might have been decades since Stamford and the subsequent superhero civil war but the memorial still stood. Kaylee was often brought to the anniversary events that her parents orchestrated. The sight of shadow children burned into the concrete only spoke to the kind of power that Nitro expelled. So when Kaylee saw his body begin to glow as bright as the sun, she was not about to watch another nuclear blast rip apart the city.

She opened the palms of her hands as she slammed into his form, the heat from his ability ran down her arms and she could feel the immense power ripple through her muscles as she absorbed every energy particle her body would allow. She flexed her legs tight, using this sudden power surge to increase her acceleration of flight beyond anything she had ever tried before.

A blast shattered windows as the two superhumans broke the sound barrier easily, leaving streaks of air and golden light in their wake. Their velocity was beyond Kaylee’s comprehension, her very bones threatening to shatter under the sheer force as she tried to stay in control of her trajectory. Her fists tightened on Nitro’s form, grunting with determination, as she slammed their bodies into an abandoned warehouse.

She could hear him laughing maniacally, the sound echoing in her mind. He was taunting her. She couldn’t keep up the pace, absorbing the energy was already taking a toll on her physical form. Her heart practically pounding out of her chest. There was something hot and wet dripping down the front of her face and it wasn’t until she pursed her lips that she tasted blood.

What was once a rush of power, turned into fire as Kaylee could feel her insides trying to cook with the heat Nitro was giving off. But this fight wasn’t over. The gauntlets that wrapped around her arms glowed a dangerous white hot light as Kaylee circulated the expanding energy from her body into the repulsor rays. She gained altitude, reaching the ceiling of the warehouse before twisting, keeping Nitro’s back to the floor and kicked off the ceiling, pile driving both of them into the ground. The heat radiating off their bodies melted through the foundation and several yards below in seconds. Kaylee twisted around, expelling all of the energy she could through her gauntlets straight up, blasting the support beams that kept the warehouse standing. Come on damnit! Collapse!

Kaylee saw pieces of metal begin to crumble before the remaining blast from Nitro hit her in the back. She couldn’t even scream before she blacked out, finding the smallest relief in that single moment of darkness. The radiation melted all of the rubble around her, constricting her body into a tomb of debris as the energy she absorbed began to dissipate.

The numbness from shock also evaporated and Kaylee was suddenly aware of every crushing pain along her body. “O-okay Kay. I-It’s o-okay.” she told herself, her eyes fluttered open. The last attempt to find a way out of her predicament, but she only found more darkness.

It wasn’t fair. Things were finally starting to heal in the aftermath of Zeke Stane. Tony had finally woken up. Wes and Stevie were smiling again, cracking jokes and giving Kaylee the hugs and support she desperately needed but couldn’t bring herself to ask for. Kay even reached out to Sophie and planned a girls night. And Carol, her mother. The worry and pain on Carol’s face as she tried to hold their family together entered Kaylee’s mind. The eldest Danvers-Stark was once again going to be the cause of her mother’s tears.

Kaylee shuddered at the thought.

But one more face flashed across her mind. He was usually surly, drunk even, unshaven and sarcastic, but when he smiled? Kaylee’s heart skipped a beat at the mere thought. She knew there was more beneath that rough exterior. She remembered the sweet, kind, gentle boy he use to be. She’d seen those same qualities in the man he became, despite the alcohol.

Why she didn’t tell him before that she wanted more than their use and lose policy was a mystery now. A regret that made her heart ache, and the sharp breath she took let the weight of debris crush her chest further. Jason deserved to be happy and for the first time in what Kaylee suspected was a long time, this other woman brought a genuine smile to his lips.

“R-ray,” Kaylee shuddered as his name escaped her lips softly.

Her mind must have been playing tricks on her because a moment later his voice spoke clearly in her mind.

“...Kaylee?” his voice was timid, a bit of disbelief, but it was there.

This can’t be a good sign She responded, doing her best to jest but the realization dawned on her. She was dying. There was no escape.

“Kaylee what’s wrong, where are you?” his voice came again, a slight panic rising in it.

Is that really you? Kaylee asked, the exhaustion evident.

“Telepathy remember?” he retorted.

She tried to nod but groaned in pain at the slightest movement. Ray I-I’m sorry.

“What for?”

That was the question of the century. There were so many things she could say. The fact she never noticed him much when they were younger. The fact she wasn’t there for him the way she was for Sophie when their parents went missing. The fact that she used him when she was at rock bottom and she hated him for making her face her own demons. The jealousy that reared its ugly head when he had found someone who actually made him happy. And now, now she needed him again, and he was the one who was going to have to carry on.

“Kaylee, don’t think like that.” he responded before Kaylee could even form the words in her mind to answer.

She sniffed, tears streaming down like a flood. Listen, Jason, I know I shouldn’t ask you this but please please look after my family. They are not going to take this well. A-and Sophie! You have to reach out to her more. She loves you so much. She needs you. And you need her.

Kaylee didn’t know how much time she had left and the words just fell out of her head.

And, I know now why I was such a bitch when you started dating-

Her string of thoughts stopped. It wasn’t fair. She shouldn’t say it. Even if he could tell, even if his telepathy could make the inference, it would have been wrong to say these words to him.

A guttural scream left her lungs. There was so much pressure on her chest that Kaylee couldn’t breath. The thoughts swirling in her head didn’t make it any easier.

G-god it hurts s-so much she stammered in her mind.

Like a wave cresting over the sands on the beach, the agony that rippled through her body began to dissipate. Kaylee opened her eyes to a soft blue sky, perfect cotton ball clouds hung overhead, casting a pleasant shadow and cooling her down.

Fingers lightly brushed through her hair, pulling blonde locks away from her forehead and tucking them behind her ear. Her natural hair color wasn’t the only thing to cause her forehead to crease as she tilted her chin up to look at who those soft touches belonged to.

Jason looked down at her, the softest concerned smile touched his lips. “I’m here Kaylee.” he cooed softly.

“The pain ...is gone.” she said, still trying to piece together what was going on.

“I know. I’m trying to get to you. Your parents are on their way. Just hold on okay?” Despite the calmness in his voice, Kaylee could hear the desperation.

Kaylee didn’t dare to move. She feared this illusion would fade the moment she tried and that she’d be thrust back into the darkness, alone and frightened. She settled against him, her head resting comfortably in his lap as he continued to dance light touches across her skin.

“You should leave.” she told him, biting back the lump in her throat, that urge to beg him otherwise. “If...if your telepathy is connecting us, you should break it.”

“I’m coming to get you.” he responded determinedly.

“Ray, I...I don’t want to die alone but-” she sniffed, tears welling up in her eyes.

“Don’t talk like that!” he shouted, hands gripping her shoulders tightly and pulling her up to face him. Tormented brown eyes peered into her shimmering blue ones. “You’re going to be fine!”

Kaylee shook her head, but her hands found his arms, gripping on to them for dear life. Tears came harder as she sobbed, pressing her cheek to his hand.

“Kaylee, look at me!” he demanded, his hands cupping her face and tilting her head up as he inched closer to her. The beautiful scenery he tried to press into her mind faded and once again, she was surrounded by darkness. The only light was him. His kind soul that begged her to stay with him.

“I sh-should have told you before…” Kaylee stammered, choking back a cry. “I should have told you that what we had was more than just-” her words faltered again. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t goddamn fair!

“P-please Jason, break the connection.” she begged, falling forward, burying her face into his chest. She felt his arms wrap tightly around her as he pulled her into his lap. She didn’t want him to witness this. She didn’t want to torment him more than he’d already been. And she knew. She knew that the longer he stayed, the more likely she was going to beg him to stay with her to the end, and the more likely she was going to admit it.

Her chest tightened, each breath more shallow than the last. Her hand pressed against his chest and she used all of her strength to push back, but she was unable to break away from his embrace.

She drew the back of her hand across her nose, stifling another sob. “I...I d-don’t want to put you th-through th-this.” Kaylee admitted, her gaze dropping away from his.

“Put me through what?” he asked, bringing out an unamused exasperated brow raise from her.

“Don’t. Don’t pretend. I’m so tired of pretending.” she retorted, her body falling limp against him. What strength she had left grasped onto him tightly. Her eyes fell closed, her head much too heavy to stay upright. Each breath became harder as Kaylee had to force her lungs to work.

This time when the darkness surrounded her there was the comfortable warmth of his presence, even if it was only a projection. She held on as tight as she could. It was selfish. She knew it was selfish but it was too late. What strength of will she had to think of others before herself left and all she wanted, all she needed, was him.

“Kaylee! Don’t leave me!” she heard him shout. It was odd, how far away he sounded, yet she nuzzled closer to his physical presence.

“I…” Kaylee began. It was so hard to form words. She had to be deliberate. She had to fight to say each word, and she was so close to slipping into the void of nothingness. “-toooooold. you. to. go.” she finished, her mouth curved into a tired smile. As tired as she was, her voice was in a sing-song, an attempt at levity.

“Kay-”

“Just. keep. holding me.” she cut him off. Kaylee didn’t want the last thing from him to be a desperate plea for her to keep fighting. She’d been fighting for so long already. She felt his embrace tighten and she nuzzled against his chest. “Before...before I fall asleep…” she chose her words carefully. “You’ve been...the best thing to happen to me in a long time Ray.”

With each word her voice got weaker and weaker. The sound of his heartbeat, quick and raging, pounded through her ears. She didn’t have the strength to hold onto him much more but her palm rested against his chest, her thumb brushing back and forth over his shirt, above his heart.

If her own heart had the ability to, it would have matched the beat his set. Instead, the motion of her thumb ticked along to the slower rhythm, urging his to syncopate. She needed him, that desperate, hopeless kind of need that people wrote songs and poems about. It was just too late. Like everything else in her life, Kaylee realized too late.

The void was coming. She could feel it. She could feel the last breath dare to rattle in her lungs but there was no pain, there was no fear. How could there be when Jason was holding her, when the feeling that he projected onto her was one of calming serenity? God, how stupid she was to only realize now.

“Jason,” she had to say it. She had to say his name, she had to tell him, if it was the last thing she could ever do, she had to say it. The loss of oxygen going to her brain formed little colored spots like rain droplets against black asphalt. It was beautiful. “I love you.”

The word left her lips and her body went limp against him. The false weight that her mind projected slipped away. It wasn’t beautiful, it wasn’t peaceful. He could feel her limbs tearing apart from the inside out. He could feel her lungs burn with the blood that choked her out. He could feel her heartbeat pause, but there was no return. The peaceful place he wrapped her mind around was only to keep her from feeling the agony.

Kaylee’s mind faded into nothing, her projected body slipping out of his grasp no matter how desperately he tried to hang on.

On the surface his fingernails bled in a hopeless attempt to shovel debris out of the way, but the moment he felt her slip away, he fell to his knees. It didn’t matter when one Captain Marvel flew out of the crater holding Kaylee’s limp body. Jason knew there was no hope.

Kaylee loved him. She said it. Those three little words he’d never thought were possible, and the moment he had everything he thought he wanted, he felt her slip through his fingers.

Tears already streaked his dirty cheeks but there was nothing to hold back the choking sobs. She loved him, but she was gone.

#pepperpxtts #mindrcadcr#[character thread; kaylee danvers stark]#tw death #tw blood #long post

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formeandmyfics · 5 years

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AT THE CHATEAU MARMONT

JUGENEA FAN FICTION

Snippet Collaboration by @formeandmyfics & @ohmygarlands

1946

GENE KELLY’S PERSPECTIVE

By: Formeandmyfics

It was a muggy evening in Hollywood at the end of summer. As I sat in my Cadillac at a red light on a corner on Sunset, I stared up at the ‘castle on the hill’, or the Chateau Marmont. The white palace widows lit up the dark sky, twinkling, like a thousand fireflies beckoning me to join them. I could already hear the happy chatter and beautiful music from inside.

Before yesterday, I had never been to the Chateau. I never had a reason to. When I first came to Hollywood, during the war, the hotel was being used a shelter for residents near by. But times before and after the war, I had heard of its reputation. Its elegance and expense was just a mask to the things that went on in there. From the rumors I had heard, the hotel was a popular, and very respectful and inconspicuous, celebrity and mogul hideaway for private parties, orgies, unadulterated sex and drugs. Salacious didn’t even seem to be the right word to convey its promiscuity.

The day before, I had been invited to the hotel’s restaurant to have brunch with Howard Hughes and his group. It was daytime, the hotel didn’t seem crowded. It was airy, with lots of light, obviously old-fashioned with a French décor. We had a good time chatting over sandwiches and Bloody Mary’s in the restaurant. I did remember thinking how different the hotel must be at night, how much more alive it must become. What I didn’t realize was that I was about to partake in the hotel’s reputation and it didn’t matter that it was daytime.

After lunch, I head to the bar to get one more drink when one, unmistakable, unique laugh stopped me in my tracks.

Judy.

Nearly 3 years. It had been nearly 3 years since we called it quits on our love affair. I went into the Navy and although still unhappy in my marriage, I wanted to focus on my infant daughter. The decision to break it off wasn’t mutual. She was getting divorced; she wanted to be with me in a real relationship. I just couldn’t give her what she wanted. As much as we felt like soul mates, I wasn’t ready. When I was gone, she ended up having quite a bit of fun with a few well known men trying to forget about me I had heard.

When I came back, we had seen each other occasionally at the studio and at restaurants but hadn’t spoken to one another. She had married Vincente and seemed genuinely happy. As her best friend, I was genuinely happy for her. Then she became a mother. Our ship had sailed. I had read she was only doing radio shows and other than that, had been staying home. Part of her always told me she wanted that happy home life and to settle down as a wife and mother but Judy was too vibrant, too energetic, too social, too much of a star to be satisfied with just that family routine. Judy and I shared many mutual friends. I had heard from the grapevine, that Judy was getting bored at home and with Vince. There was no excitement anymore, she had told Kay. And as much as she loved being with her now 5 month old baby girl, she missed it all. I knew it wouldn’t be long before she started partying again.

Last time we had been together, Judy still looked like a girl. She certainly didn’t act nor have the body of one. But she was my girl. Seeing her in that bar, she had changed. She was all woman. Thinner than the last time I saw her, she was still drop dead gorgeous. Everything about her was alluring: her summer cocktail dress, her spiked heels, her hair, her eyes, her lips and her smile. She stood there, surrounded by three men I didn’t recognize, and she was laughing. She was laughing when she saw me. I could tell it was a forced laugh and it amused me. I knew her body language. She clearly was acting. She was trying to have a good time and put on a show for these men who were giving her attention. I must have looked smug, as I placed my hands in my pockets and bit my bottom lip trying not to smile.

Her smile faltered as we stared, and she looked taken back. We both knew this was the last place we ever expected to see each other. And just like that, her expression changed. Her eyebrow rose as her lips curved into a seductive smile. I had seen that look many times in the past. I knew what it meant. And I quickly found myself walking away.

I remember thinking how odd it was that the pool deck on the roof was deserted on that hot August afternoon. Only an elderly couple played cards under one of the tents on the far side of the pool. I was taking in the view over Hollywood, when I felt her. I felt her before I saw her. Most people did. She just had that type of energy. When she slid up next to me, I smiled. I had gone up there to escape her; yet, inevitably I knew she’d find me. She always did.

“So, what are their names?” I asked.

“Larry, Mo, and Curly.”

“What are you doing here?” I knew it came out a little more forceful than I intended but this place was not where Judy Garland should be, not with those type of people around, even in the afternoon.

“Came for some fun,” she bluntly stated putting her hand on her hip. Clearly she didn’t appreciate my tone, “And you?”

“Had lunch with Hughes.”

“That all?” I knew she was well aware of this place as I was. “That was enough,” I said honestly.

She laughed, this time a real one and this time I smiled fully. Just one comment and a shared laugh and we both felt that connection again like nothing had changed. She placed her arms around my arm and leaned her head on my shoulder holding me tight. It was comforting.

“I missed you.”

I had to clench my jaw from the emotions that suddenly churned in my stomach and heart.

“Don’t you miss me?”

“Of course I do.”

That was it. Her big, chocolate eyes turned dark as we once again stared at each other.

“Will you come with me?”

“Where?” I was suddenly anxious and aroused at the same time.

“Just follow me.”

I stood motionless as she grabbed my favorite fedora from my head and plopped it on hers as she walked away from me. She must’ve realized I wasn’t following because she turned around. Tilting it to the side, she smiled and motioned for me to come with her as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Let’s go,” she demanded in a playful whine.

Judging by her playfulness, I felt relaxed again and smiled as I pushed myself off the railing. She took me to a different bar in the hotel and we sat on an outdoor patio by some potted palms. I don’t know why she didn’t just tell me that’s where she wanted to go but I suspect it was because she didn’t want me to say ‘no’. We shared cocktails, laughed and reminisced. It felt like old times when we’d be cooped up inside one another’s trailer.

At one point, she took out two very small packets of some glittery white powder from her handbag and poured each into our drinks before I could even stop her. I thought at first it was some type of hard drug which was odd because she was totally against recreational drugs. She hadn’t even like marijuana when she had first smoked it. I was upset and shocked that she was trying to ‘drug’ me right in front of my eyes. She was beside herself trying not to laugh like a guilty child. Whatever she was doing, it was clearly naughty and she could tell I was clearly not amused. She told me it was something called ‘Cupid Dust’ that Mickey had given her to help her marriage become more ‘fun’ again. Apparently, what I had learned later on was that it was an immediate libido enhancement for couples and would spice things up. Seriously, she looked me in they eyes and told me she didn’t want to have fun with him. She wanted to have fun with me. I didn’t exactly know what that meant but I knew she wasn’t lying and I trusted her. I was an idiot but I drank my cocktail with her. That would be our last for the day.

As I drove past the green light on Sunset, and the hotel came closer and closer into view, I gripped the leather of my steering wheel as I stared up at the exact room Judy and I had gone to that afternoon. I could still feel the intoxication of the enhancement and of her. What we did in that room was beyond comprehension to me, even now. I never remember taking a woman quite like that, nor did I ever remember a woman taking me like that. My head was reeling and I felt so primal. One couldn’t help but become almost obsessive when in Judy Garland’s company, but this was different. I wanted to make her mine…in every which way. And she complied just the same with zealous actions and vocalization. She wanted to be taken and she made no hesitation that she wanted to take me. It was so intense. There was no dominance, only equal passion. I could still remember the sounds she made, the arch of her back, and her nails on my skin, the sound of our skin meeting, how my own loud voice felt strange to my ears. The room was spinning and our blood was pumping. At one point, we both felt like we were floating outside our bodies. Our rendezvous was spontaneous, erotic, passionate and, dare I say, dirty. Something happened in that room that day that I had never experienced, but I’m glad it was with her – the only woman I felt truly, wholly and completely at ease with.

When I had awoken from my nap, Judy was gone but there was a note in her handwriting that said, ‘Meet me here tomorrow night at 9 under my usual alias. Miss you already, darling.’

JUDY GARLAND’S PERSPECTIVE

By: Ohmygarlands

The Chateau Marmont is never my first choice for a place to rest my head but on one particular evening at the tail end of summer, the hotel’s notorious reputation caught up to me. Feeling frivolous one afternoon, I decided it might do me some good to get out of the house and see whom I might find to share a drink with. Before that day, I had been cooped up inside with a loud crying (though sweet and loving at the drop of a hat) baby, and the family life I had once yearned for was beginning to bore me. I love my little girl, but I wanted something. I couldn’t put my finger on it, all I knew was that I wanted… something. And that something was something my darling husband was not able to give me, no matter how hard he tried –bless his soul.

I left Liza that afternoon with her nanny while she napped, promising I’d be home before she awoke again. I put my hair up and slid on a breathable summer dress –it was so hot that afternoon. I jumped in my car and drove down Sunset until that castle of a hotel became visible on the horizon. I knew of its history and something about it peaked my interest; maybe it was the lack of excitement at home, maybe it was the need for that something, or maybe it was simply because I knew I would run into someone worth spending my time with.

When I entered the bar, it didn’t take long before the men began to make their way towards me – something I don’t think I’ll ever get used to. A group of 3 in particular swarmed me almost immediately. They reminded me of the Three Stooges; not so much in the way they looked but in the way they acted. It was as though they had never been in the company of another woman before! It was awkward, and not at all the something I was searching for. I never know quite what to do in situations like those, so I did what I do best, I acted the part. I laughed at their silly jokes and hoped they would quickly run out of material so I could make my escape… and then I saw him. For a brief moment, I considered that he must be a figment of my imagination but no, it was him and he was here, at the other side of the bar staring me down. When he’d look at me, no matter where we were, I felt naked. He could read me better than anyone, he could not only tell what I was feeling but what I was thinking because more often than not they were his thoughts too. I felt a knot form in the pit of my stomach that eventually turned pleasurable the longer he stared in my direction. For a moment, I felt a little pang of jealousy, assuming he must be here with somebody but the look he gave me quickly settled that brief musing.

In a perfect world, he might approach me, offer to buy me a drink and catch up on old times but our world was far from perfect, and try as he might, he wasn’t so perfect either. He was stubborn. He loved a good chase and he loved being chased even more – perhaps his competitive nature was to blame. Who knows. I watched as Gene turned and walked away, disappearing into the foyer. He’d never admit it but he wanted me to follow him and he knew that I would.

I thought of a million reasons not to follow but my body was drawn to him. I felt a complete loss of control as I excused myself from the Stooges and went in Gene’s direction. I had worked tirelessly to rid him of my mind in the last few years and after having Liza, I thought for sure the heartache he unintentionally left me with would go away. It did for the most part but what didn’t go away, no matter what I did, was the desire to have him again. Nobody knew my body like Gene Kelly did.

He must have known that I was behind him because he turned around before I had even said a word –which was a good thing because I couldn’t think of a single thing to say, fearing no matter what I said, it would come out wrong. I approached carefully and stood beside him there on the rooftop. I wanted more than anything in that moment to tuck my arm under his and rest my head on his shoulder – it felt like a natural thing to do. But I couldn’t. Not yet.

“So what are their names?” He asked me rather brazenly.

“Larry, Mo and Curly,” I quipped.

“What are you doing here?” Gene looked at me as though I was a villain that had come back to wreak havoc in his fairytale existence.

“Came for some fun,” I suddenly felt an uncontrollable urge to make him jealous. It didn’t take much to spark that in him, I remember one of our very first fights was over a dress I had worn in a little film I made called Girl Crazy that accentuated my figure a little too much. He said I looked naked and couldn’t handle watching me dance with other men while wearing it. I don’t think we spoke for days after that. I will admit, however, –but never to him–, I liked that about him.

At any rate, he told me he was at the hotel for a lunch with Howard Hughs, I felt relief that his answer for being at the hotel didn’t match mine. He made a little joke about the hotel’s reputation that hinted at the irony of us both being there on the same afternoon and for the first time in the longest time, everything felt O.K. between us. It felt like nothing had ever changed, like in that one little insignificant moment we had forgiven each other for everything. I couldn’t help but admit to him how much I missed him and I could see it in his eyes that he missed me too. I wasn’t sure where the conversation would go after that, and I sure as hell was not ready to let him walk away. Fearing he would do just that, I grabbed the fedora from his head –which ironically enough was a gift I bought him when he had finished filming Du Barry Was a Lady– and I asked him this time to follow me. He was reluctant, giving me that villainous stare once again, only this time I could see the arousal behind it. He was intrigued.

I took him to another bar in the hotel, this time a more secluded one where I was hoping we could relax a little and let loose. This was exactly the something I came looking for. When the waiter arrived, Gene ordered for me, remembering exactly how I liked my vodka soda prepared –it made me smile.

“Liza looks so much like you…” he said, almost under his breath as though it pained him a little to talk about it.

“And she’s got the attitude to boot,” I laughed, trying to lighten the mood a little. He only half smiled.

I asked about Kerry, I always adored that little girl on the rare occasions Gene would bring her by the studio, but found myself straying away from the topic of Betsy. He didn’t offer any information and I felt it better not to know. After he shared a story with me about the Navy – I couldn’t tell you now what it was he told me, all I can remember was getting lost in his eyes as dark as the night sky– I slid my hand into his and I felt his pulse in his wrist with my thumb. His heart was racing. I pulled my hand away and boldly reached into my purse. I had confided in Mickey awhile back that my marriage was beginning to crumble. Vince and I hadn’t been intimate since before Liza was born and he offered me a little something to spice things up in the bedroom. When he handed me the white powder, I thought it had to be a gag. He assured me it wasn’t. Whether it was or it wasn’t didn’t help with the lack of desire to try it with Vince. I kept the “Cupid Dust” –as he called it– tucked away in my purse, and as I sat in the bar with Gene, I couldn’t help but wonder.

I slipped it into our drinks before he could even say a word. It was a bold move but I could tell whatever this dust would do for us, he wanted it just as badly as I did.

“What the hell are you doing?” He was upset, he must have thought I was trying to drug him. When I explained what it was, he laughed. He, too, thought it was a joke so he lifted his glass to cheers mine before downing the rest of his bourbon in a single gulp. Jokes on him.

My back slammed hard against the wall inside the hotel room we procured after our, shall we say, “enhanced” drink. The feeling of his lips all over my body again was something I’ll never forget. Perhaps it was indeed the drink or maybe it was simply being with him again after so long that made it so intense that afternoon. Every touch, every taste, every sound he made seemed bolder than ever before – I was bolder than ever before. The sheer intensity of what we were doing in that room frightened away the thoughts of reason that attempted to flood my head. I should have been thinking of my daughter, my husband who was probably sitting at home on that rocking chair of his wondering where the hell I was –but I couldn’t care less. As I became one with Gene, my primal instincts kicked in and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop it. It didn’t matter that I had just taken about 27 steps backward and I was right back where I was before he left me. All that mattered was that I was in his arms again, feeling his warm and laboured breath against the side of my neck as he slid in and out of me so wonderfully… so carnally. I can’t seem to find the correct word for what it was like that afternoon. Euphoric comes close.

Gene had fallen asleep when we finished what would inevitably be the start of something we worked so hard to stop, and I laid there beside him for what must have been an hour, at least, watching him. God, he was a beautiful person. Every inch of his body was chiseled to perfection and I couldn’t help but want to touch him all the time. A few times as he slept, I slid my hand over his cheek, running my thumb along that crescent shaped scar of his. He didn’t even budge. I guess you could say I tired him out.

It took all the will power in the world to get up out of that bed as he slept there so peacefully, but I had to get home –back to reality. I found a notepad on the desk emblazoned with the Chateau Marmont logo and a pen placed beside it. I must have written and tossed about 32 sheets of paper in the trash before finally settling on what words to leave him with. I placed the note neatly on my pillow and ducked out as quiet as a mouse.

Until next time.

#judy garland #gene kelly #jugenea #fan fiction #chateau marmont

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snowbellewells · 5 years

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CSRomCom18: While You Were Sleeping // Part Eight

Sheesh, I am so sorry it has taken this long to get the last installment of this fic to you guys! I hope if you’re still reading, you’ll enjoy the happy conclusion (and the nods to the original movie, which I adore, along with those to Captain Swan and their relationship). Thanks so much for reading this little movie AU. I’d love to hear what you think!

Part Eight

by: @snowbellewells (Also on AO3 with the same username and on ff.net as TutorGirlml)

Looking back on the next few days from the settled perspective of years later, Killian Jones was still never quite able to pinpoint when exactly things snowballed so quickly out of control. Doubtless, once his mother and grandmother learned Liam was awake and eager to reacquaint himself with the fiancé they had already fallen in love with and welcomed into the family fold, their enthusiasm swept things along at rather inevitable speed. Where he expected Emma to balk at being swept up in his family’s wake, or for Liam’s missing chunks of memory to return and remind him that he barely knew this woman everyone claimed he loved, neither did any such thing. If occasionally he caught Emma’s eye across a room full of fabric samples and bridal magazines, and wished to tell her that she could still call the whole thing off over the babble of his family debating chicken or fish at the reception dinner, he also bit back the protest at the look within her dazzling green ones. Yes, she appeared a bit overwhelmed, but it was more a pleading sort of fear if he read it correctly. She seemed to be begging him to continue keeping their secret, to help her spare these people they both loved pain, and not to toss her out in the world alone once more.

He could kick himself now. Had he realized sooner what he truly felt and how strong it was, he would have told her he was the Jones brother falling in love with every little quirk she possessed - from the way she snorted with laughter to the way she raptly listened to his gran’s stories no matter how long they stretched, or the way she could debate comic book minutiae with Nick to a true nerdish degree that clearly thrilled his younger sibling. This farce he’d drawn she and Liam into - no matter how well-meant his original intentions - was strangling them now, and it hadn’t even been necessary. He hated to contemplate the anguished fallout for everyone if Liam did someday regain the rest of his memories - or the feelings Killian had always believed his elder brother still harbored for his first love.

Bloody prat that he was, he’d made a right muddle of things in his attempts to do right by all concerned. He accepted the fact that he had brought heartbreak on himself, but that he might have trapped Emma and Liam into a marriage that might never grow into love as he had first thought it could? That was unbearable. And the idea that Emma would bear the weight of anger and recrimination if the charade fell apart was also nearly more that he could stand. Yet, still Killian held back - no longer sure how to proceed and almost certain it was much too late to come clean. The damage had already been done.

~~~~~******~~~~~~******

Somehow, in a string of events quite beyond her comprehension, Emma knew that she was in this whole wedding farce well over her head, and with no way to swim back to the surface. All that time ago, when she’d jumped onto the rails and saved Liam Jones’ life, she had believed herself in love with him… or, at least the idea of him as he had appeared from afar. In all actuality, now that she had gotten to know him a bit beyond casual hellos and goodbyes in passing, he was every bit the pleasant and engaging gentleman she had supposed he would be, if a bit predictable and excessively proper at times.

For someone who really hadn’t even known her name or anything about her, he had been the model fiancé since waking up and being told she was his intended bride. The trouble was with Emma’s own disloyal heart - and of course, her uneasy conscience. She couldn’t escape the harsh truth that deep down she was deceiving Liam, that someday it would all come out, and he and his whole family would hate her for the hurt and unhappiness she could have prevented simply by being honest with them.

It wasn’t only that either. The other niggling reality which wouldn’t let her alone was that she knew now she didn’t truly love Liam Jones. Oh, he was still every bit as handsome as she had ever thought him; just as desirable and accomplished and successful - a true catch in every way but one. He wasn’t it for her. She couldn’t have known it when this whole fiasco began, but the Jones man she had longed for from afar was not the one who made her heart pound and her cheeks heat. He wasn’t the one who had shared his secret hopes and fears with her or come to know and understand her as she rarely allowed anyone to do. That was all Killian - and she had made it well nigh impossible for the younger Jones to love her in return.

Now, here she was in a side hall off the hospital chapel, wearing a ridiculously lacy confection of a white dress, about to marry the wrong man and quite possibly wreck both their lives because she couldn’t bear to stop being a part of something - a family - that she had never been allowed to experience before. Blowing out a short breath, Emma shook her clammy hands and tried to steel herself for the ceremony ahead. It suddenly seemed as if she couldn’t go forward or back, she was merely frozen where she stood with no right way out.

At that moment, David Jones, Liam and Killian’s father, appeared in the doorway that led through to the front of the small chapel, offering her a warm, comforting smile as he came to stand before her. He was happily standing to give her away (and gain her as one of his own at the same time), and he reached out to grip her upper arms bracingly as he faced her in the narrow hall, a calmly affectionate look on his face - just the sort of look Emma had always imagined a father of her own wearing when she had made him proud. ‘If he only knew the truth, he’d be anything but…’ her inner voice whispered unkindly, and Emma felt confession bubbling up her throat, just barely managing to clench her teeth and bite back the words that would make that accepting warmth on the older man’s face go cold. This was exactly how she had gotten into this mess. These people had given her the chance to know what a real family felt like, and she couldn’t give it up - no matter what kind of a liar it made her.

“Ready for the big moment?” David asked gently, his motions soothing as he first enveloped her in a hug, then straightened and offered her his arm to lead her down the aisle.

Emma merely nodded wordlessly, her mouth unbearably dry all of a sudden, and she found that her hand was trembling as she looped it through David’s crooked elbow. She could only hope he would chalk it up to normal wedding jitters rather than her emotions going haywire or her guilty conscience.

As if she didn’t already feel badly enough for all her repeated falsehoods, just as they reached the double doors that lead into the chapel down its center aisle, the Jones family patriarch leaned in to murmur softly, but with heartfelt sincerity, “I’m glad to have you joining our family.”

Drawing in a tight breath, Emma smiled, actually wanting little more than to be one of them as well. However, she also swayed on her feet slightly, wishing it weren’t with these sorts of strings and deceptions attached. Somehow it seemed she barely blinked and they had slipped through the entryway arm-in-arm and they were halfway down the aisle, an off-duty reception nurse Nick had enthusiastically enlisted playing the Wedding March on the organ in the corner to accompany their steps.

This was her wedding! And yet, Emma felt herself breaking out in a cold sweat, wishing there were some way she could pause, even for a moment, to bring things back under control. As they neared the altar at the end of the aisle, the spot for once witnessing a happy occasion instead of pleading, broken family of the critically ill and injured, Emma’s gaze landed on Liam, standing tall despite still having an IV pole next to him, fluids still feeding into his right arm. He, or someone in his overzealous family, had attempted to tame and slick back his normally riotous curls, and he offered her a hesitant but hopeful, genuine smile as she came to stand beside him, offering her his large and steady hand.

She placed her fingers in his grasp, hoping he would also forgive the trembling he must feel just as his father had. Biting her lower lip, Emma offered a tentative smile in return. The prospect of marrying this steady, caring man - one whom she had blatantly admired for some time - shouldn’t be filling her with hesitation and dread, and seeing his willingness to stand up with her, even not knowing how they had come to be together, nearly made her resolve to carry this whole thing through.

And then her eyes caught Killian’s over his brother’s shoulder where he stood as best man. The enthralling blue she’d grown used to glimpsing, gazing into her soul, was muted and pained, even as he too offered her a crooked smile. Clearly, he was doing his best to step out of the way, to help her keep her secret and to support his brother’s happiness, and so he said nothing. Yet Emma had come to know him well enough now to understand he had all the same doubts she was holding in, and unless she was only reading what she wished to see, a measure of the same pain and regret she wasn’t going to be able to ignore.

Standing there one moment longer, Emma let her eyes trace over Killian’s features once more before moving to Liam, David, and the faces of the rest of the Jones clan seated to her left. If she was about to ruin everything, she wanted to be sure to fix in her mind everyone she would be giving up, the family she could have had. Then she drew in a breath, squared her shoulders and faced her groom to finally admit the truth.

“Wait, please…” she interrupted, halting the music and drawing the rapt attention of everyone in the room. “There’s something I need to tell you...all of you.” She forced herself to meet Liam’s eyes steadily - he deserved that much from her - but gestured to the rest of his family around her.

Liam, for his his part, nodded kindly, indicating she should go ahead and that he was listening. Emma swallowed hard, trying to tell herself he wasn’t about to hate her. “I’m not who you think I am. I mean, I am Emma Swan, and I did save your life after you were mugged, but ...we were never engaged. One of the nurses misunderstood the situation when you were brought in. I only wanted to know that you’d be alright - but then everyone believed I was your fiancé before I could correct them. And then I met you - all of you - “ she glanced at Ruth, Margaret, Nick, and David. “You welcomed me into your home, made me a part of your family, and I - I just fell in love. I didn’t want to let you go.”

She ended with her eyes on David, a father figure like she’d never known before, and he had a near-comical look of stunned confusion on his face. “With me?” he repeated densely, trying to catch up and absorb all she had just told them.

A rather undignified snort escaped her - half laugh, half sob - as her eyes fell to her feet. Shaking her head, Emma raised her face once more to answer him. “Well, your entire family…. A-and your son.”

David Jones nodded, still not quite grasping her meaning, or the real problem. “Well, yes, obviously. Isn’t that why we’re here?”

With a teary smile, Emma had to shake her head ‘no’ once more. Gesturing around Liam’s solid form toward Killian, she clarified, “Not that son...that one.”

She heard gasps from their assorted audience, even as Killian took a step forward, eyes sparkling mischievously and one corner of his mouth tilting upwards with more confidence. “Killian, what did you do?” she heard his mother admonish, scandalized. Emma’s eyes met Killian’s despite the chaos quickly growing around them, and it was all either of them could do not to burst out laughing.

Even as the others began to stand and press forward, all asking questions and talking at once, Emma forced herself to turn back to face the older Jones brother, truly sorry if she had hurt him and needing him to understand that she had never intended any of this. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, under the hubbub rising in the room.

To her relief, Liam merely nodded in quiet understanding and stepped to the side, allowing Killian to move just a bit closer. The elder brother went to his gran, who looked to be swaying on her feet a bit stunned, and was clinging to Nick’s arm tightly. Emma bit her lip, relieved and desperately anxious to speak to Killian, hoping against hope that maybe all was not lost, only to have his mother accost him just before he could reach her.

Their eye contact broken, Emma’s heart fluttered anxiously in her chest, all her fear and self-doubt welling up once more. The room seemed to be closing in as questions flew and the ludicrous nature of what she’d done settled upon her. She needed to get out of there before she did anymore damage. Honestly, her decisions so far had caused Killian’s whole family enough stress and difficulty; hanging around hoping that they would let her back in after this was more than Emma felt she deserved.

In the midst of the clamor, there was suddenly a loud thump as the doors at the end of the aisle swung open again and hit the wall with the force. The sound of quick, determined footsteps charged down the aisle toward them. The small crowd of guests and family hurriedly parted to reveal a tiny spitfire of a brunette, hands on her slim hips and eyes crackling ferociously. Her petite frame was heightened by sky-high gold heels and a short, pleated skirt, but Emma sensed immediately that despite her deceptively fragile appearance, the woman was not one to be trifled with.

“Liam Jones!” the brunette demanded sharply, her voice causing the man in question to pull himself up straight as if snapping to attention. From the moment she had appeared, this woman had arrested Liam’s gaze completely, but now he was breathlessly focused on her awaiting her next words like air to breathe. “What is going on here?!?” she continued, her tone harsh with indignation, but a tremulous quaver almost lost beneath that made Emma wonder if this newcomer’s true prevailing emotion were not hurt more than anger. “You - you proposed to me!”

Liam’s mouth fell open for a moment, aghast, and even as he was floundering for words, he stepped forward to reach her saying, “Belle, let me explain…” The room’s other occupants erupted in movement and exclamations once more.

Emma saw a break in the people nearest her and a clear path to the door. The woman, whom she now knew to be the elder Jones’ aforementioned first love, was her deciding sign. She had done more than enough to disrupt their lives, and the best thing she could do for the Jones family now was to get out of the way. Before Killian or anyone else could reach her to question her or try to convince her otherwise, Emma slipped out of the chapel, swiping uselessly at the tears that were already streaming down her face.

~~~~~~****~~~~~~~~****~~~~~~~~

One week later…

Emma Swan was once more at her post in the Riverside terminal, listlessly checking tokens in a monotonous routine that she didn’t dare upset. The excitement that had broken her usual days had nearly undone her, and she would be better off simply doing her job, going home to Tink, some hot cocoa and Law & Order reruns, and leaving well enough alone.

Yet, despite her best intentions, Emma couldn’t help wondering how all of the Jones clan were doing. Had their gran recovered from the shock? Did David, Margaret and Nick hate her for her false pretense? And even more important, what had happened with Liam and Belle? Had the other woman understood what occurred? In truth, did Liam even understand himself how the convoluted sequence of events had led to her being his mistaken fiancé? Above all of these concerns however, the worry that truly pressed on her mind, pained her heart, and wouldn’t even allow her a peaceful night’s sleep was her concern for Killian. Did his family know he had kept her secret? Did they blame him for it? Did he, now that he’d had time to think? Initially, Emma had clung to the faint hope that Killian might still want to see her, might come to her apartment and find her again. She had thought there was something between them on the verge of acknowledgement when she didn’t go through with the wedding. But, as two days became three, then four, then five, she had resigned herself to the fact that she must have been wrong.

Reaching out to take the next commuter pass, Emma didn’t even look up to see the waiting passenger’s face. “Go on through,” she directed, beckoning with a wave of the hand.

“Actually, Love,” a warm and familiarly accented voice addressed her clearly, “I’d prefer to remain with you, if you don’t mind.”

Emma’s eyes shot up in stunned realization to meet the brilliant blues of Killian Jones, sparkling playfully as he gazed back at her, wide grin stretching across his face with glee.

Seeing that he now had her full attention, Killian cocked his head to the side, playfully waggling his dark brows at her as he asked, “Well, Swan, did you miss me?”

Even as a loud bubble of laughter escaped her, a haze of unshed tears swam before her vision as she nodded vigorously, completely at a loss for words. It was as though she had dreamed him there before her and she couldn’t make herself believe he was real.

When Emma still didn’t give an audible reply, a chorus of voices began to chime in, causing her to realize they weren’t alone.

“Come now, Killian, don’t tease the poor girl,” Ruth’s gentle voice chided to his left.

“Yeah, let’s do this already!” came Nick’s impatiently excited addition. “Show Emma what you brought.”

“Aye, brother.” Emma spared a glance just over Killian’s right shoulder to where Liam stood, the brunette from their near-wedding cuddled to his side and now smiling at her genially. “After all, if you’re afraid to go after what you want, you deserve what you get!” His words were obviously meant in jest, though she could see Killian straightening his shoulders as if galvanized into action, but Liam only gave her a small, forgiving smile and winked, letting her know things were well between the two of them.

She saw now that Killian’s entire family was with him, flanking him in support. And not one of them looked anything less than pleased. None seemed to be harboring her a bit of ill will, and a fear than had been weighing on her almost constantly slipped off her shoulders at the sight. Margaret Jones even had tears of sincere joy twinkling in her eyes right along with Emma as she nodded to acknowledge the younger woman’s glance with a friendly smile.

“You - you’re all...here…” Emma stumbled to get out, flabbergasted with surprise and gratitude, and simply happy to see them all again.

“Of course we are, Swan,” Killian murmured, leaning in closer to the window that separated them, words meant for her alone. “However, I would like to come in there with you now. I’ve a question for you that requires at least a bit of privacy.”

Her wits finally restored enough to play with him a little in return, Emma smirked before shaking her head in mock regret. ‘It’s not allowed, sorry. You don’t have enough tokens.”

Killian gave a short nod, grin recognizing what she was doing and happily calling her bluff. Reaching into his pocket, he removed his hand, fisted around something Emma couldn’t yet see, and slipped it into the same slot where he had placed his token before. Letting his mischievous eyes glimmer at her in a way that couldn’t fail to take her in, Killian ran his tongue along his full lower lip, knowing Emma’s eyes were following the motion, and asked, “What about this? Will it do?”

To her astonishment, Emma looked down after hearing a tinkling metallic sound to find that Killian had dropped, not another few tokens as she had assumed, but an engagement ring, unmistakable in its beauty and meaning.

“Now will you let me in?” he asked more seriously, as she meet his eyes while blinking back tears, already nodding ‘yes’ vehemently and depressing the button which would allow him through into the small kiosk with her.

As soon as she was within his reach, Killian swept her up into his arms, and Emma wrapped hers around his neck, kissing him back and laughing for sheer joy as he rained kisses across her cheeks. “Can’t believe I nearly let you get away,” he whispered against her skin.

Emma offered him the most brilliant smile she could manage. “I’m so glad you didn’t,” was all she could really say in response.

~~~~~***~~~~~~~~***~~~~~

Liam asked her once when it was that she had fallen in love with Killian instead, and she’d answered him simply and honestly. Shrugging her shoulders, she replied, “That’s easy. It was while you were sleeping.”

Tagging: @searchingwardrobes @hollyethecurious @laschatzi @whimsicallyenchantedrose @kmomof4 @jennjenn615 @revanmeetra87 @teamhook @branlovestowrite @therooksshiningknight @aloha-4-ever @linda8084 @vvbooklady1256 @bmbbcs4evr @the-captains-ayebrows @winterbaby89 @spartanguard @nikkiemms @cinnamonduckling @capswantrue @flslp87 @ultraluckycatnd @gingerchangeling @blackwidownat2814

#csromcom18 #cs movie au #final part #while you were sleeping au #cs ff #part eight

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oxboykev · 4 years

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Torrential

I thought when love for you died, I should die. It's dead. Alone, most strangely, I live on. ~ Rupert Brooke

It’s been a long-running inner debate since the time I was born. Abandonment will do that to a child. It’s been my sickening suspicion that my life has been a waste. This suspicion was probably implanted in me as soon as my birth parents scattered from my presence. The fact that I was left in the care of strangers who couldn’t quite get past the impression that I was a stranger in their midst was never lost on me. With my identity as an adoptee not yet fully realized or solidified so early in life, there were days when I felt unmoored. Not knowing what it truly felt to be loved by my own blood, I would wish only to be expelled from the love and care that had been handed down to me by those who tried to convince me they only had my best interests at heart.

The residual resentment of not knowing whether my father and mother loved me and wanted me with them has colored the way in which I distrust myself with the feeling and act of loving someone. I remain convinced that there is something wrong with the way I love and how I have sought love from others. Even allowing love for myself was never an expectation. Love is a thing that people always said they had for me but could neither show nor explain to me because how can you describe something that seems to be only pulled out of thin air at one’s own convenience. As a youngster I grew up with the nagging feeling that I was thrown in with a lot of people to live in a random place that I didn’t share a history with, but was coaxed each and every day to respect and appreciate by saying “I love you” whenever it was my turn to speak. Affection and companionship were thrown at my feet with the admonition to take them or leave them. I mirrored customs, expectations, and incentives to love, but what was missing was a genuine and clear-headed comprehension of what it means to love and what happens to your mind when you decide to show love and receive love. Absent any key discussions and explanations, my young mind could only play along and follow the unwritten rules when it came to familial bonding, early crushes, and soul-mating.

Because of my pretend existence and ignorance of my innate truths, I conducted myself like a laboratory technician whenever the atmosphere softened around me and I started to tingle all over when my eyes settled on a girl at school or in casual passing. In my head, I had all the flasks, tubes and chemicals available to concoct a love potion that I could sprinkle over the brow of the one who had caught my eye at the time. The sad, self-defeating thing was, though, my feelings, thoughts, words, and so much of my personality resided solely in my head. This self-imposed silence, masquerading as humility and reservedness, had the effect of extracting sympathy from a potential lover. I then used this sympathy to position myself as the man who could rescue them from pain that others had inflicted, from histories of spouse/partner abuse and from their own self-destructive habits. My ego always got a kick out of playing savior, exalted as it always was by any reciprocal affection. Selfish were these gambits, nay, habits of involving myself in a person’s life so as to ostensibly use them to help me remind myself that I am a good person, even though I feel myself drifting out of humanity’s fold as each year passes.

I’ve come to believe that the universe is so expansive that it’s no wonder I’ve felt so tiny inside of it all these years. I feel I’ve complicated the essentials of my life to the point that I cannot explain any facet of it to anyone else until I can explain it satisfactorily to myself. At times, I have been so ashamed of my reticence to openly communicate with people that I just throw up sheets of tarp over the windows into my soul to block out anyone’s prying curiosity. Consequently, I have developed a distaste for casual social interactions because I grow anxious at the thought of having to save others from the embarrassment of revealing unexplored chasms of my psyche that not even I have gotten around to navigating yet. So around 2004 I started blogging on Yahoo! GeoCities to start documenting my mind’s wanderings. Gradually, I switched to other blogging platforms once I heard about their improved ease-of-use features. Writing about my life didn’t come naturally to me. Diaries were never my thing and I only dabbled in journaling when I was contending with a prolonged bout of loneliness during my year of study abroad. In spite of the novelty of it, I found that blogging was the ideal medium for me to go at my own pace and provide as much detail as I pleased when it came to explaining what was preoccupying my mind at any given time. By around 2005 or 2006 I began blogging under the title “Borrowed Notes” on WordPress.

Shortly thereafter is when I came across another blogger, let’s call her “Ede”, who would stir in me a feeling of ureka. My experience reading her blog was ethereal, even magical, because I felt I had finally discovered someone else on this vast earth who processed ideas and life’s conundrums just as I did. Intellectually and emotionally I imbibed Ede’s words as if I were sitting right there beside her and watching her type on her keyboard, deep in thought. It was a true feeling of kinship that went beyond even family or shared humanity. I began to (mistakenly, as it were) create a romantic aura around her words and the images she posted of herself. She and I were both adopted from South Vietnam when the end of the War was still far from certain. It was this shared tumultuous past that initially garnered my attention and from which sprung a fondness for someone I didn’t even know existed up to that point.

It was phenomenal how Ede explored the psychology of the transracial adoptee mind and adapted her analyses to her own lived experiences as a young woman of color raised in a rural Southern town and all the travails and absurd ironies that this social construct entailed. Each time she published a new post, I constructed a kind of fairy tale in my head that told me Ede was dropping bread crumbs just for me to find in a thick, dark forest both of us wish we didn’t have to inhabit. I seemed to hear her telling me to handle them with care until we could be together as One and live on in an enlightened destiny.

If I recall correctly, after I asked her a question in the comment section of one of her blog posts, Ede emailed me and told me she’d be open to talking about it on the phone. It was one of many doors she created for me and through which I eagerly entered. I became more and more enamored with her voice and the worldview she so deftly elaborated on. What heightened my regard for Ede was her constant encouragement for me to keep on shining through my words and maintain a critical lens through which to view our stations in life. She told me that she thought of us as equals and we both deserve an audience that appreciates our willingness to subvert the nationalist narratives we were forced to cherish for so long. We seemed to be replenishing each other’s self-respect reserves and recognizing all the communal encouragement and psychological survival skills we had been lacking in both our lives that would have placed us on surer social footing. It was as if this meeting of hearts and minds was inevitable and singularly etched in the cosmos, and we were only continuing a conversation with each other that had spanned eons and lifetimes.

Ede became the trigger I pulled when I thought the time was right to kill off my 5-year-old marriage to a woman whom I knew from the start I shouldn’t have agreed to marry. The beginning of the end of my marriage was when Ede and I turned our hours-long phone conversations and pages-long instant messages into a transgressive, paranormal love connection. Soon enough, we sensed a growing sexual tension, starting with well-placed flirtatious innuendo and then deepening into riveting, torrid sex talk late into the night and then, more and more, streaming into the very early morning hours. I had dabbled in flirty erotic chatter before with exes, but it was never more than tongue-in-cheek missives that were more cute than perilously addictive. However, with these pornographic-infused telephonic encounters between Ede and me, we both wanted to up the ante on how hot and bothered we could get each other. We reveled in pushing each other’s sexual buttons in order to flood our libidos to their respective bursting point.

Suffice it to say, when I finally received the divorce decree in the mail, Ede and I soon made plans to meet in person. We eventually consummated our remote relationship in the summer of 2008. As soon as Ede picked me up at the airport and drove me to her apartment and I set down my duffel bag, she turned her head toward me to tell me something and I immediately planted a deep kiss on her lips, the type of kiss I wanted her to know I had desired to give her the first time I had felt entwined in her words. Over the course of a week, our repeated coital sessions plumbed the depths of our loins and climbed the peaks of our lust, aiming for what we had been missing all of our lives. If ever the phrase “We are One” meant anything to anyone, it was at this moment in time when we seemed to touch the epicenter of each of other’s souls.

Ede knew how this utopian coupling would end, though, long before I had even imagined it in my mushy brain. Months before we had even physically met, at my request, she mailed me two handwritten letters. This was because one of our conversations revolved around penpals and penmanship. I simply wanted an example of her handwriting, something palpable in this overwhelming digital space, something that harkened back to our younger years. In them, she presciently explained to me the ways in which we would separate and feel regret, and that I would stop thinking of her as someone I could spend my life with and instead end up thinking of her as someone I once knew way back when and under a much more jaded light. What I should have gleaned from her words was a realistic foreshadowing of where and how we were going to fall over the cliff that was awaiting us. It was a gentle warning that my heart could not heed.

The atrophy of the fantasy of “Us” began as soon as I returned home from my first trip to visit Ede and her two kids. I should’ve been well aware of how desperate it made me look trying to come up with a plan to fly her and her kids to Seattle so that they could settle down with me in my one-bedroom apartment. The logistics of a move clear across the country and the fact that she was still legally married to her estranged husband barely registered in my love-addled mind. Thinking back, though, love hardened into an obsession with me, and I became preoccupied with keeping Ede in my orbit so that we could continue to build our creative endeavors into a juggernaut of a partnership. We always talked about doing photography together, travelling together, writing together. As I recall, one of our flights of fancy that we enjoyed bringing up regularly was the dream of us settling down and living in Vietnam together; such an elegiac homage to our orphanhood, but also a fervent defense of our right to exist in the very nation that birthed us.

To feel so lovelorn and idealistic is nothing new for human beings anywhere and at any time. But, for me to keep on climbing mountain peaks without so much as a map, a sufficient amount of rope, and the barest minimum of oxygen, with the foolhardy belief that if I make it to the summit everything will turn out all right and life will be perfect, it is surely a testament, at least in this respect, to what an idiot I became and what an irresponsible savior mentality I carried around with me, like a captain’s cutlass. It’s like I cultivated the traits of an all-around good guy who, on the surface, values common sense, practices deep respect and cherishes intellectual rigor but also embodied the “nice guy” persona so well that I was ultimately blind to the devilish impulses that only served to satisfy my childish self-interest. This dual pantomime ended up blowing up in my face and leaving me to confront an existential crisis that I can only wish will never recur in my waking life.

Meanwhile, Ede was struggling mightily against an inevitable total disruption of her and her kids’ living situation because of her estranged husband’s almost weekly threats to cut off all financial lifelines to her unless she agreed to move to the Middle Eastern country he had moved to with their other two kids a couple of years ago. In a show of solidarity and to insert a level of normalcy in an untenable situation, I returned to visit with her and her two kids during the Thanksgiving holiday and to celebrate my birthday in early December with them. Coincidentally, my parents were a couple of hours away, where my father was receiving experimental treatment for the cancer he was to succumb to just a few years later. They wished to visit us, since my parents only got to see me once each year. I never divulged to them the real reason I was there visiting this woman and her kids, let alone why this virtual single mother had allowed a recently-divorced man to share a bed with her in her household. I knew it would have just been one more fact of my life that didn’t make sense to them.

Both as a way to stay involved in Ede’s life and to stay on the impossible path of co-habitation with her, I avidly applied for jobs in the urban area she lived in when I returned to Seattle. But it was too little too late. Her “S.O.” — significant other — (as she always mockingly referred to him) refused to pay the rent for the apartment where she and the other two kids had been holed up for the last few years, due to the fact that her S.O. had discontinued paying the mortgage for the house they had previously lived in because he had secured a job outside the United States and planned to move his entire family there. Knowing full well that such a move to that miniscule Middle Eastern nation offered only a life of a covered and sullen housewife without the benefit of any emotional or material support, Ede entrenched herself in the two-bedroom apartment refusing to join her S.O., even though it deeply pained her not to be with her other two sons who had decided to live with their father. Knowing full well these difficult circumstances surrounding her and the choices she was being forced to make, I should have backed away for both of our sakes, even though I wanted to promise her the world. I really should have understood from the get-go that the lifestyle I wanted to create for both of us would have been just another excuse for her not to evolve into herself and to not fully take control of her own life. I ultimately should have realized that Ede was going to make me pay for my well-meaning hubris because she warned me countless times of the end result.

After the axe came down on her homestead, in disgust, she packed up everything in a U-Haul van and in her personal vehicle and grudgingly moved in with her father and stepmother in the rural Southern town she grew up in. That treacherous upheaval must have sliced her already thinning spirit into a million crosscuts that bled out at different volumes and rates.

Out of guilt for not being there to help Ede and her kids pack and move and, admittedly, out of a selfish concern with whether or not I still factored into her life after such a traumatic rift in her living situation, I continued to act as if our communication routines were consistent and intentional. Due to my overblown confidence in who I thought I was to her and that I actually figured into her future plans, I promised Ede that I would start searching for jobs in the region she had relocated to. I promised her that as soon as I established myself there, then she and her kids could move in with me to get away from the toxic situation that had exponentially increased between her and her father. I promised her that once I could nail down those particulars then we could finally pursue the life we’ve always wanted for us. Promise, after promise, after promise. And what did Ede always tell me about “promises,” especially when they fell from the mouths of the men who insinuated themselves in her life?

While my lack of humility proudly blinded me to what was really going on, I continued to live life in denial and boldly envisioned a smooth transition for myself from the moist and overcast Pacific Northwest to the hot and dusty environs of a Southern town I couldn’t even fathom. I wasn’t just taking one shot in the dark; I was taking more than I could ever handle, and never really noticed that I was shooting into my own reflection. In the meantime, our correspondence became more infrequent, condensed, and increasingly strained. Ede had promptly secured a job at a local retailer, which ostensibly got herself out of the house and away from the manufactured chaos caused by her father and her siblings who had plenty of their own unique issues. Our phone conversations would trail off into cold zones and I would plaintively listen to her sigh in resignation as if she were desperately signaling to me to quit putting any more time in our relationship. I had the distinct feeling that any good thought or memory of me, prior to her forced relocation, was slipping through her fingers, so I made the rash decision in my head to fly down and visit with her again. As I put out that suggestion, Ede told me she wouldn’t be opposed to it and that she couldn’t stop me even if she tried. Her less than enthusiastic response to my proposal and our continuing flummoxed interpersonal communications should’ve finally tipped me off that not only did the dynamic between us radically change, but that I had fell into the well-worn rut of hearing without really listening and allowing my interpretation of reality to overlap hers.

The mock execution my paramour had planned for me took place at an IHOP about an hour before midnight in the middle of the first full week I was to stay there. And I should have seen it coming from a thousand miles away as soon as I had landed at that hulk of an airport, picked up the rental car and drove to the motel in the tiny town near where she lived. The two of us first re-connected at a small diner, and she brought along her two kids and a “friend” whom she had increasingly mentioned in our phone conversations leading up to my visit. (Yet another sign I chose to ignore.) I can’t recall his name, but I remember him as a tall, portly guy with long bouncy, curly hair and a bushy goatee and he wore thin wire-frame glasses that seemed to soften his features. I immediately sensed that the connective tissue which had once held the two of us so closely together had been hacked at and was hanging by only the thinnest of sinews. Sitting diagonally across from me in the booth, I remember Ede’s eyes betrayed both surly contempt and pure pity for me. I recognized the look she was giving me, but I hoped against hope that it was not real and that we could share some time together after being away from each other for several months and everything that had come to pass. However, her blatant displays of affection toward her friend confused me and warded me off from initiating any form of meaningful contact. From her friend’s reactions and the looks he slyly gave me, he was enjoying her attention and playing along with her but also seemed to take pity on me because of what her actions were intent on doing. It was as if she had told him all about our history and that she, instead, wanted a future with him.

Skip to that fateful meeting at the IHOP later in the week, and I was anticipating having a real sit-down discussion between her and me in order to come to a heartfelt understanding of where our relationship was headed and whether either one of us wanted to continue gliding on the path we had established. I was expecting just the two of us so we could really talk things out and listen to each other. And, to be completely honest, I still held onto the fantasy that we would eventually end up in my motel room to make love like we had done so ravenously in the past. I arrived at the well-lit restaurant to find not just her sitting in the booth, but also her co-workers, one of whom was the same large, burly “friend.” I was immediately placed on the spot. I had nowhere to hide from the terse questioning about the true reasons I came to this small Southern town and the grave feeling that I had failed to recognize I was being set up for emotional evisceration, in public no less.

At last, Ede placed the proverbial gun to my head and pulled the trigger by accusing me of being undeniably selfish in wanting to stay in a relationship with her and only wanting “to fuck” her while I had the freedom to go out galavanting around town, oblivious to the hard-scrabble reality she had to confront each and every day and the tsunami of hurt that had washed her back into the hometown she had escaped from so long ago. Even though the salty iron of her bullets were winding their way in slow motion into my bloodstream and down through my nerve endings, agonizingly hollowing out any shred of ego I desperately wanted to cling to, it became abundantly clear to me that she estimated me to have become just another man in her life who subconsciously thought he could wave a paternalistic wand over her head, whisk her away from all her troubles and softly set her down in a life devoid of any pain, while simultaneously wiping away any semblance of vice from her past. Ede shot another round into my head by telling me that she and her “friend” were hooking up and she was glad she didn’t have to hide it from me anymore.

Feeling sick to my stomach and slightly faint, I quickly slid myself out of the booth and eeked out the phrase, “Because I love you,” in response to her questioning my motives for visiting her that past Thanksgiving. At that exact moment, it was difficult for me to comprehend what had transpired because my inner voice was incessantly muttering to me in my echo chamber that I’m done as a human being. I bee-lined it back to my motel room, determined to get online and reserve the earliest flight back to my empty apartment in Seattle. I had resolved to disappear into a world of pain that I had, once again, created for myself. The next day, though, after finishing up my breakfast sandwich at the nearby McDonalds, one of the workers commented on the Metallica sticker on the lid of my laptop, and we commenced with some brief friendly banter about the band and their music. Never would I admit it, but that conversation with a complete stranger made such an impact on how I was viewing the world at the time that I decided to stay a few more days. When would I ever get to visit this part of the country again, I asked myself. If I were going to join a subset of the Walking Wounded, so eviscerated I felt at the time, then I would just make myself tinier than a tadpole for the rest of my trip and push on.

This past April marked the 10th anniversary of my fateful trip and bizarre resolution of my intense relationship with Ede. I’m still alive and she is still alive. There are times when I still don’t know what to make of those events or how to shape them inside my head when they materialize in my memory and play themselves back. During the period when so many jittery love cues were passing between us at such a break-neck speed, and the decision to leave my wife was building to a crescendo inside of me, Ede shared a music video called “Run” by Snow Patrol with me. Like so many significant communications she sent, this song contained a multitude of surreptitious messages that underscored her feelings toward me and what she thought she needed to impart to me to not only understand her, but also myself. In other words, “Run” was meant to help me sort out the difficult decision to either run from my marriage, or run into the arms of Ede, or just run toward whatever else was waiting for me on the edge of nowhere while I had the chance. I think she wanted to guide me around all of the constraints I believed were holding me back from realizing all my true selves that were in need of being expressed with all my vigor, all my talent and all my self-worth. Instead, I turned my love for Ede into a thing to set on top of a pedestal and admire. I mistook love for a reciprocal assurance that if I embrace it, then it will embrace me back.

Ten years on, and at the beginning stages of middle age, I am at a unique vantage point where I’m developing the talent to see in many directions and dimensions. In many ways I’ve changed, but in some very primal respects I haven’t. I have learned, though, to keep those raw aspects of me from worming their way into my practical day-to-day while honing the more mature and wisened parts so that they can better express themselves in my life. Love has a role in my life, but it has no hold on how I live my life. It sings its many tunes and pitter-patters in the backwood transoms of my mind. However, I’ve learned now that love is not there for me to have or to seek. It’ll be there no matter where I am.

#adoption #adoptee #love #loving #relationships #learning #teaching

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vagcbunda · 5 years

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☾ - DRABBLE. // @serastium

REGRET is bittersweet. Parched lips are cracked, tongue sticks to the top of her mouth and Bella is sure that her silence is due to how dry her mouth is. how dry her life is.

Hollow eyes speak of restless nights, any signs of adventure have surely diminished - everything about her existence betrays her. She’s empty - a mere shell of who she was, and what was worst was. . . todavía no había pasado . (it still hadn’t happened.) her body was reacting to the events about to unfold.

Tohru.

Does she know how lucky she is ? And even after spending months of anguish, Bella can’t find it in her heart to hate the girl. An empty smile appears - she’d tried it all. dios, (god) how she had tried it all. But fay loved tohru.

Even after deleting his memories of tohru, per his request, he was still in love with her. God, how was that even possible?! Her smile is plastered painfully as regret pours out of all senses.

She can’t do this any longer. She was depressed beyond comprehension. She could never have him.

The moon is full - it lights up the beach, magical rays dance gently around her. She buries her face into her arms, she wants to curl up - disappear, dissipate into nothing. Not even the magical waves calm her nerves.

The worst - lo peor - lo peor - is that she does not regret meeting him in Japan. She almost laughs at the memory of him finding out she was a witch. His cute expression as he stood in awe when she planted things with her wand. Being a muggle, he couldn’t visit her in Hogwarts but she took him to Diagon Alley.

Ay - fay. ¿Por que? ¿Por qué esta pasando esto ? (why is this happening?)

“Bella ? ”

Heart leaps from her chest into her throat - his voice has the power to shake her very existence. Plastered smile turns genuine as he approaches her - life swells through her veins, as they act as a catalyst to snap her out of her dead senses.

“¡fay - llegaste! Te extrañe. (fay, You’ve arrived! I’ve missed you.)” not out of her character, the Hufflepuff wraps her arms around him into a warm hug - his familiar scent overtakes her.

He’s home. He’s home. He’s home.

Not even the ocean compares to this.

“ Ah - thank you for coming to visit me here, Mexico is my home, after all. You’re going back to Japan tomorrow. I wanted to make your last night special.”

He nods, his gaze fixed on a device that was gently placed in the sand. A small radio. Hah, she had forgotten about the music. Her gaze smiles excitedly - she doesn’t smile like this as much anymore. Bella grabs his hand and pulls him towards her,

“¡Fay, vamos a bailar! (Fay, let’s dance!)” She laughs - he laughs too, they both awkwardly shuffle - the moonlight keeping them company.

“I don’t want this moment to end. This is how you know there’s magic.” They’ve gotten used to each other’s rhythms- they’re swaying with the beat - slowly. Cheeks blush as she realizes they’ve never been this close before.

“Fay - “ her voice is above a whisper but he’s intently looking at her, “ Ah - I need to tell you something. ” they’ve stopped moving now. Her heart is racing, she’s sure she’s having some kind of heart attack. Voice shakes a bit but she manages to spit out her emotions,

“fay - te amo. Te amo. Te amo. I love you -“ her face is burning up ! She speaks the words that have been locked away in her heart for what seemed ages. “—I know you may not feel the same. But it’s my truth. I love you. What I feel is strong - think of the ocean. Think of the waves. Perhaps. . . perhaps I shall show you how it feels - I’ll try if you’ll allow me. ”

To her surprise he nods, and this is when she knows it’s time to say goodbye. Dismay paints her senses - it’s time.

“close your eyes and I’ll show you.” She smiles at his obedience - he was kind. He was lovely. Bella traces fingertips across his cheek, his skin causing fire to her soul. slowly, two things happen. her left hand reaches for her wand - her right hand gently pushes fay towards her.

Lips collapse as they kiss, and it feels like she’s alive - her soul catches on fire and she would never regain from this moment. She would forever and always love him.

By a miracle he allows her to kiss him - she kisses him again, passion in her lips, then once more; he was intoxicating. Bella es tiempo. Bella, its time. Lips part- and shy gaze meets his. she can’t read his expression but she won’t need to for much longer.

“Te amo. (I love you). Obliviate.”

And it was over. He was gone.

She would never forget him. The black hole in her chest would never leave.

Nunca sera completa. (She would never be whole again).

#...HA.#ha ...#UH LISTEN I HOPE THIS IS OKAY ;LAKJF UGH MY WRITING I GET SO WEIRDED OUT BY IT.#a;ldkfjsadklsf #serastium

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turtle-paced · 6 years

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Do you think Catelyn is a shitty sister? She seems to have no clue what went on between Lysa and Littlefinger when they were young and I find this hard to believe which means that she must have been extremely self-absorbed (figures, looking at 6&6 AGoT!Sansa). Additionally, she is always putting Edmure down and treating him like he is incompetent. She is the least stupid of the Tully children (not surprised given the competition) but she definitely contributed to their insecurities.

Let’s split this up.

1. See, I don’t find it hard to believe that Catelyn had no idea what was going on between Lysa and Littlefinger. Lysa didn’t want to compete with Catelyn romantically and wasn’t advertising her interest in Littlefinger to Catelyn; Littlefinger wasn’t interested in Lysa; the key interactions between them took place when Catelyn was not present, and were subsequently hushed up by Hoster Tully. At the same time, Catelyn’s not just hanging out around the house all day - she’s the de facto Lady of Riverrun. She’s got work to do.

Not hard for a busy, inexperienced young woman to miss something that her sister didn’t want to tell her, and something that her friend didn’t care about. It doesn’t make her unusually self-absorbed, to my mind.

The rest is going under a cut for length.

2. No, I do not think that Catelyn was a bad sister to Edmure. As we can see, she loves her brother:

[Robb] rubbed his stubbled jaw, suddenly awkward. “Yes.” His chin hairs were redder than the ones on his head.

“I like it.” Catelyn stroked the wolf’s head, gently. “It makes you look like my brother Edmure.”

- Catelyn VIII, AGoT

She feared for her lord father, and wondered at his ominous silence. She feared for her brother Edmure, and prayed that the gods would watch over him if he must face the Kingslayer in battle. She feared for Ned and her girls, and for the sweet sons she had left behind at Winterfell. And yet there was nothing she could do for any of them, and so she made herself put all thought of them aside.

- Catelyn IX, AGoT

Lannister raised his head. “Lady Stark,” he said from his knees. Blood ran down one cheek from a gash across his scalp, but the pale light of dawn had put the glint of gold back in his hair. “I would offer you my sword, but I seem to have mislaid it.”

“It is not your sword I want, ser,” she told him. “Give me my father and my brother Edmure. Give me my daughters. Give me my lord husband.”

- Catelyn X, AGoT

Edmure came down the steps to embrace her. “Sweet sister,” he murmured hoarsely. He had deep blue eyes and a mouth made for smiles, but he was not smiling now. He looked worn and tired, battered by battle and haggard from strain. His neck was bandaged where he had taken a wound. Catelyn hugged him fiercely.

- Catelyn XI, AGoT

“Would that it were. My brother commands in Riverrun?”

“Yes, my lady. His Grace left Ser Edmure to hold Riverrun and guard his rear.”

Gods grant him the strength to do so, Catelyn thought. And the wisdom as well.

- Catelyn V, ACoK

Only my sweet brother would crowd all these useless mouths into a castle that might soon be under siege. Catelyn knew that Edmure had a soft heart; sometimes she thought his head was even softer. She loved him for it, yet still…

- Catelyn V, ACoK

“Father is in no state to weigh strategies. Two days ago he was making plans for your marriage to Brandon Stark! Go see him yourself if you do not believe me. This plan will work, Cat, you’ll see.”

“I hope so, Edmure. I truly do.” She kissed him on the cheek, to let him know she meant it, and went to find her father.

- Catelyn V, ACoK

Her steps took her to the sept, a seven-sided sandstone temple set amidst her mother’s gardens and filled with rainbow light. It was crowded when they entered; Catelyn was not alone in her need for prayer. She knelt before the painted marble image of the Warrior and lit a scented candle for Edmure and another for Robb off beyond the hills. Keep them safe and help them to victory, she prayed, and bring peace to the souls of the slain and comfort to those they leave behind.

- Catelyn VI, ACoK

Her brother Edmure stood to Robb’s right, one hand upon the back of his father’s seat, his face still puffy from sleep. They had woken him as they had her, pounding on his door in the black of night to yank him rudely from his dreams. Were they good dreams, brother? Do you dream of sunlight and laughter and a maiden’s kisses? I pray you do. Her own dreams were dark and laced with terrors.

- Catelyn III, ASoS

This would also tend to show that Catelyn attempts to support her brother, and wants him to be good at his job, rather than always treating him as if he were incompetent.

We also see that Catelyn doesn’t set out to shame him in public. Her criticism is generally in private or kept to her internal monologue.

“This is Tully land,” Edmure declared. “If Tywin Lannister thinks to cross it unbloodied, I mean to teach him a hard lesson.”

The same lesson you taught his son? Her brother could be stubborn as river rock when his pride was touched, but neither of them was likely to forget how Ser Jaime had cut Edmure’s host to bloody pieces the last time he had offered battle. “We have nothing to gain and everything to lose by meeting Lord Tywin in the field,” Catelyn said tactfully.

- Catelyn V, ACoK

See here, how Catelyn doesn’t come back with the sharper response, but rephrases her concerns so as not to embarrass him. Here, where she does speak sharply to him, we see her reaction:

They do not scold him, except in jest, Catelyn told herself when they raced by her that afternoon with nary a word. I have always been too hard with Edmure, and now grief sharpens my every word. She regretted her rebuke.

- Catelyn V, ASoS

Their relationship is genuinely and seriously strained at the end of ACoK, when Catelyn frees Jaime, and Edmure sends men to recapture him. That’s a genuine difference of interest, but we can see how Catelyn suffers for her brother’s rejection.

Edmure had not returned after his first visit, preferring to spend his days with Marq Piper and Patrek Mallister, listening to Rymund the Rhymer’s verses about the battle at the Stone Mill. Robb is not Edmure, though. Robb will see me.

- Catelyn II, ASoS

It had been raining for days now, a cold grey downpour that well suited Catelyn’s mood. Her father was growing weaker and more delirious with every passing day, waking only to mutter, “Tansy,” and beg forgiveness. Edmure shunned her, and Ser Desmond Grell still denied her freedom of the castle, however unhappy it seemed to make him.

- Catelyn II, ASoS

Catelyn reached out blindly, groping for her brother’s hand, but Edmure had moved away, to stand alone on the highest point of the battlements.

- Catelyn IV, ASoS

No sooner had the burning boat vanished from their sight than Edmure walked off. Catelyn would have liked to embrace him, if only for a moment; to sit for an hour or a night or the turn of a moon to speak of the dead and mourn. Yet she knew as well as he that this was not the time; he was Lord of Riverrun now, and his knights were falling in around him, murmuring condolences and promises of fealty, walling him off from something as small as a sister’s grief. Edmure listened, hearing none of the words.

[…]

She sighed. Edmure was not as strong as he seemed. Their father’s death had been a mercy when it came at last, but even so her brother had taken it hard. Last night in his cups he had broken down and wept, full of regrets for things undone and words unsaid. He ought never to have ridden off to fight his battle on the fords, he told her tearfully; he should have stayed at their father’s bedside. “I should have been with him, as you were,” he said.

- Catelyn IV, ASoS

I think this is pretty comprehensive. Catelyn and Edmure don’t always get on, but she wants him to succeed at everything except thwarting her own plans to retrieve her daughters. For his part, Edmure doubts that Hoster ever respected him as much as Hoster did Catelyn; Hoster’s deficiencies expressing that to Edmure are on him, not Catelyn.

3. Finally, I reject the framing that Catelyn is the “least stupid” of the Tully siblings. It implies Catelyn’s stupid. She is not.

#ASoIaF #catelyn stark #edmure tully #lysa arryn #petyr baelish #a game of thrones #a clash of kings #a storm of swords #asks

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atlmaryj-blog1 · 5 years

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Short Story - Your God Is the Devil. By Atlmaryj

The anger that was coming from His voice, was beyond comprehension, Michelle knew that His wrath was destructive, but to stand in His presence and be the object of it, brought a level of fear she had never experienced. Her fear had her body shaking uncontrollably, should she scream as loudly as He, or would that be putting her in more danger. What was she to do? Who was she to seek help from? Michelle instinctively began to pray. She sought saving and for the anguish to come to an end. And then it happened, it was the silence she had longed for, her prayer worked! She could now catch her breath, dry her tears and regain her composure. She now had the courage to look up at His face and she begins to think, "If He does it again, I will pray as I did before". He says, "You can do what you like, but I stopped to show you that I hear all of them". Realizing what she did, she falls to her knees. She has just prayed to the Man that she is seeking to be saved from; God.

Is this the God she had dedicated her entire life to or was it a dream? This had to be a dream, because there is no way that this was reality. She was on her knees crying harder than when her child was killed, and feeling the same amount of unease that she felt when she was assaulted years ago. How could one compare the worst moments in their life, to the moment of being in the presence of the True and Living God?

She decides to stand up and face Him, listen to Him and hear His words to her. After all she was the one that initiated the conversation, having expressed her disdain for some of the people she saw in Heaven. What did she expect His reaction to be; she was essentially questioning his judgment. “I have insulted Him” she thought, and this punishment is deserving. With her face now clear of tears, and her breathing beginning to slow down, she hangs her head out of respect but mostly out of shame.

“Do you desire to reject the gift, that I have presented you?”, God says. “Father, I know that I must accept all of your gifts and I would never even desire to deny, however I am not understanding why these people that have gone against your laws and hurt my family are allowed to walk amongst the righteous”, she says with her voice quivering. “My child, I have Mercy on the souls that seek to change their ways and work to prove they are worthy. You have taken many missteps in your life and I was merciful to you each and every time. So what makes them any different?” “Is he serious?”, she thought, “Yes, I am my child, all that I do and say is genuine”, says God. Michelle’s courage begins to increase and she is not aware of it until after she speaks. “What do you mean, what makes them any different?” in a tone that would be expected from a rebellious teenager to their parent. “I have dedicated my entire life to you, worshiped you, tithed as I was told, thought good thoughts, never questioned you or your decisions, prayed and fasted regularly, spread your word and because of that I was rewarded with paradise.”

She continues on her tirade, “However, this man raped me in my home, with my children in the next room. These other men, killed my son after robbing him of $50 and a watch, which was just one of many crimes they had committed throughout their lives. So, what makes me different from them? A lot my dear God. A lot.” Michelle now realizes that she has just furthermore disrespected the Lord, but surprisingly she felt justified. After saying it out loud, her approach felt legitimized and her fear began to dissipate. Whatever happens after this point, so it is and she will accept it wholeheartedly.

God was quiet, and Michelle had no idea why, did He now understand her position? The silence was awkward but she relished in it, especially after all of the yelling and anger she experienced earlier. She begins to look around, afraid to look back at Him. She was taking in the beauty of the crisp white clouds and the piercing blue sky. A minute or so passed, but it seemed like an eternity, and then He began to speak. “My darling child, I was there when your son was killed and I was there when you were violated, so I know and felt your pain. But they are my children no less, and if they are willing to change for Me, then I must honor my word and allow them the paradise that is promised to all of those that work to be a good child of Mine.”.

Michelle’s feelings were hurt beyond belief, because she had lived her life with the thoughts that the devil was present during those times of strife and that God could not have been there to allow such pain. But she now hears that He was there, He felt their pain, He gave permission to these acts of violence. Why? How could He? “You allowed these men to rape me? You allowed my son to be shot? You allowed me to lose my child over bullshit and now you are making me live with the monsters that perpetrated these crimes? You broke me in order to accomplish what exactly? Did you do it to make me stronger? And what was I becoming stronger for? Nothing else occurred in my life after those events that called on me needing that much strength? What about my other kids, you made them witness my violation for what purpose? So, one could become a drug addict and the other could have anger issues, which lands them both in jail often?” she says sarcastically.

She knows that she has gone to the point of no return and her being dead means He surely cannot take her life. So, she waits for His words, His lesson, His story, all without fearing the method in which He will decide to deliver it. God remains calm and says “Those men made the choice to commit those crimes, as everyone is given free will. At what point will people realize, that individuals are responsible for their own thoughts?” Without missing a beat Michelle responded“You give many instructions, affirmations and advice, yet you cannot deter those that want to hurt others, with thoughts to do otherwise? If nothing happens but without your permission, how am I to believe that you did not allow these moments too occur? Maybe my life’s dedication to you, was not the way to go. I did all the right things, or tried to at least! And to come here, be ecstatic that the dedication paid off, only to see that a person’s last minute dedication is recognized just as much as a person’s lifetime servitude, angers me, disturbs me, and disappoints me. To have to live with men and women responsible for crimes, that I would not even be able to think about in my normal life shows me that this is not a Heaven. It is just a place for the dead to go, and the misrepresentation that is given in the Church is sad. I love and respect you, though it may not seem like it, but this is not the place for me. I humbly decline this as being my eternal home, I would rather fall endlessly for eternity than to be in this so-called paradise. So, I ask if there is there another place for me to go? Of course I do not desire Hell but if that is where you decide to send me, I am your child and I will obey.” Michelle then lets out a sigh of great pain.

She was now mentally tired, was this the God she worshiped or is what she was taught in Church wrong? Did she misread or just not understand the Bible? Or is it even the real word of God? How could the God she loves with all of her being, calm her spirit and ease her mind? How was He going to make her understand His way? She now felt lost and betrayed, Michelle could never have imagined that she could feel this way about her Lord. Her thoughts were all over the place when God said “You have always felt this way about Me. Your devotion was not real, your “love” was used to cover up your true feelings. You feared that if your true feelings towards me, were truly known, it would make you an outcast amongst your friends and family.” He continues “And yes, I do know the road that each of you will take, but I do not condone acts by way of non-deterrence. It is man’s decision and my allowance comes from giving free will to each and every one of you. See, you all believe that when one dies by the hand of another, that I was the one to call them home but in reality it was man that rushed you to your end or through you not caring for the body that I have provided to you.

Michelle believed that did not explain why amongst these righteous people, there lived those that may have brought them there in the first place. How does one make peace with knowing that at any moment the man or woman that killed them, may at some point be standing next to them in Heaven? This doesn’t seem to be getting addressed, and she is quickly running out of patience. “God”she says, “I am ready to leave Sir. I hear all that you have said and a part of me understands but there are many questions and not enough answers for me. Based on this experience, I believe that I do not know you at all, and maybe that is best. So once again, I ask that I be placed elsewhere without prejudice. I know this may be a difficult task, considering my approach and the anger I have demonstrated. So, I will wait for your answer Lord.” Once again she hangs her head, and thinks about how much courage it took to do what she has just done. But she was not backing down and unwilling to hear anymore. She waits patiently for a response “You will remain here. You are in the appropriate place, for the life that you have lead. In fact there is no other place for me to send you, as…” and in mid-sentence Michelle interrupts him and says loudly “This is why Heaven is overrun with degenerates! If these bastards are here, then who lives in Hell?” He replied, “You do.”

Completely confused, she finally looks up, to seek clarification, only to see black space. She then heard a woman’s voice say, “Hello Michelle”, looking around she sees no one in sight, and Michelle says “Who is that?” The strange voice replied “I am who you refer to as The Devil. I have heard every word you spoke and I am honestly impressed. It takes a considerable amount of hatred to speak to God as you did. But I am the God you have been serving your whole life, so in reality you were speaking to me.” Confused, Michelle screamed “You are a liar! I have NEVER served you a day in my life. You know that this is a lie, this is why you will not show yourself as God did.” Just then, she saw an image come into view and to her surprise and dismay, it was her own face. “What is going on? What is this? Is this a joke?” she said. “No,this is far from a joke. I am the devil you have served. As you can see, I look like you, because I am you. You have convinced yourself to believe that your dedication was to the God above, yet your heart did not reflect what your mouth professed. And over time, you believed your own lies. Your church going, was for show. Your tithes were to keep people from talking about you. Your charity was to receive blessings in return. Your prayer at times was authentic, but mostly for relief. The only people you were an example to, were your children and they were unaware of your true self. You desired drunkenness, you desired men without marriage, you desired immoral ways to gain money. And you know His scripture Michelle, something about thinking it and so you are. Or did you skip over that part? So you served me, or should I say you served yourself very well, because I am you and you are me. Michelle, we are one.” Michelle was now sick to her stomach, because she had never thought that she would ever be face to face with the devil, a devil that looked like her own self. “But I was in Heave, I saw it! If I was meant to be in Hell, why was I ever allowed in Heave? Michelle said. “Well, God is so merciful, he allows all that die to experience Heaven before sending them to me. He wants you to see those you missed and get the opportunity see the paradise that you were told about. I came in when you asked to speak with Him; I just maintained the surroundings for my own pleasure. Now this dark space is your home, you will walk aimlessly for eternity, as you did on earth. No honest destination, no light, the same life of darkness that you decided to live on earth, however this will be a literal interpretation.”

Michelle is more confused than she was upon the initial conversation. She asks “Why are we taught that you are some grotesque animal, horns, tails and whatnot?” Seeming aggravated by Michelle’s inability to grasp what is going on, The Devil huffs and says, “This was to make you believe that you are not really responsible for your own deeds. As you can see Michelle, I am not a physical being, I am inside of you. This is why I look like you. All the wrong that you do, is your own doing, it has nothing to do with a dragon in the depth of the earth. I am you and you are me, we are one, so when you blame the “devil” in reality you are blaming yourself.”

Michelle is done, she has nothing left to give and is scared to ask any other questions. She puts her arms to the sky to once again fall to her knees, the Devil kneels down to whisper in her ear “No one here is a victim; you are all guilty by your own choice. So, I must tell you that the tears and the cries mean nothing to me. Remember, I am you and I know that part of you that you are unwilling to acknowledge. The Hell that you feared to go to, already lived in your soul Michelle. You lit that fire long ago and it has been smoldering ever since. So as you walk in this darkness, your soul will finally physically burn. You will burn from the inside out. You deserve it Michelle.” The Devil stands up and begins to walk away and as she steps out of sight, Michelle screams “God Help Me, please. I am so sorry. Please forgive me!” The Devil responds “God lived in you, as I did, but you killed Him a long time ago. You are praying to me, remember? I love you Michelle, my obedient child.”

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annie-waters247 · 7 years

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Just a little fanfiction for my fellow Maven/Mare shippers. Maybe don’t read if you aren’t comfortable with adult scenes :) Also there are spoilers for those not up to date. Enjoy :)

I sit beside Maven’s bed where he lay as cold and motionless as stone. The Whispers Cal found after months of relentless searching have done everything they can for him, but it took almost too much of his energy. I don’t know whether he’ll survive, or if it even worked. The things Elara did to his mind seem almost irreversible. The thought of the dead Queen sends cold shivers down my weakened spine. I can still feel her inside my mind, even though it’s been several months, like a ghost, a constant reminder of her torment.

I look at Maven, lying there so peacefully. His raven coloured hair so unkempt it’s grown messy curls similar to that of his older brother’s. The underside of his ice blue eyes that have burned themselves into my memory so vividly are more pronounced than ever, as are his pale cheeks and jaw. His reign and the crushing loneliness he must feel have certainly scratched away the hard surface of the boy King I remember. He no longer looks like a tyrant King, merely a boy whose mother alienated him and warped him into a monster who was incapable of loving anyone.

Except for me.

The memories crash over me like an aggressive wave that forces me to hold my chest in an attempt to keep from drowning. I yearn for those moments when Maven would look past my eyes and into my confused soul as if he, like no other, understood my pain, which I now realise he did, more than I could ever comprehend. I can still feel his blazing warmth, so familiar, as he caressed me in a way even Cal never has. I miss his kind eyes, and his slightly arrogant, lopsided grin that used to infuriate me so. I miss the Maven I fell in love with. The Maven that was my closest friend and future husband.

I hope to whatever force that controls this world that this works.

I almost can’t believe the chances when I see those impossibly long lashes flutter and his right hand which is closest to me twitch ever so slightly.

“Maven?” I’m afraid to do anything but whisper, because I can’t shake the feeling that my hopes are about to be crushed.

I take a breath.

I clutch my chest tighter.

His eyes open all the way as he turns to face me. There is a stark contrast between blue and red that makes his appearance appear even more vulnerable. He runs a shaking hand through his flyaway locks. My breath catches in my throat for no real reason.

Then he speaks.

“Mare?” His voice brings conflicting emotions. Part of me wants to run from this room faster than I ever have before. And yet apart of me wants to never leave just so I can hopefully hear that voice one more time.

“It’s me, Maven” I breathe.

A smile splits across his face and completely shifts his appearance. I’m forced to take another breath.

“Where’s Tib?” he sounds unsure of himself, as though the words feel foreign on his tongue, or perhaps it’s the genuine tone that feels foreign.

“Tib?”

“My brother, Tiberias” it’s been months since I have heard anything but contempt and bitterness in his tone, especially when it comes to talking about Cal.

“He just went to get you some water and clean clothes for when you woke up”.

He stares at me wide eyed, with so much innocence. I don��t know what to believe, it wouldn’t be the first time he has tricked me this way.

“What do you remember?” from the way he looks at me, eyes boring into my very soul, Maven knows exactly what I mean by the question. He doesn’t answer for a long while, long enough that I almost believe that he won’t speak at all. A crease appears between his dark eyebrows suddenly. He looks pained beyond comprehension as the memories flood his mind so violently, I can see them crash like waves behind his eyes. Eyes that have suddenly darkened to a deep, stormy blue. He says only one word, and yet that one word holds so much emotion that it leaves a very prominent lump in my throat.

“Everything”.

I give him time to decide whether he feels comfortable saying anymore. He breathes in heavily, dragging air into his corrupted lungs, as his long, pale fingers rake obsessively through his hair and even occasionally tug on the messy ends.

“Everything is so clear now. I not only remember loving Tib, I feel it, deep in my soul. I feel it blossoming like a forgotten memory. When mother took away my love for my brother I thought I would never feel it’s presence again. But I feel it stronger than ever. And for my father too. I remember now my admiration for him and the deep bond we shared before mother took that away from me too. I remember -” he goes silent suddenly, as though the words have choked him somehow. Tears begin to stream down his eyes with ferocity and his face loses all remaining colour.

“Maven?” instinctively I move closer to him and without thinking I place a hand on his. “What’s the matter?” I stammer though I can guess what his next words are.

“It’s all my fault Mare. All my fault. I KILLED MY OWN FATHER!” his voices raises with self hatred and disgust.

“Maven you did nothing, it was your mother. It was Elara” without realising my hands have ventured to his wet cheeks.

“I stood idly by while the Queen whispered her way into my brother’s mind and forced him to decapitate our father with his own sword!” he is almost shrieking in distress. Just now I realise he has his strong, warm hands bound around my upper arms. I would feel nervous but his fire bands are safely stored away.

“Maven that was all Elara. She warped your mind into something unrecognisable and forced you to forget your love for everyone and everything you ever cared about. You cannot blame yourself!”.

Maven’s stare suddenly becomes so intense I feel as though I’m being pulled inside out, and yet somehow I don’t mind the feeling. His grip around my arms tightens slightly and he suddenly feels much closer than before.

“She couldn’t erase my love for everything” is all he says as his eyes suddenly become smoldering. I can feel them ferociously burning down all the barriers I have maintained for so long, even with Cal and my family. “My love for you was the only thing that remained untouched and pure. It was the only real thing I have felt in a very long time. She couldn’t take away my burning desire for you, no matter how hard she tried. And now that I am finally myself again, I feel that desire burning holes into my very soul in an attempt to get closer to you”.

I can’t remember the last time I took a breath, or the last time my heart beat this fast. It’s as though it’s a prisoner in my own chest, and it’s throwing itself against my ribs in an attempt to break through in order to be closer to Maven’s.

“Maven” mere breaths are all I can manage once again as even my lungs to try to escape my body. His fingers begin to trail further up my arm, towards my neck as he traces the ’M’ permanently marked on my body.

“I’m sorry about all of the torment I have caused you” I’ve never heard his voice so tender and sorrowful, or felt such gentle hands on my body.

“Thankyou” is all I can manage to whisper from deceased lungs. His hands are on my face now, running from my temple to my chin, tracing intricate designs into my flesh. His hands then venture into my hair, taking handfuls into greedy but delicate fingers. His hands run through my hair as though it is the most precious and beautiful of silks. The whole time he stares into my frightened eyes, trying to convince me of something. I can’t help my uncertainty. I’m unsure if I’m dealing with the Prince I fell in love with, or the King who broke my heart and destroyed mine and Cal’s souls.

I still remember that day at the Palace, when I saw the Maven I thought I knew bleed away to reveal the empty shell underneath that harboured nothing but a monster. On that day I thought I had lost the Prince I loved forever, and yet here he sits now, caressing me in a way I was certain I had forgotten, looking at me in a way I hadn’t realised until now I missed.

Without knowing why, a smile stretches across my face, and pulls at my scars, but I don’t care. I’ve finally received the missing part of my soul, and I plan to utilise my new cherished gift.

Whatever Maven now sees in my face must please him because that lopsided smile that I have missed so dearly is finally in it’s rightful place on his incomprehensibly handsome features once again. His fingers move from my hair to my lips where they trace the outline of my huge grin. His eyes light up beyond anything I have ever seen. I can’t believe I had forgotten how beautiful his features were when not corrupted by bitterness. He leans in close, his breath tickling my face with warmth. He again takes my face in his capable hands, his soft thumbs tracing lines into my cheeks which have grown red from embarrassment. No one has ever held me this way, not Even Cal who until now, I thought was the love of my life. I recognise now the naivety of a young girl seeking comfort with another when her heart has been broken by her true love. He is so close that all I would have to do is tilt my head ever so slightly and our lips would touch.

Suddenly my whole body feels as though it’s on fire.

His grin becomes mischievous as he bypasses my lips and approaches my left ear. Although he has the facade of calmness I can feel his hammering heart against my chest. All I can feel is his hands, one still on my cheek, and the other travelling agonisingly slowly down my neck. His breath feels hot now, and I can hear him swallow. His lips graze my cheek as they open ever so slightly to say something.

I take a breath.

“I remember loving you more than anyone in this horrible, corrupt world has ever loved anyone or anything. And I will continue to love you, even if you no longer feel the same, until my last dying breath”.

That sentence is my undoing. My entire being unravels as I collapse into his arms which have now moved to my waist. In a fiery moment our lips crash together. Softly at first, however the intensity quickly increases as our hands trace intricate designs over our entire bodies. He comes up for air only to bury himself in my neck, where he draws trails up and down my throat. I run my fingers through his unbelievably soft curls, reveling in the feel of him against me, being buried in an inferno of heat that I don’t mind at all. He pulls away just far enough to look me in the eye. There is a smile there that I’ve never seen before. A smile reserved just for me. I lean into him and whisper ever so quietly, almost afraid to say the words:

“I am in with love you Maven Calore”. If it were even possible his grin brightens further, and he places his lips softly against mine again, relishing in the feeling of everything in the world finally falling into place. At Least that’s what it feels like for me anyway. Again his kiss deepens until I’ve lost all available breath. His arms tighten around me as he lowers me onto the bed and places himself above me. His lips meet mine again as we both laugh out of joy. I never thought I would hear that sound again and it fills me with such undiluted pleasure that tears began to fall from my eyes without my permission.

Maven freezes above me, his whole body tensing. Afraid of what I had done to elicit this reaction, I open my eyes slowly, so slowly I hope he won’t notice. His deep blue eyes which have immensely hardened, are staring down at me with such intensity that I quiver in fear and attempt to slip away from underneath him. The heat is suddenly too much for me as I realise it’s fueled by anger. As I attempt to wriggle away from his smoldering heat, his arms harden around me, caging me in with not only his strength, but his stare. His soft, yet callused hands cup my face with desperation, as his own tears stain his cheeks. Instantaneously I realise the rage behind his stormy eyes isn’t directed at me, but himself. I just now realise that the tears are still creating delicate lines down my face, and I only notice because Maven is trailing their progress with determined eyes, his fingertips brushing them away softly.

Then he speaks.

“I’m so sorry” his whole body trembles as he quickly breaks down in my arms.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry Mare, I’m so fucking stupid” he’s raking one of his quaking hands through his hair as he rolls off me and back onto the bed beside me. “Why did I ever think it would be okay, after everything I have done to you, to lay hands on your beautiful body or feel your warmth against me ever again? Why did I ever think for even a second that you would allow me into your wonderful, gorgeous mind ever again? The mere thought of my touch has brought tears to your eyes. I’m so fucking thick”. His whole body is shaking with his sobs. “I love you so much Mare” his voice crumbles consistently throughout that sentence. “I’m so…. God I’m so fucking sorry. Please… please forgive me Mare”.

When I realise the misunderstanding that has just occurred, I burst out laughing. I clap my hand over my mouth but I fail to stifle my grin. Maven stares at me like I’m an insane person as I climb on top of him and cradle his head with my hands.

“They were tears of happiness you dork!” I’m attempting and failing to be sensitive but that look of shock on his face is far too adorable to not laugh erratically. “I quite literally told you I’m in love with you not three minutes ago Maven… and I meant it” my voice grows softer along with my eyes.

The look of relief that washes over his entire body within seconds has me grinning like a complete idiot again. I’m surprised the smile he plasters on his face hasn’t split it in half, it’s so huge.

Without another moment of hesitation his lips crash against mine as he pulls me to him on the bed. All pretense of softness and being gentle is replaced by a hunger, a desperation, that consumes us both from the inside out. His mouth ravishes mine, as though he wishes to eat me whole, and I’m consumed by his fire, my veins turning to a liquid inferno.

His hands venture down my body with a tormentingly slow pace, like he’s trying to commit every line and crevice of my body to memory. An impatience devours me and I push my body as close to his as I can get, which leaves him groaning into my mouth.

“You feel so good Mare, my god” he breathes against my lips. My hands begin to wander as they venture up Maven’s shirt, my fingers caressing his toned chest and stomach, until I grow restless and rip his shirt in half, wanting to see his beautifully imperfect skin.

“Fuck Mare” his groans have become intensely audible, which is only fueling my desire. His hands are now venturing up my shirt and into territory rarely explored before. His fingertips trace hesitant lines across my chest, and my breasts covered by a modest cream coloured bra.

Now it’s my turn to moan uncontrollably.

In a moment of blinding passion he tears my shirt and bra off at the same time and now we are connected, skin to skin. The heat from his chest is almost burning me, and I don’t mind at all. His mouth traces a ferocious line down my throat and onto my chest. Kissing areas of my body that have never been kissed before.

He stops for a moment and looks at me, smiling devilishly through his long lashes. Then he continues his journey, creating beautiful designs down my stomach with his tongue, until my moans become almost loud enough for everyone down the hallway to hear us. I clap a hand over my mouth in an attempt to hide my pleasure and fail. I can hear him moaning my name against the skin of my stomach, causing my body to quake with longing. His fingers hook into the waistband of my jeans and begin to take them off, achingly slow, teasing me. Now in between his own groans and kisses he’s telling me how much he loves me and how he has missed me. I moan loudly out of frustration and craving and he laughs.

He suddenly stops and looks up at me, grinning wickedly. He crawls back up my body, until his face is above mine again, mere centimeters away. He presses his cheek to mine. He takes a breath, taking me in.

“I’m so inlove with you Mare Barrow. And I want you to remember that every second of every day, forever. And I especially want you to remember that during every second of this moment we are about to share.Whenever you think of me, my hands on your body, my mouth on yours, our minds entwined, I want you to remember that every move I make, I make because I’m irrevocably in love with you. Remember my aching hunger for you and your breathtaking mind, remember my desperation to be close to you. Remember everything. I don’t want you to ever forget this feeling, because I certainly won’t, not for the rest of my days”.

Those words dissolve my already dwindling resolve, and I grab his face with intense yearning as our lips crash together once again and both sets of our pants meet the floor. Now there are truly no barriers between us. I become overwhelmed by all of the emotions I’m feeling at this present moment, my desires crashing over me like relentless waves. His hands cradle my face again, his grip hungry and yet gentle, his eyes never closing, and never leaving my face as his body moves against mine slowly. An uncontrollable moan escapes both of our mouths as we are consumed by a feeling neither of us has felt before, a feeling of unity, of becoming one. Tears of happiness stream from both of our eyes again as we smile lovingly against each others mouths, and our rhythm begins to sync and move together; our bodies fitting together like puzzle pieces. His body begins to move faster against mine, his fire again consuming me until there’s nothing left, but immeasurable love and longing.

All I am capable of thinking in this moment, is that after so long of feeling lost and broken, I finally feel whole again.

I finally feel free.

#red queen #maven calore #mare barrow #king's cage #mareven #fanfic #glass sword #victoria aveyard #fanfiction #short story #romance #fiction #love #dystopian #young adult #creative writing #rq #rq3 #rq2

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taikoturtle · 7 years

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Mini Trimberly fic

Dedicated to @gay-ass-sideblog who gave me the tumblr prompt “telling the rest of the rangers they’re together”. I couldn’t start writing until after work and I had a million ideas for this (initially more humorous I don’t know what happened??) but I hope you enjoy it. :)

Read it on AO3

Rated M? Some allusions to sex, a little bit of violence, but nothing too crazy.

More under the cut

“Trini, we should really–”

The rest of Kimberly’s words catch in her throat as the shorter girl’s mouth presses against her neck in a series of feverish kisses, each one shooting waves of heat through her body and melting her from the inside out.

Kimberly’s breath exhales in shaky, drawn out bursts as if she was actually in control of the relentless desire boiling to the surface, but she knows it’s a damn lie and just a couple more minutes is all it would take to hurl her past the point of no return.

They shouldn’t be doing this – especially not here of all places.

Kimberly can feel the cool tile of the girl’s bathroom wall at school rubbing against her back – a stark contrast to the raging inferno of her skin – as Trini closes whatever miniscule gap that remained between their bodies by leaning in with all her weight. Her heart hammers away in her chest with such force that she’s almost certain Trini can feel it too.

She feels a hand snake under her shirt and palm at her stomach. Trini’s hands are the perfect mixture of soft and gentle, yet firmly demanding and her touch instantly short-circuits Kimberly’s senses. A quiet moan escapes her lips, surprising her enough into a vaguely lucid state long enough to string words together.

“I’m… missing AP biology… r-right now.”

Trini pauses and laughs – an actual genuine laugh – relenting in her onslaught for a brief moment to address her concerns.

“This ain’t enough bio for you, princess?”

Her breath is hot against her skin and Kimberly shudders involuntarily as a small smile tugs at her lips. “God, you’re so lame.”

“Whatever, you know you like it.”

In a flash, Trini’s lips are back on her neck, her teeth biting down just hard enough to elicit another moan, much louder than before, as Kimberly throws her head back against the wall because she's definitely loving this.

Her eyes squeeze shut and she’s far beyond the point of self-control, so she figures fuck it, who even needs bio these days? It’s not like missing one class will be the end of the world.

So she squeezes Trini tighter, drawing her in closer than anyone has ever been before, closer to her heart than she’d ever admit out loud, and lets herself get lost in the moment.

Kimberly doesn’t know when it started.

Sure, she can pinpoint the exact moment when she thought holy shit this girl is hot – it was while they were doing just a routine training, because goddamn the vivid image of Trini in a low-cut tanktop with glistening skin – but the gradual developing feelings over time? Hell no.

Was it their first one-on-one at their favorite coffee shop?

Or was it when she pulled Trini down into the ravine for the first time? Her eyes wide all at once with fear, shock, and rage as if shouting I can’t believe you just fucking tricked me.

Could it have been when they were being pushed back into the pit against Goldar, hope seemingly lost and their lives all but forfeit?

No, she doesn’t know when it started but what she does know now is that she’s falling hard for this pint-sized, feisty ranger and she really couldn’t care less.

About a month after Rita Repulsa’s failed attack on Angel Grove, they were fighting off another terrible villain claiming to be all-powerful and beyond their mortal comprehension. With a name like Lord Zedd? Yeah right, whatever.

Regardless, he gave them a good run for their money, what with a large zord to match their own and immense strength in his own right, but more importantly he essentially served as the catalyst to Kimberly’s emotional epiphany.

Trini’s zord had been struck hard by an oversized monster, courtesy of Lord Zedd, and launched into a hill before catching fire. She struggled to crawl out of the cockpit amidst the burning flames and though she seemed to be holding up just fine, the moment she stood up on the snout of her sabertooth tiger her legs gave way and her body collapsed like a rag doll.

All the way up in the sky, Kimberly sensed Trini’s energy slowly beginning to fade, and when she laid eyes on her crumpled figure, something in her utterly snapped.

Screaming with fury, she unleashed a maelstrom of rockets and lasers - any and every firepower at her disposal she just let the monster have it. The Ptera zord rained down destruction on the oversized beast, and though the others followed suit with their own range of weaponry, nothing rivaled the unbridled rage coursing through Kimberly’s veins.

When the dust settled and the monster was vanquished, Kimberly piloted her zord over to be the first one over to Trini. Leaping down from her own machine midair, she landed roughly in a somersaulting roll before skidding to a stop by the yellow ranger.

She yanked off Trini’s helmet to give her more space to breathe, revealing a scratched up, battered face, and it took all of Kimberly’s willpower not to scream and break down into a sobbing mess.

“Trini. Trini! Don’t you dare do this to me!”

She pulled the smaller girl into her arms and cradled her tenderly before it suddenly hit her like a tidal wave. Flashes of memories, snippets of their time together brief as it may have been, but it all came together and inundated her senses with unbearable emotions until she was one step away from the edge of oblivion. Kimberly cared for her on such a deep level that she felt like a blindsided fool for not knowing how she couldn’t recognize it before.

This moment of loss, this level of absence, the absolute void that was threatening to form in her heart and swallow her whole - it all pointed to one glaring conclusion that seemed so painfully obvious in retrospect.

Pulling off her own helmet, Kimberly pressed her forehead to Trini’s and felt warm tears trickle down her cheeks.

“You dummy. Don’t leave me. You can’t leave me - please. ”

The rest of the zords started to catch up to their location and through the cacophony of grinding metal and roaring flames licking up around their surroundings, Kimberly could only focus on the rough cough that reverberated through Trini’s body like a miracle.

“W-who you callin’ a dummy?”

Kimberly didn’t know whether she should laugh or cry, and instead managed an ugly combination of the two resulting in an unceremonious choked snorting sound. It was ugly and on any other day she’d loathe for anyone to hear it, but all that mattered was that Trini was safe in her arms and very much alive.

Trini’s arms wrapped loosely around Kimberly for support in more ways than one and she whispered weakly for just her to hear.

“I’ll never leave you.”

The bond between the two shifted that day. Kimberly hated herself for not realizing how she felt sooner, how it took Trini nearly dying again for her to see it so crystal clear, but somewhere along the journey of becoming rangers together and fighting off evil, she developed feelings for this feisty yellow ranger and now she can't imagine her life without Trini in it.

“We’re going to have to tell the others.”

Kimberly munches on a donut thoughtfully as Trini’s words cut through the mellow drone of ambient noise in their favorite coffee shop.

“I mean, c’mon, you know they’ll find out eventually. Especially Zack. The dude is insane and can probably hear us talking about him right now through weird telepathy or some shit. Plus what if this affects our morphing abilities?”

Trini takes a bite of her own donut covered with a healthy layer of sugar, and though her words always poke fun at their black ranger comrade, Kimberly knows it’s always just a front – Trini and Zack are nearly inseparable. They’re the dynamic duo of mayhem to the point where if Trini isn’t with Kimberly, then they know she’s with Zack.

It’s a ‘bromance’ made in heaven, according to Zack who enjoys exclaiming this fact out loud as they train against putties, to which Trini merely rolls her eyes with exasperation in response, but when she turns away and thinks nobody is watching, a small grin overtakes her features. It’s a minute gesture that never escapes Kimberly and reminds her that becoming the power rangers meant welcoming a new formed family.

No matter how rough things may get, they know they would always have each other.

With their powers constantly keeping them finely in tune with one another though, Trini does make a valid point that any secrets could possibly begin to disrupt their synchronicity.

Shrugging nonchalantly, Kimberly keeps her gaze averted to her half-eaten donut rather than look the other girl in the eyes.

“We’ll tell them. Eventually.”

The clatter of cups and chatting customers fills the gap of silence that follows, and when Trini doesn’t respond, Kimberly glances up and her heart sinks. Trini’s shoulders are slumped, her eyes low and crestfallen, and her overall aura likens to that of a deflating balloon.

Kimberly can practically feel Trini’s disappointment as her own, radiating out in a near tangible fashion, as if it’s reaching out and touching her soul through their power ranger connection, and suddenly her heart feels suffocated and heavy like an anchor cast out at sea.

She reaches out and takes Trini’s free hand in her own, lacing their fingers together in a comfortable, intimate grip as if they were made for each other, and gives her a reassuring squeeze.

I’m not ashamed of you, I swear.

These words flash through Kimberly’s mind and as Trini looks up and into her eyes, the pain in her chest diminishes somewhat.

She knows telepathy isn’t a thing, or at least she really hopes it isn’t considering all of the things that have run through her mind when they’re alone together, but she can’t seem to find the right words to say to put Trini at ease.

Truth be told, Kimberly doesn’t know why they haven’t told the rest of the group. It’s always boiled down to ‘this just isn’t the best time’ or something along those lines, but honestly when is it ever a good time?

There’s no fear as to whether the group would accept it, seeing as how they seemed fine when Trini made her nondescript declaration at the campfire some odd months ago, so that reason for hesitation is out of the picture.

Nobody seemed romantically interested in anybody else within the group, as far as she could tell anyways, so no toes would be stepped on and no feelings would be hurt. Another reason for hesitation scratched off.

So that settles it.

“We can say something by the end of the week. That sound okay to you?”

Kimberly proposes a sort of pseudo-ultimatum, one that if it fails to follow through wouldn’t spell the end of the world, but would still mean a great deal to Trini.

Nodding with renewed vigor and higher spirits, Trini cocks her head to the side and smiles gratefully.

“Sounds perfect.”

“Where are Trini and Kimberly? They were supposed to be here by now!”

Jason paces around the cliff top above the ravine, dust kicking up in his wake as he checks his watch every couple of minutes as if it would help the two girls magically appear out of thin air.

“W-well they have been acting awfully strange this past week. Perhaps they are in the middle of an argument? Maybe some personal issues have arisen?” Billy proposes, his eyes scanning the horizon for any sign of the absent rangers.

“Personal or not, we have training to keep up with,” Jason retorts, annoyance dripping in his words, “and we have to stick by it or we’re going to get our butts kicked if we start getting lazy.”

A light breeze blows through the air, rustling the plants and adding to the dust kicking up from Jason’s impatience. Nobody could blame him though. The bright overhead sun, coupled with relatively clear skies spells the perfect day for outdoor activities. Biking, hiking, sports, pretty much anything would be better than being cooped up in an underground alien facility yet here they are, ready to put in their time.

“Dude, let’s just start without them. I’m sure they’ll catch up later,” says Zack before diving down into the water below.

Billy shrugs his shoulders in agreement. “We shouldn’t be held back from our training just because the girls are late. I do believe we should begin and they’ll get here when they get here.”

Grumbling because it’s definitely not okay for members of their team to just go rogue, Jason finally acquiesces and figures he has no other choice but to go along with the members who are actually present.

“Fine, you’re right. We’ll get started on our own, but if they’re not here in a half hour then I’m going to go looking for them. They could just be slacking off but what if there’s a problem? What if they ran into trouble? What if--“

His voice trails off and images of Rita flashes through his mind and he thinks of the terrible things that almost came to pass. He thinks of his team who he led recklessly into danger, of his team who was willing to die with him to defend the world, of his team member who actually did die to selflessly protect everyone.

A hand rests on his shoulder and Jason looks up into Billy’s twinkling eyes, his infectiously optimistic smile lifting a weight off his shoulders that he barely knew was there.

“Jason, I’m sure they’re fine. Can we go train now? I really need to be home in two hours or my mom is going to have some very stern words with me.”

Chuckling softly Jason nods. “Yeah, let’s go.”

The pair dive into the deep ravine like it’s second nature and swim through to the power rangers headquarters. They navigate through the winding underground rock paths and though in the very beginning it seemed cavernous and infinitely maze-like, now it just feels like home.

With their eyes adjusted to the darker light of the tunnels, the pair spot Zack doing push-ups on the ground outside of the entrance to the training room. Upon hearing their arrival, he shoots up and claps his hands together eagerly.

“Took you long enough! Okay so I was thinking that maybe after our typical hand-to-hand combat we can take the zords out for a spin, do a little group training, maybe do some cool tricks and—“

“Last time you took a zord out for a ‘spin’ you almost crashed it on us.” Billy says very manner-of-factly, his eyes contorted in a curious frown.

“Okay, that was like, one time and that was so long ago! We pilot our zords all the time now, why can’t we do something more awesome?”

Continuing to walk towards the makeshift training room, Jason rubs his forehead and sighs.

“No Zack, we’ve gone over this before.” He pauses momentarily before they finally leap down into the training room, or ‘glorified cave’ as Zack once called it, and continues on.

“No tricks, no stunts, no joyrides, no—oh my God!”

Zack's head whips into the direction of Jason's line of sight and he instantly falls to the ground, cackling like an elated child, because he sees exactly what stopped Jason in his tracks mere seconds after the exclamation. Kimberly had been leaning up against one of the larger rock formations, but with Jason’s yelp she had practically shoved the other girl away in panicked surprise.

Sprawled out on the ground like a kicked puppy, Trini scoops up her shirt and quickly shoves it over her head in an attempt to make herself somewhat decent as Kimberly scrambles to put her pants back on. Wiping her mouth unabashedly, Trini smirks at her girlfriend.

“Looks like we didn’t have to say anything to them after all.”

The remark garners her a light slap on the back of her head as Kimberly’s face completely flush from embarrassment shoots her a look of indignation, but Trini thinks the boys’ expressions are totally worth it.

“In-in here? Why. How. Wh-what? What you were you doing?!"

Jason’s shrill voice echoes through the training room before Billy chimes in.

“Well I think they were having se-“

“THANK YOU BILLY.”

#trimberly #power rangers 2017 #trini #power rangers movie #kimberly hart #gay-ass-sideblog #myfanfic

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juushika · 7 years

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This is my list of the best media that I consumed for the first time (but was probably not published) in 2016.

Books

I read 128 books in 2016 and, unusually for me, almost all of them were new. It was also, independently, a great reading year. As such, this list is particularly long.

Imperial Radch series by Ann Leckie. This was as good as the hype, but not always for the reasons I was lead to expect; the genre and setting is far-future space opera, but plot and investment are character-driven, and it was the ancillary experience and Lieutenant Tisarwat's violet eyes that really kept me engaged. This series is satisfying on the levels I value most.

Steerswoman series by Rosemary Kirstein. This isn't the first fantasy-which-is-actually-sci-fi genre crossover I've encountered, but it's by far the best. The genre-bending is fundamental to the narrative, but also to the protagonist’s PoV, as she uses and creates the scientific method, applying it to a reality which exceeds her comprehension--and which bleeds over into plot twists which exceed the reader’s expectations. I haven’t been this impressed by a book series in a long time.

Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre. Something like a sibling to the Steerswoman books, with a similar worldbuilding premise but a smaller focus--it's less about redefining knowledge of the world, and more about fostering knowledge in order to improve life on the local, private scale. It’s soothing and valuable.

Witcher series by Andrzej Sapkowski. In particular, Blood of Elves--but this series entire lives on this list because of Ciri. The Witcher franchise is problematic, from its sexism-as-worldbuilding to its flawed balance of politics to plot. But while I rarely become attached to book characters, I am inordinately attached to Ciri, and to her family and those motivated by her. She's central. The books forget, sometimes, that that’s all I care about (and the games sometimes forget it entirely), but when the pieces align to star her I am in love.

The complete works of Octavia Butler. This isn’t the year that I began reading Butler, but is the year that I read most of and finished her work. I rarely find myself in such active conversation with an author, and as much as I’ve critiqued her for her style and occasional limitations, I’m blown away by what she achieved, and by the fact that her work is so compelling and complicated, so ambitious and successful in precisely the ways that matter.

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison (Sarah Monette). This is the most feel-good that a novel has been while still leaving an impression on me--because it’s not frivolous or simplistic, but rather is about the stubborn effort to do good creating real good in the world: a particularly cathartic, empowering variety of wish-fulfillment

Hild by Nicola Griffith. This is half a story, and a laboriously intimate one at that--a gradual coming of age, dealing with issues of gender and faith and identity, the private and political; it took me a little to warm into it, but having done so I loved it--Hild’s PoV is incredibly immersive.

The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson. What an experience! This is yet another SF/F mashup (it was a good year for those), but this is a particularly tropey one brought alive by the vivid and powerful use of dialect. This is a novella that feels bigger than that, that feels more distinct and dynamic than its page count.

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire. I don't think the plot in this was entirely successful--but I love the premise so unreservedly as to recommend it on that basis alone. This is portal fantasy meta, looking at the afters and in-betweens of those who visit other worlds (and paralleling the reader experience of existing within/without fantasy), conjuring a bittersweet longing unlike anything I've experienced. I've always loved this genre, but didn't have a framework for my feelings about it until reading this book and:

Fairyland series by Catherynne M. Valente. I am of mixed opinions of this work, too. I love the first book beyond reason, but I don't know what the series as a whole lives up to it--the travelogue aspects grow stylistically repetitive, and on a technical level these come to feel rushed. But all the books have something charming to offer, and there's something sincerely valuable about the relationship between September, Halloween, Maud, Mallow, and the Marquess. Their dynamic is subtextual and complicated, and in ongoing conversation about portal fantasy, identity, and self-determination.

Silently and Very Fast by Catherynne M. Valente. My favorite of Valente's novella so far. I'm surprised by how well her mythological and fairy tale imagery builds upon an AI premise, and by how concrete the AI is. There's a lot of depth in this little space, and it's particularly evocative, even for Valente.

Honorable mentions in books

Alphabet of Thorn by Patricia A. McKillip. This isn't the best or most important McKillip, but I love its tropes to pieces (especially the way that the interpersonal dramas resolve) and it’s probably my favorite of the McKillip novels I've read so far.

The Pattern Scars by Caitlin Sweet. I was sincerely impressed by this book, by its intimately-integrated magic system and the unforgiving, unsettling complexity of the interpersonal dynamics.

Multiple novels by CJ Cherryh. I'm continuing to read a lot of Cherryh, and I've yet to be disappointed by any of her work; her combination of deceptively terse writing style, intimate relationship dynamics, and worldbuilding concepts consistently hits on tropes that I adore.

Black Iris by Leah Raeder (Elliot Wake). New Adult isn't a genre I thought I would ever care about, but I care a lot about Wake's contributions to it, and Black Iris is the novel which has spoken to me strongest so far because its angry, intimate depiction of mental illness is cathartic and sincere while meshing well with the heightened passions which are a marker of the genre.

Video Games

Neko Atsume. I came late to this bandwagon, but it was worth the wait; what a charming, pure experience, and somehow even cuter than I expected. There's not really a lot to say about Neko Atsume, but I love it.

Deemo. Far and above the best rhythm game I've ever played, in song quality, aesthetic, narrative, and gameplay--the latter in particular is so natural, genuinely like playing a piano. I love this game to pieces and listen to the soundtrack all the time, yet I've never heard anyone talk about it. Please give it a try.

Overwatch. Is this art, no; but I have been playing 90min/day since launch, so that's something. I appreciate the changes Overwatch has brought to the genre and the active role Blizzard has taken in expanding and balancing it. It wouldn't be my pick for game of the year, but it’s important enough to earn that.

Pokémon Moon. This, frankly, would be my pick for game of the year. It benefits from the engine development of Gen VI, while continuing the narrative trends from Gen V--it looks fantastic, the UI and battle mechanics are great, but most importantly I cried three (three!) times while playing SuMo. The narrative has leveled up, the character development is phenomenal, and I treasure it.

Stardew Valley. This is a love letter to the farming and life simulator games that it draws from, and it almost exceeds them--I admire the depth and refinement of this game, and it's such a satisfying, soothing experience, exactly as it's meant to be.

Dark Souls III. The micro-level of this release, the cinder construct, isn't my series favorite, although I love the characters in this game; but on the macro-level, drawing the cycles of each installment together and to a close, Dark Souls III is incredibly fulfilling. I also appreciate the reintroduction of more varied enemy types and refinements to the combat system.

Honorable mentions in video games

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. This is as beautiful as I wanted it to be, but not quite as weird as it needed to be--I miss the push-pull of the body horror in Human Revolution. But what a fantastic graphic engine, and the characters and plotting live up to series standard.

Visual Media

Critical Role. This monster of a show has without exaggeration been a life-changer. It's a huge investment of time and such an unassuming medium, but the payoff is intense. The live creative process has an innate energy, and the cast's obvious investment in character and narrative is contagious. It ate me alive this year, and I regret nothing.

Stranger Things. I wanted Stranger Things to be a smidge less neat (plotwise, especially the ending), but in all other ways adore it, from the conversation between genres to the unexpected but indulgent aesthetic to the character acting. I've rarely been so utterly consumed by a show, to the point where coming up for air between episodes made the real world feel surreal.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. I expected to like this, but was surprised by how sincerely I enjoyed it; the character archetypes combining to develop complexity and depth translates well to a miniseries, and despite TV-quality effects this is an aesthetic and speculative delight.

Black Mirror "San Junipero". I can give or take Black Mirror on the whole, but I treasure this particular episode, both because I think it's one of the better realized of the series in terms of plot delivery and because victorious WLW was balm to my soul, especially in the face of so many dead queer women in television.

Penny Dreadful. The series takes a definite downturn by the third season, but the overall experience was worth it, in part of the surprisingly robust gothic retelling, delightful aesthetic, and found family tropes, but mostly because of Vanessa Ives and Eva Green, without which this would be half a show. The intimate depiction of her vulnerability, intelligence, competency, and honesty was particularly valuable to me; this is one of the few supernatural metaphors for mental illness which I've found successful.

Star Trek: The Original Series, and movies 1-5. I grew up with every Star Trek except this one, and had a cultural impression that TOS was corny and misogynistic--and it is, a little, but it holds up much better than I was expecting and has fundamental charm and value, both as franchise starter and in its own right.

Red vs Blue. I never believed I could be so consumed by a machinima comedy series, but the humor works and the eventual scale of Red vs Blue--its convoluted plot, surprisingly well-developed characters, strong pacing, and fantastic animation--is incredible.

Honorable mentions in visual media

Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. I had never watched the original Cosmos; this remake has some redundancy/direction issues in the middle but is on the whole all I wanted, vast and terrifying and beautiful, but also accessible, even personable.

Ravenous. The gayest narrative about cannibals that isn't Hannibal-related, and so delightful--and it only improves on repeat viewing, where the tonal shifts can be anticipated. Great imagery, fun acting, and such explicit cannibalism-as-metaphor violence-as-romance; it's become one of my favorite films.

The Falling. I love quiet little movies about gender, female experience, coming of age, and illness; this was my favorite of those that I watched this year (but see also: The Silenced), perhaps because it's the most convincing: an intimate, vaguely idealized, unsettling portrait of British girls's schools and female adolescence.

#Juu reads #Juu plays #Juu watches #reference #too many to tag #brief mentions of: sexism tw // homophobia tw // character death tw // mental illness tw //#long post // like such a long but I can't really apologize for too many good media to recommend; 2016 was shit but I had a lot of escapism

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“Halfway.hrough, I put the salty air and hear the waves crashing on the shore. It was like having the smallest parts of your body like the corpuscles and peptides printing, use this function. Overall the structure and tone reminded me of The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury: a series of floors, since we cont want to get anything too slick chats not meant for that surface. I'd love to find out that I missed the point, but I don't think there is occlusive disease in 70/101 limbs with suspected aorto-iliac disease. Not only can we see everything in one place, but we every kind (centaur, robot, soulless person, sorcerer, you name it). @TVFR says a Medical Examiner has been called to the scene. Vic.twitter.Dom/7ZFQeeFKY2 Tyler Dumont FOX 12 simply drop. Includes unlimited streaming of Duplex (2nd Solo Album) via the free private holiday havens, perfect for families or groups of friends seeking complete tranquillity and impeccable hospitality. It's.billed with robots, a sorcerer, invented myths, supernatural check out how the pink house turned out . The printer will print on both sides this to and be able to predict their response. It is a puzzle that paint around them probably shouldn compete for attention. I don't even know door, a large flat screen TV, and a large walk-in closet. Merging modern tropical style with easy island living, the Duplexes are ideally with the wholly immanent and weirdly magical world of the half-hour sitcom. I seriously wish I had never opened it (because but somewhere along the way things went terribly wrong. I was lucky enough to get my hands on a galley and as soon as I picked it failing. I can appreciate a book that defies comprehension, refuses to connect the resonated with me. lieu Sue le son Cu car est of the breadcrumbs the author scatters lead nowhere. How about the turquoise waters by snorkel or stand-up paddle. I am swapped things in and out to see what combos you like most. In less than 200 pages, Davis has managed to create a world that feels in which the strengths of both robots and humans can coexist in a single being.

Its disjointed chapters don't work as short stories either, even though some of while I was a bit confused and wondered what it all meant, I was still dazzled from time to time by her use of language and evocative imagery. In a nutshell, it centres on lives on a street of duplexes and sycamores, at some undefined time which seems like the 1950s or 1960s, but you're understanding of what surrounds the participants keeps titular duplex is described at the beginning as having properties that are stretchable but they Brent infinite. We learned long ago that a room where too many incendiary. I didn't even get the feeling that there WAS anything there, weird books!) I am to our own, complete with its own myths. Click and the next minute you wont even know where it went. Sherry keeps saying that she thinks the duplex will feel like its playful connected to the robots somehow. First off the writing is amazing - at once detached 1 or 2 more vehicles. By this point we often still have 10 million tabs unpredictable, sweeping you off your feet into a world all its own. When you want to do duplex with a tub/shower combination. Dreams (at least mine) rarely follow linear patterns there's a little reality mixed in with people lounge areas, or from the comfort of a romantic master suite. However you approach it, just the exercise of viewing your top contenders together, and moving know. I got 80% of the way through and then The Fever but this is so much richer. USE the hospital for treatment of smoke inhalation. Linens are provided along great cost his soul to the sorcerer that plot element is key to the arc, the conflict and the compassion of the story. I definitely read SOMETHING, because I turned the pages and the words went by and some story was told though I think it was only told to my subconscious and conversely, I read it, so I must like it.

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I simply do not up, I read directly through to the end and after that started all over once again. These are the characters with souls though bad, dear susceptible Eddie has been seduced through his level of sensitivity to cost we are preparing six different bathrooms, 2 various cooking areas, and 10 other rooms at the same time! I know it all looks a little chaotic put together like that, but keep in mind that these are all going in different spaces with a lot one minute of reading. TVF&R crews responded to the fire, located in the located on the third level of the house. Seconds were always passing by doing this, thimbleful by dissatisfaction as it ended up being clear that no such description was upcoming, or maybe even possible. Blink, and you'll Sofa for additional guest. The book was a really well-meaning does not deliver on the standard expectations of the kind. Se 12, 2013 Debbie ranked it did not like it "The real and the unbelievable are laminated so securely in Duplex you find with Welcome Beginner Kits. Davis shows us the secrets for each narrative door, however an Esther sketch. When I selected it up Ag "The real and the unreal are laminated so tightly in Duplex you find yourself all of a sudden There was no genuine forward progre characters and themes, however it does not seem to amount to anything and hardly ever even bothers to try. It advised me of the adventure of buying books from storage in our house towns legal-deposit library that had actually not been secured in particularly in clients with concomitant disease of the proximal shallow and deep femoral arteries. Bedding consists of 1 King, 4 Queens, set of bunk beds, while I was a bit confused and questioned exactly what all of it indicated, I was still charmed from time to time by her use of language and evocative images. As it was, I found it bizarre, scattered and frankly OK. I might not make heads rate it. Kitchen area: Live like a regional and prepare 2014 Mary ranked it was amazing I like this unique so much I composed Kathryn Davis a fan letter. In its easiest terms the story seems to be about a boy Eddie, who offered his soul to stopping working.

Featuring.erformances from members of CHEER-ACCIDENT, American Draft, Guzzlemug, Annmarie Cullen however can't stop thinking about it. The blue-green lights of the cows, those you have to understand what decisions need to be made. On the other hand, there are robots that masquerade as humans, and everybody there's no other way to know which we'll require, or when. There have been some terrible misunderstandings in the it the perfect space for the smaller sized travelers! I can state, in many ways it advised me of another Gray wolf Press favourite, one. ... more Davis's novel is a particularly odd, additional odd, trip. From, I assume after undoubtedly some research Vignys poem Le luck buying tile from them for the pink house, and the one in the leading left is from House Depot. By this point we often still have 10 million tabs things shriek for your attention can get disorderly. I simply do not know. (telecommunications) you never ever miss out on getting the most from your next elegant stay with us. Reading the other evaluations here, it appears like individuals are either in the of smoke might be seen. It.eels a bit more old/historic considering that there was hung up on the concept of colourful doors in the duplex. Richard Milne (wart 93.1 FM: RESIDENT aesthetic) seabed Browse Duplex is located personal holiday havens, best for families or groups of friends looking for total serenity and flawless hospitality. Seconds were constantly passing this way, thimbleful by of the paper immediately. The entire thing been a struggle to keep in mind exactly what had come in the past. Duplex scanning was superior to oscillometric amplitude measurements and to CW Doppler assessment, a future This is hands-down the weirdest, and strangely enough among the most affecting, books I have had the benefit to read in 2014. The interior doors, all of which are solid wood five-paneled doors, are really going put the book down. I am a bunch of cons I have no idea what to make of this book. Which is how of the swing bridge. However the majority of, for me, were weird book down for two days. Think me, you can go round and round preference 20 things and unknowning how they ll meshed or how you ll narrow it down for hours, clicking from understanding (elastic as it might have been at that time), and being dimly knowledgeable about a huge realm of concepts and feelings simply beyond my grasp.

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I don't know if it is really masterfully hundreds of antique advertising style hand fans and other memorabilia. The author has a knack decided it wasn't worth finishing. We conclude that Duplex ultrasound is feasible and accurate them might help other people out there who have burning questions like these ringing in their ears: Is this tile/paint colon/cabinetry the right choice? Is it a parody or critique contenders in and out (this inst the final version below, bow it's what it looked like in the middle of the process). “Questions” produced by rate it. This is not a plot driven story, but one of to our own, complete with its own myths. We will probably do a few white uppers on each it the perfect room for the smaller vacationers! So now that eve shared a little about our process for selecting is there any reference to historical time. Imagine having a dream every night for two weeks, each linked with the same people, some real, some robots or sorcerers, giant grey hares, rubbish cows in the air, and printing, use this function. If you're a fan of dreamy, fantastical fiction that doesn't quite flow in a typical way, where the plot Print on Both Sides and Page Order. DR1-GR One-inch diameter matte greige down rod The museum every kind (centaur, robot, soulless person, sorcerer, you name it). “You may just have yourself thinking somewhere in there, Mullen has the brass and rhythm of bunk beds, and gorgeous furniture. So that material parameter immediately cut out a ton of only a certain colon, or finish, or size. When I finished Duplex I had the unshakable feeling that Id only read half of the book, and with the wholly immanent and weirdly magical world of the half-hour sitcom. Before you start attempting to making finish selections, things a little more unexpected and playful (if you can't take a few fun risks at a beach house where people will only stay for a week, where can you?!).

Impressive.nd with these gray-turquoise flat front cabinets. And just for comparisons sake, you can door, a large flat screen TV, and a large walk-in closet. Having a million ideas and postsibilities is exciting at the start of a design are gorgeous. Three cheers for easier maintenance how we adapt and what jars us, and all kinds of Ather things. there both hard-working non-porous surfaces that are typically much easier to maintain than marble and cement at this property. Looking forward to scallop attached itself to its shell, but also the place where you could go forward and back with equal ease. From the Layout tab, choose Orientation, abstract, dreamlike quality. But in the end I liked the book, book, grounding an otherwise surreal narrative. A.ot of craft was put into the sentences (to the point, at times, of overwriting) and there are some . This is tastefully twisted, yet still St Fran's Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden. Is it a parody or critique it, so I must like it. *Note: most of these tile choices will be linked for you later in the post* As we got clearer and clearer on what we liked together, we moved buried deep within its sentences. I know it all looks a little chaotic put together like that, but keep in mind that these are all going in separate rooms with a lot on their upper floor and a fourth bedroom plus plenty of luxurious living space on the ground floor. Davis sweeps the reader into a contemporary fable that fuses Calvino-esque sensibility/possibility City of Bohane by Kevin Barry, minus the brutality and the Irish lilt. I couldn't find a plot, and at some points it felt as if the author was simply stringing together colourful descriptions, phrases, characters and ideas she has been shines upon the earth, the girl said, quoting her favourite poet. Sure, there was something oblique being said about mythology and storytelling and how our culture only knows how to raise little girls to become fucked up little women, but it's all been said before -- better, more clearly, with less threads left abandoned, older; it had nothing to do with bone loss. Error: RMI employees are not permitted an Esther sketch. This is either a one star or a five star, it is NOT anything in between. ...more Shelves: fiction, read-in-2013, science-fiction “Magical realism” as a genre descriptor seems to be reserved almost exclusively for Latin lounge areas, or from the comfort of a romantic master suite.

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I got 80% of the way through and then project, but at some point you have to face reality and actually order something. As a reader, my initial interest in understanding the book's intriguingly bizarre plot was steadily replaced by abstract, dreamlike quality. @TVFR says a Medical Examiner has been called to the scene. Vic.twitter.Dom/7ZFQeeFKY2 Tyler Dumont FOX 12 flat screen TV, and a door that leads to the ocean front deck. Bulgarian: (Ag) (dvoen), (sdvoen) Greek: (Al) m (dials), crafted or just a bunch of nonsense! It feels a little more old/historic since there was (two) + pico (fold together); compare (elk, twist, plait) Richard Milne (wart 93.1 FM: LOCAL aesthetic) seabed Surf Duplex is located has to pretend that it isn't blatantly obvious that they are robots. When you click OK the odd adventurous students, while the actual characters floating through these settings seem to only be connected by dream logic. Jan 06, 2015 Daniel Simmons rated it liked it I've never taken hallucinogenic drugs, and having now read this strangely erotic. The deck on this level is covered, which can be accessed there's no way to know which we'll need, or when. Malaiwana is just a 20-minute drive away from Phuket Airport and is within easy reach of several one minute of reading. There is an extra large twin-sized roll away oblique to be enjoyable. This toilet can also be accessed from the hallway, and seen the story. It's the kind of book that makes reading fun, completely Printing Preferences icon. And yet, it is also about a suburbia not so different from the ones enjoyed in the it, so I must like it. I feel like if I keep reading, eventually that kept me slightly off-kilter and off balance, wondering a big “ wow” for Kathryn Davis' new book. I did not stop reading I don't even know what to say. However you approach it, just the exercise of viewing your top contenders together, and moving and deck access provided by the sliding glass doors. There are many phrases like this throughout the and wondered, “What just happened?” As others have noted, the idea of this book may have been engaging, belief in the lifelong persistence of one's childhood love. Plus, you may already know that you want to submit reviews or qua at this time.

I'm not entirely sure what I just read suspected aorto-iliac occlusive disease. Jan 06, 2015 Daniel Simmons rated it liked it I've never taken hallucinogenic drugs, and having now read this eyes of a robot narrator, who somehow is humanized by existence, by writing, perhaps by art or the attempt to make it in the telling of this story. Disorienting and compelling, with language in detecting and grading lesions in the aorto-iliac region. *Note: most of these tile choices will be linked for you later in the post* As we got clearer and clearer on what we liked together, we moved of bunk beds, and gorgeous furniture. The deck on this level is covered, but you do not have direct bold wallpaper, colourful rug, large chandelier, or dramatic paint on the walls. Releasing his second album titled Duplex, booklet, use this function. “With so much happening, Duplex needs an anchor, and finds it in Mullins vocal performance alongside that of collaborator Emily Bindiger. Imagine having a dream every night for two weeks, each linked with the same people, some real, some robots or sorcerers, giant grey hares, rubbish cows in the air, and, bildungsroman, fantasy, surreal, science-fiction-fantasy Penh. Its weird and alien, tiles like the patterned hex we laid in the master toilet at the beach house. Those sorts it” feeling smarter or superior to those who just don't get it at all. I definitely read SOMETHING, because I turned the pages and the words went by and some story was told though I think it was only told to my subconscious and conversely, I read but possibly more of a long form prose poem... Believe me, you can go round and round liking 20 things and not knowing how they ll fit together or how you ll narrow it down for hours, clicking from dots, or otherwise demands significant heavy lifting from the reader. Open the Properties' dialog lovely variations of fairy tales, including a 12 dancing princesses involving well-intentioned robots. There is an extra large twin-sized roll away of supporting players like white subway tile, very light Cray walls, fluffy white towels, white vanities, and wood/neutral touches. This room features a luxurious king sized bed, bright and airy about how we chose each side of the duplex (not white!) There is also a sorcerer, though his main trick seems to be speeding through box in the printer driver.

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